This document discusses qualitative research methods. It outlines five key points about qualitative research: 1. The primary goal is to understand meanings that people attribute to their experiences. 2. The researcher is the main instrument for data collection and analysis. 3. Data analysis involves identifying recurring themes or patterns in the data through coding and categorizing. Findings refer to these themes. 4. Categories are conceptual elements that cover many examples from the data. The categories become the findings of the study. 5. Determining the right number of categories depends on the data and research focus, with the goal of communicating findings clearly.

1. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: A
GUIDE TO DESIGN AND
IMPLEMENTATION
Source: Merriam, S. B. (2009).
By: ROMALYN A. RIZARDO

2. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
• Primary goal of all qualitative research: “to uncover
and interpret [the] meanings [people attribute to
their experiences]” (p. 24).
• Researcher: the primary instrument for data
collection and analysis.

3. BASIC QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
1. Central characteristic of qualitative research: “individuals
construct reality in interaction with their social worlds” (p. 22).
- Constructionism underlies Basic Qualitative Study
2. Focus: “understanding the meaning a phenomenon has
for those involved” (p. 22).

4. BASIC QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
3. Basic Qualitative Study “would be interested in:
• “how people interpret their experiences;
• “how they construct their worlds; and
• What meanings they attribute to their experiences.”
“The meaning people have constructed” refers to “how people
make sense of their world and the experiences they have in the
world.”

5. BASIC QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
4. Overall purpose of Basic Qualitative Study: “to understand
how people make sense of their lives and their experiences”
(p. 23).
5. Data Collection
• Interviews
• Document Analysis
• Observation

6. BASIC QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
6. Data Analysis
• Identification of recurring patterns or themes that
characterize the data.
• “Findings [refer to] these recurring patterns or themes.”
• Overall interpretation refers to “the researcher’s
understanding of the participants’ understanding of the
phenomenon of interest” (pp. 23-24)

7. QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS (PP. 169-
207)
• Sources of qualitative data: observations, interviews, and
documents.
• “The process of data collection and analysis is recursive and
dynamic” (p. 169)
• “Analysis becomes more intensive as the study progresses and
once all the data are in” (p. 169).
• Generic Phases of Data Analysis
1. Beginning Analysis During Data Collection
2. Organizing and Managing Qualitative Data
3. Constructing Categories or Themes

8. CONSTRUCTING
CATEGORIES OR
THEMES
(PP. 175-197)

9. THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS OF
ANALYSIS
1. Category Construction
a. Read “the first interview transcript, the first set of filed notes,
the first document collected in the study”
b. “Jot down notes, comments, observations, and queries
in the margins”
c. Start coding the data
1) Do initial coding or open coding (marginal notes and
comments)
2) Begin to construct categories by “assigning codes to
pieces of data”

10. d. Re-read your initial codes
e. Make an initial classification of these codes into a
category/ries
• Axial Coding: the process of classifying or
grouping your initial codes (Corbin & Strauss, 2007
in Merriam, 2009, p. 180).
• Axial or Analytic Coding: the coding that comes
from interpretation and reflection on meaning”
(Richards, 2005, p. 94 in Merriam, 2009, p. 180).

11. f. “keep a running list of these groupings
[or categories] attached to the
transcript or on a separate paper. . . .”
g.Move to your next set of data and then
repeat steps a-f.
h.Compare your initial set of groupings to
the second set of groupings.

12. i. Merge the two lists “into one master list of concepts
derived from both sets of data.”
“The master list constitutes a primitive outline or
classification system reflecting the recurring regularities or
patterns in your study.”
j. Identify the recurring patterns or regularities.
• “These patterns or regularities become the categories or
themes to which subsequent items are sorted.”
• CATEGORIES: “abstraction derived from data, not the
data themselves”
• CATEGORIES: “conceptual elements that cover . . . many
individual examples”
• “The categories become the findings of the study”

13. 2. Sorting Categories and Data
a. Examine the tentative scheme of
categories, themes, findings made earlier.
b. “Sort out all the evidence for your
scheme into the categories”
c. How? By creating file folders each
labelled with a category name.

14. 3. Naming the Categories
a. Understand the bases for the naming of
categories
• Purpose of the study
• Orientation and knowledge of the researcher
• Meanings made explicit by the participants
themselves
b. Reflect on the sources of the names of
categories
• Researcher
• Participants
• Outside source: literature

15. c. Construct the categories based on several criteria.
Categories should be:
• “responsive to (answer) the purpose of the research.”
• “exhaustive: (enough categories to encompass all
relevant data)
• “mutually exclusive: “A particular unit of data should fit to
one and only one category.”
• Sensitive: “the category should be as sensitive as possible
to what is the data.”
• E.g.: Materiality of evidence, Mode of questioning
• “conceptually congruent (all categories are at the same
conceptual level)
• Have a taxonomy of categories by putting tentatively
sorted out categories in a table or chart and examining
how categories fit together.

16. 4. Determining the Number of Categories
a. The number of categories “depends on the data and the focus of
the research.”
b. Number of categories: “the greater the level of abstraction, and the
greater ease with which you can communicate your findings to
others.”
c. Four guideline for developing categories (Guba and Lincoln, 1981 in
Merriam, 2009, pp. 187-188)
• “the number of people who mention something or the frequency with which
something arises in the data indicates an important dimension.”
• “the audience may determine what is important---that is, some categories will
appear to various audiences as more or less credible.”
• “some categories will stand out because of their uniqueness and should be
retained.”
• “certain categories may reveal ‘areas of inquiry not otherwise recognized’ . . .”

17. FIVE TRADITIONS OF QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH