Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research

So the topic of discussion this week for my ‘Doing Social Research’ module is all about qualitative research and the gathering of qualitative data as a method for sociological research.

You usually hear the term qualitatative research along with quantitative research which can be quite confusing at times because they sound so similar, but really they are quite the opposite. Qualitative research has been defined by Scott and Marshall (2005) in the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology as, “forms of data collection and analysis which rely on understanding, with an emphasis on meaning” where as Quantitative research is referred to as “the collection and analysis of numerical data”.

The use of qualitative research seems to be popular method within sociological study, as it can be considered to be more relatable when collecting data on the behaviour of society, compared to numerical techniques. I’m not ruling out the use of quantitative research as a method of sociological study though as statistics are very important too, however I am just saying qualitative is often used, i.e. the use of surveys, questionnaires, structured and unstructured interviews, blogs, focus groups and so on, that are more appropriate ways of studying social behaviour.
Secondary qualitative research has gained momentum in more recent years with its presence and availability online, as it is increasingly becoming a popular tool for social research (Hessler et al., 2003; Liamputtong and Ezzy, 2005; Selwyn and Robson, 2003 cited in Holloway 2008)

Not only is qualitative research more appealing to sociologists on the basis that quantitative research can be mind boggling with all the number work involved, it is a way of gathering more in-depth, broader, true knowledge (Nicholls 2011). I for one hate statistics and numbers so qualitative research methods are much preferred by me!It is for this reason, in our group research project for this module, that I have been delegated the task of conducting content analysis’ on a selection of magazines, in order to gain a qualitative analysis of the text sieving out the key themes regarding body image and appearance in the magazines. By doing this I hope to try and avoid dealing with analysing our quantitative data from questionnaires.

It can be argued by some, that a combination of qualitative and qualitative research methods are more beneficial to reaching valid, reliable results (Nicholls 2011), therefore in order to attain the most accurate research in our group project we plan on incorporating both qualitative and quantitative analysis of our research.