2. Qualitative Research
• Qualitative research is an interdisciplinary,
transdisciplinary, and sometimes counterdisciplinary field.
It crosses the humanities and the social and physical
sciences. Qualitative research is many things at the same
time. It is multiparadigmatic in focus. Its practitioners
are sensitive to the value of the multimethod approach.
They are committed to the naturalistic perspective, and to
the interpretative understanding of human experience. At
the same time, the field is inherently political and shaped
by multiple ethical and political positions.
• Nelson et al’s (1992, p4)
3. Qualitative Research
• ‘Qualitative Research…involves finding out what
people think, and how they feel - or at any rate,
what they say they think and how they say they
feel. This kind of information is subjective. It
involves feelings and impressions, rather than
numbers’
• Bellenger, Bernhardt and Goldstucker, Qualitative Research in
Marketing, American Marketing Association
4. Qualitative Research
• Qualitative research is multimethod in focus,
involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach
to its subject matter.
• Qualitative Researchers study “things” (people
and their thoughts) in their natural settings,
attempting to make sense of, or interpret,
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring
to them.
5. 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.
• Deploy a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping
always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand.
6. Qualitative v.'s Quantitative
Qualitative
Research
Quantitative
Research
Type of questions Probing Limited probing
Sample Size small large
Info. Per
respondent
much varies
Admin Requires skilled
researcher
Fewer specialist
skills required
Type of Analysis Subjective,
interpretative
Statistical
Type of research Exploratory Descriptive or
causal
7. Popularity of Qualitative
Research
1 Usually much cheaper than quantitative
research
2 No better way than qualitative research to
understand in-depth the motivations and
feelings of consumers
3 Qualitative research can improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of quantitative
research
8. Limitations of Qualitative
Research
1 Marketing successes and failures are based on small
differences in the marketing mix.
Qualitative research doesn’t distinguish these differences
as well as quantitative research can.
2 Not representative of the population that is of interest to
the researcher
3 The multitude of individuals who, without formal training,
profess to be experts in the field
10. Analysis Qualitative Data:
An Approach
• Categorisation
• Unitising data
• Recognising relationships and developing
the categories you are using to facilitate this
• Developing and testing hypotheses to reach
conclusion
11. Interactive Nature of the
Qualitative Process
• Data collection, data analysis and the development
and verification of relationships and conclusion
are all interrelated and interactive set of processes
• Allows researcher to recognise important themes,
patterns and relationships as you collect data
• Allows you to re-categorise existing data to see
whether themes and patterns and relationships
exist in the data already collected
• Allows you to adjust your future data collection
approach to see whether they exist in other cases
12. Tools for helping the Analytical
Process
• Summaries
• Should contain the key points that emerge from
undertaking the specific activity
• Self Memos
• Allow you to make a record of the ideas which
occur to you about any aspect of your research,as
you think of them
• Researcher Diary
