Qualitative studies are quite flexible, both in terms of ways of conducting a study as well as flexibility during the study. For example you could do interviews, surveys etc. These could be performed in different ways, much depending on the setting. Sometimes a strict interview is useful while other times a semi-structured interview would be better, as that allows for the test person to expand their answers.
Less flexible methods are in my opinion more suited for confirming or denying one specific thing and you are not interested in deviating from that. More flexible methods would be more suited when you are interested in gaining new insight into a topic. It’s a useful way of coming up with new research questions. This is also emphasized when talking about design through research and case studies.
During the seminar we talked about how multiple sources of data is good for qualitative studies. Being a fan of data-driven approaches I do agree that generally more data is better, but one should make sure it actually adds something to the project and not just making it more difficult to process all data. I also think that researchers should always be able to motivate their choice of data collection methods. In scientific papers I do get the feeling that sometimes people just use e.g. a diary, because it’s a commonly used method. Sure that gives it some validity as a research instrument but it’s still important to motivate what it will bring to the study. It’s worth mentioning that the methods used aren’t entirely up to the researcher, since other factors such as financing can affect that.
Since qualitative studies doesn’t really on mathematical tools in the same extension as quantitative studies does, the researcher’s role is in a way more important, since the study relies on the researcher’s interpretations and analyses. To reduce this influence an option is to have more perspectives (researchers).
Another thing discussed during the seminar was the problem of social desirability bias and that the researcher could influence the answers of the respondents. I do think that this problem is more prominent if the respondent is in a one-on-one setting with the researcher and that the problem will decrease with increased anonymity. Furthermore, if the researcher already knows the respondents, they might choose answers which they believe are more pleasing to the researcher. Thankfully we have tools to combat this issue such as the Internet where it’s easy to spread surveys. However, processing a large number of qualitative answers is very time consuming so the number of participants is usually smaller than in quantitative studies. For this reason it can be hard to generalize the results on a larger population. So just like with case studies the intention is more on gaining insight into topic and potentially coming up with more research questions.
Case studies aren’t actually qualitative but can use qualitative, quantitative or a combination of those methods. However, they resemble qualitative studies more because of the flexibility and intention I pointed out earlier. However, a main difference in intention is that in qualitative studies you usually expect a result but in case studies it’s really more about discovery of an often unexplored research field. Even though it’s not the purpose, generalizing a case study is also not possible unless you consider many cases.
Before the seminar I argued that case studies are observations of a situation which hasn’t been created by the researcher. As discussed during the seminar I think that some minor interventions are okay as long as they don’t change the phenomenon to much.
Hi! Thanks for your interesting thought and well written reflection!
SvaraRaderaI also think that depending on the aim of the study there should be decided which method is relevant, qualitative or quantitative. As you mention, the semi-structured interview method offers flexibility as in the interviewee also has space to discuss topics that aren’t directly related to the study, but those offer a contribution. In the qualitative research paper that I choose, this method was used to gain data, the only problem here is that the interviewer asked very steering questions, and I think this is where it often goes wrong with the flexibility of this method. As if there was a (good) strict list with questions, these misinterpretations could have been avoided.
A very interesting reflection. Your description of the flexibility of qualitative research and your description of the tools and their main benefits is quite apt. Especially that flexible methods are helping in finding new views on a topic wheres non-flexible ones rather help to prove the point in question is very illuminating.
SvaraRaderaHowever I disagree with you in one point. You write, that the more flexible methods in qualitative research are a way to come up with new research questions, the same way case study does. I think that is not entirely correct. The way I see it, case study is the broadest of practices where one finds new research methods. Qualitative research then looks at one of these new research questions and tries to understand it a bit better and answer, but at least refine the question if they cannot quite answer it directly. Maybe splitting it up in multiple questions within the broader question.
Hi, thanks for the informative post! It's quite interesting to know you bring up the topic of social desirability bias, I personally think social desirability bias is a social science research term that describes a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. Also, it can take the from of over-reporting "good behavior" or under-reporting "bad", or undesirable behavior. However, people often report inaccurately on sensitive topic in order to present themselves in the possible results. The reason can due to both self-deception and other-deception.
SvaraRaderaOy,
SvaraRaderaI do agree that the more data we get the more information we can get out of it and ideally the more perfect we can understand the process we are researching. But in case study the idea is to understand a complex way through a case that can be follow step by step. Usually, following thousands case required lots of energy and it also depends on which field and what question you aim to study. For the study of the one year car free, having thousand people to follow up every week or month would be an administrative nightmare and a time consuming task for a lot of people !
I agree on the fact that minor intervention doesn't really alter the process but in some case its hard to evaluate how the impact of a certain thing is going to make people react.
Thank you for your reflection !
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI think you made an interesting remark on how it is necessary to motivate your choice of data in qualitative studies. I believe this is even more applicable in case studies. Since it’s not directed by any hypothesis, I think the process can seem a bit scattered in case studies, and therefore, being able to explain the structure and choices made within the process becomes vital (in order to ”justify” the research).
Hi, thank you for an interesting post and a well written reflection!
SvaraRaderaWhat you wrote about being sure the data collected really adds something to the research grabbed my attention, I'm happy you brought it up as it's very relevant and an important aspekt of doing research. Having a lot of data is of course good, however it does make it more difficult to process, so it's important that the right data is collected. I like what you wrote about a diary being chosen as a method is very common, but that you do have to motivate why, as a method should be used because it's the best method for the research, not simply because it's the most common one.
Hello!
SvaraRaderaI agree qualitative studies are flexible because it allows the researcher to design the study at the same time it is being done. As in my selected qualitative paper, the researcher come up with questions during the interview session that was not planned. The study was divided into two parts, and the second part was formed throughout the process, in this way, because of the flexibility they gained new insight that was not expected. Going back to your first blog post of theme 6, it seems like your selected qualitative paper “A very popular blog: The internet and the possibilities of publicity” also gained new insights and was quit flexible. After reading more about qualitative and case study it feels like my selected paper lack of a clear focus and the goals where not explicit enough. It is a less strict method, as you mention!
Any way good job with your blog post.