Qualitative Research and its

Importance in Daily Life

Practical Research 1
Rosemarie Galvez-Felimon
West Visayas State University
College of Education

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

CONTENT :
Qualitative Research and Its Importance in Daily Life
PERFORMANCE STANDARD :
The learner is able to:
decide on suitable qualitative research in different areas of interest.
CONTENT STANDARD LEARNING COMPETENCIES CODE
The learner:
The learner demonstrates
understanding of: 1. describes characteristics, strengths, CS_RS11-IIIb-1
weaknesses, and kinds of qualitative
1. the value of qualitative research
research; its kinds,
characteristics, uses,
strengths, and weaknesses 2. illustrates the importance of qualitative CS_RS11-IIIb-2
research across fields

2. the importance of
qualitative research across
fields of inquiry

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

 Qualitative Research and its
Importance in Daily Life
1.The value of qualitative research; its
kinds, characteristics, uses,
strengths, and weaknesses
2.The importance of qualitative
research across fields of inquiry

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Characteristics of Qualitative Research

• Natural setting
• Researcher as key instrument
• Multiple sources of data
• Inductive data analyses
• Participants’ meanings
• Emergent design
• Theoretical lens
• Interpretive inquiry
• Holistic account

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Natural setting
• Researchers
collect data in
the field at the
site where
participants
experience the
issue or
problem under
study

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Researcher as key instrument
• Researchers
collect data
themselves
through
examining
documents,
observing
behaviors and
interviewing
participants

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Multiple sources of data
• Interviews
• Observations
• Documents

• Researchers review all the data and

make sense of them, organizing them
into categories of themes that cut
across all of the data sources.

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Inductive data analysis
• Qualitative researchers
– build patterns, categories, and themes
from the “bottom-up,” by organizing the
data into increasingly more abstract
units of information
– Work back and forth between themes
and database
– Collaborate with participants inductively

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University
Participants’ meanings
• Researchers keep a focus on learning
the meaning that the participants
hold about the problem or issue, not
the meanings that the researchers
bring to the research or writers from
the literature

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Emergent design
• Initial plan for research cannot be
tightly prescribed
• Phases of the process may change or
shift after the researchers enter the
field and begin to collect data
• Questions, data collection, and
sample may change

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Theoretical lens
• Qualitative researchers often use a
lens to view their studies

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Interpretive inquiry
• Researchers make an interpretation
of what they see, hear, and
understand
• Interpretation cannot be separated
from the researchers’ own
background, history, context, and
prior understandings.

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

Holistic account
• Qualitative researchers try to develop
a complex picture of the problem or
issue under study.
• This involves reporting multiple
perspectives, identifying the many
factors involved in a situation, and
generally sketching the larger picture
that emerges

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

 When to use qualitative research?
• There is a need for a complex detailed
understanding of the issue
• When we want to empower individuals to
share their stories
• When we want to write in a literary
flexible style
• When we want to understand the
contexts or settings
• When we want to develop theories
• When quantitative measures do not “fit”
the problem

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University

 Kinds of Qualitative Research

• Narrative Research
• Phenomenological Research
• Grounded Theory Research
• Ethnographic Research
• Case Study Research

Galvez-Felimon ■ West Visayas State University