Exam preparation: Introduction to Qualitative Research
Week 1: Designing qualitative research
There are three research types, that all has its own purpose:
1. Qualitative: explore and understand (words, concepts, perceptions, ideas, meanings);
2. Quantitative: test and measure (numeral data, deductive approach);
3. Mixed-methods: both – explore and understand, and test and measure.
Factors that need consideration regarding your methodological design:
1. The nature of your research aims and research questions:
- Exploratory tends to require a qualitative research;
- Confirmatory tends to require a quantitative research;
- Exploratory and confirmatory → mixed-methods.
2. The methodological approaches in related studies;
3. Practicalities and resource constraints. 5 common constraints:
- Access to data (or people);
- Time requirements;
- Budgetary requirements;
- Equipment and software;
- Knowledge and skills.
The qualitative research type has pros and cons:
PROS CONS
1. Provides in-depth understanding; 1. Researcher subjectivity and bias;
2. Helps explore complex issues; 2. Not generalizable;
3. Helps generate hypotheses; 3. Time and resource intensive;
4. Enhances data validity; 4. Hard to replicate;
5. Flexibility and adaptability. 5. Lacks of numeral data.
The research process
Inquiry
-j
Writing and - Inquiry: what is interesting about it? Why is
(research
reporting
topic) it important to study this?
- Research questions: what areas are you
particularly interested studying in?
Research - Design of study: literature, framework,
Data analysis
questions ethical concerns, time span, amount of data.
- Instruments: qualitative instruments are for
example interview, focus group, ethnography.
- Recruiting & sampling: snowball, purposeful.
- Collection: materials, protocols, consent
forms, equipment, use of voice recorders.
Data Design of - Data handling: transcriptions, cleaning,
handling study quality control, storage, confidentiality.
- Data analysis: back to framework, codebook,
retrieval and categorizing. Software/old style.
- Writing & reporting: representation and
distribution (consider research valorization to
Data
Instruments
make it valuable for wider audiences).
collection
Recruiting
and sampling
1
, The five steps in qualitative research:
1. Define your research question;
2. Identify the appropriate research method to answer that question;
- There are three ways in which methodology plays a role in your research: types of research
(including objectives of your project), methods of data collection, methods of data analysis.
3. Collect data;
4. Analyze the data;
5. Publish.
The golden thread: research aims, research objectives, and research questions.
• Research aims: overarching purpose of your study / high-level statement. It helps you stay
focused on your goal. You link back to it in your conclusion.
• Research objectives: more practical and action-oriented than the aims, it contains specific things
you’ll do to achieve the aim you’ve set. You can look at existing research for this. Make it SMART:
specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
• Research questions: specific questions you’ll seek an answer to. The conclusion should directly
answer this/these question(s). Use the aims and objectives to form questions.
How to use the golden thread?
- It helps to ensure alignment in your study;
- Use it as a test for the relevance of your writing throughout the chapters;
- Link the golden thread back in your summaries and/or conclusion.
A research question is the core question of your study, or the focus of your study.
Research question essentials:
• Focused and clearly stated: singular focus, articulate clearly what you want to find out;
• Feasible: consider what data you will need and how you will analyze it;
• Rooted: your question should be rooted in a research gap;
• Aligned: from a broad aim to a narrow question.
Theoretical framework ≠ conceptual framework
Theoretical framework: core foundation of theory that you’ll build your study upon (theories, models,
defining terminology, and seminal research). A must-have in social studies.
Conceptual framework: a conceptual model is a (visual) representation of the various constructs and
variables that you assume play a role AND the expected relations between them. They are often used
to develop research questions and hypotheses. It helps to put a study into perspective: what are the
relations between variables?
Conceptualization: the process of defining and refining the meaning of concepts in a research project.
→ Being crystal-clear and transparent is the key thing in research.
Operationalization: the process of stating the exact procedures or operations that you will use to
measure the dimensions of the given concept. → Forces you to be transparent and focused.
Paradigm: way of looking at reality / the framework that is used to interpret reality.
• Positivism: not interfering with data collection (<1970);
• Interpretivism: more ways to look at things, different realities / multiple truths (mostly >1970).
2
Week 1: Designing qualitative research
There are three research types, that all has its own purpose:
1. Qualitative: explore and understand (words, concepts, perceptions, ideas, meanings);
2. Quantitative: test and measure (numeral data, deductive approach);
3. Mixed-methods: both – explore and understand, and test and measure.
Factors that need consideration regarding your methodological design:
1. The nature of your research aims and research questions:
- Exploratory tends to require a qualitative research;
- Confirmatory tends to require a quantitative research;
- Exploratory and confirmatory → mixed-methods.
2. The methodological approaches in related studies;
3. Practicalities and resource constraints. 5 common constraints:
- Access to data (or people);
- Time requirements;
- Budgetary requirements;
- Equipment and software;
- Knowledge and skills.
The qualitative research type has pros and cons:
PROS CONS
1. Provides in-depth understanding; 1. Researcher subjectivity and bias;
2. Helps explore complex issues; 2. Not generalizable;
3. Helps generate hypotheses; 3. Time and resource intensive;
4. Enhances data validity; 4. Hard to replicate;
5. Flexibility and adaptability. 5. Lacks of numeral data.
The research process
Inquiry
-j
Writing and - Inquiry: what is interesting about it? Why is
(research
reporting
topic) it important to study this?
- Research questions: what areas are you
particularly interested studying in?
Research - Design of study: literature, framework,
Data analysis
questions ethical concerns, time span, amount of data.
- Instruments: qualitative instruments are for
example interview, focus group, ethnography.
- Recruiting & sampling: snowball, purposeful.
- Collection: materials, protocols, consent
forms, equipment, use of voice recorders.
Data Design of - Data handling: transcriptions, cleaning,
handling study quality control, storage, confidentiality.
- Data analysis: back to framework, codebook,
retrieval and categorizing. Software/old style.
- Writing & reporting: representation and
distribution (consider research valorization to
Data
Instruments
make it valuable for wider audiences).
collection
Recruiting
and sampling
1
, The five steps in qualitative research:
1. Define your research question;
2. Identify the appropriate research method to answer that question;
- There are three ways in which methodology plays a role in your research: types of research
(including objectives of your project), methods of data collection, methods of data analysis.
3. Collect data;
4. Analyze the data;
5. Publish.
The golden thread: research aims, research objectives, and research questions.
• Research aims: overarching purpose of your study / high-level statement. It helps you stay
focused on your goal. You link back to it in your conclusion.
• Research objectives: more practical and action-oriented than the aims, it contains specific things
you’ll do to achieve the aim you’ve set. You can look at existing research for this. Make it SMART:
specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
• Research questions: specific questions you’ll seek an answer to. The conclusion should directly
answer this/these question(s). Use the aims and objectives to form questions.
How to use the golden thread?
- It helps to ensure alignment in your study;
- Use it as a test for the relevance of your writing throughout the chapters;
- Link the golden thread back in your summaries and/or conclusion.
A research question is the core question of your study, or the focus of your study.
Research question essentials:
• Focused and clearly stated: singular focus, articulate clearly what you want to find out;
• Feasible: consider what data you will need and how you will analyze it;
• Rooted: your question should be rooted in a research gap;
• Aligned: from a broad aim to a narrow question.
Theoretical framework ≠ conceptual framework
Theoretical framework: core foundation of theory that you’ll build your study upon (theories, models,
defining terminology, and seminal research). A must-have in social studies.
Conceptual framework: a conceptual model is a (visual) representation of the various constructs and
variables that you assume play a role AND the expected relations between them. They are often used
to develop research questions and hypotheses. It helps to put a study into perspective: what are the
relations between variables?
Conceptualization: the process of defining and refining the meaning of concepts in a research project.
→ Being crystal-clear and transparent is the key thing in research.
Operationalization: the process of stating the exact procedures or operations that you will use to
measure the dimensions of the given concept. → Forces you to be transparent and focused.
Paradigm: way of looking at reality / the framework that is used to interpret reality.
• Positivism: not interfering with data collection (<1970);
• Interpretivism: more ways to look at things, different realities / multiple truths (mostly >1970).
2
