Week 1 – module A
Qualitative research: see with your own eyes
Steps:
1. Topic & research question
2. Literature review
3. Research design
4. Data collection
5. Data analysis
6. Reporting
Qualitative research is not interested in: generalizing, making predictions
Qualitative research -> interpretivist approach
- Data is constructed with participants
- Data is expressed in language
- Subjective
- Linked to context
- Seeking evidence of meaning
- Interviews/ethnography (become one of the members of the group)/case studies/document
analysis
Quantitative research -> positivist approach
- Data is collected from the real world
- Data is expressed in numbers
- Objective
- Generalizable
- Seeking evidence of frequency
- Surveys/polls/questionnaires/content analysis
Searching for love in time of the coronavirus
- What could quantitative research investigate: how often people find love via the internet
- What could qualitative research investigate: the difference between offline and online
relationships
Induction vs deduction
Qualitative research -> induction
1
, Week 2 – Module B
How to design research:
- Answer a series of questions that make you reflect on and justify your research choices
- Consider the elements of your study and how they relate to one another, make a provisional
plan, and continuously adapt each element to create unity in the whole as your research
emerges
In qualitative research, research design is an inter-connected
process. Inter-connected means that all steps in the process
influence each other. You should adapt the structure of your
research to the context in which you are studying.
The picture on the left is a model for qualitative research design.
Goals -> what are you trying to achieve?
Conceptual framework -> what concepts will you start with?
Research question -> what exactly do you want to find out?
Methods -> what will you do to answer your research question?
Validity -> on what basis will you be able to defend your findings?
Research approaches
Grounded theory
Research focus of approach: developing a theory grounded in data from the field. Explain a new
phenomenon, with not a lot of theory available on it yet.
Unit of analysis: studying a process, an action, or an interaction involving many individuals
Type of research: grounding a theory in the views of participants
Nature of disciplinary origins: drawing from sociology
Forms of data collection: using primarily interviews with 20 to 60 individuals
Strategies of data analysis: analyzing data through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding
2
Qualitative research: see with your own eyes
Steps:
1. Topic & research question
2. Literature review
3. Research design
4. Data collection
5. Data analysis
6. Reporting
Qualitative research is not interested in: generalizing, making predictions
Qualitative research -> interpretivist approach
- Data is constructed with participants
- Data is expressed in language
- Subjective
- Linked to context
- Seeking evidence of meaning
- Interviews/ethnography (become one of the members of the group)/case studies/document
analysis
Quantitative research -> positivist approach
- Data is collected from the real world
- Data is expressed in numbers
- Objective
- Generalizable
- Seeking evidence of frequency
- Surveys/polls/questionnaires/content analysis
Searching for love in time of the coronavirus
- What could quantitative research investigate: how often people find love via the internet
- What could qualitative research investigate: the difference between offline and online
relationships
Induction vs deduction
Qualitative research -> induction
1
, Week 2 – Module B
How to design research:
- Answer a series of questions that make you reflect on and justify your research choices
- Consider the elements of your study and how they relate to one another, make a provisional
plan, and continuously adapt each element to create unity in the whole as your research
emerges
In qualitative research, research design is an inter-connected
process. Inter-connected means that all steps in the process
influence each other. You should adapt the structure of your
research to the context in which you are studying.
The picture on the left is a model for qualitative research design.
Goals -> what are you trying to achieve?
Conceptual framework -> what concepts will you start with?
Research question -> what exactly do you want to find out?
Methods -> what will you do to answer your research question?
Validity -> on what basis will you be able to defend your findings?
Research approaches
Grounded theory
Research focus of approach: developing a theory grounded in data from the field. Explain a new
phenomenon, with not a lot of theory available on it yet.
Unit of analysis: studying a process, an action, or an interaction involving many individuals
Type of research: grounding a theory in the views of participants
Nature of disciplinary origins: drawing from sociology
Forms of data collection: using primarily interviews with 20 to 60 individuals
Strategies of data analysis: analyzing data through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding
2
