Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis Methods
Qualitative Information Gathering
The main tools for qualitative data collection in research are observation and focus group interviews. These methods delve into social situations while maintaining an active role and permanent reflection.
Mertens’ Three Approaches to Qualitative Research
According to Mertens, there are three ways in which a qualitative researcher can approach an environment:
- Supervisor: Reviews what happens in connections, is authoritarian, limits observation, and has a high potential for rejection.
- Leader: In addition to authoring, coordinates, which improves monitoring but not enough.
- Friend: Seeks a close and positive relationship with participants. This is the best role in qualitative research, but the researcher should never forget their role.
Most Common Types of Observation
- Ethnographic Research: Used to obtain objective descriptions of social norms and events as they occur.
- Participant Observation: Used for the study of social situations or organizations from an internal perspective; the researcher participates in the social environment they are observing.
- Non-intrusive Observation: Used when the investigator feels that their participation could contaminate the investigation or that the people being observed may change their behavior.
Types of Interviews
- Structured: A guide based on specific questions, adhering strictly to them (items and order are defined in advance).
- Semi-structured: Questions and/or issues are used, and the interviewer is free to add new questions to get more information or clarify concepts.
- Unstructured or Open: There is only one topic guide, and the interviewer is free to act on emerging information.
Procedure of Qualitative Content Analysis
Qualitative content analysis procedures are grouped into two orientations:
1. Development of Inductive Categories
The central perspective is an interest in developing categories as close as possible to the material to interpret. Generally, reductive procedures are handled through question-after-question about the categories corresponding to different segments of the text. Categories are born from text analysis.
2. Application of Deductive Categories
From theory to the formulation of development models, deductive categories are created. Then, a whole book of codes and categories is built step-by-step to be applied to the text. The main idea here is to bring explicit definitions and rules based on examples of deductive codes for each category, determining exactly under what circumstances a text can be encoded with a category. Categories are born from the theory before text analysis.
Main Steps and Stages in Qualitative Analysis
Theoretical Framework
Qualitative research requires a context of discovery and exploration. Its strategy is oriented to discover, capture, and understand a theory, an explanation, and meaning.
Type of Sample
It requires the researcher to be best positioned to gather information relevant to the concept or theory sought.
Qualitative Sampling Methods
Qualitative sampling typically uses the following two methods:
- Opinion-based: The researcher selects respondents according to criteria such as strategic and personal knowledge of the situation, ease, voluntariness, etc.
- Theoretical: Used to generate theories in which the analyst collects, codes, and analyzes data and decides what data to use in the future and where to find them to develop a better theory as it is gradually perfected.
Code System
The best coding system is the best aid to data interpretation. Numbers can be used, but the richness of the data should never be lost for future analysis. Codes can also be made and remade continually and should never be taken as definitive. Codes can also be used for further interviews or any other type of gathering.
Three Types of Classes or Categories
- Common: Commonly used by the general population. For example, age, sex, educational level, socioeconomic status, place of origin, etc.
- Special: Used in the jargon of social groups (in their respective fields of work). Each specialist uses their own: sociologists, economists, doctors, engineers, farmers, etc.
- Theoretical: Born from systematic data analysis to respond to and help develop theoretical frameworks.
Three Basic Ways of Coding in Qualitative Analysis
- Inductive: One way to encode inductively is by plunging into a document or situation to identify themes or dimensions that seem relevant.
- Deductive: The research uses a theory and tries to apply its core elements, dimensions, variables, categories, etc.
- Mixed: Often, two alternative strategies can be used simultaneously without difficulty.
Quality Control
Quality control or validation of the analysis is done by checking that the nerve center and central phenomenon under study has been located, at least tentatively. Quality control procedures allow us to compare the triangulation results with other studies, which improves the potential subjectivity of purely qualitative analysis.