research is all about exploring issues, understanding phenomena, and answering questions. While
there's a whole industry engaged in its pursuit, qualitative research also happens in nearly every
workplace and study environment, nearly every day.
You might be a student, a healthcare worker, or a policy advisor. You might not even consider
yourself a researcher. But if you're analyzing documents, surveys, audio, videos or pictures, then
chances are you're involved in qualitative research.
What is qualitative research?
Qualitative research seeks out the ‘why’, not the ‘how’ of its topic through the analysis of
unstructured information – things like interview transcripts, open ended survey responses,
emails, notes, feedback forms, photos and videos. It doesn’t just rely on statistics or numbers,
which are the domain of quantitative researchers.
Qualitative research is used to gain insight into people's attitudes, behaviours, value systems,
concerns, motivations, aspirations, culture or lifestyles. It’s used to inform business decisions,
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- Spring '11
- eeer
- Psychology, Qualitative Research, researcher
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