Qualitative data refers to everything that people cannot express in numbers. There is no application of statistical analysis. It includes the newspapers, memos, websites and others. The approaches used in this case are observations and interviews. The interviews that occur here may be mildly structured or not. It also has to be written down and audio-recorded. The approach used in a qualitative study is the inductive approach. However, there have been the developments of qualitative methods that use a theoretical basis. Deductive methods can also be a consequence, though very rarely. There are different reasons why people cannot use the quantitative perspective approach. It does not test the hypothesis, cannot produce the generalizable new theory, and can only explore theoretical aspects that are examined to undergo quantitative testing. Due to the reasons, qualitative researchers criticize this approach.
The goals of qualitative analysis are the understanding of the features of the language, reflecting, discovering, comprehending the meaning of the text, setting up relations with others. Some of the questions to answer are:
- Which standard patterns (of behavior) do occur? Are these typical patterns of interest or relevant to my research?
- Are there deviations from typical patterns? Are these deviations so important that redirect my research? Do these patterns necessitate additional data collection?
- Are my results consistent with previous research?
The proceeding of this study is in various ways. First, there is coding of data. The coding involves categorization (finding of categories while reading or listening to text) and utilizing data (Attaching relevant pieces of data to the categories that have been previously developed). There should be the elimination of non-important Portions. Second is analysis. It involves recognizing relationships and developing theories. There should be the coding of phrases, words and images and graphics. The words in this case should be the ones that reveal particular behavior. Data display helps draw conclusions. The best conclusions are one drawn from the collection of data. Iterative process is used very often in qualitative studies. The inductive and deductive processes take place. There can be however changing of theories. My opinion is that qualitative research is not possible. The inductive approach contains the Grounded theory. The theory describes the open coding, selective coding, axial coding, and iterative process.
Open Coding
Axial Coding
The inductive approach involves narrative analysis. It is the most unstructured method, has storytelling of research subjects and almost no generalizable findings. Further methods in this case are ethnography (field observation), case studies (studies of particular people, groups, etc.), and (phenomenology). Deductive methods employ pattern matching; that has theoretical propositions and others; explanation building that has case studies, high iterative character, and others. In our study, we found that do not try to make it overly complicated. There should be application of common sense. We also found that empirical thinking is more helpful than the qualitative methods.
