Qualitative Research
(Importance, Strategies, Methods, Weaknesses and Types)

 What is the importance of qualitative research? 

Qualitative research is a form of scientific research used to search for the answer to specific questions, and is characterized by the use of a systematic approach to a series of specific actions earlier to come up with a specific answer to a question. Researchers in qualitative research get the desired answers by attracting evidence and collecting them to produce new results that can be applied outside the study. Qualitative research is a source of understanding of a specific problem on a population issue from several perspectives on the culture, values, opinions, or behaviors of a particular group of society.

The importance of qualitative research is that the qualitative research is interested in science that focuses on the description and deeper understanding of phenomena. The question posed in qualitative research is an open-ended question that is more concerned with the process and meaning than with cause and effect. Thus, qualitative research is based on personal knowledge, so objectivity and impartiality must be ensured during this type of research.

 What are the strategies of qualitative research? 

• The first strategy of qualitative research is case study: It is a careful examination of an individual or group case, studied for itself in order to reach the fullest possible understanding of that situation, and take the lessons learned. In addition, the case study of qualitative research expresses the results of this study in particular not generalized.
• The second strategy of qualitative research is narrative: A simple strategy based on the discovery of events related to individuals or groups, through direct narration of their stories, to form a clear picture of their lives.
• The third strategy of qualitative research is anthropology: Ethnography deals with the description of different races or communities, and interviews are used to achieve the desired objectives of the research. The researcher sometimes is forced to enter the groups concerned to study and share their daily lives so that they can understand them in depth and accuracy of the study results.
• The fourth strategy of qualitative research is Grounded Theory: The theory is built by observing the patterns revealed by the analysis of data collected for samples ranging from twenty to thirty samples.
• The fifth strategy of qualitative research is phenomena: Phenomena are descriptions of specific experiences of an individual or group.

 What are the methods of qualitative research? 

Each qualitative research has its own method to collect data. In the process of writing the qualitative research, the researchers use at least one of the methods of the qualitative research. The qualitative research has many methods in which the researchers can gather the correct data needed for writing such a good qualitative research. The most common methods of qualitative research are as follows:

• Participant Monitoring: It is to monitor the behaviors of the target segment and collect data about them in situ.
• Deep interviews: It involves communicating with individuals to obtain personal data such as their history, experience and perspectives; this is in an effort to explore their opinion on a sensitive issue.
• Focus Groups: Events are group-focused in obtaining data related to cultural norms for a particular community, which can be obtained by searching for information for the cultural group or that sample representing the entire community.

 What are the weaknesses of qualitative research? 

The following points address some of the weaknesses that researchers may face when conducting qualitative research:

1. Frequent data and difficult to deal with.
2. Restricted results that are difficult to generalize.
3. The long time it takes to perform qualitative research.
4. Difficulty classifying group data into specific categories.
5. Difficulty to comply with the conditions of objectivity and impartiality to be achieved.

 What are the types of qualitative research? 

The types of qualitative research vary depending on the way in which the researchers collect information in scientific research. These types of qualitative research are as follows:

1. Qualitative research based on the interview.
2. Qualitative research based on the observation.
3. Qualitative research based on the analysis of documents.

Thus, the qualitative research varies from the others of qualitative research because of the way that the researchers adopt in order to collect the necessary information and data for writing the qualitative research. 

This article concludes that qualitative research can be said to be one of the methods of scientific research designed for the purpose of detecting a specific segment of the target audience in terms of behavior and perceptions that run with reference to specific topics. Qualitative research uses in-depth studies and applies them to small-scale groups to direct specific hypotheses based on qualitative rather than predictive results. Thus, the researchers follow qualitative research in social and behavioral sciences such as psychology, anthropology and sociology.

 Watch: How to Write a Qualitative Research Paper 

With greetings: Al - Manara Consulting to help researchers and graduate students