Discuss the meaning, types and relevance of qualitative research. Explain the ethical guidelines in qualitative research
MEANING OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Qualitative research can be defined as a type of scientific research that tries to
bridge the gap of incomplete information, systematically collects evidence,
produces findings and thereby seeks answer to a problem or question. It is
widely used in collecting and understanding specific information about the
behaviour, opinion, values and other social aspects of a particular community,
culture or population. An example of a qualitative research can be studying the
concepts of spiritual development amongst college students. David (1995) had
done such a study at a fairly conservative school. He actually tried to analyse
whether there is uniformity or considerable diversity in people’s understanding
of spiritual development or not. Qualitative research helps in providing an in
depth knowledge regarding human behaviour and tries to find out reasons
behind decision making tendencies of humans.
TYPES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Attempting to understand human nature, market research purposes, current
trends, changing tastes and preferences of people, there are certain
approaches of qualitative research. They are:
i) Case study: With the help of this method a case of an individual, group,
event, institution or society is studied. It helps in providing an in depth
knowledge of the nature, process or phenomena of a specific case under study.
Multiple methods of data collection are often used in case study research
(example, interviews, observation, documents, and questionnaires). The final
report of the case study provides a rich (i.e., vivid and detailed) and holistic
(i.e., describes the whole and its parts) description of the case and its context.
ii) Ethnography: This approach mainly focuses on a particular community. It is
more of a kind of closefield observation and basically tries to study a socio
cultural phenomena. For example, judging others based on the researchers’
cultural standards. Ethnography can be used for comparative analysis of
cultural groups (e.g. eating habits of North Indians and South Indians), also
known ‘Ethnology’. Further it can also be used to analyse the cultural past of
group of people (e.g. Harrapan civilisation), also known as ‘Ethnohistory’.
iii) Historical method: This method helps in understanding and analysing the
causal relationships. With the help of this technique, the data related to the
occurrence of an event is collected and evaluated in order to understand the
reasons behind occurrence of such events. It helps in testing hypothesis
concerning cause, effects and trends of events that may help to explain present
events and anticipate future events as well.
iv) Grounded theory: This approach involves an active participation of the
researcher in the activities of the group, culture or the community under study.
The data regarding the required information is collected with the help of
observation. It is generally used in generating or developing theories. This
means that the ground theorists can not only work upon generation of new
theories, they can test or elaborate previously grounded theories.
v) Phenomenology: In this method, the behavioural phenomena is explained
with the help of conscious experience of events, without using any theory,
calculations or assumptions from other disciplines. The concept can be best
understood with the help of one of the studies that was done in which patients
were asked to describe about caring and non caring nurses in hospitals
Creswell, 1998.The patients explained those nurses to be caring who show their
existential presence and not mere their physical presence. The existential
presence of caring nurses referred to the positive response showed by them to
the patient’s request. The relaxation, comfort and security that the client
expresses both physically and mentally are an immediate and direct result of
the client’s stated and unstated needs being heard and responded to by the
nurse.
RELEVANCE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY
Qualitative research methods has gained much importance in the discipline of
psychology leaving other human sciences far below such as sociology and
nursing, with the main motive of maintaining the historical attempt to frame
psychology as a natural science. Comparatively, natural science methods use
experimental means in order to examine the causal relationships, wherein, this
approach uses a large number of participants and effectively captures aspects
of our human nature. Qualitative research is less interested in explaining
phenomena than in understanding them and that is why it has several good
relevance and implications in psychology.
