Different Qualitative Research Methods

At almost every educational level, students are assigned with the task of research writing, as it helps find a solution to a specific problem relevant to the field of study. Once you have prepared the research design for your study, the next thing is to collect data for your content. For collecting and interpreting data, you can employ two broad approaches of research, i.e., qualitative and quantitative. At first, the quantitative research method was considered essential and was used for almost all researches, but now the qualitative research method has gained significance and is more trending among researchers.

The qualitative research method is one such method that employs collecting and analyzing data that are not numerical or statistical. This means that qualitative data involves text, video and audio. The main purpose of employing a qualitative data technique is to understand certain things and experiences that are related to a particular study. You can also use this research method to get insights into a research problem so that you are able to generate new ideas from the research.

Some of the main subjects of qualitative research are –

• Education
• Arts
• History
• Health sciences
• Anthropology
• Sociology

On the other hand, the quantitative research method is all about collecting and analyzing data that is numerical.

When it comes to qualitative research questions, they are used to explore certain phenomena. Apart from the quantitative research method, it doesn’t provide any nomothetic explanation that makes the research question appear more general or vague. Most of the qualitative research questions are all about one concept. In some other cases, they might be more than one.

Types of qualitative research approaches

The five most common approaches for research are –

Ethnography: Under this approach, a researcher works with certain groups and organizations to understand their culture.

Action research: Here, researchers work with participants that indulge them in a social change drive.

Grounded theory: Researchers are provided with rich data based on the topic they’re interested in.

Phenomenological research: For this approach, researchers are made to investigate an event through different interpretations and descriptions based on the experiences of the participants.

Narrative research: Here, the stories of the participants are determined by researchers so that they are able to understand what makes sense to them.

Different types of qualitative research methods

Based on your research topic, you have to further select a suitable data collection method that can help you proceed with your paper. Here are some common data collection methods for qualitative research-

Interviews

This is one of the most popular qualitative research methods. As the name itself suggests, you have to carry out a personal interview with one respondent at a time. This is regarded as a conversational method, where you need to look out for opportunities to gather in-depth details about the respondent.

Focus groups

There are 6-10 respondents that are included in a focus group. The main purpose of this research method is to find answers for ‘what,’ ‘why’, and ‘how.’ Here, you don’t need to interact with people in person. All you can do is send an online survey to them and collect responses.

Ethnographic research

Under this technique, you get to study people in their natural settings. Make sure that you adapt to your target audience’s environment while executing this method. The main aim of this method is to understand the cultures, motivation and setting of the people.

Observations

Under this method, you rely on subjective aspects to get hold of systematic data. When it comes to equating quality differences, observations come in handy. It doesn’t involve any measurements or numbers; instead, it focuses only on characters.

The qualitative research method is one of the best techniques used by researchers to understand the experiences, behaviors, beliefs and interactions among people. If you are looking for some kind of online assignment help, feel free to contact our online assignment writing experts for assistance.