Advantages/Strengths of Qualitative Research

1. It adopts a naturalistic approach to its subject matter. The subjects of the research
will base it to what they think is meaningful.
2. It promotes an understanding of human behavior.
3. It is instrumental for positive societal change.
4. It revives the value of respecting people’s individuality.
5. It is a way to interpret social interactions.
6. It increases the researcher’s interest since it involves his attachment to the subject.
7. It offers multiple ways or methods to conduct a study.

Disadvantages/Weaknesses of Qualitative Research

1. It involves the researcher’s subjectivity.

2. It is hard to know the validity or reliability of the data.
3. Its open-ended questions yield “data overload” that requires long-term analysis.
4. It is time-consuming.
5. It involves several processes, which results greatly depend on the researcher’s
interpretation.
Three Main Methods of Data Collection:
1. Interactive Interviewing- people share and describe their experiences through
words (speaking)
2. Written descriptions by participant- people are asked to write description of their
experiences of phenomenon
3. Observation- descriptive observations of verbal and non-verbal behaviors

The table below shows the differences between quantitative research and
qualitative research and the areas of knowledge under them.