steps in a qualitative research study

The qualitative research process, end-to-end

Step by step guide overview to the qualitative research process

.css-1nrevy2{position:relative;display:inline-block;} The qualitative research process: step by step guide

Although research processes may vary by methodology or project team, some fundamentals exist across research projects. Below outlines the collective experience that qualitative researchers undertake to conduct research.

Step 1: Determine what to research

Once a researcher has determined a list of potential projects to tackle, they will prioritize projects based on the business's impact, available resourcing, timelines & dependencies to create a research roadmap. For each project, they will also identify the key questions they need to answer in the research.

The researcher should identify the participants they plan to research, and any key attributes that are a 'must-have' or 'nice to have' as these can be influential in determining the research approach (e.g. a niche group may require a longer timeline to recruit).

Researchers will generally aim for a mix of project types. Some may be more tactical or requests from stakeholders, and some will be projects that the researcher has proactively identified as opportunities for strategic research.

It's easier to determine a shortlist of potential methodologies based on where the research projects may fall within the product life-cycle. Image from Nielsen / Norman Group.

Step 2: Identify how to research it

Once the researcher has finalized the research project, they will need to figure out how they will do the work.

Firstly, the researcher will look through secondary data and research (e.g. analytics, previous research reports). Secondary analysis will help determine if there are existing answers to any of the open questions, ensuring that any net-new study doesn't duplicate current work (unless previous research is out of date).

A quadrant showing where different types of research fall.

After scoping the research, researchers will determine if the research input needs to be attitudinal (i.e. what someone says) or behavioral (i.e. what someone does); as well as if they need to explore a problem space or evaluate a product – these help determine the methodology to use. There are many methodologies out there, but the main ones you generally will find from a qualitative perspective are:

Interviews [Attitudinal / Exploratory] – semi-structured conversation with a participant focused on a small set of topics. Runs for 30-60 minutes.

Contextual Inquiry [Behavioral / Exploratory] – observation of a participant in their environment. Probing questions may be asked during the observation. Runs for 2-3 hours.

Survey [Attitudinal / Evaluative] – gathering structured information from a sample of people, traditionally to generalize the results to a larger population. Surveys should generally not take participants more than 10 minutes to complete.

Usability Test [Behavioral / Evaluative] – evaluating how representative users are, or are not, able to achieve critical tasks within an experience.

Check out these articles for more information about different methodologies:

When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods

UX Research Cheat Sheet

Usability.gov

Design Research Kit

Step 3: Get buy-in and alignment from others

Once a researcher has determined what they will be researching and how they will research it, they will generally write up a research plan that includes additional information about the research goals, participant scope, timelines, and dependencies. The plan is typically either a document or presentation shared with stakeholders depending on the company and how they work.

After the research plan is complete, researchers will share the plan for feedback and input from their stakeholders to ensure that the stakeholders have the right expectations going into the research. Stakeholders may ask for additional question topics to be added, ensure that research will be executed against specific timelines, or provide recommendations on how the study will help make product decisions.

At organizations where there is a research team, researchers may also share their plan with other researchers informally or through a 'crit' process. Generally, researchers will provide feedback on the research craft, such as methodologies, participant mixes, and the research goals or questions.

Once the researcher feels confident in their plan, they will either begin to plan the research, or in the case of more junior researchers, get approval from their manager to begin the study.

Step 4: Prepare research

This step is where the researcher will get all of their ducks in a row to execute the research. Preparation activities include:

Equipment: Booking venues, labs, observation rooms, and procuring any appropriate equipment needed to run the study (e.g. cameras, mobile devices).

Participants: Sourcing participants from internal / external databases, reaching out/scheduling participants, managing schedule changes.

Incentives: Find budget, identify incentive type (e.g. Amazon gift card? customer credit? gift baskets), and purchasing.

Assets: Building relevant designs / prototypes (with design or design technologists), creating interview / observation guides and other research tools needed for sessions (e.g. physical cards for in-person card sorts).

Legal & Procurement: Participant waivers or NDAs preparation to ensure they are sent in advance of the research session to participants, vendor procurement, and management.

If Research Operations exists within an organization, they will generally take on most of the load in this area. The researcher will focus on assets required for executing research, such as interview guides.

In some cases, vendors may be engaged for some of these requirements (e.g. labs, participants, and incentive management) if resourcing is not available internally or if a researcher wants a blinded study (i.e. the participant doesn't know what company is running the research). In this case, additional time is incorporated to brief, onboard, and get approvals to work with the vendor.

Step 5: Execute research

Now the researcher gets to research!

Researchers will generally aim to execute research activities for 1–2 weeks, depending on the methodology to ensure they can be efficient in execution. In some more longitudinal methods (e.g., diary studies), or if a participant type is harder to recruit, it may take longer.

In consumer research, there will usually be back up participants available in case of no shows. However, in business or enterprise research, researchers will engage will all recruited participants as participants will generally have relationships with other parts of the company (e.g. sales). It is essential to maintain those relationships post-research.

During sessions, in a perfect world, there is one facilitator (principal researcher). In some cases, a secondary attendee who takes notes – this can be a stakeholder or a more junior researcher who can then learn soft skills from the primary researcher. By delegating note-taking, the principal researcher can focus on driving and managing the participant's conversation.

However, in most cases (especially if there is a "research team of one"), researchers will try to have to do both facilitation and documentation – this can lead to a clunkier conversation as the facilitator attempts to quickly write notes between trying to think of the next question. If a researcher decides to record a session instead, they will have to spend additional time after the research listening to the full recordings and writing notes.

In qualitative research, researchers may begin to see patterns in the findings after five sessions . They may start to tailor the research questions to be more specific to gaps in their understanding.

Researchers may also set up an observation room for stakeholders (or share links to remote sessions) to attend live. Generally, researchers will have a backchannel (e.g., slack, chat, or SMS), so if a stakeholder has a follow-up question to an answer, the researcher can dig deeper. In some cases, researchers will give stakeholders an input form to take their notes that can be shared with the researcher afterward - this can be useful for the researcher to understand how the stakeholder views the research and what the stakeholder perceives as necessary to the research insights.

Step 6: Synthesize and find insights

Once the research capture is complete, the researcher will then aggregate findings to begin to look for common themes (in exploratory) or success rates (in evaluative). Both of these will then lead to insight generation that researchers will then look to tie back to the project's original research goals.

As analysis can be one of the most high-effort tasks in research, researchers will lean towards how to be efficient in their study, generally using digital tools, hacks, or workarounds. Researchers will usually create the analysis process they refine throughout their careers to help them become more efficient.

In cases where researchers are looking to get buy-in for research or capture stakeholder input, they may seem to more visual approaches (e.g. post-it affinity analysis) in war rooms. This process can take longer to process (especially if there is a high volume of data). Still, there can be a higher impact on analyzing research in this way – especially if the researcher is looking to get buy-in for future projects.

Step 7: Create research outputs

After a researcher identifies the key themes and insights, the researcher will reframe these findings to a relevant research output to ensure that stakeholders understand and buy-in to the outcomes. Outputs may include:

Report: Outlines vital findings from research in a document or presentation format. Will most likely include an executive summary, insight themes, and supporting evidence.

Videos: A highlight reel of supporting evidence from crucial findings. Generally seen as more useful and engaging compared to just a report. In most cases, the video will help the research report.

Personas : A written representation of a product's intended users to understand different types of user goals, needs, and behaviors. Also used to help stakeholders build empathy for the end-user of the product.

Journey Map : A visualization of the process that a person goes through to accomplish a goal. Generally created in conjunction with a persona.

Concepts / Wireframes / Designs: If research is evaluative, designs can visualize recommendations.

Storyboarding

Before a researcher makes the output, researchers will spend time planning the structure and storyboarding. Storyboarding is incredibly essential to help researchers define information requirements and ensure they present their findings in the most impactful way to stakeholders.

Having a point of view in outputs

Historically, researchers have tried to stay neutral to the data and not try to have a strong opinion or perspective to let the data speak. However, as researchers become more embedded in the industry, this has shifted to stakeholders wanting a strong point of view or recommendations from researchers that can help other stakeholders (especially product managers and designers) decide the knowledge captured as part of the research.

Having a strong perspective helps researchers have a seat at the table and appear as a trusted advisor/partner in cross-functional settings.

Step 8: Share and follow up on findings

After the research outputs are complete, some researchers will do a "pre-share" or walkthrough with key stakeholders or potential detractors to the research. The purpose of these meetings is to align with stakeholders' expectations and find potential 'watch-outs' (things that may derail a presentation).

Researchers will generally have to share their findings out multiple times to different stakeholder groups and tailor them for each audience. For example, executive meetings will be more higher level than a meeting with a product manager.

After sharing, researchers will follow up with key stakeholders (especially those who provided input to the research) to confirm they understand the findings and identify next steps. Next steps may include incorporating results in product strategy documents, proposals / PRDs, or user stories to ensure that the recommendations or findings have been reflected or sourced.

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7 Steps to Conducting Better Qualitative Research

While qualitative research is the collection and analysis of primarily non-numerical activities (words, pictures and actions), it doesn’t mean you can’t apply a structured approach to your research efforts.

Usability testing is often characterized as a qualitative activity. Summarizing findings from watching participants in a usability test generates a lot of utterances, actions and images.

In reality, usability testing is (or at least should be) a mixed-method approach: both qualitative and quantitative data are collected.

Here are seven steps to help structure your next qualitative research effort. These have been adapted from Johnson & Christensen 2012 to focus on the type of qualitative research more typical in User Experience such as usability tests or contextual inquires (where an interface is usually involved).

You don’t need to follow these steps linearly, or even include them all in your research, but having these steps should both help structure your next project and help focus the discussion the next time you’re working with someone who proposes a qualitative research approach.

Determine Research Questions : Focused questions are at the heart of actionable qualitative research. In fact, they are at the heart of good quantitative research as well and play a key role in Lean UX thinking . Are users not using the mobile app because of usability, security concerns or something else? How do users make decisions about how to invest: do they ask a friend, use a financial advisor, or research on their own?
Collect Data : The qualitative researcher should assume the role of an unobtrusive observer and have little impact on the settings being observed—whether it be watching participants use existing products at home or in a more controlled lab environment. Qualitative is often used synonymously with small samples, but one can take a qualitative approach to larger sample sizes (more than 50 participants) just as one can take a quantitative approach to small sample sizes (less than 10).
Analyze Data : Most qualitative research studies generate a lot of data. Creating a system for coding actions and notable quotes helps speed through the process of turning utterances into actionable insights .
Generate Findings : What was learned from engaging users? This step involves synthesizing the copious amount of notes, videos and artifacts. As many of the responses from participants will be open-ended, there will be a need to identify patterns . For example, when we were interviewing users about why they didn’t pay their credit card bill on their mobile phone, we didn’t ask users if they had security concerns. Instead, many of them voiced the concern in their own words and stories.
Validate findings : One of the best ways to validate findings is to triangulate using other methods , including surveys or additional sources. One weakness of qualitative research is that it is hard to establish external validity, that is, to provide corroborating evidence that the findings aren’t just the opinion of the researcher. Every researcher, of course, does bring with her biases on the problems with a product or what deserves emphasis in the interview.One approach to minimize this researcher bias is to include a section on the interviewer or principal investigator’s background and how it might influence their conclusions. Having recordings of sessions and detailed notes helps other interested parties come to their own conclusions and can help validate findings. Including verbatims along with the interpretation also helps others see how the conclusions were drawn.
Report : We usually deliver a power point with backup notes or an appendix with more detailed findings and verbatims. While information comes in sequentially from each participant, we find reporting the data in an inverted pyramid by issue works best. We start with the most important findings, and then note the number of participants that supported these findings and some good quotes to support what we concluded. We also provide confidence intervals around the issue and insight frequency so readers have some idea about the prevalence of an issue in the larger user population.

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Chapter 1. Introduction

“Science is in danger, and for that reason it is becoming dangerous” -Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity

Why an Open Access Textbook on Qualitative Research Methods?

I have been teaching qualitative research methods to both undergraduates and graduate students for many years. Although there are some excellent textbooks out there, they are often costly, and none of them, to my mind, properly introduces qualitative research methods to the beginning student (whether undergraduate or graduate student). In contrast, this open-access textbook is designed as a (free) true introduction to the subject, with helpful, practical pointers on how to conduct research and how to access more advanced instruction.

Textbooks are typically arranged in one of two ways: (1) by technique (each chapter covers one method used in qualitative research); or (2) by process (chapters advance from research design through publication). But both of these approaches are necessary for the beginner student. This textbook will have sections dedicated to the process as well as the techniques of qualitative research. This is a true “comprehensive” book for the beginning student. In addition to covering techniques of data collection and data analysis, it provides a road map of how to get started and how to keep going and where to go for advanced instruction. It covers aspects of research design and research communication as well as methods employed. Along the way, it includes examples from many different disciplines in the social sciences.

The primary goal has been to create a useful, accessible, engaging textbook for use across many disciplines. And, let’s face it. Textbooks can be boring. I hope readers find this to be a little different. I have tried to write in a practical and forthright manner, with many lively examples and references to good and intellectually creative qualitative research. Woven throughout the text are short textual asides (in colored textboxes) by professional (academic) qualitative researchers in various disciplines. These short accounts by practitioners should help inspire students. So, let’s begin!

What is Research?

When we use the word research , what exactly do we mean by that? This is one of those words that everyone thinks they understand, but it is worth beginning this textbook with a short explanation. We use the term to refer to “empirical research,” which is actually a historically specific approach to understanding the world around us. Think about how you know things about the world. [1] You might know your mother loves you because she’s told you she does. Or because that is what “mothers” do by tradition. Or you might know because you’ve looked for evidence that she does, like taking care of you when you are sick or reading to you in bed or working two jobs so you can have the things you need to do OK in life. Maybe it seems churlish to look for evidence; you just take it “on faith” that you are loved.

Only one of the above comes close to what we mean by research. Empirical research is research (investigation) based on evidence. Conclusions can then be drawn from observable data. This observable data can also be “tested” or checked. If the data cannot be tested, that is a good indication that we are not doing research. Note that we can never “prove” conclusively, through observable data, that our mothers love us. We might have some “disconfirming evidence” (that time she didn’t show up to your graduation, for example) that could push you to question an original hypothesis , but no amount of “confirming evidence” will ever allow us to say with 100% certainty, “my mother loves me.” Faith and tradition and authority work differently. Our knowledge can be 100% certain using each of those alternative methods of knowledge, but our certainty in those cases will not be based on facts or evidence.

For many periods of history, those in power have been nervous about “science” because it uses evidence and facts as the primary source of understanding the world, and facts can be at odds with what power or authority or tradition want you to believe. That is why I say that scientific empirical research is a historically specific approach to understand the world. You are in college or university now partly to learn how to engage in this historically specific approach.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe, there was a newfound respect for empirical research, some of which was seriously challenging to the established church. Using observations and testing them, scientists found that the earth was not at the center of the universe, for example, but rather that it was but one planet of many which circled the sun. [2] For the next two centuries, the science of astronomy, physics, biology, and chemistry emerged and became disciplines taught in universities. All used the scientific method of observation and testing to advance knowledge. Knowledge about people , however, and social institutions, however, was still left to faith, tradition, and authority. Historians and philosophers and poets wrote about the human condition, but none of them used research to do so. [3]

It was not until the nineteenth century that “social science” really emerged, using the scientific method (empirical observation) to understand people and social institutions. New fields of sociology, economics, political science, and anthropology emerged. The first sociologists, people like Auguste Comte and Karl Marx, sought specifically to apply the scientific method of research to understand society, Engels famously claiming that Marx had done for the social world what Darwin did for the natural world, tracings its laws of development. Today we tend to take for granted the naturalness of science here, but it is actually a pretty recent and radical development.

To return to the question, “does your mother love you?” Well, this is actually not really how a researcher would frame the question, as it is too specific to your case. It doesn’t tell us much about the world at large, even if it does tell us something about you and your relationship with your mother. A social science researcher might ask, “do mothers love their children?” Or maybe they would be more interested in how this loving relationship might change over time (e.g., “do mothers love their children more now than they did in the 18th century when so many children died before reaching adulthood?”) or perhaps they might be interested in measuring quality of love across cultures or time periods, or even establishing “what love looks like” using the mother/child relationship as a site of exploration. All of these make good research questions because we can use observable data to answer them.

What is Qualitative Research?

“All we know is how to learn. How to study, how to listen, how to talk, how to tell. If we don’t tell the world, we don’t know the world. We’re lost in it, we die.” -Ursula LeGuin, The Telling

At its simplest, qualitative research is research about the social world that does not use numbers in its analyses. All those who fear statistics can breathe a sigh of relief – there are no mathematical formulae or regression models in this book! But this definition is less about what qualitative research can be and more about what it is not. To be honest, any simple statement will fail to capture the power and depth of qualitative research. One way of contrasting qualitative research to quantitative research is to note that the focus of qualitative research is less about explaining and predicting relationships between variables and more about understanding the social world. To use our mother love example, the question about “what love looks like” is a good question for the qualitative researcher while all questions measuring love or comparing incidences of love (both of which require measurement) are good questions for quantitative researchers. Patton writes,

Qualitative data describe. They take us, as readers, into the time and place of the observation so that we know what it was like to have been there. They capture and communicate someone else’s experience of the world in his or her own words. Qualitative data tell a story. ( Patton 2002:47 )

Qualitative researchers are asking different questions about the world than their quantitative colleagues. Even when researchers are employed in “mixed methods” research ( both quantitative and qualitative), they are using different methods to address different questions of the study. I do a lot of research about first-generation and working-college college students. Where a quantitative researcher might ask, how many first-generation college students graduate from college within four years? Or does first-generation college status predict high student debt loads? A qualitative researcher might ask, how does the college experience differ for first-generation college students? What is it like to carry a lot of debt, and how does this impact the ability to complete college on time? Both sets of questions are important, but they can only be answered using specific tools tailored to those questions. For the former, you need large numbers to make adequate comparisons. For the latter, you need to talk to people, find out what they are thinking and feeling, and try to inhabit their shoes for a little while so you can make sense of their experiences and beliefs.

Examples of Qualitative Research

You have probably seen examples of qualitative research before, but you might not have paid particular attention to how they were produced or realized that the accounts you were reading were the result of hours, months, even years of research “in the field.” A good qualitative researcher will present the product of their hours of work in such a way that it seems natural, even obvious, to the reader. Because we are trying to convey what it is like answers, qualitative research is often presented as stories – stories about how people live their lives, go to work, raise their children, interact with one another. In some ways, this can seem like reading particularly insightful novels. But, unlike novels, there are very specific rules and guidelines that qualitative researchers follow to ensure that the “story” they are telling is accurate , a truthful rendition of what life is like for the people being studied. Most of this textbook will be spent conveying those rules and guidelines. Let’s take a look, first, however, at three examples of what the end product looks like. I have chosen these three examples to showcase very different approaches to qualitative research, and I will return to these five examples throughout the book. They were all published as whole books (not chapters or articles), and they are worth the long read, if you have the time. I will also provide some information on how these books came to be and the length of time it takes to get them into book version. It is important you know about this process, and the rest of this textbook will help explain why it takes so long to conduct good qualitative research!

Example 1 : The End Game (ethnography + interviews)

Corey Abramson is a sociologist who teaches at the University of Arizona. In 2015 he published The End Game: How Inequality Shapes our Final Years ( 2015 ). This book was based on the research he did for his dissertation at the University of California-Berkeley in 2012. Actually, the dissertation was completed in 2012 but the work that was produced that took several years. The dissertation was entitled, “This is How We Live, This is How We Die: Social Stratification, Aging, and Health in Urban America” ( 2012 ). You can see how the book version, which was written for a more general audience, has a more engaging sound to it, but that the dissertation version, which is what academic faculty read and evaluate, has a more descriptive title. You can read the title and know that this is a study about aging and health and that the focus is going to be inequality and that the context (place) is going to be “urban America.” It’s a study about “how” people do something – in this case, how they deal with aging and death. This is the very first sentence of the dissertation, “From our first breath in the hospital to the day we die, we live in a society characterized by unequal opportunities for maintaining health and taking care of ourselves when ill. These disparities reflect persistent racial, socio-economic, and gender-based inequalities and contribute to their persistence over time” ( 1 ). What follows is a truthful account of how that is so.

Cory Abramson spent three years conducting his research in four different urban neighborhoods. We call the type of research he conducted “comparative ethnographic” because he designed his study to compare groups of seniors as they went about their everyday business. It’s comparative because he is comparing different groups (based on race, class, gender) and ethnographic because he is studying the culture/way of life of a group. [4] He had an educated guess, rooted in what previous research had shown and what social theory would suggest, that people’s experiences of aging differ by race, class, and gender. So, he set up a research design that would allow him to observe differences. He chose two primarily middle-class (one was racially diverse and the other was predominantly White) and two primarily poor neighborhoods (one was racially diverse and the other was predominantly African American). He hung out in senior centers and other places seniors congregated, watched them as they took the bus to get prescriptions filled, sat in doctor’s offices with them, and listened to their conversations with each other. He also conducted more formal conversations, what we call in-depth interviews, with sixty seniors from each of the four neighborhoods. As with a lot of fieldwork , as he got closer to the people involved, he both expanded and deepened his reach –

By the end of the project, I expanded my pool of general observations to include various settings frequented by seniors: apartment building common rooms, doctors’ offices, emergency rooms, pharmacies, senior centers, bars, parks, corner stores, shopping centers, pool halls, hair salons, coffee shops, and discount stores. Over the course of the three years of fieldwork, I observed hundreds of elders, and developed close relationships with a number of them. ( 2012:10 )

When Abramson rewrote the dissertation for a general audience and published his book in 2015, it got a lot of attention. It is a beautifully written book and it provided insight into a common human experience that we surprisingly know very little about. It won the Outstanding Publication Award by the American Sociological Association Section on Aging and the Life Course and was featured in the New York Times . The book was about aging, and specifically how inequality shapes the aging process, but it was also about much more than that. It helped show how inequality affects people’s everyday lives. For example, by observing the difficulties the poor had in setting up appointments and getting to them using public transportation and then being made to wait to see a doctor, sometimes in standing-room-only situations, when they are unwell, and then being treated dismissively by hospital staff, Abramson allowed readers to feel the material reality of being poor in the US. Comparing these examples with seniors with adequate supplemental insurance who have the resources to hire car services or have others assist them in arranging care when they need it, jolts the reader to understand and appreciate the difference money makes in the lives and circumstances of us all, and in a way that is different than simply reading a statistic (“80% of the poor do not keep regular doctor’s appointments”) does. Qualitative research can reach into spaces and places that often go unexamined and then reports back to the rest of us what it is like in those spaces and places.

Example 2: Racing for Innocence (Interviews + Content Analysis + Fictional Stories)

Jennifer Pierce is a Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota. Trained as a sociologist, she has written a number of books about gender, race, and power. Her very first book, Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms, published in 1995, is a brilliant look at gender dynamics within two law firms. Pierce was a participant observer, working as a paralegal, and she observed how female lawyers and female paralegals struggled to obtain parity with their male colleagues.

Fifteen years later, she reexamined the context of the law firm to include an examination of racial dynamics, particularly how elite white men working in these spaces created and maintained a culture that made it difficult for both female attorneys and attorneys of color to thrive. Her book, Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash Against Affirmative Action , published in 2012, is an interesting and creative blending of interviews with attorneys, content analyses of popular films during this period, and fictional accounts of racial discrimination and sexual harassment. The law firm she chose to study had come under an affirmative action order and was in the process of implementing equitable policies and programs. She wanted to understand how recipients of white privilege (the elite white male attorneys) come to deny the role they play in reproducing inequality. Through interviews with attorneys who were present both before and during the affirmative action order, she creates a historical record of the “bad behavior” that necessitated new policies and procedures, but also, and more importantly , probed the participants ’ understanding of this behavior. It should come as no surprise that most (but not all) of the white male attorneys saw little need for change, and that almost everyone else had accounts that were different if not sometimes downright harrowing.

I’ve used Pierce’s book in my qualitative research methods courses as an example of an interesting blend of techniques and presentation styles. My students often have a very difficult time with the fictional accounts she includes. But they serve an important communicative purpose here. They are her attempts at presenting “both sides” to an objective reality – something happens (Pierce writes this something so it is very clear what it is), and the two participants to the thing that happened have very different understandings of what this means. By including these stories, Pierce presents one of her key findings – people remember things differently and these different memories tend to support their own ideological positions. I wonder what Pierce would have written had she studied the murder of George Floyd or the storming of the US Capitol on January 6 or any number of other historic events whose observers and participants record very different happenings.

This is not to say that qualitative researchers write fictional accounts. In fact, the use of fiction in our work remains controversial. When used, it must be clearly identified as a presentation device, as Pierce did. I include Racing for Innocence here as an example of the multiple uses of methods and techniques and the way that these work together to produce better understandings by us, the readers, of what Pierce studied. We readers come away with a better grasp of how and why advantaged people understate their own involvement in situations and structures that advantage them. This is normal human behavior , in other words. This case may have been about elite white men in law firms, but the general insights here can be transposed to other settings. Indeed, Pierce argues that more research needs to be done about the role elites play in the reproduction of inequality in the workplace in general.

Example 3: Amplified Advantage (Mixed Methods: Survey Interviews + Focus Groups + Archives)

The final example comes from my own work with college students, particularly the ways in which class background affects the experience of college and outcomes for graduates. I include it here as an example of mixed methods, and for the use of supplementary archival research. I’ve done a lot of research over the years on first-generation, low-income, and working-class college students. I am curious (and skeptical) about the possibility of social mobility today, particularly with the rising cost of college and growing inequality in general. As one of the few people in my family to go to college, I didn’t grow up with a lot of examples of what college was like or how to make the most of it. And when I entered graduate school, I realized with dismay that there were very few people like me there. I worried about becoming too different from my family and friends back home. And I wasn’t at all sure that I would ever be able to pay back the huge load of debt I was taking on. And so I wrote my dissertation and first two books about working-class college students. These books focused on experiences in college and the difficulties of navigating between family and school ( Hurst 2010a, 2012 ). But even after all that research, I kept coming back to wondering if working-class students who made it through college had an equal chance at finding good jobs and happy lives,

What happens to students after college? Do working-class students fare as well as their peers? I knew from my own experience that barriers continued through graduate school and beyond, and that my debtload was higher than that of my peers, constraining some of the choices I made when I graduated. To answer these questions, I designed a study of students attending small liberal arts colleges, the type of college that tried to equalize the experience of students by requiring all students to live on campus and offering small classes with lots of interaction with faculty. These private colleges tend to have more money and resources so they can provide financial aid to low-income students. They also attract some very wealthy students. Because they enroll students across the class spectrum, I would be able to draw comparisons. I ended up spending about four years collecting data, both a survey of more than 2000 students (which formed the basis for quantitative analyses) and qualitative data collection (interviews, focus groups, archival research, and participant observation). This is what we call a “mixed methods” approach because we use both quantitative and qualitative data. The survey gave me a large enough number of students that I could make comparisons of the how many kind, and to be able to say with some authority that there were in fact significant differences in experience and outcome by class (e.g., wealthier students earned more money and had little debt; working-class students often found jobs that were not in their chosen careers and were very affected by debt, upper-middle-class students were more likely to go to graduate school). But the survey analyses could not explain why these differences existed. For that, I needed to talk to people and ask them about their motivations and aspirations. I needed to understand their perceptions of the world, and it is very hard to do this through a survey.

By interviewing students and recent graduates, I was able to discern particular patterns and pathways through college and beyond. Specifically, I identified three versions of gameplay. Upper-middle-class students, whose parents were themselves professionals (academics, lawyers, managers of non-profits), saw college as the first stage of their education and took classes and declared majors that would prepare them for graduate school. They also spent a lot of time building their resumes, taking advantage of opportunities to help professors with their research, or study abroad. This helped them gain admission to highly-ranked graduate schools and interesting jobs in the public sector. In contrast, upper-class students, whose parents were wealthy and more likely to be engaged in business (as CEOs or other high-level directors), prioritized building social capital. They did this by joining fraternities and sororities and playing club sports. This helped them when they graduated as they called on friends and parents of friends to find them well-paying jobs. Finally, low-income, first-generation, and working-class students were often adrift. They took the classes that were recommended to them but without the knowledge of how to connect them to life beyond college. They spent time working and studying rather than partying or building their resumes. All three sets of students thought they were “doing college” the right way, the way that one was supposed to do college. But these three versions of gameplay led to distinct outcomes that advantaged some students over others. I titled my work “Amplified Advantage” to highlight this process.

These three examples, Cory Abramson’s The End Game , Jennifer Peirce’s Racing for Innocence, and my own Amplified Advantage, demonstrate the range of approaches and tools available to the qualitative researcher. They also help explain why qualitative research is so important. Numbers can tell us some things about the world, but they cannot get at the hearts and minds, motivations and beliefs of the people who make up the social worlds we inhabit. For that, we need tools that allow us to listen and make sense of what people tell us and show us. That is what good qualitative research offers us.

How Is This Book Organized?

This textbook is organized as a comprehensive introduction to the use of qualitative research methods. The first half covers general topics (e.g., approaches to qualitative research, ethics) and research design (necessary steps for building a successful qualitative research study). The second half reviews various data collection and data analysis techniques. Of course, building a successful qualitative research study requires some knowledge of data collection and data analysis so the chapters in the first half and the chapters in the second half should be read in conversation with each other. That said, each chapter can be read on its own for assistance with a particular narrow topic. In addition to the chapters, a helpful glossary can be found in the back of the book. Rummage around in the text as needed.

Chapter Descriptions

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the Research Design Process. How does one begin a study? What is an appropriate research question? How is the study to be done – with what methods ? Involving what people and sites? Although qualitative research studies can and often do change and develop over the course of data collection, it is important to have a good idea of what the aims and goals of your study are at the outset and a good plan of how to achieve those aims and goals. Chapter 2 provides a road map of the process.

Chapter 3 describes and explains various ways of knowing the (social) world. What is it possible for us to know about how other people think or why they behave the way they do? What does it mean to say something is a “fact” or that it is “well-known” and understood? Qualitative researchers are particularly interested in these questions because of the types of research questions we are interested in answering (the how questions rather than the how many questions of quantitative research). Qualitative researchers have adopted various epistemological approaches. Chapter 3 will explore these approaches, highlighting interpretivist approaches that acknowledge the subjective aspect of reality – in other words, reality and knowledge are not objective but rather influenced by (interpreted through) people.

Chapter 4 focuses on the practical matter of developing a research question and finding the right approach to data collection. In any given study (think of Cory Abramson’s study of aging, for example), there may be years of collected data, thousands of observations , hundreds of pages of notes to read and review and make sense of. If all you had was a general interest area (“aging”), it would be very difficult, nearly impossible, to make sense of all of that data. The research question provides a helpful lens to refine and clarify (and simplify) everything you find and collect. For that reason, it is important to pull out that lens (articulate the research question) before you get started. In the case of the aging study, Cory Abramson was interested in how inequalities affected understandings and responses to aging. It is for this reason he designed a study that would allow him to compare different groups of seniors (some middle-class, some poor). Inevitably, he saw much more in the three years in the field than what made it into his book (or dissertation), but he was able to narrow down the complexity of the social world to provide us with this rich account linked to the original research question. Developing a good research question is thus crucial to effective design and a successful outcome. Chapter 4 will provide pointers on how to do this. Chapter 4 also provides an overview of general approaches taken to doing qualitative research and various “traditions of inquiry.”

Chapter 5 explores sampling . After you have developed a research question and have a general idea of how you will collect data (Observations? Interviews?), how do you go about actually finding people and sites to study? Although there is no “correct number” of people to interview , the sample should follow the research question and research design. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative research involves nonprobability sampling. Chapter 5 explains why this is so and what qualities instead make a good sample for qualitative research.

Chapter 6 addresses the importance of reflexivity in qualitative research. Related to epistemological issues of how we know anything about the social world, qualitative researchers understand that we the researchers can never be truly neutral or outside the study we are conducting. As observers, we see things that make sense to us and may entirely miss what is either too obvious to note or too different to comprehend. As interviewers, as much as we would like to ask questions neutrally and remain in the background, interviews are a form of conversation, and the persons we interview are responding to us . Therefore, it is important to reflect upon our social positions and the knowledges and expectations we bring to our work and to work through any blind spots that we may have. Chapter 6 provides some examples of reflexivity in practice and exercises for thinking through one’s own biases.

Chapter 7 is a very important chapter and should not be overlooked. As a practical matter, it should also be read closely with chapters 6 and 8. Because qualitative researchers deal with people and the social world, it is imperative they develop and adhere to a strong ethical code for conducting research in a way that does not harm. There are legal requirements and guidelines for doing so (see chapter 8), but these requirements should not be considered synonymous with the ethical code required of us. Each researcher must constantly interrogate every aspect of their research, from research question to design to sample through analysis and presentation, to ensure that a minimum of harm (ideally, zero harm) is caused. Because each research project is unique, the standards of care for each study are unique. Part of being a professional researcher is carrying this code in one’s heart, being constantly attentive to what is required under particular circumstances. Chapter 7 provides various research scenarios and asks readers to weigh in on the suitability and appropriateness of the research. If done in a class setting, it will become obvious fairly quickly that there are often no absolutely correct answers, as different people find different aspects of the scenarios of greatest importance. Minimizing the harm in one area may require possible harm in another. Being attentive to all the ethical aspects of one’s research and making the best judgments one can, clearly and consciously, is an integral part of being a good researcher.

Chapter 8 , best to be read in conjunction with chapter 7, explains the role and importance of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) . Under federal guidelines, an IRB is an appropriately constituted group that has been formally designated to review and monitor research involving human subjects . Every institution that receives funding from the federal government has an IRB. IRBs have the authority to approve, require modifications to (to secure approval), or disapprove research. This group review serves an important role in the protection of the rights and welfare of human research subjects. Chapter 8 reviews the history of IRBs and the work they do but also argues that IRBs’ review of qualitative research is often both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Some aspects of qualitative research are not well understood by IRBs, given that they were developed to prevent abuses in biomedical research. Thus, it is important not to rely on IRBs to identify all the potential ethical issues that emerge in our research (see chapter 7).

Chapter 9 provides help for getting started on formulating a research question based on gaps in the pre-existing literature. Research is conducted as part of a community, even if particular studies are done by single individuals (or small teams). What any of us finds and reports back becomes part of a much larger body of knowledge. Thus, it is important that we look at the larger body of knowledge before we actually start our bit to see how we can best contribute. When I first began interviewing working-class college students, there was only one other similar study I could find, and it hadn’t been published (it was a dissertation of students from poor backgrounds). But there had been a lot published by professors who had grown up working class and made it through college despite the odds. These accounts by “working-class academics” became an important inspiration for my study and helped me frame the questions I asked the students I interviewed. Chapter 9 will provide some pointers on how to search for relevant literature and how to use this to refine your research question.

Chapter 10 serves as a bridge between the two parts of the textbook, by introducing techniques of data collection. Qualitative research is often characterized by the form of data collection – for example, an ethnographic study is one that employs primarily observational data collection for the purpose of documenting and presenting a particular culture or ethnos. Techniques can be effectively combined, depending on the research question and the aims and goals of the study. Chapter 10 provides a general overview of all the various techniques and how they can be combined.

The second part of the textbook moves into the doing part of qualitative research once the research question has been articulated and the study designed. Chapters 11 through 17 cover various data collection techniques and approaches. Chapters 18 and 19 provide a very simple overview of basic data analysis. Chapter 20 covers communication of the data to various audiences, and in various formats.

Chapter 11 begins our overview of data collection techniques with a focus on interviewing , the true heart of qualitative research. This technique can serve as the primary and exclusive form of data collection, or it can be used to supplement other forms (observation, archival). An interview is distinct from a survey, where questions are asked in a specific order and often with a range of predetermined responses available. Interviews can be conversational and unstructured or, more conventionally, semistructured , where a general set of interview questions “guides” the conversation. Chapter 11 covers the basics of interviews: how to create interview guides, how many people to interview, where to conduct the interview, what to watch out for (how to prepare against things going wrong), and how to get the most out of your interviews.

Chapter 12 covers an important variant of interviewing, the focus group. Focus groups are semistructured interviews with a group of people moderated by a facilitator (the researcher or researcher’s assistant). Focus groups explicitly use group interaction to assist in the data collection. They are best used to collect data on a specific topic that is non-personal and shared among the group. For example, asking a group of college students about a common experience such as taking classes by remote delivery during the pandemic year of 2020. Chapter 12 covers the basics of focus groups: when to use them, how to create interview guides for them, and how to run them effectively.

Chapter 13 moves away from interviewing to the second major form of data collection unique to qualitative researchers – observation . Qualitative research that employs observation can best be understood as falling on a continuum of “fly on the wall” observation (e.g., observing how strangers interact in a doctor’s waiting room) to “participant” observation, where the researcher is also an active participant of the activity being observed. For example, an activist in the Black Lives Matter movement might want to study the movement, using her inside position to gain access to observe key meetings and interactions. Chapter 13 covers the basics of participant observation studies: advantages and disadvantages, gaining access, ethical concerns related to insider/outsider status and entanglement, and recording techniques.

Chapter 14 takes a closer look at “deep ethnography” – immersion in the field of a particularly long duration for the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of a particular culture or social world. Clifford Geertz called this “deep hanging out.” Whereas participant observation is often combined with semistructured interview techniques, deep ethnography’s commitment to “living the life” or experiencing the situation as it really is demands more conversational and natural interactions with people. These interactions and conversations may take place over months or even years. As can be expected, there are some costs to this technique, as well as some very large rewards when done competently. Chapter 14 provides some examples of deep ethnographies that will inspire some beginning researchers and intimidate others.

Chapter 15 moves in the opposite direction of deep ethnography, a technique that is the least positivist of all those discussed here, to mixed methods , a set of techniques that is arguably the most positivist . A mixed methods approach combines both qualitative data collection and quantitative data collection, commonly by combining a survey that is analyzed statistically (e.g., cross-tabs or regression analyses of large number probability samples) with semi-structured interviews. Although it is somewhat unconventional to discuss mixed methods in textbooks on qualitative research, I think it is important to recognize this often-employed approach here. There are several advantages and some disadvantages to taking this route. Chapter 16 will describe those advantages and disadvantages and provide some particular guidance on how to design a mixed methods study for maximum effectiveness.

Chapter 16 covers data collection that does not involve live human subjects at all – archival and historical research (chapter 17 will also cover data that does not involve interacting with human subjects). Sometimes people are unavailable to us, either because they do not wish to be interviewed or observed (as is the case with many “elites”) or because they are too far away, in both place and time. Fortunately, humans leave many traces and we can often answer questions we have by examining those traces. Special collections and archives can be goldmines for social science research. This chapter will explain how to access these places, for what purposes, and how to begin to make sense of what you find.

Chapter 17 covers another data collection area that does not involve face-to-face interaction with humans: content analysis . Although content analysis may be understood more properly as a data analysis technique, the term is often used for the entire approach, which will be the case here. Content analysis involves interpreting meaning from a body of text. This body of text might be something found in historical records (see chapter 16) or something collected by the researcher, as in the case of comment posts on a popular blog post. I once used the stories told by student loan debtors on the website studentloanjustice.org as the content I analyzed. Content analysis is particularly useful when attempting to define and understand prevalent stories or communication about a topic of interest. In other words, when we are less interested in what particular people (our defined sample) are doing or believing and more interested in what general narratives exist about a particular topic or issue. This chapter will explore different approaches to content analysis and provide helpful tips on how to collect data, how to turn that data into codes for analysis, and how to go about presenting what is found through analysis.

Where chapter 17 has pushed us towards data analysis, chapters 18 and 19 are all about what to do with the data collected, whether that data be in the form of interview transcripts or fieldnotes from observations. Chapter 18 introduces the basics of coding , the iterative process of assigning meaning to the data in order to both simplify and identify patterns. What is a code and how does it work? What are the different ways of coding data, and when should you use them? What is a codebook, and why do you need one? What does the process of data analysis look like?

Chapter 19 goes further into detail on codes and how to use them, particularly the later stages of coding in which our codes are refined, simplified, combined, and organized. These later rounds of coding are essential to getting the most out of the data we’ve collected. As students are often overwhelmed with the amount of data (a corpus of interview transcripts typically runs into the hundreds of pages; fieldnotes can easily top that), this chapter will also address time management and provide suggestions for dealing with chaos and reminders that feeling overwhelmed at the analysis stage is part of the process. By the end of the chapter, you should understand how “findings” are actually found.

The book concludes with a chapter dedicated to the effective presentation of data results. Chapter 20 covers the many ways that researchers communicate their studies to various audiences (academic, personal, political), what elements must be included in these various publications, and the hallmarks of excellent qualitative research that various audiences will be expecting. Because qualitative researchers are motivated by understanding and conveying meaning , effective communication is not only an essential skill but a fundamental facet of the entire research project. Ethnographers must be able to convey a certain sense of verisimilitude , the appearance of true reality. Those employing interviews must faithfully depict the key meanings of the people they interviewed in a way that rings true to those people, even if the end result surprises them. And all researchers must strive for clarity in their publications so that various audiences can understand what was found and why it is important.

The book concludes with a short chapter ( chapter 21 ) discussing the value of qualitative research. At the very end of this book, you will find a glossary of terms. I recommend you make frequent use of the glossary and add to each entry as you find examples. Although the entries are meant to be simple and clear, you may also want to paraphrase the definition—make it “make sense” to you, in other words. In addition to the standard reference list (all works cited here), you will find various recommendations for further reading at the end of many chapters. Some of these recommendations will be examples of excellent qualitative research, indicated with an asterisk (*) at the end of the entry. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. A good example of qualitative research can teach you more about conducting research than any textbook can (this one included). I highly recommend you select one to three examples from these lists and read them along with the textbook.

A final note on the choice of examples – you will note that many of the examples used in the text come from research on college students. This is for two reasons. First, as most of my research falls in this area, I am most familiar with this literature and have contacts with those who do research here and can call upon them to share their stories with you. Second, and more importantly, my hope is that this textbook reaches a wide audience of beginning researchers who study widely and deeply across the range of what can be known about the social world (from marine resources management to public policy to nursing to political science to sexuality studies and beyond). It is sometimes difficult to find examples that speak to all those research interests, however. A focus on college students is something that all readers can understand and, hopefully, appreciate, as we are all now or have been at some point a college student.

Patton’s Ten Suggestions for Doing Qualitative Research

The following ten suggestions were made by Michael Quinn Patton in his massive textbooks Qualitative Research and Evaluations Methods . This book is highly recommended for those of you who want more than an introduction to qualitative methods. It is the book I relied on heavily when I was a graduate student, although it is much easier to “dip into” when necessary than to read through as a whole. Patton is asked for “just one bit of advice” for a graduate student considering using qualitative research methods for their dissertation. Here are his top ten responses, in short form, heavily paraphrased, and with additional comments and emphases from me:

Make sure that a qualitative approach fits the research question. The following are the kinds of questions that call out for qualitative methods or where qualitative methods are particularly appropriate: questions about people’s experiences or how they make sense of those experiences; studying a person in their natural environment; researching a phenomenon so unknown that it would be impossible to study it with standardized instruments or other forms of quantitative data collection.
Study qualitative research by going to the original sources for the design and analysis appropriate to the particular approach you want to take (e.g., read Glaser and Straus if you are using grounded theory )
Find a dissertation adviser who understands or at least who will support your use of qualitative research methods. You are asking for trouble if your entire committee is populated by quantitative researchers, even if they are all very knowledgeable about the subject or focus of your study (maybe even more so if they are!)
Really work on design. Doing qualitative research effectively takes a lot of planning. Even if things are more flexible than in quantitative research, a good design is absolutely essential when starting out.
Practice data collection techniques, particularly interviewing and observing. There is definitely a set of learned skills here! Do not expect your first interview to be perfect. You will continue to grow as a researcher the more interviews you conduct, and you will probably come to understand yourself a bit more in the process, too. This is not easy, despite what others who don’t work with qualitative methods may assume (and tell you!)
Have a plan for analysis before you begin data collection. This is often a requirement in IRB protocols , although you can get away with writing something fairly simple. And even if you are taking an approach, such as grounded theory, that pushes you to remain fairly open-minded during the data collection process, you still want to know what you will be doing with all the data collected – creating a codebook? Writing analytical memos? Comparing cases? Having a plan in hand will also help prevent you from collecting too much extraneous data.
Be prepared to confront controversies both within the qualitative research community and between qualitative research and quantitative research. Don’t be naïve about this – qualitative research, particularly some approaches, will be derided by many more “positivist” researchers and audiences. For example, is an “n” of 1 really sufficient? Yes! But not everyone will agree.
Do not make the mistake of using qualitative research methods because someone told you it was easier, or because you are intimidated by the math required of statistical analyses. Qualitative research is difficult in its own way (and many would claim much more time-consuming than quantitative research). Do it because you are convinced it is right for your goals, aims, and research questions.
Find a good support network. This could be a research mentor, or it could be a group of friends or colleagues who are also using qualitative research, or it could be just someone who will listen to you work through all of the issues you will confront out in the field and during the writing process. Even though qualitative research often involves human subjects, it can be pretty lonely. A lot of times you will feel like you are working without a net. You have to create one for yourself. Take care of yourself.
And, finally, in the words of Patton, “Prepare to be changed. Looking deeply at other people’s lives will force you to look deeply at yourself.”
We will actually spend an entire chapter ( chapter 3 ) looking at this question in much more detail! ↵
Note that this might have been news to Europeans at the time, but many other societies around the world had also come to this conclusion through observation. There is often a tendency to equate “the scientific revolution” with the European world in which it took place, but this is somewhat misleading. ↵
Historians are a special case here. Historians have scrupulously and rigorously investigated the social world, but not for the purpose of understanding general laws about how things work, which is the point of scientific empirical research. History is often referred to as an idiographic field of study, meaning that it studies things that happened or are happening in themselves and not for general observations or conclusions. ↵
Don’t worry, we’ll spend more time later in this book unpacking the meaning of ethnography and other terms that are important here. Note the available glossary ↵

An approach to research that is “multimethod in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. 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." ( Denzin and Lincoln 2005:2 ). Contrast with quantitative research .

In contrast to methodology, methods are more simply the practices and tools used to collect and analyze data. Examples of common methods in qualitative research are interviews , observations , and documentary analysis . One’s methodology should connect to one’s choice of methods, of course, but they are distinguishable terms. See also methodology .

A proposed explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation. The positing of a hypothesis is often the first step in quantitative research but not in qualitative research. Even when qualitative researchers offer possible explanations in advance of conducting research, they will tend to not use the word “hypothesis” as it conjures up the kind of positivist research they are not conducting.

The foundational question to be addressed by the research study. This will form the anchor of the research design, collection, and analysis. Note that in qualitative research, the research question may, and probably will, alter or develop during the course of the research.

An approach to research that collects and analyzes numerical data for the purpose of finding patterns and averages, making predictions, testing causal relationships, and generalizing results to wider populations. Contrast with qualitative research .

Data collection that takes place in real-world settings, referred to as “the field;” a key component of much Grounded Theory and ethnographic research. Patton ( 2002 ) calls fieldwork “the central activity of qualitative inquiry” where “‘going into the field’ means having direct and personal contact with people under study in their own environments – getting close to people and situations being studied to personally understand the realities of minutiae of daily life” (48).

The people who are the subjects of a qualitative study. In interview-based studies, they may be the respondents to the interviewer; for purposes of IRBs, they are often referred to as the human subjects of the research.

The branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. For researchers, it is important to recognize and adopt one of the many distinguishing epistemological perspectives as part of our understanding of what questions research can address or fully answer. See, e.g., constructivism , subjectivism, and objectivism .

An approach that refutes the possibility of neutrality in social science research. All research is “guided by a set of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied” (Denzin and Lincoln 2005: 13). In contrast to positivism , interpretivism recognizes the social constructedness of reality, and researchers adopting this approach focus on capturing interpretations and understandings people have about the world rather than “the world” as it is (which is a chimera).

The cluster of data-collection tools and techniques that involve observing interactions between people, the behaviors, and practices of individuals (sometimes in contrast to what they say about how they act and behave), and cultures in context. Observational methods are the key tools employed by ethnographers and Grounded Theory .

Research based on data collected and analyzed by the research (in contrast to secondary “library” research).

The process of selecting people or other units of analysis to represent a larger population. In quantitative research, this representation is taken quite literally, as statistically representative. In qualitative research, in contrast, sample selection is often made based on potential to generate insight about a particular topic or phenomenon.

A method of data collection in which the researcher asks the participant questions; the answers to these questions are often recorded and transcribed verbatim. There are many different kinds of interviews - see also semistructured interview , structured interview , and unstructured interview .

The specific group of individuals that you will collect data from. Contrast population.

The practice of being conscious of and reflective upon one’s own social location and presence when conducting research. Because qualitative research often requires interaction with live humans, failing to take into account how one’s presence and prior expectations and social location affect the data collected and how analyzed may limit the reliability of the findings. This remains true even when dealing with historical archives and other content. Who we are matters when asking questions about how people experience the world because we, too, are a part of that world.

The science and practice of right conduct; in research, it is also the delineation of moral obligations towards research participants, communities to which we belong, and communities in which we conduct our research.

An administrative body established to protect the rights and welfare of human research subjects recruited to participate in research activities conducted under the auspices of the institution with which it is affiliated. The IRB is charged with the responsibility of reviewing all research involving human participants. The IRB is concerned with protecting the welfare, rights, and privacy of human subjects. The IRB has the authority to approve, disapprove, monitor, and require modifications in all research activities that fall within its jurisdiction as specified by both the federal regulations and institutional policy.

Research, according to US federal guidelines, that involves “a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) conducting research: (1) Obtains information or biospecimens through intervention or interaction with the individual, and uses, studies, or analyzes the information or biospecimens; or (2) Obtains, uses, studies, analyzes, or generates identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens.”

One of the primary methodological traditions of inquiry in qualitative research, ethnography is the study of a group or group culture, largely through observational fieldwork supplemented by interviews. It is a form of fieldwork that may include participant-observation data collection. See chapter 14 for a discussion of deep ethnography.

A form of interview that follows a standard guide of questions asked, although the order of the questions may change to match the particular needs of each individual interview subject, and probing “follow-up” questions are often added during the course of the interview. The semi-structured interview is the primary form of interviewing used by qualitative researchers in the social sciences. It is sometimes referred to as an “in-depth” interview. See also interview and interview guide .

A method of observational data collection taking place in a natural setting; a form of fieldwork . The term encompasses a continuum of relative participation by the researcher (from full participant to “fly-on-the-wall” observer). This is also sometimes referred to as ethnography , although the latter is characterized by a greater focus on the culture under observation.

A research design that employs both quantitative and qualitative methods, as in the case of a survey supplemented by interviews.

An epistemological perspective that posits the existence of reality through sensory experience similar to empiricism but goes further in denying any non-sensory basis of thought or consciousness. In the social sciences, the term has roots in the proto-sociologist August Comte, who believed he could discern “laws” of society similar to the laws of natural science (e.g., gravity). The term has come to mean the kinds of measurable and verifiable science conducted by quantitative researchers and is thus used pejoratively by some qualitative researchers interested in interpretation, consciousness, and human understanding. Calling someone a “positivist” is often intended as an insult. See also empiricism and objectivism.

A place or collection containing records, documents, or other materials of historical interest; most universities have an archive of material related to the university’s history, as well as other “special collections” that may be of interest to members of the community.

A method of both data collection and data analysis in which a given content (textual, visual, graphic) is examined systematically and rigorously to identify meanings, themes, patterns and assumptions. Qualitative content analysis (QCA) is concerned with gathering and interpreting an existing body of material.

A word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data (Saldaña 2021:5).

Usually a verbatim written record of an interview or focus group discussion.

The primary form of data for fieldwork , participant observation , and ethnography . These notes, taken by the researcher either during the course of fieldwork or at day’s end, should include as many details as possible on what was observed and what was said. They should include clear identifiers of date, time, setting, and names (or identifying characteristics) of participants.

The process of labeling and organizing qualitative data to identify different themes and the relationships between them; a way of simplifying data to allow better management and retrieval of key themes and illustrative passages. See coding frame and codebook.

A methodological tradition of inquiry and approach to analyzing qualitative data in which theories emerge from a rigorous and systematic process of induction. This approach was pioneered by the sociologists Glaser and Strauss (1967). The elements of theory generated from comparative analysis of data are, first, conceptual categories and their properties and, second, hypotheses or generalized relations among the categories and their properties – “The constant comparing of many groups draws the [researcher’s] attention to their many similarities and differences. Considering these leads [the researcher] to generate abstract categories and their properties, which, since they emerge from the data, will clearly be important to a theory explaining the kind of behavior under observation.” (36).

A detailed description of any proposed research that involves human subjects for review by IRB. The protocol serves as the recipe for the conduct of the research activity. It includes the scientific rationale to justify the conduct of the study, the information necessary to conduct the study, the plan for managing and analyzing the data, and a discussion of the research ethical issues relevant to the research. Protocols for qualitative research often include interview guides, all documents related to recruitment, informed consent forms, very clear guidelines on the safekeeping of materials collected, and plans for de-identifying transcripts or other data that include personal identifying information.

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Education and Communications

How to Do Qualitative Research

Last Updated: October 26, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jeremiah Kaplan . Jeremiah Kaplan is a Research and Training Specialist at the Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy at Arizona State University. He has extensive knowledge and experience in motivational interviewing. In addition, Jeremiah has worked in the mental health, youth engagement, and trauma-informed care fields. Using his expertise, Jeremiah supervises Arizona State University’s Motivational Interviewing Coding Lab. Jeremiah has also been internationally selected to participate in the Motivational Interviewing International Network of Trainers sponsored Train the Trainer event. Jeremiah holds a BS in Human Services with a concentration in Family and Children from The University of Phoenix. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 747,332 times.

Qualitative research is a broad field of inquiry that uses unstructured data collections methods, such as observations, interviews, surveys and documents, to find themes and meanings to inform our understanding of the world. [1] X Trustworthy Source PubMed Central Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Go to source Qualitative research tends to try to cover the reasons for behaviors, attitudes and motivations, instead of just the details of what, where and when. Qualitative research can be done across many disciplines, such as social sciences, healthcare and businesses, and it is a common feature of nearly every single workplace and educational environment.

Preparing Your Research

Step 1 Decide on a question you want to study.

The research questions is one of the most important pieces of your research design. It determines what you want to learn or understand and also helps to focus the study, since you can't investigate everything at once. Your research question will also shape how you conduct your study since different questions require different methods of inquiry.
You should start with a burning question and then narrow it down more to make it manageable enough to be researched effectively. For example, "what is the meaning of teachers' work to teachers" is too broad for a single research endeavor, but if that's what you're interested you could narrow it by limiting the type of teacher or focusing on one level of education. For example, "what is the meaning of teachers' work to second career teachers?" or "what is the meaning of teachers' work to junior high teachers?"

Tip: Find the balance between a burning question and a researchable question. The former is something you really want to know about and is often quite broad. The latter is one that can be directly investigated using available research methods and tools.

For example, if your research question focuses on how second career teachers attribute meaning to their work, you would want to examine the literature on second career teaching - what motivates people to turn to teaching as a second career? How many teachers are in their second career? Where do most second career teachers work? Doing this reading and review of existing literature and research will help you refine your question and give you the base you need for your own research. It will also give you a sense of the variables that might impact your research (e.g., age, gender, class, etc.) and that you will need to take into consideration in your own study.
A literature review will also help you to determine whether you are really interested and committed to the topic and research question and that there is a gap in the existing research that you want to fill by conducting your own investigation.

Step 3 Evaluate whether qualitative research is the right fit for your research question.

For example, if your research question is "what is the meaning of teachers' work to second career teachers?" , that is not a question that can be answered with a 'yes' or 'no'. Nor is there likely to be a single overarching answer. This means that qualitative research is the best route.

Step 4 Consider your ideal sampling size.

Consider the possible outcomes. Because qualitative methodologies are generally quite broad, there is almost always the possibility that some useful data will come out of the research. This is different than in a quantitative experiment, where an unproven hypothesis can mean that a lot of time has been wasted.
Your research budget and available financial resources should also be considered. Qualitative research is often cheaper and easier to plan and execute. For example, it is usually easier and cost-saving to gather a small number of people for interviews than it is to purchase a computer program that can do statistical analysis and hire the appropriate statisticians.

Step 5 Choose a qualitative research methodology.

Action Research – Action research focuses on solving an immediate problem or working with others to solve problem and address particular issues. [7] X Research source
Ethnography – Ethnography is the study of human interaction in communities through direct participation and observation within the community you wish to study. Ethnographic research comes from the discipline of social and cultural anthropology but is now becoming more widely used. [8] X Research source
Phenomenology – Phenomenology is the study of the subjective experiences of others. It researches the world through the eyes of another person by discovering how they interpret their experiences. [9] X Research source
Grounded Theory – The purpose of grounded theory is to develop theory based on the data systematically collected and analyzed. It looks at specific information and derives theories and reasons for the phenomena.
Case Study Research – This method of qualitative study is an in-depth study of a specific individual or phenomena in its existing context. [10] X Research source

Collecting and Analyzing Your Data

Direct observation – Direct observation of a situation or your research subjects can occur through video tape playback or through live observation. In direct observation, you are making specific observations of a situation without influencing or participating in any way. [12] X Research source For example, perhaps you want to see how second career teachers go about their routines in and outside the classrooms and so you decide to observe them for a few days, being sure to get the requisite permission from the school, students and the teacher and taking careful notes along the way.
Participant observation – Participant observation is the immersion of the researcher in the community or situation being studied. This form of data collection tends to be more time consuming, as you need to participate fully in the community in order to know whether your observations are valid. [13] X Research source
Interviews – Qualitative interviewing is basically the process of gathering data by asking people questions. Interviewing can be very flexible - they can be on-on-one, but can also take place over the phone or Internet or in small groups called "focus groups". There are also different types of interviews. Structured interviews use pre-set questions, whereas unstructured interviews are more free-flowing conversations where the interviewer can probe and explore topics as they come up. Interviews are particularly useful if you want to know how people feel or react to something. For example, it would be very useful to sit down with second career teachers in either a structured or unstructured interview to gain information about how they represent and discuss their teaching careers.
Surveys – Written questionnaires and open ended surveys about ideas, perceptions, and thoughts are other ways by which you can collect data for your qualitative research. For example, in your study of second career schoolteachers, perhaps you decide to do an anonymous survey of 100 teachers in the area because you're concerned that they may be less forthright in an interview situation than in a survey where their identity was anonymous.
"Document analysis" – This involves examining written, visual, and audio documents that exist without any involvement of or instigation by the researcher. There are lots of different kinds of documents, including "official" documents produced by institutions and personal documents, like letters, memoirs, diaries and, in the 21st century, social media accounts and online blogs. For example, if studying education, institutions like public schools produce many different kinds of documents, including reports, flyers, handbooks, websites, curricula, etc. Maybe you can also see if any second career teachers have an online meet group or blog. Document analysis can often be useful to use in conjunction with another method, like interviewing.

Coding – In coding, you assign a word, phrase, or number to each category. Start out with a pre-set list of codes that you derived from your prior knowledge of the subject. For example, "financial issues" or "community involvement" might be two codes you think of after having done your literature review of second career teachers. You then go through all of your data in a systematic way and "code" ideas, concepts and themes as they fit categories. You will also develop another set of codes that emerge from reading and analyzing the data. For example, you may see while coding your interviews, that "divorce" comes up frequently. You can add a code for this. Coding helps you organize your data and identify patterns and commonalities. [15] X Research source tobaccoeval.ucdavis.edu/analysis-reporting/.../CodingQualitativeData.pdf
Descriptive Statistics – You can analyze your data using statistics. Descriptive statistics help describe, show or summarize the data to highlight patterns. For example, if you had 100 principal evaluations of teachers, you might be interested in the overall performance of those students. Descriptive statistics allow you to do that. Keep in mind, however, that descriptive statistics cannot be used to make conclusions and confirm/disprove hypotheses. [16] X Research source
Narrative analysis – Narrative analysis focuses on speech and content, such as grammar, word usage, metaphors, story themes, meanings of situations, the social, cultural and political context of the narrative. [17] X Research source
Hermeneutic Analysis – Hermeneutic analysis focuses on the meaning of a written or oral text. Essentially, you are trying to make sense of the object of study and bring to light some sort of underlying coherence. [18] X Research source
Content analysis / Semiotic analysis – Content or semiotic analysis looks at texts or series of texts and looks for themes and meanings by looking at frequencies of words. Put differently, you try to identify structures and patterned regularities in the verbal or written text and then make inferences on the basis of these regularities. [19] X Research source For example, maybe you find the same words or phrases, like "second chance" or "make a difference," coming up in different interviews with second career teachers and decide to explore what this frequency might signify.

Community Q&A

Qualitative research is often regarded as a precursor to quantitative research, which is a more logical and data-led approach which statistical, mathematical and/or computational techniques. Qualitative research is often used to generate possible leads and formulate a workable hypothesis that is then tested with quantitative methods. [20] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Try to remember the difference between qualitative and quantitative as each will give different data. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470395/
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/writing_a_literature_review.html
↑ https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/31/3/498/2384737?login=false
↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4275140/
↑ http://www.qual.auckland.ac.nz/
↑ http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualapp.php
↑ http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualdata.php
↑ tobaccoeval.ucdavis.edu/analysis-reporting/.../CodingQualitativeData.pdf
↑ https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/descriptive-inferential-statistics.php
↑ https://explorable.com/qualitative-research-design

About This Article

To do qualitative research, start by deciding on a clear, specific question that you want to answer. Then, do a literature review to see what other experts are saying about the topic, and evaluate how you will best be able to answer your question. Choose an appropriate qualitative research method, such as action research, ethnology, phenomenology, grounded theory, or case study research. Collect and analyze data according to your chosen method, determine the answer to your question. For tips on performing a literature review and picking a method for collecting data, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Home » Qualitative Research – Methods, Analysis Types and Guide

Qualitative Research – Methods, Analysis Types and Guide

Table of Contents

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a type of research methodology that focuses on exploring and understanding people’s beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and experiences through the collection and analysis of non-numerical data. It seeks to answer research questions through the examination of subjective data, such as interviews, focus groups, observations, and textual analysis.

Qualitative research aims to uncover the meaning and significance of social phenomena, and it typically involves a more flexible and iterative approach to data collection and analysis compared to quantitative research. Qualitative research is often used in fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, and education.

Qualitative Research Methods

Qualitative Research Methods are as follows:

One-to-One Interview

This method involves conducting an interview with a single participant to gain a detailed understanding of their experiences, attitudes, and beliefs. One-to-one interviews can be conducted in-person, over the phone, or through video conferencing. The interviewer typically uses open-ended questions to encourage the participant to share their thoughts and feelings. One-to-one interviews are useful for gaining detailed insights into individual experiences.

Focus Groups

This method involves bringing together a group of people to discuss a specific topic in a structured setting. The focus group is led by a moderator who guides the discussion and encourages participants to share their thoughts and opinions. Focus groups are useful for generating ideas and insights, exploring social norms and attitudes, and understanding group dynamics.

Ethnographic Studies

This method involves immersing oneself in a culture or community to gain a deep understanding of its norms, beliefs, and practices. Ethnographic studies typically involve long-term fieldwork and observation, as well as interviews and document analysis. Ethnographic studies are useful for understanding the cultural context of social phenomena and for gaining a holistic understanding of complex social processes.

Text Analysis

This method involves analyzing written or spoken language to identify patterns and themes. Text analysis can be quantitative or qualitative. Qualitative text analysis involves close reading and interpretation of texts to identify recurring themes, concepts, and patterns. Text analysis is useful for understanding media messages, public discourse, and cultural trends.

This method involves an in-depth examination of a single person, group, or event to gain an understanding of complex phenomena. Case studies typically involve a combination of data collection methods, such as interviews, observations, and document analysis, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the case. Case studies are useful for exploring unique or rare cases, and for generating hypotheses for further research.

Process of Observation

This method involves systematically observing and recording behaviors and interactions in natural settings. The observer may take notes, use audio or video recordings, or use other methods to document what they see. Process of observation is useful for understanding social interactions, cultural practices, and the context in which behaviors occur.

Record Keeping

This method involves keeping detailed records of observations, interviews, and other data collected during the research process. Record keeping is essential for ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the data, and for providing a basis for analysis and interpretation.

This method involves collecting data from a large sample of participants through a structured questionnaire. Surveys can be conducted in person, over the phone, through mail, or online. Surveys are useful for collecting data on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, and for identifying patterns and trends in a population.

Qualitative data analysis is a process of turning unstructured data into meaningful insights. It involves extracting and organizing information from sources like interviews, focus groups, and surveys. The goal is to understand people’s attitudes, behaviors, and motivations

Qualitative Research Analysis Methods

Qualitative Research analysis methods involve a systematic approach to interpreting and making sense of the data collected in qualitative research. Here are some common qualitative data analysis methods:

Thematic Analysis

This method involves identifying patterns or themes in the data that are relevant to the research question. The researcher reviews the data, identifies keywords or phrases, and groups them into categories or themes. Thematic analysis is useful for identifying patterns across multiple data sources and for generating new insights into the research topic.

Content Analysis

This method involves analyzing the content of written or spoken language to identify key themes or concepts. Content analysis can be quantitative or qualitative. Qualitative content analysis involves close reading and interpretation of texts to identify recurring themes, concepts, and patterns. Content analysis is useful for identifying patterns in media messages, public discourse, and cultural trends.

Discourse Analysis

This method involves analyzing language to understand how it constructs meaning and shapes social interactions. Discourse analysis can involve a variety of methods, such as conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. Discourse analysis is useful for understanding how language shapes social interactions, cultural norms, and power relationships.

Grounded Theory Analysis

This method involves developing a theory or explanation based on the data collected. Grounded theory analysis starts with the data and uses an iterative process of coding and analysis to identify patterns and themes in the data. The theory or explanation that emerges is grounded in the data, rather than preconceived hypotheses. Grounded theory analysis is useful for understanding complex social phenomena and for generating new theoretical insights.

Narrative Analysis

This method involves analyzing the stories or narratives that participants share to gain insights into their experiences, attitudes, and beliefs. Narrative analysis can involve a variety of methods, such as structural analysis, thematic analysis, and discourse analysis. Narrative analysis is useful for understanding how individuals construct their identities, make sense of their experiences, and communicate their values and beliefs.

Phenomenological Analysis

This method involves analyzing how individuals make sense of their experiences and the meanings they attach to them. Phenomenological analysis typically involves in-depth interviews with participants to explore their experiences in detail. Phenomenological analysis is useful for understanding subjective experiences and for developing a rich understanding of human consciousness.

Comparative Analysis

This method involves comparing and contrasting data across different cases or groups to identify similarities and differences. Comparative analysis can be used to identify patterns or themes that are common across multiple cases, as well as to identify unique or distinctive features of individual cases. Comparative analysis is useful for understanding how social phenomena vary across different contexts and groups.

Applications of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research has many applications across different fields and industries. Here are some examples of how qualitative research is used:

Market Research: Qualitative research is often used in market research to understand consumer attitudes, behaviors, and preferences. Researchers conduct focus groups and one-on-one interviews with consumers to gather insights into their experiences and perceptions of products and services.
Health Care: Qualitative research is used in health care to explore patient experiences and perspectives on health and illness. Researchers conduct in-depth interviews with patients and their families to gather information on their experiences with different health care providers and treatments.
Education: Qualitative research is used in education to understand student experiences and to develop effective teaching strategies. Researchers conduct classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers to gather insights into classroom dynamics and instructional practices.
Social Work : Qualitative research is used in social work to explore social problems and to develop interventions to address them. Researchers conduct in-depth interviews with individuals and families to understand their experiences with poverty, discrimination, and other social problems.
Anthropology : Qualitative research is used in anthropology to understand different cultures and societies. Researchers conduct ethnographic studies and observe and interview members of different cultural groups to gain insights into their beliefs, practices, and social structures.
Psychology : Qualitative research is used in psychology to understand human behavior and mental processes. Researchers conduct in-depth interviews with individuals to explore their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Public Policy : Qualitative research is used in public policy to explore public attitudes and to inform policy decisions. Researchers conduct focus groups and one-on-one interviews with members of the public to gather insights into their perspectives on different policy issues.

How to Conduct Qualitative Research

Here are some general steps for conducting qualitative research:

Identify your research question: Qualitative research starts with a research question or set of questions that you want to explore. This question should be focused and specific, but also broad enough to allow for exploration and discovery.
Select your research design: There are different types of qualitative research designs, including ethnography, case study, grounded theory, and phenomenology. You should select a design that aligns with your research question and that will allow you to gather the data you need to answer your research question.
Recruit participants: Once you have your research question and design, you need to recruit participants. The number of participants you need will depend on your research design and the scope of your research. You can recruit participants through advertisements, social media, or through personal networks.
Collect data: There are different methods for collecting qualitative data, including interviews, focus groups, observation, and document analysis. You should select the method or methods that align with your research design and that will allow you to gather the data you need to answer your research question.
Analyze data: Once you have collected your data, you need to analyze it. This involves reviewing your data, identifying patterns and themes, and developing codes to organize your data. You can use different software programs to help you analyze your data, or you can do it manually.
Interpret data: Once you have analyzed your data, you need to interpret it. This involves making sense of the patterns and themes you have identified, and developing insights and conclusions that answer your research question. You should be guided by your research question and use your data to support your conclusions.
Communicate results: Once you have interpreted your data, you need to communicate your results. This can be done through academic papers, presentations, or reports. You should be clear and concise in your communication, and use examples and quotes from your data to support your findings.

Examples of Qualitative Research

Here are some real-time examples of qualitative research:

Customer Feedback: A company may conduct qualitative research to understand the feedback and experiences of its customers. This may involve conducting focus groups or one-on-one interviews with customers to gather insights into their attitudes, behaviors, and preferences.
Healthcare : A healthcare provider may conduct qualitative research to explore patient experiences and perspectives on health and illness. This may involve conducting in-depth interviews with patients and their families to gather information on their experiences with different health care providers and treatments.
Education : An educational institution may conduct qualitative research to understand student experiences and to develop effective teaching strategies. This may involve conducting classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers to gather insights into classroom dynamics and instructional practices.
Social Work: A social worker may conduct qualitative research to explore social problems and to develop interventions to address them. This may involve conducting in-depth interviews with individuals and families to understand their experiences with poverty, discrimination, and other social problems.
Anthropology : An anthropologist may conduct qualitative research to understand different cultures and societies. This may involve conducting ethnographic studies and observing and interviewing members of different cultural groups to gain insights into their beliefs, practices, and social structures.
Psychology : A psychologist may conduct qualitative research to understand human behavior and mental processes. This may involve conducting in-depth interviews with individuals to explore their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Public Policy: A government agency or non-profit organization may conduct qualitative research to explore public attitudes and to inform policy decisions. This may involve conducting focus groups and one-on-one interviews with members of the public to gather insights into their perspectives on different policy issues.

Purpose of Qualitative Research

The purpose of qualitative research is to explore and understand the subjective experiences, behaviors, and perspectives of individuals or groups in a particular context. Unlike quantitative research, which focuses on numerical data and statistical analysis, qualitative research aims to provide in-depth, descriptive information that can help researchers develop insights and theories about complex social phenomena.

Qualitative research can serve multiple purposes, including:

Exploring new or emerging phenomena : Qualitative research can be useful for exploring new or emerging phenomena, such as new technologies or social trends. This type of research can help researchers develop a deeper understanding of these phenomena and identify potential areas for further study.
Understanding complex social phenomena : Qualitative research can be useful for exploring complex social phenomena, such as cultural beliefs, social norms, or political processes. This type of research can help researchers develop a more nuanced understanding of these phenomena and identify factors that may influence them.
Generating new theories or hypotheses: Qualitative research can be useful for generating new theories or hypotheses about social phenomena. By gathering rich, detailed data about individuals’ experiences and perspectives, researchers can develop insights that may challenge existing theories or lead to new lines of inquiry.
Providing context for quantitative data: Qualitative research can be useful for providing context for quantitative data. By gathering qualitative data alongside quantitative data, researchers can develop a more complete understanding of complex social phenomena and identify potential explanations for quantitative findings.

When to use Qualitative Research

Here are some situations where qualitative research may be appropriate:

Exploring a new area: If little is known about a particular topic, qualitative research can help to identify key issues, generate hypotheses, and develop new theories.
Understanding complex phenomena: Qualitative research can be used to investigate complex social, cultural, or organizational phenomena that are difficult to measure quantitatively.
Investigating subjective experiences: Qualitative research is particularly useful for investigating the subjective experiences of individuals or groups, such as their attitudes, beliefs, values, or emotions.
Conducting formative research: Qualitative research can be used in the early stages of a research project to develop research questions, identify potential research participants, and refine research methods.
Evaluating interventions or programs: Qualitative research can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions or programs by collecting data on participants’ experiences, attitudes, and behaviors.

Characteristics of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is characterized by several key features, including:

Focus on subjective experience: Qualitative research is concerned with understanding the subjective experiences, beliefs, and perspectives of individuals or groups in a particular context. Researchers aim to explore the meanings that people attach to their experiences and to understand the social and cultural factors that shape these meanings.
Use of open-ended questions: Qualitative research relies on open-ended questions that allow participants to provide detailed, in-depth responses. Researchers seek to elicit rich, descriptive data that can provide insights into participants’ experiences and perspectives.
Sampling-based on purpose and diversity: Qualitative research often involves purposive sampling, in which participants are selected based on specific criteria related to the research question. Researchers may also seek to include participants with diverse experiences and perspectives to capture a range of viewpoints.
Data collection through multiple methods: Qualitative research typically involves the use of multiple data collection methods, such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, and observation. This allows researchers to gather rich, detailed data from multiple sources, which can provide a more complete picture of participants’ experiences and perspectives.
Inductive data analysis: Qualitative research relies on inductive data analysis, in which researchers develop theories and insights based on the data rather than testing pre-existing hypotheses. Researchers use coding and thematic analysis to identify patterns and themes in the data and to develop theories and explanations based on these patterns.
Emphasis on researcher reflexivity: Qualitative research recognizes the importance of the researcher’s role in shaping the research process and outcomes. Researchers are encouraged to reflect on their own biases and assumptions and to be transparent about their role in the research process.

Advantages of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research offers several advantages over other research methods, including:

Depth and detail: Qualitative research allows researchers to gather rich, detailed data that provides a deeper understanding of complex social phenomena. Through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and observation, researchers can gather detailed information about participants’ experiences and perspectives that may be missed by other research methods.
Flexibility : Qualitative research is a flexible approach that allows researchers to adapt their methods to the research question and context. Researchers can adjust their research methods in real-time to gather more information or explore unexpected findings.
Contextual understanding: Qualitative research is well-suited to exploring the social and cultural context in which individuals or groups are situated. Researchers can gather information about cultural norms, social structures, and historical events that may influence participants’ experiences and perspectives.
Participant perspective : Qualitative research prioritizes the perspective of participants, allowing researchers to explore subjective experiences and understand the meanings that participants attach to their experiences.
Theory development: Qualitative research can contribute to the development of new theories and insights about complex social phenomena. By gathering rich, detailed data and using inductive data analysis, researchers can develop new theories and explanations that may challenge existing understandings.
Validity : Qualitative research can offer high validity by using multiple data collection methods, purposive and diverse sampling, and researcher reflexivity. This can help ensure that findings are credible and trustworthy.

Limitations of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research also has some limitations, including:

Subjectivity : Qualitative research relies on the subjective interpretation of researchers, which can introduce bias into the research process. The researcher’s perspective, beliefs, and experiences can influence the way data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted.
Limited generalizability: Qualitative research typically involves small, purposive samples that may not be representative of larger populations. This limits the generalizability of findings to other contexts or populations.
Time-consuming: Qualitative research can be a time-consuming process, requiring significant resources for data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
Resource-intensive: Qualitative research may require more resources than other research methods, including specialized training for researchers, specialized software for data analysis, and transcription services.
Limited reliability: Qualitative research may be less reliable than quantitative research, as it relies on the subjective interpretation of researchers. This can make it difficult to replicate findings or compare results across different studies.
Ethics and confidentiality: Qualitative research involves collecting sensitive information from participants, which raises ethical concerns about confidentiality and informed consent. Researchers must take care to protect the privacy and confidentiality of participants and obtain informed consent.

Also see Research Methods

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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The Ultimate Guide to Qualitative Research - Part 1: The Basics

Introduction and overview
What is qualitative research?
What is qualitative data?
Examples of qualitative data
Qualitative vs. quantitative research
Mixed methods
Introduction

How do you prepare for qualitative research?

Qualities of good study design, components of qualitative research, theoretical perspective, theoretical framework.

Literature reviews

Research question

Conceptual framework.

Conceptual vs. theoretical framework
Data collection
Qualitative research methods
Focus groups
Observational research
Case studies
Ethnographical research
Ethical considerations
Confidentiality and privacy
Power dynamics
Reflexivity

Qualitative research preparation

Robust qualitative data collection and qualitative data analysis rely on thorough preparation, which can adequately guide your choice of theories and qualitative research methods . Conducting qualitative research requires consideration of important theoretical and methodological elements before the study can be considered rigorous and trustworthy. With that in mind, this section will preview the subsequent sections exploring the essential components of a qualitative study.

Quantitative research design is arguably more straightforward than qualitative research design. Studies that require statistical analyses, for example, can rely on clear pre-established processes and rely on statistical analysis programs to produce results. On the other hand, qualitative research methodology depends on what assumptions are made about the topic and object of inquiry. As a result, qualitative researchers have to deeply consider the epistemology informing the study design before deciding on qualitative research methods or what the qualitative research data will look like.

The traditional " paradigm wars " over whether quantitative research is better than qualitative research or vice versa presented numerous critiques that have, ironically, been good for qualitative researchers in the long run. These critiques have called on researchers to critically consider their theoretical assumptions and methodology in a manner that has allowed them and their peers to distinguish a rigorous study from a poorly designed one. More specifically, study design is important in qualitative research for several reasons:

Flexibility : Qualitative research often involves exploring complex, multifaceted phenomena that cannot be easily measured or quantified. As a result, the research design must be flexible enough to accommodate new insights or emerging themes as they arise during the data collection and data analysis .

Emphasis on context : Qualitative research often emphasizes the importance of context in shaping individual experiences and social phenomena. As a result, the research design must be sensitive to the specific cultural, social, and historical contexts in which the research is conducted.

Subjectivity : Qualitative research often acknowledges the role of the researcher's own subjectivity in shaping the research process and findings. As a result, the research design must account for the researcher's own biases and perspectives and strive to minimize their impact on the research process.

Richness and depth of data : Qualitative research often aims to produce rich, detailed data that can provide a deep understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. As a result, the research design must be tailored to produce data that is rich in detail and depth, such as through in-depth interviews or participant observation .

Importance of interpretation : Qualitative research often involves interpreting data and identifying patterns or themes that emerge from the data. As a result, the research design must be structured in a way that allows for systematic analysis and interpretation of data.

Overall, study design is important in qualitative research because it allows the researcher to tailor the research process to the unique characteristics of the phenomenon under investigation and to produce rich, detailed data that can provide a deep understanding of the phenomenon. By emphasizing context, subjectivity, and interpretation, qualitative research can produce nuanced, complex insights that may not be captured through quantitative research methods.

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Just as quantitative research methods commonly adhere to the scientific process, a rigorous qualitative research process has essential components that require consideration for scholars to think of a study as credible and trustworthy. These components guide a research project toward appropriate theories, methods, and analytical strategies. After all, you might like to conduct a focus group if it is your favorite qualitative method, but do your research questions call for using focus groups? Do the theoretical foundations embedded in your research make focus groups an appropriate data collection strategy? Do you have a comprehensive theoretical framework to adequately capture the insights you need from focus group data?

Knowing the answers to these questions is crucial for presenting a credible and persuasive study. With that in mind, here are the necessary elements typically found in qualitative research:

The theoretical perspective is the philosophical stance or worldview that underlies the researcher's approach to understanding the phenomenon of interest. This perspective can shape the entire course of the study, from defining the research question to selecting the methodology , analyzing the data , and interpreting the findings . It often involves broad assumptions about society and human behavior, and it can be informed by theories from a variety of disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, or anthropology. For example, a researcher with a constructivist perspective may seek to understand how individuals construct their own realities. In contrast, a researcher with a postmodern perspective may focus on the power dynamics and social constructions that shape people's experiences.

The theoretical framework is the lens through which the research question is viewed and examined. It is the application of a specific theoretical perspective to the phenomenon under investigation. It may involve one or multiple theories or models, which provide a conceptual structure for interpreting and understanding the research data. The theoretical framework guides the development of research questions and hypotheses, and it shapes the design of the study, including the data collection and analysis methods. Importantly, the theoretical framework also provides a basis for making logical inferences and generalizations from the research findings. For example, a researcher studying the impact of social media on body image might draw on social comparison theory to frame their investigation.

Literature review

The literature review is a rigorous and systematic examination of the body of knowledge that has been published on a particular topic. It provides an understanding of the current state of knowledge, identifies key concepts and variables relevant to the research question, and uncovers gaps or inconsistencies in the existing literature that the current research can address. It involves a careful selection and critical appraisal of studies, with the aim of understanding the strengths and limitations of previous research. In addition to summarizing and synthesizing the findings of previous studies, the literature review should also discuss how the current study fits within the broader research context. For instance, in the case of research on social media's impact on body image, the literature review might highlight different aspects of the issue that have been studied, such as the role of peer comparison, the impact of influencers, and the effect of different types of social media platforms.

The research question is a specific question or set of questions that the research aims to answer. The research question is typically informed by the theoretical perspective, theoretical framework, and literature review. The question you pursue will determine which qualitative methods are appropriate for your research, or it may even steer you toward quantitative methods. A study that investigates customer perspectives may warrant surveys or focus groups . An analysis of discourses may rely on a detailed coding process or content analysis methods to measure the use of certain expressions or words. An inquiry about cultural processes can call for an ethnographic research method for collecting qualitative data in the field for thorough understanding.

The conceptual framework serves as a roadmap for the research process, providing a clear picture of the proposed study. It's a researcher's individual interpretation of how the key parts of the study — the variables or concepts — are expected to relate to each other. This framework typically includes a set of concepts or variables that are directly related to the research question, as well as a set of propositions or hypotheses about how these concepts or variables are interconnected. While the conceptual framework may draw from multiple theoretical perspectives, it is tailored specifically to the research question at hand and the specific context of the study.

For example, in a study on the impact of online learning on student performance, the conceptual framework may include variables such as the frequency of online classes, student engagement, access to technology, and academic achievement. It might propose that a higher frequency of online classes and greater access to technology lead to increased student engagement, which in turn boosts academic performance. The conceptual framework also guides the data collection and analysis process, helping researchers to stay focused on the research objectives and to interpret their findings in a meaningful way. It ensures a systematic and rigorous approach to the research, and it provides a framework for reporting the research findings and for discussing their implications. Importantly, a well-developed conceptual framework can also make the research more credible and understandable to others, and it can help to identify potential limitations and areas for future research.

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Venturing into Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide to Getting Started

Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research Journal

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In this commentary, we offer an introduction to qualitative research. Our goal is to provide guidance so that others can avoid common missteps and benefit from our lessons learned. We explain what qualitative data and research are, the value of qualitative research, and features that make qualitative research excellent, as well as how qualitative data can be collected and used to study undergraduate research. Our advice and recommendations are targeted at researchers who, like us, were first trained in fields with tendencies to overlook or underestimate qualitative research and its contributions. We share examples from our own and others’ research related to undergraduate research settings. We provide a table of resources researchers may find useful as they continue to learn about and conduct qualitative studies.

Introduction

We both started our scholarly journeys as biologists. As we trained, we both grew interested in researching undergraduate education and we transitioned to doing education research. We quickly came to realize that our training in experimental approaches and quantitative methods was woefully insufficient to study the diversity of ways students think, believe, value, feel, behave, and change in a variety of learning environments and educational systems.

For instance, there are established ways to quantify some educational variables, but not others. In addition, there may be phenomena at play that we haven’t thought of or that might be counterintuitive, which could lead us to quantify things that end up being irrelevant or meaningless. Herein lies the power of qualitative research. Qualitative research generates new knowledge by enabling rich, multifaceted descriptions of phenomena of interest, known as constructs (i.e., latent, unobservable variables), and producing possible explanations of how phenomena are occurring (i.e., mechanisms or relationships between constructs in different contexts and situations with different individuals and groups).

In this essay, we aim to offer an approachable explanation of qualitative research, including the types of questions that qualitative research is suited to address, the characteristics of robust qualitative research, and guidance on how to get started. We use examples from our own and others’ research to illustrate our explanations, and we cite references where readers can learn more. We expect Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research (SPUR) readers from disciplines with a tradition of qualitative research might question why we would write this piece and what makes us qualified to do so. There are many scholars with much more qualitative research expertise than we have. Yet, we think we can offer a unique perspective to SPUR readers who are new to qualitative research or coming from disciplines where qualitative research is unfamiliar or undervalued. We have both designed, conducted, and published qualitative research in the context of undergraduate education and research experiences. We draw upon this experience in the recommendations we offer here.

Doing qualitative research involves acknowledging your “positionality,” or how your own background, lived experiences, and philosophical understandings of research influence how you approach and interpret the work (e.g., Hampton, Reeping, and Ozkan 2021; Holmes and Darwin 2020). Our positionalities have influenced our approach to this article and qualitative research generally. I (MAP) first learned about qualitative research from my undergraduate academic adviser. She invited me to help her implement and evaluate a capstone course in which groups of microbiology undergraduates engaged in a semester-long research project to address problems faced by community organizations (Watson, Willford, and Pfeifer 2018). At the time, I wasn’t aware of the long-standing history of qualitative research or its different forms and approaches. I just knew that reading quote data helped me understand human experiences in a way that survey numbers did not. Since my introduction to qualitative research, I’ve been fortunate to receive formal training. I consider my most valuable lessons about qualitative research to be through the practical experience of doing qualitative research and being mentored by qualitative researchers.

When I (ELD) first learned about qualitative research, I thought it meant words – perhaps collected through surveys, focus groups, interviews, or class recordings. I thought qualitative research would be easy – it was just words after all, and I had been using words almost my whole life. I assumed if I collected some words and summarized what I thought they meant (think word cloud), I would be doing qualitative research. As we will elaborate here, this is a limited view of what qualitative research is and what qualitative research can accomplish. When I began presenting qualitative research, I found it helpful to draw analogies to qualitative studies in natural science and medical disciplines. For instance, in the field of biology, the invention of technologies (e.g., lenses, microscopes) allowed for detailed observation and rich descriptions of cells (i.e., qualitative research) that led to the development of cell theory, the establishment of the field of cell biology, and quantitative research on cell structure, function, and dysfunction. In my own field of neuroscience, Henry Moliason, known as HM, was the focus of qualitative case study because he lost the ability to form new long-term memories due to a surgical treatment for severe epilepsy. Rich (i.e., comprehensive and detailed) description of Mr. Moliason’s memory impairment was the basis for hippocampal function being proposed as the main mechanism through which memories are formed. These examples of “non-numbery” research that produce influential descriptions and testable mechanisms helped me recognize the potential value and impact of qualitative research.

Types of Qualitative Research Questions

Qualitative research is useful for addressing two main types of questions: descriptive and mechanistic. Descriptive questions ask what is happening, for whom, and in what circumstances. Mechanistic questions ask how a phenomenon of interest happening. Here we explain each type of question and highlight some example studies conducted in the context of undergraduate research.

Descriptive Questions

Descriptive research seeks to elucidate details that enhance our overall understanding of a particular phenomenon—it answers questions about what a phenomenon is, including its defining features (i.e., dimensions) and what makes it distinct from other phenomena (Loeb et al. 2017). Descriptive research can also reveal who experiences the phenomenon, as well as when and where a phenomenon occurs (Loeb et al. 2017). Details like these serve as a starting point for future research, policy development, and enhanced practice. For instance, Hunter, Laursen, and Seymour (2007) carried out a qualitative study that identified and described the benefits of undergraduate research from the perspectives of both students and faculty. This work prompted calls for expansion of undergraduate research nationally and led to numerous quantitative studies (Gentile, Brenner, and Stephens 2017). Among these were quantitative studies from our group on the influences of research mentors on undergraduate researchers (Aikens et al. 2016, 2017; Joshi, Aikens, and Dolan 2019). Although these studies were framed to identify beneficial outcomes, we observed that undergraduates who had less favorable experiences with mentors were opting not to participate in our studies. Given this observation and the dearth of research on negative experiences in undergraduate research, we carried out a descriptive qualitative study of the dimensions (i.e., the what) of negative mentoring—that is, problematic or ineffective mentoring—in undergraduate life science research (Limeri et al. 2019). This study revealed that negative mentoring in undergraduate research included the absence of support from mentors and actively harmful mentor behaviors. These results served as the basis for practical guidance on how to curtail negative mentoring and its effects and for ongoing quantitative research. We use this study as the basis for the extended examples highlighted in Table 1.

Descriptive research is also suited to investigating the experiences of groups that are marginalized or minoritized in higher education. These studies offer insights into student experiences that may be otherwise overlooked or masked in larger quantitative studies (Vaccaro et al. 2015). For example, descriptive qualitative research shed light on how Black women in undergraduate and graduate STEM programs recognized and responded to structural racism, sexism, and race-gender bias. This research identified how high-achieving Black STEM students experienced racial battle fatigue and offered program-level suggestions for how to better support Black students (McGee and Bentley 2017). Descriptive qualitative research of deaf students involved in undergraduate research revealed that lack of awareness of Deaf culture of research mentors as well as lack of communication hindered students’ research experiences (Majocha et al. 2018). This research led to recommendations for research programs, research mentors, and students themselves. Another descriptive qualitative study showed how Latine students’ science identity changed over time when involved in an undergraduate research program (Vasquez-Salgado et al. 2023). Specifically, Vasguez-Salgado and colleagues identified patterns in students’ science identity through three waves of data collection spanning 18 months. Students’ identities showed consistent or fast achievement of feeling like a scientist, gradual achievement of feeling like a scientist, achievement adjustment of feeling like a scientist at one point and less so later in the program, or never feeling like a scientist. Together, these and other studies have generated knowledge that raises questions for future research and informs our collective efforts to make undergraduate research more accessible and inclusive.

Mechanistic Questions

Mechanistic qualitative research aims to address questions of how or why a phenomenon occurs. In the context of undergraduate research, an investigator may seek to understand how or why a particular practice or program design affects students. Recently, we conducted a mechanistic qualitative study that aimed, in part, to understand how early career researchers (undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate students) conceptualized their science identity (Pfeifer et al. 2023). Previous research theorized that someone is more likely to identify as a scientist if they are interested in science, believe they are competent in and can perform science, and feel recognized by others for their scientific aptitude or accomplishments (Carlone and Johnson 2007; Hazari et al. 2010; Potvin and Hazari 2013). However, this theory is somewhat limited in that it does not fully explain how context affects science identity or how science identity evolves, especially as researchers advance in their scientific training (Hazari et al. 2020; Kim and Sinatra 2018). To address this, we integrated science identity theory with research on professional identity development to design our study (Pratt, Rockmann, and Kaufmann 2006). We analyzed data from two national samples, including open-ended survey responses from 548 undergraduates engaged in research training and interview data from 30 early career researchers in the natural sciences. We found that they conceptualized science identity as a continuum that encompassed being a science student, being a science researcher, and being a career researcher. How students saw their science identity depended on how they viewed the purpose of their daily research, the level of intellectual responsibility they have for their research, and the extent of their autonomy in their research. We consider these findings to be hypotheses that can be tested quantitatively to better understand science identity dynamics in research training contexts. By asking this mechanistic question about science identity, we sought to add to and refine existing theory.

Key Attributes of Qualitative Research

For any type of research to be meaningful, it must possess some degree of rigor—what qualitative researchers call trustworthiness (Morse et al. 2002; Yilmaz 2013). Qualitative research is more trustworthy if it is characterized by credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Creswell and Poth 2016; Lincoln and Guba 1985). For instance, like accuracy and precision in quantitative research, do qualitative findings reflect what is being studied and are the interpretations true to the data (credibility)? Similar to reproducibility in quantitative research, how can qualitative research findings be applied to similar contexts (transferability)? Like validity in quantitative research, to what degree are the framing, methods, and findings of qualitative research appropriate given the aims (dependability)? Similar to the idea of replicability in quantitative research, if the same analytic tools were applied to the same data set could similar findings be reached by someone outside the original research team (confirmability)? The exact dimensions of trustworthiness, how trustworthiness manifests in the research process, the best ways to achieve trustworthiness, and how to talk about trustworthiness in research products are the subject of ongoing and often-spirited debate (e.g., Gioia et al. 2022; Mays and Pope 2020; Morse et al. 2002; Ritchie et al. 2013; Tracy 2010; Welch 2018; Yadav 2022). Central to these dialogues is the fact that qualitative research is composed of different philosophical approaches that emerged and evolved from diverse social science fields (Creswell and Poth 2016; Ritchie et al. 2013). Identifying universally agreed-upon criteria and the means to achieve these criteria is complex.

In our own work, we have found Tracy’s (2010) eight criteria for excellent qualitative research particularly useful. These criteria have helped us design studies, make decisions during the course of research, and articulate in our papers how our research seeks to achieve trustworthiness (e.g., Pfeifer, Cordero, and Stanton 2023). The full list of criteria is: worthy topic, rich rigor, sincerity, credibility, resonance, significant contribution, ethical conduct, and meaningful coherence (Tracy 2010). These criteria borrow from and build on the presented concepts of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. In our view, these criteria are presented and described in a way that makes sense to us and fits our approach to research. Here we highlight two criteria that may be particularly relevant if you are new to qualitative research.

Worthy Topics

As scholars familiar with undergraduate research and scholarly inquiry, SPUR readers are well-positioned to design studies that address research questions that are significant and timely in the context of undergraduate research. The first step in doing qualitative research (or any research) is to figure out what you want to study. You’ll want to select a topic that you find interesting, relevant, or otherwise compelling so you are motivated to spend time and effort investigating it. One way to find a topic is to notice what is happening in your environment and your work. What are you observing about undergraduate research? Something about students who participate (or not)? Something about colleagues who work with undergraduate researchers (or not)? Something about the design, implementation, or outcomes of the research experience? Something about the programmatic or institutional context? For a topic to be worthy of research, it should be interesting to you and to others. Consider sharing your observations with a few critical friends (i.e., trusted colleagues who will give you honest feedback) about whether they find your observations interesting or worth your time and energy to explore.

Like other human research, qualitative studies must adhere to basic ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects 1978). Respect for persons means treating all people as autonomous and protecting individuals with diminished autonomy (e.g., students whom we teach and assess). Beneficence involves treating people in an ethical manner, including respecting their decisions, protecting them from harm, and securing their well-being. Justice refers to the balance between benefiting from research and bearing its burdens; in other words, people should be able to benefit from research and should not be expected to bear the burden of research if they cannot benefit. Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to provide guidance on how to adhere to these principles, it is important to recognize that qualitative methods like interviewing can be highly personal and sometimes powerful experiences for both participants (and researchers). Investigators should carefully consider how their participants may be affected by data collection. For example, you may interview or survey participants about a personally difficult or painful experience. Do you then bear responsibility for helping them find support to navigate these difficulties? What if a participant reveals to you a serious mental health issue or physical safety concern? These situations occurred during our negative mentoring studies. We provided information to participants about where they could seek counseling or support for specific issues that can occur with mentors, such as harassment and discrimination.

Certainly not all qualitative data collection brings up these issues, but it can and does happen more frequently than you might expect. Your institutional review board (IRB), collaborators, and critical friends can be helpful resources when planning for and navigating tough scenarios like this. If working with an IRB is new to you, we recommend finding colleagues at your institution who have conducted IRB-reviewed research and asking them for guidance and examples. Some IRBs offer training for individuals new to developing human research protocols, and there are likely to be templates for everything from recruitment letters to consent forms to study information. We have found the process of developing IRB protocols helps refine research questions and study plans. Furthermore, IRB review is needed before you collect data that will be used for your study; IRBs rarely if ever allow for retrospective review and approval. In our experience, these studies are likely to be determined as exempt from IRB review because they involve minimal risk and use standard educational research procedures. However, the IRB is still responsible for making this determination and is a valuable partner for helping investigators navigate sensitive or complex situations that occur in human research.

Getting Started with Qualitative Research

Now that you have a sense of the purposes of qualitative research and what features help to ensure its quality, you are probably wondering how to do it. We want to emphasize that there are entire programs of study, whole courses, and lengthy texts that aim to teach qualitative research. We cannot come close to describing what can be learned from these more substantial resources. With this is mind, we share our own process of carrying out qualitative research as an example that others might find helpful to follow. We outline this “how to” as a series of steps, but qualitative research (like all research) is iterative and dynamic (University of California Museum of Paleontology 2022). Feel free to read through the steps in a linear fashion but then move in non-linear ways through the various steps. Extended discussion of each of these steps with examples from our research on negative mentoring is provided in Table 1 along with an abridged list of our go-to references.

Observe, Search, and Read

For a topic to be worthy of qualitative research (or any research), it should also have the potential to address a knowledge gap. After we identify a “worthy topic,” we try to find as much information about that topic as possible (Dolan 2013). We read, then we keep reading, and then we read some more. This may seem obvious, but we find that investing time reading literature can save us a lot of time designing, conducting, and writing up a study on a phenomenon that is already well known or understood by others and just not (yet) by us. To help us in our searching, we will sometimes reach out to colleagues in related fields to describe the phenomenon we are interested in studying and see if they have terms that they use to describe the phenomenon or theories they think are related. Theory informs our research questions, study designs, analytic approaches, and interpretation and reporting of findings, and enables alignment among all of these elements of research (e.g., Grant and Osanloo 2014; Luft et al. 2022; Spangler and Williams 2019). Theory also serves as a touchstone for connecting our findings to larger bodies of knowledge and communicating these connections in a way that promotes collective understanding of whatever we are investigating.

Formulate a Question

Once you have selected a topic and identified a knowledge gap, consider research questions that, if answered, would address the knowledge gap. Recall that qualitative research is suited to questions that require a descriptive (what) or mechanistic (how) answer.

Decide on a Study Design

Just like quantitative research, qualitative research has characteristic approaches, designs, and methodologies, each of which has affordances and constraints (Creswell and Poth 2016; Merriam 2014; Miles, Huberman, and Saldana 2014). Creswell and Poth provide a valuable resource for learning more about different types of qualitative research study designs, including which designs are suited to address which kinds of research questions. Given the labor intensiveness of qualitative data collection and analysis, it is critical to think carefully about how to recruit and select study participants. What this looks like and who might be appropriate study participants will depend on many factors, including the knowledge gap, research question, study design, and methods. Questions that can be helpful to ask are: Who do I need to study to answer my research question? What should the study participants have in common? In what ways should study participants vary to provide rich, complex, and varied insight into what I am studying? To whom do I want to generalize my findings, keeping in mind the qualitative nature of the work?

Based on the answers to these questions, you may opt for purposeful sampling in which you collect data only from participants who meet the characteristics you decide upon given the aims of your study. In this case, you will likely send a screening survey to potential participants to determine what their characteristics of interest are, which will help you decide if you will invite them for further data collection or not. A purposeful sample contrasts with a convenience sample where essentially any person who agrees to participate in the study will be selected for further data collection.

Collect and Analyze Data Systematically

Qualitative data can be collected in a variety of ways, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups, as well as audio and video recordings of learning experiences such as class sessions. To decide which method(s) to use for data collection, it is helpful to consider what you aim to learn from study participants. Surveys tend to be easier to distribute to a larger sample, but may elicit shorter or shallower responses, which are challenging to interpret because there is less information (i.e., words) and no opportunity to clarify with participants. Focus groups can be effective for quickly gathering input from a group of participants. However, social dynamics may result in one or a few people dominating the discussion, or “group think,” when people agree with one another rather than providing their own unique perspectives. Interviews with individuals can be a rich and varied data source because each participant has time and space to offer their own distinct perspective. Interviews also allow for follow-up questions that are difficult through survey methods. Yet, conducting interviews skillfully—avoiding leading questions and ensuring that the line of questioning yields the desired data—takes a lot of thought and practice. Kvale (1996) offers detailed guidance on how to design and carry out research interviews. Observing an expert interviewer and having them observe and give feedback as you interview can help improve your skills. Audio and video recordings of learning experiences like class sessions or group work can provide a plethora of information (e.g., verbal and nonverbal exchanges among students or between students and instructors) in a more natural setting than surveys or interviews. Yet deciding what information will serve as data to answer your research question, or how that large body of data will be systematically analyzed, can be cumbersome.

Regardless of the data collection method, you’ll need to decide how much data to collect. There is no one right sample size. A good rule of thumb is collecting data until you reach “saturation,” which is the notion that the same ideas are coming up repeatedly and that no new ideas are emerging during data collection. This means that your data collection and analysis are likely to overlap in time, with some data collection then some analysis and then more data collection.

Analytic methods in qualitative research vary widely in their interpretive complexity. As natural scientists, we favor sticking close to the data and analyzing using a method called qualitative content analysis. Content analysis involves taking quotes or segments of text and capturing their meaning with short words or phrases called codes. The process of developing codes and systematically applying them to a dataset is called coding. Coding is highly iterative and time-consuming because it typically requires multiple, careful passes through the dataset to ensure all codes have been evenly applied to all data. In a recent study, we spent 10 to 15 person-hours to code a single interview, and about 400 person-hours to complete coding for a 30-participant study. The time involved in coding depends on what is being studied, the type of coding, and who is coding the data. Saldaña (2016) provides excellent guidance on the coding process, including various ways of making sense of codes by grouping them into themes. Content analysis is just one approach to qualitative data analysis. We encourage you to learn more about different forms of qualitative approaches and choose what works best for you, including your skill level, research goals, and data (e.g., Creswell and Poth 2016; Starks and Brown Trinidad 2007).

Interpret and Write Results

There are many ways to effectively write up results, often called findings, from qualitative research. Because qualitative research involves extensive interpretation, it can sometimes be easier to integrate the results and discussion of a qualitative paper. Integration allows the interpretation (discussion) to be directly supported by the evidence in the form of quotations (results). The conclusions of the paper should avoid repeating the results and instead comment on the implications and applications of the findings: why they matter and what to do as a result. Because qualitative data are quotations rather than numbers, qualitative papers tend to be longer than papers presenting quantitative studies. That said, qualitative papers should still aim to be succinct. For instance, depending on the approach and methods, quotations can be lightly edited to remove extra words or filler language (e.g., um, uh) that is a natural part of language but otherwise irrelevant to the findings. Presenting only the most pertinent part of a quotation not only facilitates succinctness, but helps readers attend to the specific evidence that supports the claims being made. Another strategy to shorten qualitative papers is to present some findings in supplemental materials.

Final Recommendations

In closing our article, we offer some advice that we wish we knew when we began conducting qualitative research. We hope that these recommendations will help you think through issues that are likely emerge as you delve deeper into qualitative analysis, both as a producer and a consumer of qualitative research.

Consensus Coding in Qualitative Analysis

In qualitative analysis, we work to ensure that the analysis yields trustworthy findings by coding to consensus, meaning that the analytic team reaches 100 percent agreement on the application of each code to the data. Any disagreement between coders is discussed until a resolution is resolved. In some cases, these discussions may result in a code description being redefined. Redefinition of a code requires that all data previously coded using the original code be reanalyzed to ensure fit with the revised definition. As you might imagine, coding to consensus can be time-consuming. Yet, in our experience, the time invested in coding to consensus is well spent because the analysis yields deeper insights about the data and phenomenon being investigated. We also see coding to consensus as a great way to take advantage of the diverse viewpoints that team members bring to our research. By coding to consensus, we consider multiple interpretations of the data throughout the analysis process. We are well-positioned to develop theory (as appropriate for our study design) as a team because we all have engaged in meaningful conversations about our findings throughout analysis.

Some qualitative research relies on a calculated measure of intercoder reliability (ICR) instead of coding to consensus. ICR values indicate how often a set of coders agree on the application of a code in the dataset. This quantification of coding is tempting because we love numbers, yet it can also be problematic (O’Connor and Joffe 2020). For instance, aiming for high ICR can create situations when coders are pressured to agree with each other rather than bringing their own unique perspective to the coding process (e.g., Belur et al. 2018; Morse 1997). Quantifying qualitative work also can imply a false precision in the analysis. In some research, ICR is calculated partway through the analysis to determine whether an “acceptable” level of agreement has been reached, at which point the remainder of the data are coded by just one researcher. This approach of using ICR as a cut-off runs counter to what many argue is the value of qualitative research: generating new theoretical understandings informed by multiple perspectives.

Using Numbers in Qualitative Analysis

Although numbers certainly have a place in qualitative analysis (Sandelowski 2001), we encourage researchers to move beyond word clouds or frequency counts of codes and themes in their results for two reasons. First, a code or theme that is infrequently observed in the data set can still be important to the phenomenon being studied. As an analogy, consider making qualitative observations of living cells under a typical light microscope. We would most frequently see a relatively stationary cell that is punctuated by a relatively rare cell division or mitosis. If we only reported stationary observations in findings, we would overlook describing mitosis, one of the most dynamic and fundamental processes that cells display. Second, given limited sample sizes, it may be that a unique and important code or theme is reported by only one participant in the data set. In fact, rare observations can serve as “a-ha moments” that lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. These rare observations also may inspire new studies about topics that were not initially anticipated; this speaks to the value of qualitative research.

Closing Thoughts

We encourage readers to continue to learn about qualitative research as there is much that could not be addressed in a single article. For instance, we did not introduce how philosophical stances, like how someone views the nature of truth or what counts as evidence, influence the research process. (Creswell and Poth 2016). For now, we will close with one final piece of advice. We both became better qualitative researchers by working with mentors and collaborators who have this expertise. We encourage you to find colleagues in your networks or at your institutions who may be interested in being a collaborator, mentor, or critical friend. The complexity of students and their experiences lend themselves to qualitative approaches. We hope this article might serve as an impetus for you to learn more about qualitative research and even start your own investigations.

Data Availability Statement

The data included in this commentary have been published in an open-access journal under a Creative Commons license. Citations are included in the text.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under award number OCE-2019589. This is the National Science Foundation’s Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet (C-Comp) publication #026. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We thank Patricia Mabrouk for inviting us to contribute this commentary. We thank members of the Biology Education Research Group at the University of Georgia and Daniel Dries, Joseph Provost, and Verónica Segarra for their thoughtful feedback on manuscript drafts.

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Hazari, Zahra, Deepa Chari, Geoff Potvin, and Eric Brewe. 2020. “The Context Dependence of Physics Identity: Examining the Role of Performance/Competence, Recognition, Interest, and Sense of Belonging for Lower and Upper Female Physics Undergraduates.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching 57:1583–1607. doi: 10.1002/tea.21644

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Mariel A. Pfeifer

University of Georgia, [email protected]

Mariel A. Pfeifer is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia’s SPREE (Social Psychology of Research Experiences and Education) Lab. Her passion for biology education research was sparked by her experiences as an undergraduate teaching assistant, a pre-service science teacher, and a disability services coordinator. Soon Pfeifer will begin her new role as an assistant professor of biology at the University of Mississippi.

Erin L. Dolan is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Innovative Science Education at the University of Georgia As a graduate student, Dolan volunteered in K–12 schools, which inspired her pursuit of a biology education career. She teaches introductory biology and her research group, the SPREE Lab, works to delineate features of undergraduate and graduate research that influence students’ career decisions.

Building Research Skills through an Undergraduate Research Project on Local Community

This research aims to build economic research skills and stimulate students’ interest in the local economy through data-based undergraduate research in entry-level economics courses. The authors developed two assignments and one student survey assessing students’ learning outcomes and implemented them in two introductory-level classes from fall 2019 to fall 2021. The survey responses confirmed that the assignments positively affected students’ primary research skills and increased students’ interest in local economic issues. The study also provides empirical evidence that undergraduate research can be carried out in both face-to-face and online classes. It confirms the positive contribution of exposing students to the research culture early in their academic journey by improving students’ skills in collecting, processing, and interpreting data on the local economy.

Fulfilling the Land-Grant Mission in Undergraduate Research in English Studies

The pandemic provided a natural experiment to test an alternative approach to teaching a traditional classroom-based research methods course; as teachers, we should not wait for such interventions but try out various strategies for effectiveness. Remote mentoring is entirely feasible for successful undergraduate research experiences. This is a particularly crucial finding in the humanities, which relies very much on discussion-based formats rather than lectures for its courses. Faculty have learned new technologies, such as Zoom, to ensure that meaningful interactions would occur.

Making Research Accessible for All through a Fully Online Cancer Genomics CURE

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) can engage large numbers of students and provide a structured environment in which to learn valuable research skills. The ability to implement laboratory-based CUREs was hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, generating a greater need for online options. A pilot study of an adaptation of a fully online cancer genomics CURE is described here. Students utilized freely available databases such as cBioPortal to develop novel scientific questions, generate and analyze data, collaborate with peers, and present their findings in an online environment. This format preserved the defining aspects of CUREs while promoting student ownership over their projects. Although the most common challenge was developing a hypothesis, students valued peer and instructor feedback throughout the process as well as flexible formats for communicating their research findings.

Laboratory-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (LUREs): Evidence of Effectiveness from the Social Sciences

The impact of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) is supported by evidence from physical and life science fields, especially when student-apprentices work in traditional laboratories. Within social sciences specifically, some excellent student outcomes associated with UREs adhere to non–lab-based modalities like course-based research experiences (CUREs). Here, the authors evaluate the laboratory-based undergraduate research experiences (LUREs) as a potentially valuable approach for incorporating social science undergraduates in research. Using comparative analysis of survey data from students completing three types of social science-based UREs (n = 235), individual research experiences (IREs), CUREs, or LUREs, students perceived gains overall regardless of the type of experience, with some indication that LUREs are the most effective.

SUREbyts: Presenting Early-Year Undergraduate Students with Videos on Research Topics

Undergraduate research initiatives such as mentoring programs, conferences, and journals typically focus on the later stages of undergraduate studies. It is not unusual for a student to reach the final year of their program without developing their awareness of research within their discipline or their institution. SUREbyts is a project that provides first- and second-year undergraduate students with access to research through video recordings of professional researchers and research students discussing their own research, with each video structured around a research question with a set of possible solutions. This article presents the successes and challenges faced by the project’s initial implementation in six higher education institutions in Ireland and offers advice to institutions globally that are considering engaging their students with research in this way.

Systematic Review of Outcomes for Faculty Mentors in Undergraduate Research

Significant research has highlighted the benefits and outcomes of mentored research experiences for undergraduate students. Substantially less empirical research has examined the benefits and outcomes of these experiences for the other member of the mentoring dyad: the mentors themselves. To address this gap, a systematic review of 1,915 articles was conducted. After review, 16 articles were determined relevant. Articles were categorized based on design and theoretical framework. Further analysis revealed three categorizations: faculty mentor outcomes, barriers to mentorship of undergraduate research students, and supporting factors associated with mentorship of students. Results indicate that faculty mentors in undergraduate research contexts face more barriers to mentorship than supporting factors. Three lines of inquiry are proposed for future researchers.

Undergraduate Research: Why and How Do We Mentor?

Our advocacy for undergraduate research, mentorship, and equity is strengthened by being explicit about why they are vital. Research mentors guide undergraduates in learning how to learn, in evaluating evidence, and in discovering talents and career interests. Our mission can be extended by bringing a research perspective to the courses we teach. Effective mentorship involves appreciating individual differences while having shared goals. As mentors, we aim to provide undergraduates with opportunities to participate in research that can lead to discovering new knowledge. Students can build on this experience to become proactive in making a difference. The global future depends on today’s undergraduates, who are tomorrow’s decision-makers, innovators, and leaders.

Step Up for SPUR

This editorial details observations from a departing associate editor of SPUR about the experience of working on the journal. The author contextualizes this work within the academic journal editorial process, focusing on specific challenges in recruiting reviewers for the peer review process. The author stresses the importance of broad participation from the undergraduate research community, including submitting articles to SPUR , accepting requests to review manuscripts, and participating in the editorial board, all to ensure the sustainability and intellectual vitality of the journal.

SUBSCRIPTION

SPUR advances knowledge and understanding of novel and effective approaches to mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry by publishing high-quality, rigorously peer reviewed studies written by scholars and practitioners of undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry. The SPUR Journal is a leading CUR member benefit. Gain access to all electronic articles by joining CUR.

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5 Steps in Qualitative Research to Unlocking Insights

Qualitative research is a valuable approach that allows researchers to delve into the complexities of human behavior, perceptions, and experiences. It provides a deeper understanding of the “why” and “how” behind actions, making it an essential methodology in various fields such as social sciences, psychology, anthropology, and more. In this blog post, we will delve into the five essential steps in qualitative research that can help unlock profound insights.

What is qualitative research?

Qualitative research is a research approach or methodology that seeks to explore, understand, and interpret individuals’ or groups’ underlying meanings, motivations, attitudes, behaviors, and experiences within a specific context. This type of research aims to generate rich, non-numerical data and insights into the complexities of human behavior, social phenomena, and cultural practices.

Qualitative research typically employs methods such as interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and open-ended surveys to collect data, and it emphasizes subjective analysis, context, and the development of theories or explanations to illuminate the studied phenomenon.

It is often used in social sciences, psychology, anthropology, and other fields to understand various aspects of the human experience better.

Importance of qualitative research

Qualitative research is a valuable and important research methodology that provides in-depth insights into human behavior, experiences, and social phenomena. Its significance can be understood through several key aspects:

Understanding Human Behavior and Experiences

Qualitative research allows researchers to explore complex human behaviors, attitudes, and experiences. It delves deep into the “why” and “how” of people’s actions and perceptions, providing a rich understanding of the underlying factors.

Contextual Understanding

Qualitative research is well-suited for capturing the context in which phenomena occur. It helps researchers uncover the cultural, social, and historical factors that influence people’s thoughts and actions, providing a holistic view of the subject matter.

Generating Hypotheses

The qualitative analysis process often serves as an initial step in the research process, helping researchers generate hypotheses or refine research questions. It can guide the development of quantitative studies by uncovering relevant variables and relationships.

Exploring Complex Issues

Qualitative methods are particularly useful for studying complex or sensitive topics where quantitative data might not fully capture the nuances involved. It allows researchers to explore multifaceted issues in depth.

Theory Development

Qualitative research can contribute to theory development by generating concepts, categories, and theoretical frameworks grounded in empirical data. These insights can help build and refine theories in various fields.

Policy and Program Development

Qualitative research can inform the development and implementation of policies, programs, and interventions. It provides valuable information on the needs, preferences, and barriers faced by specific populations.

Enhancing Quantitative Research

Qualitative research often complements quantitative research by providing a deeper understanding of the phenomena under investigation. It can help researchers design better surveys and experiments.

Personalization and Customer Insights

Qualitative research is instrumental in understanding consumer preferences, attitudes, and behaviors in business and marketing. This information can guide product development, marketing strategies, and customer service improvements.

Healthcare and Patient-Centered Care

Qualitative research is essential in healthcare to understand patient experiences, preferences, and satisfaction. It informs patient-centered care approaches and can lead to better healthcare outcomes.

Social and Cultural Research

Qualitative research is indispensable for exploring social and cultural phenomena, such as identity, social norms, and cultural practices. It helps researchers appreciate the diversity and uniqueness of human societies.

5 steps in qualitative research for creating research study

Creating a qualitative research study involves careful planning and execution to gather in-depth insights into a specific research question or phenomenon.

In the early stages of conducting steps in qualitative research, gathering qualitative data through methods such as interviews and surveys is followed by the critical step of discourse analysis to unearth underlying themes and patterns in the collected information. Here are five essential steps in qualitative research:

1. Create a Project Layout with Objectives

When beginning a market research project, it is important to have a clear outline of the challenge you are hoping to find clarity on. There are a number of reasons why you would want to survey consumers, including:

Brand awareness
Product testing
Customer satisfaction
Price sensitivity

Next, know your objective. Objectives are geared towards the end result and information you will obtain, not steps in a qualitative research project. For example:

Ideal Objective

Understand what drives customer retention for my company vs. the direct competitor

Not an Ideal Objective

Recruit 20 participants for an in-depth interview

2. Create an outline of questions to ask

With your goals and objectives created, craft your survey questions. Use QuestionPro’s survey platform to put together screener questions to filter the right participants from your community. The number one mistake when creating survey questions is asking leading questions . They will unconsciously sway the participant towards one side of an argument. For example:

Leading question

Do you think the color red is the right color for this product?

Non-leading question

What are your thoughts on the color of this product?

Some additional best practices include:

Not asking absolute questions (using always, never, all, every)
When asking questions of a sensitive nature (such as race, sexual orientation, beliefs, etc.), ask near or at the end.
Do not use jargon or abbreviations without explaining what each word means

3. Recruitment from your Community

Before collecting data, it is important to think about your sample size. In a qualitative survey , 15-20 is typically the ideal number of participants to survey. Your community will make it easy to view your member’s profiles to see past participation, so you aren’t surveying members too frequently.

The community participant sample should be a general representation of your targeted demographic. Otherwise, your answers are going to miss the mark on who you are trying to reach. Once your target sample from your community is set up, you are ready to conduct your research.

4. Conducting the Research

This is the time when you are administering your survey, conducting your qualitative interviews , and implementing your field test. These important steps can be time-consuming but are critical. However, using a community makes it easy to set up questions and tasks without having to survey each individual in person.

You can ask a question to either the entire group and have a discussion or pose questions to individuals separately. The answers, choices, and observations are collected and recorded so you can go back to review to prepare your report.

5. Crunch the Data and prepare your report

Reviewing and analyzing qualitative data analysis can be difficult, depending on the number of questions asked, how many participants were surveyed, and the number of team members reviewing the data. Since you are asking open-ended questions, it’s important to try and structure the answers. You can explore our new blog, “ Examples of Qualitative Data in Education . “

Once you begin noticing phrases and subjects aligning, start adding them into word piles, and remember to keep track of who mentioned each comment. Doing this can create a persona to delve even more into your target demographic.

Your deliverables matter when presenting your work. The great thing about using qualitative data is that you can get creative with how you present. Use a word cloud to see what keywords pop up frequently.

The most important step of all is after your presentation. Make sure to go over actionable steps, create timelines to regroup, and bring in appropriate stakeholders to review your findings. Don’t let the data you worked hard to obtain not create value for your company.

Qualitative research methods

Qualitative research methods are a set of techniques used in social sciences, psychology, anthropology, and various other fields to gather and analyze non-numerical data. These methods are particularly useful when qualitative researchers aim to understand better human behavior, perceptions, experiences, and social phenomena.

Qualitative research methodology typically involves collecting and interpreting textual or visual data, such as interviews, observations, surveys, or written documents. Here are some common qualitative research methods:

Qualitative interviews involve open-ended questions to elicit detailed responses from participants. These interviews can be structured (with a predefined set of questions) or unstructured (more like a conversation), depending on the research objectives.

Focus Groups

In focus groups, a small group of participants is brought together to discuss a particular topic or issue. The interaction among group members can provide insights into shared perspectives, differences, and consensus.

Observations

Researchers engage in direct or participant observations to gather data about people’s behaviors and interactions in their natural settings. Field notes and observations are recorded for analysis.

Content Analysis

Content analysis involves systematically analyzing written, spoken, or visual material, such as documents, speeches, videos, or social media posts. Researchers look for patterns, themes, and meanings within the content.

Case Studies

Case studies involve in-depth exploration of a single individual, group, or organization. Researchers collect data from multiple sources (interviews, documents, observations) to understand a particular case in detail.

Grounded Theory

Grounded theory is a research approach that aims to develop theories or explanations from the data itself rather than testing pre-existing theories. It involves systematic coding and analysis of data to generate new theoretical insights.

Ethnography

Ethnographic research findings involve immersion in a particular cultural or social setting to understand a group’s behaviors, values, and norms. Researchers often participate in the community to gain a deeper perspective.

Narrative Analysis

Narrative research focuses on the stories people tell about their experiences. Researchers analyze these narratives’ structure, content, and themes to gain insights into personal experiences and meanings.

Document Analysis

Researchers examine existing written or visual documents, such as historical records, diaries, photographs, or artwork, to gain insights into past events, cultures, or social phenomena.

Surveys with Open-Ended Questions

While surveys are typically associated with quantitative research, adding open-ended questions allows participants to provide qualitative research approach responses, which can provide more context and depth to the data.

Additional tips:

Maintain ethical considerations throughout your research, ensuring informed consent from participants and protecting their privacy.
Consider data saturation, where you continue data collection until no new insights or themes emerge.
Keep detailed records of your research process, including field notes, transcripts, and any changes made during the study.
Engage in member checking, which involves sharing your findings with participants to validate the accuracy of your interpretations.
Write a comprehensive research report presenting your findings, discussing their implications, and relating them to the existing literature.

Qualitative research is a valuable methodology that provides rich insights into human behavior, experiences, and social phenomena. By following the five essential steps in qualitative research outlined in this guide, you can create a well-structured interpreting qualitative data analysis research study that generates meaningful and actionable insights.

Whether you are exploring customer preferences, evaluating policies, or understanding cultural practices, qualitative research can enhance your understanding and decision-making processes.

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The Qualitative Research Process: Step-by-Step Guide
The qualitative research process in just 8 Steps. Learn techniques for collecting and analyzing qualitative data to uncover themes that drive insights. ... or provide recommendations on how the study will help make product decisions. At organizations where there is a research team, researchers may also share their plan with other researchers ...
What Is Qualitative Research?
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 ...
7 Steps to Conducting Better Qualitative Research
Design the Study: Getting input from users instead of just internal discussions is an essential first step. With research questions defined, the "What" of the study has been established. Now think Who, When, Where and How. There are logistical advantages and challenges to collecting the data you need. It's a matter of trading them off.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Although qualitative research studies can and often do change and develop over the course of data collection, it is important to have a good idea of what the aims and goals of your study are at the outset and a good plan of how to achieve those aims and goals. Chapter 2 provides a road map of the process.
How to Do Qualitative Research: 8 Steps (with Pictures)
1. Collect your data. Each of the research methodologies has uses one or more techniques to collect empirical data, including interviews, participant observation, fieldwork, archival research, documentary materials, etc. The form of data collection will depend on the research methodology.
Planning Qualitative Research: Design and Decision Making for New
While many books and articles guide various qualitative research methods and analyses, there is currently no concise resource that explains and differentiates among the most common qualitative approaches. We believe novice qualitative researchers, students planning the design of a qualitative study or taking an introductory qualitative research course, and faculty teaching such courses can ...
Qualitative Research
Qualitative Research. Qualitative research is a type of research methodology that focuses on exploring and understanding people's beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and experiences through the collection and analysis of non-numerical data. It seeks to answer research questions through the examination of subjective data, such as interviews, focus ...
How to use and assess qualitative research methods
Abstract. This paper aims to provide an overview of the use and assessment of qualitative research methods in the health sciences. Qualitative research can be defined as the study of the nature of phenomena and is especially appropriate for answering questions of why something is (not) observed, assessing complex multi-component interventions ...
Qualitative Study
Qualitative research is a type of research that explores and provides deeper insights into real-world problems.[1] Instead of collecting numerical data points or intervene or introduce treatments just like in quantitative research, qualitative research helps generate hypotheses as well as further investigate and understand quantitative data. Qualitative research gathers participants ...
Qualitative Research Preparation
Overall, study design is important in qualitative research because it allows the researcher to tailor the research process to the unique characteristics of the phenomenon under investigation and to produce rich, detailed data that can provide a deep understanding of the phenomenon. By emphasizing context, subjectivity, and interpretation ...
Venturing into Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide to Getting
We outline this "how to" as a series of steps, but qualitative research (like all research) is iterative and dynamic (University of California Museum of Paleontology 2022). ... Creswell and Poth provide a valuable resource for learning more about different types of qualitative research study designs, including which designs are suited to ...
PDF Designing a Qualitative Study
considerations, steps in the process, and overall considerations used . Chapter 3. Designing a Qualitative Study 43 ... proposing a qualitative research study. The chapters to follow will then address the different types of inquiry approaches. The general design fea-tures, outlined here, will be refined for the five approaches discussed in ...
Five Steps to Writing More Engaging Qualitative Research
A-85). Successful writing requires a writer to pay quiet diligent attention to the construction of the genre they are working in. Each genre has its own sense of verisimilitude—the bearing of truth. Each places different constraints on the writer and has different goals, forms, and structure.
Qualitative Research: Getting Started
Qualitative research was historically employed in fields such as sociology, history, and anthropology. 2 Miles and Huberman 2 said that qualitative data "are a source of well-grounded, rich descriptions and explanations of processes in identifiable local contexts. With qualitative data one can preserve chronological flow, see precisely which ...
PDF Principles of Qualitative Research: Designing a Qualitative Study
Principles of Qualitative Research: Designing a Qualitative Study John W. Creswell, Ph.D. Vicki L. Plano Clark, M.S. Office of Qualitative & Mixed Methods Research, University of Nebraska, Lincoln 3 Objectives •As a group activity, to plan a qualitative study on the topic of leadership (you may plan a study on your topic, if you wish)
5 Steps in Qualitative Research to Unlocking Insights
Here are five essential steps in qualitative research: 1. Create a Project Layout with Objectives. When beginning a market research project, it is important to have a clear outline of the challenge you are hoping to find clarity on. There are a number of reasons why you would want to survey consumers, including:
Ten Steps for Conceptualizing and Conducting Qualitative Research
The qualitative research was applied in this study due to research problems will be explored, explained and analyzed concretely based on qualitative research (Chenail, 2011). Semi-structured ...
What is Qualitative in 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.
Learning to Do Qualitative Data Analysis: A Starting Point
For many researchers unfamiliar with qualitative research, determining how to conduct qualitative analyses is often quite challenging. Part of this challenge is due to the seemingly limitless approaches that a qualitative researcher might leverage, as well as simply learning to think like a qualitative researcher when analyzing data. From framework analysis (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994) to content ...
Ten Key Steps to Writing a Protocol for a Qualitative Research Study: A
The aims of the present paper are a) to demonstrate the key steps required towriting a protocol for a qualitative research study b) to assist nurses and other health professionals in effectively ...
How to do qualitative research?
The main methods used in qualitative research are interview, focus group and observation. Recruitment is purposive, or strategic, in that the aim is to achieve a sample that is relevant to the research question. Data are collected until saturation of themes and insights is reached. Qualitative research begins with one or more relatively broad ...
A Step-by-Step Process of Thematic Analysis to Develop a Conceptual
Thematic analysis is a research method used to identify and interpret patterns or themes in a data set; it often leads to new insights and understanding (Boyatzis, 1998; Elliott, 2018; Thomas, 2006).However, it is critical that researchers avoid letting their own preconceptions interfere with the identification of key themes (Morse & Mitcham, 2002; Patton, 2015).
Qualitative Study
Qualitative research gathers participants' experiences, perceptions, and behavior. It answers the hows and whys instead of how many or how much. It could be structured as a stand-alone study, purely relying on qualitative data or it could be part of mixed-methods research that combines qualitative and quantitative data.

The qualitative research process, end-to-end

.css-1nrevy2{position:relative;display:inline-block;} The qualitative research process: step by step guide

Step 1: Determine what to research

Step 2: Identify how to research it

Step 3: Get buy-in and alignment from others

Step 4: Prepare research

Step 5: Execute research

Step 6: Synthesize and find insights

Step 7: Create research outputs

Storyboarding

Having a point of view in outputs

Step 8: Share and follow up on findings

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7 Steps to Conducting Better Qualitative Research

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Chapter 1. Introduction

Why an Open Access Textbook on Qualitative Research Methods?

What is Research?

What is Qualitative Research?

Examples of Qualitative Research

Example 1 : The End Game (ethnography + interviews)

Example 2: Racing for Innocence (Interviews + Content Analysis + Fictional Stories)

Example 3: Amplified Advantage (Mixed Methods: Survey Interviews + Focus Groups + Archives)

How Is This Book Organized?

Chapter Descriptions

Recommended Reading: Other Qualitative Research Textbooks

Patton’s Ten Suggestions for Doing Qualitative Research

How to Do Qualitative Research

Preparing Your Research

Collecting and Analyzing Your Data

Community Q&A

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Qualitative Research – Methods, Analysis Types and Guide

Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research Methods

One-to-One Interview

Focus Groups

Ethnographic Studies

Text Analysis

Process of Observation

Record Keeping

Qualitative Research Analysis Methods

Thematic Analysis

Content Analysis

Discourse Analysis

Grounded Theory Analysis

Narrative Analysis

Phenomenological Analysis

Comparative Analysis

Applications of Qualitative Research

How to Conduct Qualitative Research

Examples of Qualitative Research

Purpose of Qualitative Research

When to use Qualitative Research

Characteristics of Qualitative Research

Advantages of Qualitative Research

Limitations of Qualitative Research

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

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