(PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1 ) FOURTH Conducting
in-depth
QUARTER REVIEWER interviews is one of the most
common qualitative research
I. What is qualitative research? methods.
It is a personal interview that is
Qualitative research- based on the carried out with one respondent
disciplines of social sciences like at a time.
psychology, sociology, and
anthropology. This is purely a conversational
method and invites
opportunities to get details in
Qualitative research- is defined as depth from the respondent.
a market research method that
focuses on obtaining data through These interviews can be
open-ended and conversational performed face-to-face or on
communication. phone and usually can last
between half an hour to two
This method is about “what” people hours or even more.
think and “why” they think so.
2. Focus groups:
For example, consider a convenience store
looking to improve its patronage. A focus group is also one of the
commonly used qualitative
A systematic observation concludes that research methods, used in data
more men are visiting this store. collection.
One good method to determine why A focus group usually includes a
women were not visiting the store is limited number of respondents
conducting an in-depth interview (6-10) from within your target
method with potential customers. market.
The main aim of the focus
For example, on successfully interviewing group is to find answers to the
female customers, visiting the nearby “why” “what” and “how”
stores and malls, and selecting them questions.
through random sampling, it was known One advantage of focus groups
that the store didn’t have enough items for is, you don’t necessarily need to
women. So fewer women were visiting the interact with the group in
store, which was understood only by person. Nowadays focus groups
personally interacting with them and can be sent an online survey on
understanding why they didn’t visit the various devices and responses
store because there were more male can be collected at the click of a
products than female ones. button.
Typically, they are used to
II. Types of qualitative research explain complex processes.
methods with examples This method is very useful
when it comes to market
Qualitative research methods are research on new products and
designed in a manner that help reveal the testing new concepts.
behavior and perception of a target
audience with reference to a particular
3. Ethnographic research:
topic.
There are different types of qualitative Ethnographic research is the
research methods like an in-depth most in-depth observational
interview, focus groups, ethnographic method that studies people in
research, content analysis, case study their naturally occurring
research that are usually used. environment.
This method requires the
The results of qualitative methods are researchers to adapt to the target
more descriptive and the inferences can be audiences’ environments which
drawn quite easily from the data that is could be anywhere from an
obtained. organization to a city or any
remote location.
1. One-on-one interview: This research design aims to
understand the cultures,
Explanation: challenges, motivations, and
settings that occur. Instead of
relying on interviews and Allows collecting data that is non-
discussions, you experience the numeric and helps us to explore
natural settings first hand. how decisions are made and provide
us with detailed insight. For
4. Case study research: reaching such conclusions the data
The case study method has evolved that is collected should be holistic,
over the past few years and rich, and nuanced and findings to
developed into a valuable qual emerge through careful analysis.
research method.
1. Whatever method a researcher
As the name suggests it is used for chooses for collecting qualitative
explaining an organization or an data, one aspect is very clear the
entity. process will generate a large
amount of data. In addition to
the variety of methods available,
This type of research method is there are also different methods
used within a number of areas like of collecting and recording the
education, social sciences and data.
similar.
2. For example, if the qualitative
This method may be one of the data is collected through a focus
simplest ways of conducting group or one-to-one discussion,
research as it involves a deep dive there will be handwritten notes
and thorough understanding of the or video recorded tapes. If there
data collection methods and are recording, they should be
inferring the data. transcribed and before the
process of data analysis can
begin.
5. Record keeping:
3. As a rough guide, it can take a
This method makes use of the seasoned researcher 8-10 hours
already existing reliable documents to transcribe the recordings of an
and similar sources of information interview, which can generate
as the data source. roughly 20-30 pages of
dialogues. Many researchers also
This data can be used in new like to maintain separate folders
research. to maintain the recording
collected from the different focus
6. Process of observation: group. This helps them
compartmentalize the data
Qualitative Observation is a collected.
process of research that uses
subjective methodologies to gather 4. In case there are running notes
systematic information or data. taken, which are also known as
Since, the focus on qualitative field notes, they are helpful in
observation is the research process maintaining comments,
of using subjective methodologies to environmental
gather information or data. contexts, environmental
Qualitative observation is primarily analysis, nonverbal cues etc.
used to equate quality differences. These filed notes are helpful and
can be compared while
Qualitative observation deals with transcribing audio recorded data.
the 5 major sensory organs and Such notes are usually informal
their functioning – sight, smell, but should be secured in a
touch, taste, and hearing. This similar manner as the video
doesn’t involve measurements or recordings or the audio tapes.
numbers but instead B. QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
characteristics.
Qualitative data analysis such as
notes, videos, audio recordings
images, and text documents.
One of the most used methods for
III. Qualitative research: data collection qualitative data analysis is text
and analysis analysis.
A. QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTION
Text analysis is a data analysis
method that is distinctly different
from all other qualitative research
methods, where researchers analyze
the social life of the participants in
the research study and decode the
words, actions, etc.
There are images also that are used
in this research study and the
researchers analyze the context in
which the images are used and draw
inferences from them.
