Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research.

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Aqeel Hussain

POLI 2001 - Political Thought and Research Methods

Stephen Parsons

Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research.

Qualitative research is about the study of local and small-scale social situations. It seeks to answer 'why' rather than 'how many' questions. Its techniques involve close and sustained encounters with people, such as participant observation, in-depth interviews, 'focus groups' and 'mystery customers' (who test how easy it is to get in touch with the right person and how the user is treated). The researcher investigates people's own perceptions, attitudes and behaviour without re-structuring data by 'imposing' a questionnaire schedule on respondents or using secondary sources. Small purposive samples of tyres of individuals are used rather than the large probability sample typical of quantitative research. Qualitative research emphasises the importance of looking at variables in the natural setting in which they are found. Interaction between variables is important. Qualitative researchers are concerned in their research with attempting to accurately describe, decode, and interpret the meanings of phenomena occurring in their normal social contexts.1

Qualitative research differs from quantitative research which attempts to gather data by objective methods to provide information about relations, comparisons and predictions and attempts to remove the investigator from the investigation.

Qualitative research provides people with a means of attempting to understand a world that cannot be understood in terms of numbers and objectivity. In an article published in Reading Research Quarterly in 1999, Putney and Green give an excellent summary of the contributions of qualitative research. Some key points included in their article are that qualitative approaches have provided ways of transcribing and analysing the discursive construction of everyday events, of examining the consequential nature of learning within and across events, and of exploring the historical nature of life within a social group of local setting. Another point made is that qualitative research provides information about why and how miscommunication among actors occurs, particularly when such actors are members of different groups.2

Qualitative research techniques can generate rich data about people's knowledge, attitudes and preferences. They can help to develop vocabularies and methods for communicating information to target audiences. In addition there are numerous other strong points towards using qualitative research methods. Firstly it provides more in-depth and comprehensive information so that any information that is received from using this method is quite detailed and useful. It provides a holistic view of the phenomena under investigation. It has flexible ways to perform data collection, subsequent analysis and interpretation of collected information. This is beneficial towards the researcher in that he/she does not have to use a certain type of data collection method towards the investigation and is flexible in using a variety of methods to collect data. A major positive in using qualitative research methods is that as the investigator you have the ability to interact with the research subject in their own language and on their own terms.3
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A good example of how qualitative research methods can assist decision-making is by indicating the strength of feeling when survey results are inconclusive.

Vittles describes one such case from York City Council. A quantitative survey of views about a concerned market showed 50% in favour of a covered market and 50% in favour of an open market. Follow up qualitative research, however, showed a different story; 'those in favour of an open market were passionate in their support for reasons atmosphere, clear air and architectural sympathy. Those in favour of a covered market were really motivated by ...

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