8. WHAT IS THE BASIC METHODOLOGY OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGN?

The overall structure for qualitative design is based on the scientific method. It uses inductive reasoning,
where specific observations or measurements are made in order to develop broader conclusions,
generalizations and theories. Qualitative research is based on collecting opinions and attitudes.This type
research is common in the social sciences. The basic procedure of qualitative design is:

1. Decide on a question you want to study.

A good research question needs to be clear, specific, and manageable. To do qualitative
research, your question should explore reasons for why people do things or believe in
something. It determines what you want to learn or understand and also helps to focus the
study, since you can't investigate everything at once. Your research question will also shape how
you conduct your study since different questions require different methods of inquiry.
2. Do a literature review
A literature review is a process of studying what others have written about your research
question and particular topic. You read widely on the larger field and examine studies that relate
to your topic. You then draw up an analytical report that synthesizes and integrates the existing
research (rather than simply presents a short summary of each study in chronological order. In
other words, you are "researching the research." A literature review will also help you to
determine whether you are really interested and committed to the topic and research question
and that there is a gap in the existing research that you want to fill by conducting your own
investigation.
3. Evaluate whether qualitative research is the right fit for your research question.
Qualitative methods are useful when a question cannot be answered by a simple 'yes' or no'
hypothesis. Often qualitative research is especially useful for answering "how" or "what"
questions.[3] They are also useful when budgetary decisions have to be taken into account.
4. Consider your ideal sampling size
Qualitative research methods don't rely as heavily on large sample sizes as quantitative
methods, but they can still yield important insights and findings. Consider the possible
outcomes. Because qualitative methodologies are generally quite broad, there is almost always
the possibility that some useful data will come out of the research.
5. Choose a qualitative research methodology.
The design of qualitative research is the most flexible of all the experimental techniques, so
there are a number of accepted methodologies available to you.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

A. ADVANTAGES
1. Changing attitudes within a target group
Qualitative Research can capture changing attitudes within a target group such as consumers of
a product or service, or attitudes in the workplace.
2. Explain something that numbers alone are unable to reveal.
Qualitative approaches to research are not bound by the limitations of quantitative methods. If
responses don’t fit the researcher’s expectation that’s equally useful qualitative data to add
context and perhaps explain something that numbers alone are unable to reveal.
3. A much more flexible approach.
Qualitative Research provides a much more flexible approach. If useful insights are not being
captured researchers can quickly adapt questions, change the setting or any other variable to
improve responses.
4. Far more speculative about what areas they choose to investigate
Qualitative data capture allows researchers to be far more speculative about what areas they
choose to investigate and how to do so. It allows data capture to be prompted by a researcher’s
instinctive or ‘gut feel’ for where good information will be found.
5. Qualitative research can be more targeted
If you want to compare productivity across an entire organization, all parts, process, and
participants need to be accounted for. Qualitative research can be far more concentrated,
sampling specific groups and key points in a company to gather meaningful data. This can both
speed the process of data capture and keep the costs of data-gathering down.

B. DISADVANTAGES
1. Whether sampling will provide a true reflection of the views.
Sample size can be a big issue. If you seek to infer from a sample of, for example, 200
employees, based upon a sample of 5 employees, this raises the question of whether sampling
will provide a true reflection of the views of the remaining 97.5% of the company?
2. Influenced both consciously or unconsciously, to select a sample that favors an anticipated
outcome.
Sample bias - HR departments will have competing agendas. One argument against qualitative
methods alone is that HR tasked with finding the views of the workforce may be influenced both
consciously or unconsciously, to select a sample that favors an anticipated outcome.
3. Self-selection bias may arise where companies ask staff to volunteer their views.
Whether in a paper, online survey, or focus group, if an HR department calls for participants
there will be the issue of staff putting themselves forward. The argument goes that this group, in
self-selecting itself, rather than being a randomly selected snapshot of a department, will
inevitably have narrowed its relevance to those that typically are willing to come forward with
their views. Quantitative data is gathered whether someone volunteered or not.
4. It creates data that is difficult to present.
Because individuals have different perspectives, the reaction to qualitative research findings can
often be at two extremes. There will be those who support the findings and there will be people
who do not support the findings. The data being collected will be viewed as valuable by both
groups, but how each group chooses to act is based on their own perspective. That means two
very different outcomes can be achieved, making the data difficult to present to generalized
audiences.
5. You can only get answers to questions you think to ask.
Are the right questions being posed to participants? You can only get answers to questions you
think to ask. In qualitative approaches, asking about “how” and “why” can be hugely
informative, but if researchers don’t ask, that insight may be missed.
 CHARACTERISTIC OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
1. Natural setting
Qualitative researchers often collect data in the field at the site where participants experience
the issues or problem under study. They do not bring individuals in to a lab (a contrived
situation), nor do they typically send out instruments for individuals to complete, such as in
survey research. Instead, qualitative researchers gather up-close information by actually talking
directly to people and seeing them behave and act within their context. In the natural setting,
the researchers have face-to-face interaction over time. For example, A teacher will conduct
qualitative research if he wants to know about the reason for the declining performance of
students in the class. Qualitative research is conducted in natural settings to get real
information.

2. Researcher as key instrument

A researcher is a person who performs qualitative research. Qualitative research can be
conducted by a group of people or by an individual. Qualitative researchers collect data
themselves through examining documents, observing behaviour, and interviewing participants.
They may use an instrument, but it is one designed by the researcher using open-ended
questions. They do not tend to use or rely on questionnaires or instruments developed by other
researchers.

3. Multiple methods
Another vital characteristic of qualitative research method is the various methods of research.
For example, focus group, face-to-face interview, observation research methods, case study,
content analysis, ethnography, phenomenology, ground theory, group discussions. Qualitative
researchers typically gather multiple forms of data, such as interviews, observations, and
documents, rather than rely on a single data source. Then they review all of the data and make
sense of it, organizing it into categories or themes that cut across all of the data sources.

4. Complex reasoning
Qualitative researchers build their patterns, categories, and themes from the "bottom up," by
organizing the data inductively into increasingly more abstract units of information. This
inductive process involves researchers working back and forth between the themes and the
database until they establish a comprehensive set of themes. It may also involve collaborating
with the participants interactively, so that they have a chance to shape the themes or
abstractions that emerge from the process. Researchers also use deductive thinking in that they
build themes that are constantly being checked against the data. The inductive-deductive logic
process means that the qualitative researcher uses complex reasoning skills throughout the
process of research.

5. Participants meanings
In qualitative research, like the researcher, the role of a participant is also very important.
During the whole research process, the focus of a researcher is to understand and determine
the meaning that a participant brings to the research rather than the definition given or thought
by the researcher based on the literature reviews.
 Based on the different perspectives of participants, different meaning of research is observed.

6. Flexible
Qualitative research is flexible. It can change at any stage of the research and based on the
change, the course of research might also get changed. Therefore, qualitative research is used in
such a scenario where the flexible nature of research is acceptable.

7. Reflexivity
In qualitative research, the researchers share everything about themselves like their background
and their purpose of research with the participants. Reflexivity also makes them participate In
the research openly and willingly.

8. Holistic Account
Qualitative researchers try to develop a complex picture of the problem or issues under study.
This involves reporting multiple perspectives, identifying the many factors involved in a
situation, and generally sketching the larger picture that emerges. Researchers are bound not by
tight cause-and-effect relationships among factors, but rather by identifying the complex
interaction of factors in any situation.

9. Emergent Design
The research process for qualitative researchers is emergent. This means that the initial plan for
research cannot be tightly prescribed, and that all phases of the process may change or shift
after the researchers enter the field and begin to collect data. For example, the questions may
change, the forms of data collection may be altered, and the individual studies and the sites
visited may be modified during the process of conducting the study. The key idea behind
qualitative research is to learn about the problem or issue from participants and engage in in the
best practices to obtain that information.