Qualitative research methods

Qualitative research methods

Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It is made up of material practices that make the world visible. The practices are involved in the transformation of the world. This means that they change the world into a representation series, including the interviews, field notes, conversations, recordings, photography, among other methods. This method of research entails a naturalistic, interpretive approach to the world. Qualitative research is more of a systematic collection, interpretation, and organization of textual information. Through such a method, a comprehensive description of the processes, setting, or mechanisms is generated. In this paper, a discussion on two main types of research methods which are participant observation and interviews.

Observation is a type of qualitative research whereby a researcher is involved in observing the ongoing behavior.  This method is mainly appropriate for the collection of data on the behaviors which naturally occur in their usual contexts.  Areas such as the social sciences, as well as marketing, mainly employ observational research in data collection. It is therefore different from the experimental research whereby a quasi-artificial environment is made to ensure that the spurious factors are under control and where at least there is the only manipulation of one variable as the part of the experiment. This research method is mainly categorized into two, which include; participant observation and naturalistic observation.

The naturalistic observation does not have the intervention of the researcher. In this case, the behaviors occurring naturally are studied in the natural contexts.it is essential to note that there is no direct manipulation of the variable in the naturalistic observation. Some of its main limitations are that it is incapable of exploring the actual roots of the revealed behaviors and also impossible to check if a given observation is an accurate representation of the usual occurrence .on On the other hand, the participant observation incorporates the intervention of the researcher in the environment. This entails the insertion of oneself as a group member who is aimed at the observation of the behavior that would not be accessible. The whole method of observation, therefore, is used in cases where the procedures of data collection, for instance, questionnaires, surveys are not adequate or effective to be used.

Interviews are another primary method of qualitative research. In this case, the interviews are mainly designed for the collection of a richer source of information from a confined number of people, especially about the behavior, attribute, preferences, attitudes, and even feelings. They are used mainly because they help one to understand better, explore subjects in research’s’ behavior or opinions. For in-depth information to be collected, interviews are usually open-ended questions. There are several types of interviews are and include; face-to-face, phone, and online, for instance, on Skype. Several steps are essential for the interviews. First, one should design the interview questions,  develop the guide to the interview questions whereby the questions are devised in a manner that the interviewees will answer the questions more easily and finally plan and manage all the logistics that will be applied during the interview for instance keeping of the interview recordings if need be.

Observation and interviews can be used to understand more about the aspect of teaching that one is interested in. Before the use of the methods of observation, and effective teaching mainly consists of subjective data, which is typically based on the anecdotal as well as personal accounts of effective teaching ways. To enhance the scientific teaching basis, I will use a more objective as well as a reliable systematic observation measure. The systematic measure includes an interactive coding system which can help me in recording nearly everything that teachers and students do within a given interval of time. Such kinds of methods are mainly objective, and there is no need for the observer to make any judgments or inferences concerning the observed behavior within a given setting. There this method would provide for me specific, easy, and also identifiable behaviors that can be efficiently coded by the observers.

While using the interviews, it is essential first to understand the guide of the interview that one can use in the conversation aimed at the issues and the topics that you want to understand and also learn about. The guides of the interview varies from a relatively loose to a highly scripted to the relatively loose despite that all have standard features. This will help me in knowing what to ask and the kind of sequence to ask and also the way of posing the questions. To teach these, the interview guide will guide me on what to say or do after an interviewee has answered the last question. While using the interview method to learn on some crucial aspects, it is import to have a sideways approach to the problems; for example, if one is interested to understand how or whether teachers use research. By asking those to talk about the issue, they will try to come up with other issues by may be referring to the studies that they have done before and talk of their response to the studies.

In conclusion, therefore, qualitative methods of research methods are mainly data collection procedures, which results in non-numerical and open-ended data, which are then analyzed primarily by the non-statistical methods. The main characters that have been revealed for this kind of research method are that they are flexible, and also no aspect of research design is prefigured tightly.