Qualitative Research

An Introduction

DANIYAL MUSHTAQ

(Research Scholar)

+92 302 6069 411

Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research is an interdisciplinary,

transdisciplinary, and sometimes counterdisciplinary field.

It crosses the humanities and the social and physical

sciences. Qualitative research is many things at the same

time. It is multiparadigmatic in focus. Its practitioners

are sensitive to the value of the multimethod approach.

They are committed to the naturalistic perspective, and to

the interpretative understanding of human experience. At

the same time, the field is inherently political and shaped

by multiple ethical and political positions.

• Nelson et al’s (1992, p4)

Qualitative Research

• ‘Qualitative Research…involves finding out what

people think, and how they feel - or at any rate,

what they say they think and how they say they

feel. This kind of information is subjective. It

involves feelings and impressions, rather than

numbers’

• Bellenger, Bernhardt and Goldstucker, Qualitative Research in

Marketing, American Marketing Association

Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research is multimethod in focus,

involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach

to its subject matter.

• Qualitative Researchers study “things” (people

and their thoughts) in their natural settings,

attempting to make sense of, or interpret,

phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring

to them.

Qualitative Research

• Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection

of a variety of empirical materials - case study, personal

experience, introspective, life story, interview,

observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts-that

describe routine and problematic moments and meanings

in individuals lives.

• Deploy a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping

always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand.

The Qualitative Researcher as

Bricoleur

• Bricoleur

• A ‘Jack of all trades or kind of professional DIY person’

• Produces a bricolage, that is a pieced together, close-knit

set of practices that provide solutions to a problem in a

concrete situation

• The solution which is a result of the bricoleurs method is

an emergent construction that changes and takes new

forms as different tools, methods and techniques are added

to the puzzle.

The Qualitative Researcher as

Bricoleur

• The Qualitative Researcher as Bricoleur uses the tools of

his methodological trade . The choice of research practices

depends upon the questions that are asked, and the

questions depend on their context, what is available in the

context, and what the researcher can do in that setting.

• The Bricoleur is adept at performing a large number of

diverse tasks ranging from interviewing to observing, to

interpreting personal and historical documents, to intensive

self-reflection and introspection.

The Qualitative Researcher as

Bricoleur

• The bricoleur understands that research is an interactive process shaped by his own personal history, biography, gender, social class, race, and ethnicity and those of the people in the setting.

• The product of the bricoleur’s labour is a bricolage, a complex, dense, reflexive, collage-like creation that represents the researchers images, understanding and interpretations of the world or phenomenon under analysis.

• The bricolage will connect the parts to the whole, stressing the meaningful relationships that operate in the situations and social worlds studied.

Positivist Paradigm

• Emphasises that human reason is supreme and that

there is a single objective truth that can be discovered

by science

• Encourages us to stress the function of objects,

celebrate technology and to regard the world as a

rational, ordered place with a clearly defined past,

present and future

Non-Positivist Paradigm

• Questions the assumptions of the positivist paradigm

• Argues that our society places too much emphasis on science

and technology

• Argues that this ordered, rational view of consumers denies

the complexity of the social and cultural world we live in

• Stresses the importance of symbolic, subjective experience

The Five moments of Qualitative

Research

Traditional Period: 1900’s-World War II

• Wrote objective colonising accounts of field

experiences that were reflective of the positivist

scientist paradigm

• Concerned with offering valid, reliable, and

objective interpretations in their writings.

• The ‘subject’ who was studied was alien, foreign,

and strange.

The Modernist Phase

Post war-1970’s

• The modernist ethnographer and

sociological participant observer attempted

rigorous, qualitative studies of important

social processes, including social control in

the classroom and society

• Researchers were drawn to qualitative

research because it allowed them to give a

voice to society’s ‘underclass’

Blurred Genres

1970-1986• Researchers had a full complement of paradigms, methods and

strategies

• Applied qualitative research was gaining in stature

• Research strategies ranged from grounded theory to the case study

methodology

• Methods included qualitative interviewing and observational, visual,

personal and documentary methods.

• Computers were becoming more prevalent

• Boundaries between the social sciences and humanities had become

blurred

• Social science was borrowing models, theories and methods of

analysis from the humanities

• Researcher acknowledged as being part of the research process

Crisis of Representation

Mid 1980’s-Current Day

• Caused by the publication of a book called Anthropology

as Cultural Critique (Marcus and Fischer, 1986)

• Made research and writing more reflexive and called into

question the issues of gender, class and race.

• Interpretative theories as opposed to grounded theories

were more common as writers challenge old models of

truth and meaning

• Crisis of Representation and Legitimisation

The Fifth Moment

Current Day• Defined and shaped by the dual crisis of representation and

legitimisation

• Theories now beginning to be read in narrative terms as

‘tales of the field’

• Concept of an aloof researcher has finally been fully

abandoned

• More action oriented research is on the horizon

• More Social criticism and social critique

• The search for grand narratives is being replaced by

more local, small-scale theories fitted to specific problems

and specific situations

Qualitative v.'s Quantitative

Qualitative

Research

Quantitative

Research

Type of questions Probing Limited probing

Sample Size small large

Info. Per

respondent

much varies

Admin Requires skilled

researcher

Fewer specialist

skills required

Type of Analysis Subjective,

interpretative

Statistical

Type of research Exploratory Descriptive or

causal

Popularity of Qualitative

Research

1 Usually much cheaper than quantitative

research

2 No better way than qualitative research to

understand in-depth the motivations and

feelings of consumers

3 Qualitative research can improve the

efficiency and effectiveness of quantitative

research

Limitations of Qualitative

Research1 Marketing successes and failures are based on small

differences in the marketing mix.

Qualitative research doesn’t distinguish these differences

as well as quantitative research can.

2 Not representative of the population that is of interest to

the researcher

3 The multitude of individuals who, without formal training,

profess to be experts in the field

Qualitative Research as a Process

• Theory

• Method

• Analysis

• All three interconnect to define the

qualitative research process

Theoretical Approach

Deductive

• Deductive Theoretical Approach

• Seek to use existing theory to shape the approach which you adopt to

the qualitative research process and to aspects of data analysis

• Analytical Procedures

• Pattern Matching

• Involves predicting a pattern of outcomes based on theoretical

propositions to explain what you expect to find

• Explanation Building

• Involves attempting to build an explanation while collecting and

analysing the data, rather than testing a predicted explanation as in

pattern matching

Inductive Approach

• Inductive Theoretical Approach

• Seek to build up a theory which is adequately grounded in a number of

relevant cases. Referred to as Interpretative and Grounded Theory

• Art of Interpretation

• Field Text: Consists of field notes and documents from the field

• Research Text: Notes and interpretations based on the filed text

• Working interpretative document: Writers initial attempt to make

sense out of what he has learned

• Public Text: The final tale of the Field

Qualitative Data Collection

Techniques

• In depth Interviewing

• Focus Groups

• Participant Observations

• Ethnographic Studies

• Projective Techniques

Analysis Qualitative Data:

An Approach

• Categorisation

• Unitising data

• Recognising relationships and developing

the categories you are using to facilitate this

• Developing and testing hypotheses to reach

conclusion

Interactive Nature of the

Qualitative Process

• Data collection, data analysis and the development

and verification of relationships and conclusion

are all interrelated and interactive set of processes

• Allows researcher to recognise important themes,

patterns and relationships as you collect data

• Allows you to re-categorise existing data to see

whether themes and patterns and relationships

exist in the data already collected

• Allows you to adjust your future data collection

approach to see whether they exist in other cases

Tools for helping the Analytical

Process

• Summaries

• Should contain the key points that emerge from

undertaking the specific activity

• Self Memos

• Allow you to make a record of the ideas which

occur to you about any aspect of your research,as

you think of them

• Researcher Diary