This document provides an overview of qualitative research methods. It discusses the key differences between qualitative and quantitative research, including that qualitative research emphasizes words and stories over numbers. It also covers different qualitative data collection methods like interviews, focus groups, and observation. The document provides guidance on choosing appropriate methods and designing qualitative research, emphasizing that qualitative research is inductive and focused on understanding meanings and contexts.

1. Research at Stenden Masters
incl. introduction to
Qualitative Research
Sjoerd Gehrels
2014

2. Research cycle
Observations
Theory
Deduction Induction

3. Research cycle
Hypotheses
Theory
Deduction

4. Research cycle
Findings
Theory
Induction

5. Topic, Purpose, PS, RQ
Literature Review
Methodology
Data Analysis and
Discussion
Conclusions and
Recommendations
Structure of
your thesis =
steps in your
research

6. Topic, Purpose, PS, RQ
Literature Review
Methodology
Data Analysis and
Discussion
Conclusions Recommendations
Structure of
your thesis
= steps in
your
research,
yet...

7. Topic, Purpose, PS, RQ
Literature Review
Methodology
Data Analysis and
Discussion
Conclusions Recommendations
Structure
of your
thesis =
steps in
your
research,
yet...
everything
is
connected
with
everything

8. Traditions
• Quantitative Research
–Emphasis on quantification (numbers)
in the collection of data
• Qualitative Research
–Emphasis on words / stories in the
collection of data

9. Quantitative Research
Theory
Hypothesis
DataCollection
Data analysis
Hypothesis confirmed or rejected
Revision of Theory

10. Qualitative Research
Develop study background
General research question
Selection of site / subjects
Data Collection
Interpretation of data
Development of theoretical framework

11. Research
• What?
–Content of the research
• How?
–Method of the research

12. Proposal
Problem situation
Purpose
Literature review
Conceptual model
Research Objective
Problem statement / hypothese
General Research Strategy
Data collection Methods
Data Analysis methods
WHAT?
HOW?

13. Qualitative Research

14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa3ZQYzJwGY

15. Qualitative Research: variables – process - elements
Information Interpretation Integration
Variables: triple “I”
ReflectResearch Respect
Process: triple “R”
Subject ConstructObject
Elements: “OSC”

16. Qualitative Methods
1. Get over the idea that research means counting.
2. The focus is on subjective experiences, or the
meanings that people use.
3. Because meaning resides in language (people
think with language), qualitative research
largely involves studying text.
4. The best device for collecting and analyzing
qualitative information is the human brain.

17. Qualitative Methods
5. Qualitative research is local, concrete.
6. Observations and findings depend on
understanding contexts and the meanings
held by the people in those contexts and the
meanings of the things in those contexts.
7. Observations are typically of interactions in
smaller groups or selectively defined settings.
8. Exploration is very often the motive, but not
always. It can also be about explaining.

18. Qualitative Methods
9. Qualitative research is typically inductive.
10.The research is reflexive—design is
flexible and can change given the needs of
the research or during the research
process. E.g., Theoretical Sampling
11.The researcher must be reflexive as
well—the brain tool must be calibrated,
understood, active, paid attention to,
controlled

19. Qualitative Methods
12. Qualitative research is very practical,
logical, and critical of itself.
13. Researchers constantly ask, “Am I
accurately depicting the social world
given the ways I am collecting and
analyzing my data?”
14. Good qualitative research is often the
most rigorous, difficult research. Some
people call it a ‘protestant method’.

20. DEDUCTIVE & INDUCTIVE REASONING

21. Elements of the Research Process
Deductive thinking (Quantitative)
THEORY
HYPOTHESIS
OBSERVATION
CONFIRMATION

22. Elements of the Research Process (Cont.)
Inductive thinking (Qualitative)
OBSERVATION
PATTERNS
HYPOTHESIS
THEORY

23. IDEAL
QUANTITATIVE QUALITATIVE
Research process is
deductive.
Research process is
inductive.
Measure objective facts. Document social reality,
meaning is constructed.
Focus on variables. Focus on in-depth meaning.
Firewall between research
process and researchers’
values.
Values are present &
explicit (empathy).
Cross-contextual. Contextual dependence.
Many cases. Few cases.

24. Statistical analysis Thematic analysis
Highly structured
research process.
Loosely structured
research process.
Separation from data Intimacy with data
Generalize to
population
Generalize to
properties and
contexts
IDEAL
QUANTITATIVE QUALITATIVE

25. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oZAIUGFTOk

26. When should I use qualitative methods?
• When variables cannot be quantified
• When variables are best understood in their
natural settings
• When studying intimate details of roles,
processes, and groups
• When the paramount objective is
“understanding”

27. Qualitative Methods
What skills do I need?
• Must have knowledge and skills about
methodology, setting and nature of the issue.
• Must be familiar with own biases, assumptions,
expectations, and values.
• Must be empathic, intelligent, energetic, and
interested in listening
• Must be open to multiple realities.
• Must be prepared to produce detailed,
comprehensive, and sometimes lengthy reports.

28. Qualitative Methods
Before collecting data, you have to determine what you want to
accomplish.
Tight versus Loose Design, ask yourself:
– How much time do I have?
– What resources are available?
– What is the purpose of the study?
– In what am I really interested?
More structure can prevent waste
– If we already know about the context, it would be wasteful
to go exploring
– If you have targeted topic, you can reduce data at the
collection stage and cut down on analysis time
– Loose produces more data, more “surprise discoveries”
can be made

29. Qualitative Methods:
Choose your unit of analysis.
Individuals
– Certain experiences
– Experiences in particular settings
– Identities such as student with classroom, school….
Groups
– Demographic groups
– Types of people such as practitioners, students …….
– Those in one setting versus another
– Organizations

30. Qualitative research quickly exhausts
resources and time.
Limit the amount of data collected:
• It’s not the size that matters, it’s what you do with the
data.
Be very clear about the research focus:
• Write down your foggy ideas and then get more specific.
• Concentrate on most important issues and not others.
• Start writing specific questions you want to answer.
• Now get even more specific…reduce

31. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnXdDAtNX3U

32. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
• Not measurements, but WORDS!
• Instead of asking how many times
someone purchased an item, you
ask "WHY...?“
• Typically the samples are small,
and not "random“, but “purposive”
or “theoretically driven”

33. Most frequent uses
• Understanding issues:
–Why do people what they do?
–How do people what they do?
–How do people perceive a
situation? and why?
• To explore, explain or theoretize a
problem (maybe before engaging
in a hypotheses testing study)

34. Strengths
• Good for examining feelings and
motivations
• Allows for complexity and depth of issues
• Provides insights
Weaknesses
• Can’t extrapolate (generalize) to the whole
population
• Volume of data
• Complexity of analysis
• Time-consuming nature of efforts required

35. Two principle designs
1. Pre-structured (starting with
literature)
2. Grounded (starting with data)

36. Pre-structured (starting with literature)
Search the
literature:
identify
relevant
concepts
DList of concepts
issues from the
literature and
conceptual
model
Gather data
by using
interviewing,
focus groups,
observation
or ?
Find the
relevant
mentioning of
the concepts/
issues in the
dataReduce &
analyse the
findings
Discussion,
conclusions &
recommendations

37. Grounded (starting with the data)
Search the literature:
explain concepts
found in data
Gather data by
using interviewing,
focus groups,
observation or ?
Write memo’s!
Reduce &
analyse the
findings
Discussion,
conclusions &
recommendations
Continue data
gathering and
literature
explanations

38. Methods
• Individual interviews
–Nonstructured
–Structured
• Group interviews
–Structured or unstructured
–Focus groups
• Observation
–Participant
–Non-participant

39. In-depth Interview: conversation on a given
topic between a respondent and an interviewer
• Used to obtain detailed insights and personal thoughts
• Flexible and unstructured, but usually with an interview guide
• Purpose: to probe informants’ motivations, feelings, beliefs
• Lasts about an hour
• Interviewer creates relaxed, open environment
• Wording of questions and order are determined by flow of
conversation
• Interview transcripts are analyzed for themes and connections
between themes
Recommended reading:
Rubin, H.J. & Rubin, I.S. (2012). Qualitative Interviewing : The Art of
Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications

41. Advantages
• Tendency to have a more free exchange
• Can probe potentially complex motivations and behavior
• Easier to attach a particular response to a respondent
Disadvantages
• Qualified interviewers are expensive
• Length and expense of interview often leads to small sample
• Subjectivity and “fuzziness”
Essential
• Good organisation: space, confidentiality, no distractions
• Recording on voice recorder
• Piloting the interview technique
• Transcribing or part-transcribing the interview

42. Depth Interviews: example

43. FOCUS GROUPS

44. Focus Groups
A loosely structured interview conducted by a trained
moderator among a small number of informants
simultaneously.

45. Focus Group Characteristics
• 8 - 12 members
• homogeneous in terms of demographics and
socioeconomic factors but heterogeneous
views
• experience related to issue being discussed
• 1 1/2 –2 hour session
• qualified moderator
• conversation may be video and/or
audiotaped OR notes may be taken

46. Key Issues
• Focus groups are small numbers, not
random, not statistically valid
• Focus groups are a lot of work
• Can get insights from focus groups
that can’t get in other ways
• Know their limits
• Beware of power relations

47. Skills Moderator
• Observation
• Interpersonal
• Communication
• Interpretive

48. OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH
Watching what people do
• The information must be observable
Helpful conditions:
– the behavior is repetitive and of short duration
Approaches to observational research
• Natural Versus Contrived Situations
• Open Versus Disguised Observation
• Structured Versus Unstructured
• Human Versus Machine Observers

49. Main Observational Research Methods
• Direct Observation
• Contrived Observation
–Mystery Shopper
• Physical Trace Measures
–“Garbology”
• Ethnographic Research

50. Sampling
• Plan Data Collection
• Define sampling boundaries:
– Space
– Time
– Social position
– Context
• Try not to record that which is not in
your sampling parameters

51. Sampling in Qualitative
Research
•Purposive
•Snowballing
•Theoretical

52. Sampling in Qualitative
Research
• Make choices that narrow or delimit research focus
and activities to a level that
– A researcher’s brain can handle
– Can be done in a reasonable amount of time
– Is within a reasonable budget
• Seek exposure to topic-related information
• Focus only on information directly useful for the
research
– Samples should be small, not large
• Sampling decisions are made throughout data
collection, not necessarily all in advance

53. Qualitative Data Analysis:
Grounded Theory Example

54. OVERVIEW OF QUALITATIVE DATA
ANALYSIS•
Data
Collection
Data
display
Data
reduction Conclusions:
drawing /
verifying
(Miles & Huberman, 1994)

55. School of Graduate Studies
Qualitative analysis as a spiral

56. • Data analysis
– An attempt to summarize/reduce collected data.
• Data Interpretation
– Attempt to find meaning
• Analysis not left until the end
• To avoid collecting data that are not important the
researcher must ask:
– How am I going to make sense of this data?
• And:
– Why do the participants act as they do?
– What does this focus mean?
– What else do I want to know?
– What new ideas have emerged?
– Is this new information?

57. Data Analysis Strategies
• Identifying themes
–Begin with big picture and list “themes” that
emerge.
• Events that keep repeating themselves
• Coding qualitative data
–Reduce data to a manageable form
–Often done by writing notes on note
cards and sorting into themes.
• Predetermined categories vs. emerging
categories

58. Data Analysis: Grounded Theory
• Theory is derived from the data: systematically
gathered and analysed
• Iterative process
– repetitive interplay between data collection and
analysis / theory building
• Variations in grounded theory
– Glaser & Strauss: original creators (1967) but
separated afterwards
– Corbin, Clarke, Charmaz, Birks, Hennink et.al.
– Example: Gehrels using primarily Charmaz’s
Constructivist GT

59. Grounded Theory
• Verbatim transcripts
• Coding
• Categories
• Concepts or Themes
• Theoretical sampling
• Memo-ing
• Theoretical saturation
• Constant comparison (between concepts
/themes)
• Creating explanation and, if possible, “small or
medium” theory or ‘moderate enlightenment’

60. Analysis process of grounded theory
(Saldana, 2009)

61. Considerations in developing codes
• Of what general category is this item of data an
instance?
• What does this item of data represent?
• What is this item of data about?
• Of what topic is this item of data an instance?
• What question about a topic does this item of data
suggest?
• What sort of answer to a question about a topic does
this item of data imply?
• What is happening here?
• What are people doing?
• What do people say they are doing?
• What kind of event is going on?

62. Analysis process of grounded theory (2)
Transcript Code text Code label
Transcript
(text)
Interpretation
/
Analysis
Concept
labeling

63. Transcript Interpretation Concept
JO: Ik zeg altijd: “succesvol ben je op het moment dat je afrekent”. CE
is succesvol. FO, dat weet ik niet of die succesvol is.b
SG: Wil je mijn mening ook horen daarin of niet?
JO has a definition of success in
which he refers to the moment of
finishing the business. He assumes
CE to have been successful but is not
sure about FO.
Successful
JO: Als je die kwijt zou willen, dan wil ik dat well horen. Er zijn er
maar een paar die ooit succesvol zijn geweest. GF is natuurlijk een
fantastisch restaurateur, verschrikkelijk mooie tent, en in die tijd
draaiden ze daar acht miljoen gulden omzet. Naar verhouding was
dat de top van de top in onze branche. Alleen hij hield er geen gulden
aan over. Op het moment dat die piep ging, moesten zijn broers
allemaal gaan kijken hoe ze de tent uiteindelijk iets succesvoller
konden maken, om het te kunnen verkopen. Dat is altijd het gevaar in
onze branche van wie is nou succesvol en wat is succesvol voor de
ondernemer zelf? Kijk, als ik in mijn leven harder had gewerkt, dus
een wezenlijk onderdeel was geweest van de keuken- of de
bedieningbrigade, dan had ik al dat geld wat ik daar nu aan uitgeef
kunnen besparen. Dan was ik nu waarschijnlijk helemaal klaar
geweest. Maar omdat ik van nature lui ben en omdat ik veel moet
nadenken, laat ik anderen datgene doen waar ik geen zin in heb. Dat
betekent dat ik een redelijk gezellig privé leven heb, dat kun je ook
als succesvol bestempelen. Alleen dan weet ik natuurlijk niet hoe het
straks gaat als ik denk ik heb er geen zin meer in. Dus succesvol is
altijd heel moeilijk te omschrijven. Wat voor de één een succes is als
hij een fiets koopt, is voor de ander een zwarte rolls royce.
Contemplation about another
SSUSCRO (one of the narratives at
the beginning of the thesis) who he
thinks was a good hospitality
professional but not good in
business.
The entrepreneur considers that he
would have had the opportunity to
make more money if he would have
taken more operational
responsibility but he chose
deliberately not to do so.
JO describes himself as naturally
lazy and therefore choosing not be
fully operationally involved. By
doing so he created a different life
style and quality of life. He is not
sure what successful means in this
context.
Successful
Critical
Financial
Entrepreneu
rship
Personality
Financial
Entrepreneu
rship
Personality
Successful
Relativism
Quality of
life

64. 你觉得西方学生上课的时候会
讲一些和课堂不相干的问题。
Western peer
talks about
irrelevant topics
in class and
teachers would
participate. But
Chinese
students cannot
do the same.
Teachers would
stop our topic.
Culture
difference made
the
communication
hard.
Western speak
non-related
things in class
Culture
difference made
communication
hard.
对，有时候我还感觉如果是他
们上课说这些，老师就跟着他
们聊，能说好多，但是如果我
们说了相同的话，老师就直接
说你这个和课没有关系。也不
是特别直接，但是意思就是这
样。可能是因为我们不会聊，
没有人家论点、论据那么充足。
可能还是culture的问题。咱们
说的方式不同，很直接的拉出
来一个东西来说。
对对。我不太能说的一个原因
还有班里好多同学都是学语言
出来的，或是文科，我是理科，
我就跟他们理解问题不一样。

65. Analysis process of grounded theory (3)
•Visualize the
categorizing labels
•Create a “messy”
conceptual map using
the labels

67. Analysis process of grounded theory (4)
•Try to identify
categories within the
conceptual map

69. Analysis process of grounded theory (5)
• Further explore the literature
and engage in further
interviewing (theoretical
sampling)
• Raise the categories to themes/
concepts

70. Memos
• Notes written by researchers to
themselves
• Help to generate concepts and
categories:
reminder of what terms mean
encourage reflective thinking about
emerging ideas
crystallize ideas and keep researcher on
track

71. Memo SSUSCRO Social Construct
An awareness starts to emerge while coding that the SSUSCRO is not
just a person but more a ‘construct’ that consists of a number of
elements. In my definition the SSUSCRO construct at the heart has
the individual of the person that is the entrepreneur who can be
defined in terms of personality and value system. Furthermore there
is an interaction between the profession, managing the culinary
restaurant, and the person. Then other influential elements of the
construct are the issues/happenings (passive), and the activities
(active) that influence the SSUSCRO. This research, being nested in
the epistemology of social constructionism, tries to define the
SSUSCRO Social Construct in order to describe how this construct
can influence hospitality management education.

72. Memo Nature or Nurture
In the literature there is a discussion about ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’ as
influence in the shaping of entrepreneurs. It will be important to
engage in conversation about the topic with the SSUSCROs that I will
be interviewing further on in my research journey.
Then later, I added to the memo:
In a recent documentary on television it was interesting to see the
search of former World Champion 110m hurdles, Colin Jackson who
wanted to find out if his ability to run fast could more be attached to
‘nature’ or ‘nurture’. As it turned out to be the ‘nature’ element was
heavily over estimated by many people. So it was not the fact that he
had the muscular system of a Caribbean/Jamaican person but more
the consequent process of nurture by himself and people around him
in the conditions where he was living that made him so successful as
an athlete.

74. Analysis process of grounded theory (6)
• Develop the final conclusions
and possibly grounded theory
• Describe and explain the
grounded theory and all its
components
• Re-visit the original research
questions and objectives
• Formulate recommendations