Week 6&7: Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a basket term for a wide variety of approaches to research that all focus on the nature of phenomena, and why something is happening (or not). Quite often we could be documenting different experiences that people might have to the same thing, rather than asserting that one version is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. There are almost limitless accounts of the applications and analysis of qualitative research, but you might explore the overview in the following paper as a starter.

https://neurolrespract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42466-020-00059-z

Not all qualitative research is conducted online, of course, but the online environment has a particular set of strengths that make these forms of research activity quite attractive. The ability to interview people at a distance, or to conduct a geographical distributed online survey, as well as the ability to quickly and easily analyse digital data, are some obvious examples. Often, a variety of different qualitative approaches to data gathering can be adopted to ensure that the research is able to triangulate and sense-check the resulting analysis. For example, an online question-and-answer survey may lead to the selection of a smaller subset of participants who are invited to individual video conference interviews, and then the results of these data-gathering activities could be set in a wider context by sharing the results with an online focus group of experienced subject experts. You will need to take time to read about the strengths and weaknesses of different data-gathering methods before you select the method(s) that you think you will need to begin to answer your research question. Remember, the appropriate pedagogy should come first, then select the relevant technology.

Reading Resources