The Qualitative Method – My Thoughts
With the recent lectures regarding the qualitative method I have thought a lot about whether this method is one that I feel I would use in any research that I may or may not conduct. The qualitative method is one that is not so commonly used in many of psychology’s fields though its use has been on the rise since the 1980’s (Rennie, Watson & Monteiro, 2002). This type of research aims to analyse data that is not of numerical form such as speech or writing and is collected and analysed through various means. The purpose of qualitative data is usually to come up with a basic theory regarding a certain subject which gives the researcher a basis for a hypothesis that can be tested using the quantitative method. Most analysis is collected through interviews or observation of some form then later it will be transcribed in detail by the researcher. These transcriptions may are usually written in particular styles (e.g. line-by-line or Jeffersonian) and must include notation of pauses, laughs etc. as these types of things are often essential to our proper understanding of verbal communication and make it far easier to interpret the meaning behind the words and the impact the thoughts are having on the interviewees.* Once transcription is complete the researcher must try and find themes and meaning within the interview by coding it. There are various methods of coding too such as the Grounded Theory (where the hypothesis is generated as a result of the coding process – relies on line-by-line transcription) and discourse analysis (an approach that uses Jeffersonian transcription and searches for patterns/badly fitting cases to find meanings in the words).
The main advantage of the qualitative method is its keen attention to detail which allows emphasis on different things depending on the circumstances. This allows the theories to be generated as a result of what is found as it can be used to collect information on a range of related subjects at once as long as a general research question is in mind. Unexpected phrases or themes may pop up in data collection that can completely alter the understanding of the research question up until that point which can be important for the discovery of new ideas and hypotheses to be tested using the quantitative method. Unfortunately, there are distinct problems facing anyone who wishes to use the qualitative method. This method is incredibly time consuming with interviews often lasting over an hour which must be listened to several times before a complete transcription has been made. The work behind this method is not particularly easy (in my opinion, it is far more difficult than SPSS) with skill being required at all stages. For example, an unskilled interviewer may fail to pick up on important themes that may hold any level of significance. It also requires skill and dedication for proper transcription and coding of data. Qualitative research often has few participants due to the amount of work involved. This means that results often have very low generalisability – something not helped by how ambiguous data that is collected may be. What I mean by this is that an interview may wield very different answers while using the same questions depending on a vast array of variables e.g. interviewer, day, mood, past experiences.
I definitely feel more inclined to use a quantitative method in any research I would carry out. The main reason for this is the the qualitative method just doesn’t seem to be definite and objective enough for me – it feels unscientific and as though it uses at least some degree of guesswork. Although in statistical analysis we must create constructs by which to gain numerical values for our variables, it feels as though the answers we get through this are more correct and applicable to others – more scientific and empirical.
*More information on transcription and notation: http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ssjap/transcription/transcription.htm
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