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QUALITATIVE METHOD

Qualitative research is one of the two major approaches to research methodology in social sciences. Qualitative research involves an indepth understanding of human behaviour and the reasons that govern human behaviour. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative research relies on reasons behind various aspects of behaviour. Simply put, it investigates the why and how of decision making, as compared to what, where, and when of quantitative research. Hence, the need is for smaller but focused samples rather than large random samples, which qualitative research categorizes data into patterns as the primary basis for organizing and reporting results.

Contents

[edit] History

"Qualitative research methods also began at the margins of acceptable science. From Freud on, ... Carl Rogers (1942; 1951) ... Piaget ... Mary Ainsworth (1979)."[1]

Qualitative research approaches began to gain recognition in the 1970s. The phrase 'qualitative research' was until then marginalized as a discipline of anthropology or sociology, and terms like ethnography, fieldwork, participant observation and Chicago school (sociology) were used instead. During the 1970s and 1980s qualitative research began to be used in other disciplines, and became a dominant - or at least significant - type of research in the fields of women's studies, disability studies, education studies, social work studies, information studies, management studies, nursing service studies, human service studies, psychology, and others. In the late 1980s and 1990s after a spate of criticisms from the quantitative side, new methods of qualitative research have been designed, to address the problems with reliability and imprecise modes of data analysis.[2]

An intelligent way of differentiating Qualitative research from Quantitative research is that largely Qualitative research is exploratory, while Quantitative research is conclusive.

Quantitative data is measurable while Qualitative data can not be put into a context that can be graphed or displayed as a mathematical term.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Pamela Maykut, Richard Morehouse
  2. ^ Taylor, 1998

[edit] References

  • Adler, P. A. & Adler, P. (1987). Membership roles in field research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
  • Becker, Howard S., The epistemology of qualitative research. University of Chicago Press, 1996. 53-71. [from Ethnography and human development : context and meaning in social inquiry / edited by Richard Jessor, Anne Colby, and Richard A. Shweder]
  • Boas, Franz (1943). Recent anthropology. Science, 98, 311-314, 334-337.
  • Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000). Handbook of qualitative research ( 2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • DeWalt, K. M. & DeWalt, B. R. (2002). Participant observation. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  • Fischer, C.T. (Ed.) (2005). Qualitative research methods for psychologists: Introduction through empirical studies. Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-088470-4.
  • Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). "Five Misunderstandings About Case Study Research." Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, April 2006, pp. 219-245.
  • Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Kaminski, Marek M. 2004. Games Prisoners Play. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11721-7.
  • Malinowski, B. (1922/1961). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. New York: E. P. Dutton.
  • Pamela Maykut, Richard Morehouse. 1994 Beginning Qualitative Research. Falmer Press.
  • Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods ( 3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Charles C. Ragin, Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method, Pine Forge Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8039-9021-9
  • Steven J. Taylor, Robert Bogdan, Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods, Wiley, 1998, ISBN 0-471-16868-8
  • Wolcott, H. F. (1995). The art of fieldwork. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  • Wolcott, H. F. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  • Ziman, John (2000). Real Science: what it is, and what it means. Cambridge, Uk: Cambridge University Press.

[edit] External links