Qualitative research

✰ Qualitative approach to research is concerned with subjective assessment of attitudes, opinions and behaviour.

✰ Qualitative research is basically inductive in nature and has a very different structure. The researcher starts with a tentative idea or question and these questions become more specific with progress in research.

✰ Thus, in qualitative research, one starts with observation and ends with a theoretical position or stance. Thus, it is inductive in nature, i.e., the research moves from specific to theory.

✰ It follows post positivism approach of research.

✰ It’s concern with process rather than simply with outcomes.

✰ Also called flexible research/ unstructured research.

✰ In qualitative research, less role of review of literature.

✰ Since, it uses non-probability sampling technique to collect sample data, it has less sample size.

✰ Research is conducted on natural settings.

✰ It is used for exploration and initial understanding development.

1. Ethnography

2. Phenomenology

3. In-depth interview

4. Focus group

5. Narrative research

6. Case study research

7. Grounded theory

1. Ethnography:

✰ The ethnography is one of the major types of qualitative research methods used in social sciences, especially in anthropology. It is the process of studying and describing a culture (a culture is the shared attitudes, values, norms, practises, language and material things of a group of people).

2. Phenomenology:

✰ It is a form of qualitative research in which the researcher attempts to understand how individuals experience a phenomenon. What was the phenomenon and how people experienced it.

✰ It is the study of a particular phenomenon through interviews of people who have experienced it to find out the similarities between their experiences.

✰ For example, interviewing 10 infected corona people and asking them to describe their experiences. Net exam

3. In-depth interview:

✰ It is a personal interview that is carried out with one respondent at a time. Though it is systematically planned, it may have unstructured elements as well.

✰ The researcher prepares questions in advance to make sure that only the most important questions are asked to the participant.

✰ If the researcher is well experienced asking the right questions can help him/her collect meaningful data.

✰ The interview can last anywhere between twenty minutes to half an hour.

4. Focus group:

✰ A focus group usually includes 6–10 participants who are usually subject matter experts.

✰ A moderator, usually an experienced person, is assigned to a focus group to facilitate the discussion. The role of a moderator is to probe the participants by asking the correct research questions so as to collect research related information.

✰ This method is very useful when it comes to market research on new products and testing new concepts.

5. Narrative research:

✰ This method focuses on spoken or written words or visual representations by people.

✰ This model is helpful in understanding the ways in which people represent them and their experiences to a wider audience.

✰ It is a kind of cohesive story telling method.

✰ All kinds of biography and autography comes under Narrative research.

6. Case study research:

✰ Case studies are in-depth examinations of people or groups of people.

✰ Case studies are time consuming and may be quite costly.

✰ Case study method is used in the areas like education sector, social sciences, management, philosophical and psychological and similar.

✰ This research method has evolved over the years as one of the most valuable qualitative research methods.

✰ This method involves a deep digging into the developments and collects data.

7. Grounded theory:

✰ It is a qualitative approach to generate and develop a theory from data that the researcher collects.

✰ It develops a theory from ground base(zero)

✰ It is involved in the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data. The grounded theory model uses the analysed data to develop different theories regarding the topic of research.

✰ Role play, simulation and diary methods are also used in qualitative research.

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