What Is Qualitative Research?

| Methods
& Examples
Published on June 19, 2020 by Pritha Bhandari. Revised on January 30, 2023.

Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g.,

text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be
used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.

Qualitative research is the opposite of quantitative research, which involves

collecting and analyzing numerical data for statistical analysis.

Qualitative research is commonly used in the humanities and social sciences, in

subjects such as anthropology, sociology, education, health sciences, history, etc.

Qualitative research question examples

 How does social media shape body image in teenagers?

 How do children and adults interpret healthy eating in the UK?
 What factors influence employee retention in a large organization?
 How is anxiety experienced around the world?
 How can teachers integrate social issues into science curriculums?

Approaches to qualitative research

Qualitative research is used to understand how people experience the world. While
there are many approaches to qualitative research, they tend to be flexible and
focus on retaining rich meaning when interpreting data.

Common approaches include grounded theory, ethnography, action research,

phenomenological research, and narrative research. They share some similarities,
but emphasize different aims and perspectives.

Qualitative research approaches

Approach What does it involve?

Grounded theory Researchers collect rich data on a topic of interest and develop
theories inductively.

Ethnography Researchers immerse themselves in groups or organizations to

Qualitative research approaches

Approach What does it involve?

understand their cultures.

Action research Researchers and participants collaboratively link theory to practice to

drive social change.

Phenomenological Researchers investigate a phenomenon or event by describing and

research interpreting participants’ lived experiences.

Narrative research Researchers examine how stories are told to understand how
participants perceive and make sense of their experiences.

Note that qualitative research is at risk for certain research biases including the
Hawthorne effect, observer bias, recall bias, and social desirability bias. While not
always totally avoidable, awareness of potential biases as you collect and analyze
your data can prevent them from impacting your work too much.

Qualitative research methods

Each of the research approaches involve using one or more data collection
methods. These are some of the most common qualitative methods:

 Observations: recording what you have seen, heard, or encountered in

detailed field notes.
 Interviews: personally asking people questions in one-on-one
conversations.
 Focus groups: asking questions and generating discussion among a group of
people.
 Surveys: distributing questionnaires with open-ended questions.
 Secondary research: collecting existing data in the form of texts, images,
audio or video recordings, etc.

Research example:

To research the culture of a large tech company, you decide to take an

ethnographic approach. You work at the company for several months and use
various methods to gather data:
  You take field notes with observations and reflect on your own experiences
of the company culture.
 You distribute open-ended surveys to employees across all the company’s
offices by email to find out if the culture varies across locations.
 You conduct in-depth interviews with employees in your office to learn
about their experiences and perspectives in greater detail.

Qualitative researchers often consider themselves “instruments” in research

because all observations, interpretations and analyses are filtered through their own
personal lens.

For this reason, when writing up your methodology for qualitative research, it’s
important to reflect on your approach and to thoroughly explain the choices you
made in collecting and analyzing the data.

Qualitative data analysis

Qualitative data can take the form of texts, photos, videos and audio. For example,
you might be working with interview transcripts, survey responses, fieldnotes, or
recordings from natural settings.

Most types of qualitative data analysis share the same five steps:

1. Prepare and organize your data. This may mean transcribing interviews or
typing up fieldnotes.
2. Review and explore your data. Examine the data for patterns or repeated
ideas that emerge.
3. Develop a data coding system. Based on your initial ideas, establish a set
of codes that you can apply to categorize your data.
4. Assign codes to the data. For example, in qualitative survey analysis, this
may mean going through each participant’s responses and tagging them with
codes in a spreadsheet. As you go through your data, you can create new
codes to add to your system if necessary.
5. Identify recurring themes. Link codes together into cohesive, overarching
themes.

There are several specific approaches to analyzing qualitative data. Although these
methods share similar processes, they emphasize different concepts.

Qualitative data analysis

Approach When to use Example

Content To describe and categorize common A market researcher could perform content
Qualitative data analysis

Approach When to use Example

analysis words, phrases, and ideas in analysis to find out what kind of language is
qualitative data. used in descriptions of therapeutic apps.

Thematic To identify and interpret patterns A psychologist could apply thematic analysis
analysis and themes in qualitative data. to travel blogs to explore how tourism shapes
self-identity.

Textual To examine the content, structure, A media researcher could use textual analysis
analysis and design of texts. to understand how news coverage of
celebrities has changed in the past decade.

Discourse To study communication and how A political scientist could use discourse
analysis language is used to achieve effects in analysis to study how politicians generate
specific contexts. trust in election campaigns.

Advantages of qualitative research

Qualitative research often tries to preserve the voice and perspective of participants
and can be adjusted as new research questions arise. Qualitative research is good
for:

 Flexibility

The data collection and analysis process can be adapted as new ideas or patterns
emerge. They are not rigidly decided beforehand.

 Natural settings

Data collection occurs in real-world contexts or in naturalistic ways.

 Meaningful insights

Detailed descriptions of people’s experiences, feelings and perceptions can be used

in designing, testing or improving systems or products.

 Generation of new ideas

Open-ended responses mean that researchers can uncover novel problems or
opportunities that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

Disadvantages of qualitative research

Researchers must consider practical and theoretical limitations in analyzing and
interpreting their data. Qualitative research suffers from:

 Unreliability

The real-world setting often makes qualitative research unreliable because of

uncontrolled factors that affect the data.

 Subjectivity

Due to the researcher’s primary role in analyzing and interpreting data, qualitative
research cannot be replicated. The researcher decides what is important and what is
irrelevant in data analysis, so interpretations of the same data can vary greatly.

 Limited generalizability

Small samples are often used to gather detailed data about specific contexts.
Despite rigorous analysis procedures, it is difficult to
draw generalizable conclusions because the data may be biased and
unrepresentative of the wider population.

 Labor-intensive

Although software can be used to manage and record large amounts of text, data
analysis often has to be checked or performed manually.

Frequently asked questions about qualitative research

What’s the difference between quantitative and qualitative methods?

 Quantitative Research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative

research deals with words and meanings.

 Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test

hypotheses. Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and
experiences in more detail.

What are the main qualitative research approaches?

There are five common approaches to qualitative research:

 o Grounded theory involves collecting data in order to develop new theories.
o Ethnography involves immersing yourself in a group or organization to
understand its culture.
o Narrative research involves interpreting stories to understand how people
make sense of their experiences and perceptions.
o Phenomenological research involves investigating phenomena through
people’s lived experiences.
o Action research links theory and practice in several cycles to drive
innovative changes.

What is data collection?

It is the systematic process by which observations or measurements are

gathered in research. It is used in many different contexts by academics,
governments, businesses, and other organizations.

How do you analyze qualitative data?

There are various approaches to qualitative data analysis, but they all share
five steps in common:

1. Prepare and organize your data.

2. Review and explore your data.
3. Develop a data coding system.
4. Assign codes to the data.
5. Identify recurring themes.

The specifics of each step depend on the focus of the analysis. Some common
approaches include textual analysis, thematic analysis, and discourse analysis.

Reference:

Bhandari, P. (2023, January 30). What Is Qualitative Research? | Methods & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved
February 15, 2023, from https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/qualitative-research/