What Qualitative Research Is
The supplied teaching source answers this question in two documents written to different standards, and it never reconciles the answers. Read them side by side before you commit a definition to a methodology chapter.
The two files you were given
This topic is represented by a slide deck and by two study-note documents. One is titled as the topic; the other is titled as week-specific study notes for the same topic. Compared line by line, their running text is identical — the same three sections, the same paragraphs in the same order, the same quotations, the same page citations, the same ten-item strengths list, the same five-entry reference list, and one comparison table with identical cell contents.
What differs is structure and typography. In the topic-titled file — call it File A — the opening section heading is styled as a heading, and the ten strengths of qualitative methods are formatted as a list. In the week-titled file, File B, that opening heading is demoted to ordinary body text, so the document's first numbered section sits outside its own heading structure, and both the ten strengths and the five references lose their list formatting and read as running paragraphs.
THE TWO SUPPLIED STUDY-NOTE FILES COMPARED
| Feature | File A (topic-titled) | File B (week-titled) |
|---|---|---|
| Running text | Identical to File B after normalising invisible characters | Identical to File A after normalising invisible characters |
| Section 1 heading | Styled as a heading | Styled as ordinary body text — not part of the heading structure |
| Sections 2 and 3 headings | Headings | Headings |
| The ten strengths of qualitative methods | Formatted as a list | Ten ordinary paragraphs — list formatting absent |
| The five references | Formatted as a list | Ordinary paragraphs |
| Invisible characters | Eight soft hyphens inside words such as docu-ments and descrip-tion | Seventeen non-breaking spaces; no soft hyphens |
| Comparison table | One table, five rows | One table, five rows, identical content |
| Version marker or date | None | None |
Structural differences only. No sentence differs between the two documents.
Four answers to the question
The deck answers first. Slide 4 opens with the word Definition and supplies one, attributed to a commercially published medical dictionary in its 2012 edition — a general reference work outside the social-research literature. The source gives no reason for preferring it, and the dictionary does not appear in the week's reference list.
The study notes answer differently, and they open by conceding the problem: there are, they say, as many definitions of qualitative research as there are books on the subject. They then quote three, each introduced by a statement of what it emphasises.
The three definitions quoted in the study notes
Understanding constructed meaning
Qualitative researchers are interested in understanding the meaning people have constructed — how people make sense of their world and the experiences they have in it. Quoted from a 2009 guide to qualitative design, page 13.
Methods that produce a narrative account
Research using methods such as participant observation or case studies which result in a narrative, descriptive account of a setting or practice; sociologists using these methods typically reject positivism and adopt a form of interpretive sociology. Quoted from a 2011 source for which the notes give no title or publisher.
A situated interpretive activity
A situated activity that locates the observer in the world, consisting of interpretive material practices that turn the world into a series of representations. Researchers study things in their natural settings and interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Quoted from a 2005 handbook, page 3.
The third definition names seven forms of representation as examples, not as a closed set: field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. The hedge in the original is including. Treat the seven as illustrative of what qualitative work produces, never as a required inventory.
The notes then characterise the stance rather than the object: qualitative researchers stress the socially constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship between researcher and researched, the situational constraints that shape inquiry, and the value-laden nature of inquiry. Against this the notes set quantitative work, whose proponents claim — the notes' word, and they do not endorse it — to work within a value-free framework.
Technique or perspective: the contradiction at the centre of the topic
The two documents do not define the same kind of thing. This is not a difference of emphasis a careful reader can smooth over; it is a difference of category, and the source resolves it nowhere.
The slides: a technique
- Stated definition is ‘data-gathering techniques’
- Qualitative research is a class of collection procedures
- Distinguished by what it attends to — significance rather than raw numbers
- Defined negatively: non-quantitative, non-numeric, not subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis
- Implies you could adopt the techniques without adopting any commitment about reality
The notes: a perspective
- Qualitative inquiry is considered by many social and behavioural scientists to be as much a perspective on how to approach investigating a research problem as it is a method
- The three quoted definitions concern purpose, epistemology and situated practice
- None of the three defines a data-gathering technique
- Defined positively: by meaning, interpretation and situated practice
- Carries commitments about the nature of reality and value that no technique can carry
The six characteristics of the qualitative approach
One slide lists six characteristics. The source states no count — six is the count of the list as printed — and it hedges the fourth item with generally.
THE SIX CHARACTERISTICS AND WHAT EACH RESTS ON
| Characteristic as stated | Status in the supplied material |
|---|---|
| Generates results in non-quantitative form | A negative characterisation. Consistent with the deck's definition; the notes never define the approach negatively. |
| Not subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis | Contradicted two slides later, where qualitative data ‘can be coded quantitatively’. Rigorous is unmarked — it may mean no quantitative analysis at all, or analysis that is not rigorous. |
| Takes a why, how, when, what approach | Four question words. The study notes give two — How and What — and the notes' version is the one carrying worked examples. |
| Generally uses focus group interviews, projective techniques and depth interviews | None of the three is defined anywhere in the material, and none appears among the deck's own five commonly used methods. |
| Depends on the researcher's subjective interpretation | Stated as a neutral property. The notes treat the same fact as a hazard to be managed and list researcher bias among the approach's limitations. |
| Reports have a rich description of phenomena | Connects to the notes' account of thick description, which the deck never mentions — see the separate page on that. |
The right-hand column records where the supplied material contradicts itself or leaves a term undefined. It does not supply the missing definitions.
The disagreement runs deeper than vocabulary. The three techniques named here share nothing with the five methods the same deck later presents as commonly used — participant observation, direct observation, unstructured interviewing, case studies and documentation. The notes give a third answer again: the most common sources of qualitative data include interviews, observations and documents. Three lists, no cross-reference. The commonly used set is the one the deck actually defines.
What the source counts as qualitative data
The deck gives four forms of non-numeric data: stated or articulated feelings, beliefs, opinions and perspectives; narratives or stories; images, drawings and cartoons; and paintings and photographs. These are examples, on the source's own hedge, not a taxonomy.
The slide then closes with a claim that the rest of the material does not support: that the key thing we want to study is individual perceptions. The notes' definitions cover settings, practices, material culture and occupied space. The deck's own key-terms slide defines ethnography as the study of the culture of a defined group, and defines documentation as the study of organisational records. Studying a group's culture, or an organisation's minutes, is not the study of individual perceptions.
Five names for the people you study
Across the deck and the notes, the people being studied are called by five different labels. None is defined, and none is distinguished from any other, although they carry noticeably different implications about the person's role in the study.
The labels as they appear
- Informants
- Introduced in the notes, in scare quotes, as one of two names for the people whose words the researcher works from. Not defined.
- Respondents
- Introduced alongside informants, again in scare quotes, and used again on the unstructured-interviewing slide. Not defined or distinguished from informants.
- Participants
- The deck's usual term, used in the topic introduction and throughout the validity slides. Not defined.
- Research subjects
- Used once, in the notes' strengths list. Not defined.
- Key informant
- Appears once, inside a quoted passage about fieldwork. Not defined or related to informants.
What the topic promised and what it delivered
The deck states two learning objectives: design appropriate research tools, and evaluate types of variables. Both are recorded as undelivered, and the mismatch is total rather than partial.
Choosing a definition you can defend
You still have to write a sentence saying what qualitative research is and why your study is one. The material gives four candidates and no ruling. The decisions below are drawn from what is in the source, not from outside it.
Which definition to lead with
What to carry forward
- Two study-note files, identical text, different structure, neither marked current. Quote from either; count only from the one that preserves the lists.
- Qualitative research is defined as a technique on the slides and as a perspective in the notes. Give both, mark the conflict, do not adjudicate.
- Three of the six stated characteristics rest on terms the material never defines, and the three techniques named there share nothing with the five methods the deck itself teaches.
- The claim that the key thing studied is individual perceptions is narrower than every other account in the same material.
- Both stated learning objectives for the topic are undelivered, and neither concerns the nature of qualitative research in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
I have two study-note files for this topic. Which one should I use?
Either, for content. The running text of the two files is identical after normalising invisible characters, so any sentence you quote will be the same sentence in both. Use the topic-titled file when structure matters, because it is the only one that keeps the ten strengths and the five references as lists. The source does not state which file is current, and no version marker or date is present in either.
So is qualitative research a technique or a perspective?
The supplied material says both and never chooses. The slide deck defines it as a class of data-gathering techniques; the study notes describe it as as much a perspective on how to approach a research problem as it is a method. This page presents both because the source does. If your work requires a settled answer, take it from a dedicated methods text and say that you have.
Can I use the six characteristics as a checklist for my study?
Only partly. Three of the six can be checked against your design directly. The fourth names three techniques the material never defines, so you cannot verify it from this source; the second is contradicted elsewhere in the same deck; and the fifth is stated neutrally where the notes treat the same property as a risk. Use the list as a description of the approach, not as a compliance test.
The material says qualitative research studies individual perceptions. Does that rule out studying a team or an organisation?
Not on the evidence of the material itself. That sentence appears once, on the definition slide. The same deck later defines ethnography as the study of the culture of a defined group and documentation as the study of organisational records, and the notes' definitions cover settings, practices and material culture. The single sentence is narrower than everything around it.
Why does the definition come from a medical dictionary?
The source does not say. The deck's headline definition is attributed to a commercially published medical dictionary in its 2012 edition, while the study notes quote three specialist social-research sources. The dictionary is not listed in the topic's reference list, and no reason is given for placing a general reference work on the slide students see first.
Does this topic teach me how to build a research instrument?
No. That is one of the two objectives the topic states, and the delivery audit records it as undelivered. The material describes what five methods are, not how to construct the guide, schedule, protocol or coding frame that would execute them. You will need a second source for instrument design.
References and source attribution
- Merriam, S 2009, Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. (Cited in the supplied notes for the purpose-and-focus definition, p. 13.)
- Denzin, N & Lincoln, Y (eds) 2005, Handbook of qualitative research, 3rd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks. (Cited in the supplied notes for the situated-practice definition, p. 3.)
- Denzin, N & Lincoln, Y (eds) 2011, Handbook of qualitative research, 4th ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks. (Listed in the supplied notes' reference list and cited nowhere in the material.)
- A 2011 source cited in the supplied notes for the epistemological definition. The notes give two surnames and a year only, with no title or publisher, so the reference cannot be completed from the material supplied.
- Bryman, A 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- The supplied teaching source: one slide deck and two study-note documents on the nature of qualitative research, together with the module's research design material.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Show me the four definitions of qualitative research in the supplied material side by side, with their sources.
- Which terms does this material use without ever defining them?
- What is the difference between the two study-note files supplied for this topic?
- Draft a methodology paragraph that adopts the perspective definition of qualitative research and says why.
- Which of the six stated characteristics of qualitative research are contradicted elsewhere in the same material?
- What would I need a second source for after reading this topic?