Main Points

The Nature of Qualitative Research

• The term "qualitative research" refers to research investigations of the quality of relationships, activities, situations, or materials.
• The natural setting is a direct source of data and the researcher is a key part of the instrumentation process in qualitative research.
• Qualitative data are collected mainly in the form of words or pictures and seldom involve numbers. Content analysis is a primary method of data analysis.
• Qualitative researchers are especially interested in how things occur and particularly in the perspectives of the subjects of a study.
• Qualitative researchers do not, usually, formulate a hypothesis beforehand and then seek to test it. Rather, they allow hypotheses to emerge as a study develops.
• Qualitative and quantitative research differ in the philosophic assumptions which underlie the two approaches.

Steps Involved in Qualitative Research

• The steps involved in conducting a qualitative study are not as distinct as they are in quantitative studies. They often overlap and sometimes even conducted concurrently.
• All qualitative studies begin with a foreshadowed problem, the particular phenomenon the researcher is interested in investigating.
• Researchers who engage in a qualitative study of some type usually select a purposive sample. Several types of purposive samples exist.
• There is no "treatment" in a qualitative study, nor is there any manipulation of variables.
• The collection of data in a qualitative study is ongoing.
• Conclusions are drawn continuously throughout the course of a qualitative study.

Approaches to Qualitative Research

• A biographical study tells the story of the special events in the life of a single individual.
• A researcher studies an individual's reactions to a particular phenomenon in a phenomenological study. He or she tries to describe an individual's experiences from the subject's perspective.
• In a grounded theory study, a researcher forms a theory that is formed inductively from the data that is collected as part of the study.
• A case study is a detailed study of one or (at most) a few individuals or other social units, such as a classroom, a school, or a neighborhood.

Generalization in Qualitative Research

• Generalizing is possible in qualitative research, but it is of a different type than that found in quantitative studies. It is more likely it will be done by interested practitioners.

Ethics and Qualitative Research

• The identities of all participants in a qualitative study should be protected, and they should be treated with respect.

Reconsidering Qualitative and Quantitative Research

• Aspects of both qualitative and quantitative research often are used together in a study. Increased attention is being given to such mixed-method studies.
• Whether qualitative or quantitative research is the most appropriate boils down to what the researcher involved wants to find out.