Description

Qualitative research focuses on understanding people’s experiences, meanings, opinions, behaviours, and social interactions. Instead of mainly relying on numerical data, it commonly uses methods such as interviews, observations, focus groups, case studies, and analysis of texts or online data.

Main themes

• Research questions – developing clear and appropriate qualitative research questions.
• Research design – planning a research project and deciding how it will be conducted.
• Theory – understanding how theories guide qualitative research.
• Methodology – choosing suitable approaches and methods.
• Data collection – gathering information through interviews, observation, focus groups, and other sources.
• Data analysis – identifying patterns, themes, and meanings in qualitative data.
• Ethics – considering participants’ rights, privacy, consent, and responsibilities.
• Case studies – deciding how and why particular cases should be studied.
• Research quality – evaluating whether qualitative research is credible and well conducted.
• Research writing – preparing the literature review, methodology, findings/data chapters, and conclusion.