Qualitative research methods focus on obtaining in-depth data through open-ended communication rather than numerical data. This allows researchers to understand not just what people think but also why. Common qualitative methods include in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research, case studies, observation, and visual techniques. While time-consuming, these methods provide meaningful insights into motivations, behaviors, and perspectives.

1. TOOLS OF RESEARCH
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

2.  Research is defined as a careful consideration of
study regarding a particular concern or problem using
scientific methods.
 According to the American sociologist Earl Robert
Babbie, “research is a systematic inquiry to describe,
explain, predict, and control the observed
phenomenon. It involves inductive and deductive
methods.”.

3. Research methods are broadly classified
as Qualitative and Quantitative.
Both methods have distinctive properties and data
collection methods.
Qualitative methods:
 Qualitative research is a method that collects data
using conversational methods, usually open-ended
questions. The responses collected are essentially
non-numerical. This method helps a researcher
understand what participants think and why they
think in a particular way.

4. Qualitative research is defined as a market
research method that focuses on obtaining data
through open-ended and conversational
communication.
This method is not only about “what” people think
but also “why” they think so. For example, consider
a convenience store looking to improve its
patronage. A systematic observation concludes that
the number of men visiting this store are more. One
good method to determine why women were not
visiting the store is to conduct an in-depth interview
of potential customers in the category.

5.  For example, on successfully
interviewing female customers, visiting
the nearby stores and malls, and selecting
them through random sampling, it was
known that the store doesn’t have enough
items for women and so there were fewer
women visiting the store, which was
understood only by personally interacting
with them and understanding why they
didn’t visit the store, because there were
more male products than female ones.

6. Qualitative research is based on
the disciplines of social sciences like
psychology, sociology, and
anthropology.
Therefore, the qualitative research
methods allow for in-depth and further
probing and questioning of respondents
based on their responses, where the
interviewer/researcher also tries to
understand their motivation and feelings.

7.  The most time-consuming element
of qualitative research methods is
undoubtedly the data analysis.
 There are two main approaches to
analyzing qualitative data:
 inductive and
 deductive.

8. An inductive approach does not require a
theory or any expectations to begin
research and is the more commonly used
method for qualitative data analysis.
Inductive reasoning is a method of
drawing conclusions by going from the
specific to the general. In the summer,
there are ducks on our pond. Therefore,
summer will bring ducks to our pond.

9.  A deductive approach would make the
researcher begin with an initial
hypothesis or expectation for the data
set. Deductive reasoning is the mental
process of drawing deductive
inferences by going from general to
specific. If there’s a rainbow, flights
will get canceled.
 There is a rainbow now.
 Therefore, flights are canceled.

11.  Interviews
 Focus groups
 Ethnographic studies
 Case studies
 Secondary research (record keeping)
 Observational studies
 Visual techniques
 Online surveys (mobile, kiosk, desktop)
 Paper surveys

12.  Conducting in-depth interviews is one of the most common
qualitative research methods. It is a personal interview that is
carried out with one respondent at a time. This is purely a
conversational method and invites opportunities to get details in
depth from the respondent.

13.  One of the advantages of this method
provides a great opportunity to gather precise
data about what people believe and what their
motivations are. If the researcher is well
experienced asking the right questions, can
help him/her collect meaningful data.
 These interviews can be performed face-to-
face or on phone and usually can last between
half an hour to two hours or even more. When
the in-depth interview is conducted face to
face, it gives a better opportunity to read the
body language of the respondents.

14.  A focus group is also one of the
commonly used qualitative research
methods, used in data collection. A
focus group usually includes a limited
number of respondents (6-10) from
within target market.
 The main aim of the focus group is to
find answers to the “why” “what” and
“how” questions.

15.  One advantage of focus groups is, we don’t
necessarily need to interact with the group in person.
Nowadays focus groups can be sent an online
survey on various devices and responses can be
collected at the click of a button.
 Focus groups are an expensive method as compared
to the other online qualitative research methods.
Typically they are used to explain complex processes.
This method is very useful when it comes to market
research on new products and testing new concepts.

16.  Ethnographic research is the most in-depth
observational method that studies people in their
naturally occurring environment.
 Ethnographic research involves observing and studying
research topics in a specific geographic location to
understand cultures, behaviors, trends, patterns and
problems in a natural setting.

17.  Geographic location can range from a small entity to a
big country. Researchers must spend a considerable
amount of time, usually several weeks or months, with
the group being studied to interact with them as a
participant in their community. This makes it a time-
consuming and challenging research method and
cannot be limited to a specific period.

18.  The case study method has evolved over the past few years
and developed into a valuable qualitative research method. As
the name suggests it is used for explaining an organization or
an entity.
 This type of research method is used within a number of areas
like education, social sciences and similar. This method may
look difficult to operate, however, it is one of the simplest
ways of conducting research as it involves a deep dive and
thorough understanding of the data collection methods and
inferring the data.

19.  Let’s take the example of a bookstore owner who is looking
for ways to improve their sales and customer outreach.
An online community of members who were the loyal patrons
of the bookstore were interviewed and related questions were
asked and the questions were answered by them.
 At the end of the interview, it was realized that most of the
books in the stores were suitable for adults and there were not
enough options for children or teenagers.
 By conducting this qualitative research the bookstore owner
realized what the shortcomings were and what were the
feelings of the readers. Through this research now the
bookstore owner can now keep books for different age
categories and can improve his sales and customer outreach.

20. This method makes use of the already
existing reliable documents and similar
sources of information as the data source.
This data can be used in new research.
This is similar to going to a library. There
one can go over books and other
reference material to collect relevant data
that can likely be used in the research.

21.  Qualitative Observation is a process of
research that uses subjective methodologies to
gather systematic information or data.
Qualitative observation is primarily used to
equate quality differences.
 Qualitative observation deals with the 5 major
sensory organs and their functioning – sight,
smell, touch, taste, and hearing. This doesn’t
involve measurements or numbers but instead
characteristics.

22.  Visual techniques: in this method, participants
are prompted to construct visual responses to
questions posed by the interviewers, the visual
content can be maps, diagrams, calendars,
timelines and other visual displays to examine
the study topics.
 This technique is especially effective where
verbal methods can be problematic due to low-
literate or mixed-language target populations,
or in situations where the desired information
is not easily expressed in either words or
numbers.

23.  Data is inferential
 The kind of language your respondent uses can often tell you as
much about how they feel or what think as what they said. If you
learn to pick up on these linguistic nuances, they can inform more
than your research.
 For instance, open feedback in a customer satisfaction survey can
help to build customer profiles.
 More meaningful feedback
 Where quantitative data is numerical in nature, qualitative data
provides more in-depth and meaningful feedback. You can gain more
of an understanding of a participant’s reasoning and beliefs
 Data collection requires less resources
 Because your respondent pool is smaller, you’ll require less time and
investment (if you’re incentivizing participants) to conduct your
research.


24.  Analysis is time consuming
 As the type of data you collect for a qualitative
survey is typically long-form, the results will
take more time and effort to analyze.
 Smaller respondent pool
 Qualitative surveys only need a small sample
size, so it can be more difficult to generalize
your results for a wider population.
 .

25.  Research is skill dependent
 Face-to-face interviews and focus groups require
researchers to know when to continue a line of
questioning and when to move on.
 There is a fine line between gaining more context
to answers and collecting superfluous feedback.
 In an online survey, the way you frame questions
is particularly important, as there is no researcher
present to provide further context.
 Data interpretation also needs a high level of skill
and experience to remain objective.