Talk:Qualitative research

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Untitled

(Note: this page was redirected to Talk:Qualitative psychological research for some reason not given. Unfortunately, that page is affected by the block-compression problem, so can't be moved. I've therefore moved the contents here by manual cut-and-paste, Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:44, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

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I'm not happy with this article -- I think I failed to be NPOV, and I'm sure the definition of qualitative research could be presented more informatively by someone more versed in the field than I. However, I thought it would be good to have an article for the links in other articles, notably Humanistic psychology, to go to. I've been hoping that the author of that article or someone else from the so-called humanistic school would improve this article, but I've learned not to hold my breath. Trontonian 13:58, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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I was wondering if it would be handy and interesting to include different methods of gathering qualitive data. I am looking for a list myself. Such as Benchmark research, feasability study are different methods... Good idea?

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Has anyone ever written anything NPOV anywhere about qualitative research? This article has now become fat and sluggish and needs to be trimmed down. Looks as if no one else's going to di it, either. Not a lot of qualitative researchers on Wikipedia, I guess, eh? Trontonian 16:12, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Qualitative research is much improved. Thanks. Trontonian 20:28, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Qualitative analysis (Chemistry)

This section needs either improving, or two new pages.

Qualitative inorganic and organic analysis is totally different (chalk and cheese!).

Adding Silver Nitrate to a solution and seeing a white precipitate would rule out Sodium Nitrate, but it doesn't prove the prescence of Sodium Chloride.

I shall try to write something soon. Jeff Knaggs 22:36, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

and the fact that this talk page has been redirected to Qualitative psychological research definitely shows the need for some new pages. Jeff Knaggs 22:40, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

non-social science meanings

Non-social science meanings should probably be separated into other articles, since there's no content overlap. Not sure where the information might be merged; maybe those meanings could have their own articles - but they might resemble dicdefs. Rd232 15:00, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Category

Any comments on pros and cons of creating the Category:Qualitative method?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

reworking of article desperately needed

I recently looked into this article to see if it was worth recommending to a friend who is not in the field of social sciences (whereas I am) to get at least a glimpse of what Qualitative Research is.

This article definitely needs some improvements, right now it does not explain much, and few major developments are simply left out (Grounded Theory is by no means a new invention...), and others are simply wrong (quantitative research does not prove hypotheses, it does try to prove them wrong, and notes the probability of having not found a way to prove the hypotheses wrong, basically speaking) or at least not helpful in understanding qual. research.

Neither the English not the German language version should be left the way it is, and mayhaps they could get rewritten by a group of people who actually work with qualitative research methods and know why they do it?

84.191.160.149 20:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

This article definitely needs some pictures to relieve the eye. Got any suggestions? 204.52.215.107 06:31, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Emphasis Should be Placed on the Social Sciences

In today's usage, "qualitative research" generally applies to the social sciences. All references to the hard sciences should be taken out of the article or delegated to a subsection near the end of the article. Someone who is not familiar with the quantitative and qualitative research approaches might find references to the hard sciences too much to handle and become confused. Remember, sometimes (or oftentimes) people log on to Wikipedia to get the broad picture of a topic that interests them. Qualitative researchers from the disciplines of Education, Recreation, Communications, Nursing, Sociology, and last but not least, Anthropology should be invited to take a look at this.

Communication and observation; history

The following is meant as a request for clarification only.

Point 4, in the list at the beginning, about qualitative research depending on communication and observation while quantitative relies on instruments could usefully be clarified. Certainly quantitative research uses communication and observation. If the point is that qualitative observation and communication are unstructured and quantitative structured, then that seems to be the same point as #5.

As for qualitative methods first gaining attention in the 70s, I remember them being hot stuff in the 60s. Certainly participant observation was popular lmg before that. Perhaps some more detail could be added to clarify the statement. John FitzGerald 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Inherently non-mathematical?

The article starts out with stating that qualitative research is about the how and why of decision making, it ends with "Quantitative data is measurable while Qualitative data can not be put into a context that can be graphed or displayed as a mathamatical term."

This does not make sense to me. Decision making can clearly be put into mathematical terms; mathematics concerns itself with a lot more than graphing, displaying and measuring. Behaviour and reasoning can of course be put into mathematical terms; game theory is a good example.

I do not have any formal background in qualitative research, so I have not changed the article, but it's wrong the way it stands. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.191.125.90 (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Qualitative data

The point is just that the data collected in qualitative research is text based, meaning that the data says something about the quality not quantity of a phenomenon. It's not that it can not be quantified but if it is quantified it is no longer a qualitative research method.

Falkoner 11:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, qualitative research can and does employ quantitative techniques. The data collection methods mentioned are just a few of the many used. The fundamental problem with this page is the opening line which provides a terribly shortsighted description, using an example to represent the whole. A better broad description might be "qualitative research aims to describe and understand phenomena whereas quantitative research seeks to measure and predict." 66.90.181.195 04:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Needing rewording

I removed this sentence because it doesn't really make any sense:

""Qualitative research methods also began at the margins of acceptable science. From Freud on, ... Carl Rogers (1942; 1951) ... Piaget ... Mary Ainsworth (1979)."[1]"

If anyone wants to put it back, it needs to be placed in context. dr.alf 11:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Stustu12's external links

I removed the following links per WP:EL, WP:SPAM, WP:NOT#LINK, and WP:COI. Piotrus restored them, who I don't believe has a COI, but I still think they should be discussed first:

• The Qualitative Data Analysis Program at the University of Pittsburgh - A coding and tool development laboratory.
• The Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT) developed by the Qualitative Data Analysis Program at the University of Pittsburgh - tools for increasing the reliability and validity of coding and the efficiency of the process.
• Codeshop is a wiki for a fall 2006 NSF-funded workshop "Coding across the Disciplines".

--Ronz 19:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The links may be refined further; indeed all three don't belong to the series of articles they were added - but neither was removing a link to Codeshop NSF wiki from Coding (social sciences) useful, nor accusing the editor who added it of spamming. The Qualitative Data Analysis Program seems rather relevant here; the two other links - perhaps not. Since you are interested in weeding the elinks in those articles, please do so - but please don't remove everything, and please don't accuse other editors and experienced academics (as User:Stustu12) of spamming. Thanks, -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 19:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The editor added the links and only the links to multiple articles. That is the very definition of spamming. --Ronz 19:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The editor added the links to four related articles. This is not spamming - do remember WP:AGF and WP:BITE.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 19:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. I'm happy to take it to WP:COIN and/or WT:WPSPAM, or you can do so if you'd rather. --Ronz (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I have pruned some of the links, but the rest is relevant (although the mess at qualitative research needs to be cleaned up. If you want to remove the remaining links, please ask for a third opinion.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll be following up at WT:WPSPAM, which is a perfectly appropriate venue, if you don't seek another first. --Ronz (talk) 02:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

As a fairly inexperienced wikipedian, I can assure you this 'controversy' is a deterrent to future engagement. My real curiosity is why the other external links are considered legitimate? User:stustu12 —Preceding comment was added at 02:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I am a quite experienced qualitative researcher. I find the links useful and in no way even close to "spam". Seriously, why would anyone consider as such non-profit and educational websites strictly related to the very topic of the article? Pundit|utter 03:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Links of this sort, to individual projects like these, are reasonably considered spam at WP. useful alone is not sufficient to meet WP:ELDGG (talk) 19:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Individual? Its a project of the University of Pittsburgh. But of course, the ultimate criterion is mainly usability and notability. Pundit|utter 20:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree and support the point DGG has made--Hu12 (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to be sure, I went through WP:EL again. I don't think one link to the page of the program clearly qualifies for elimination (nor is it an obvious keep). Usefulness definitely is a factor (there are virtually no free tools of this sort for qualitative researchers). If it was clear that the whole project not only is but also will always be free for use, I would strongly lobby for its keeping. For now, I'll wait for the opinions of the community. Pundit|utter 20:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, free or not is crucial here. I was unable to find out if the software is free and/or open source. If it is not free, than I would have to agree it may not be that useful (and CoI would be more relevant), but if it is free, it should most certainly be linked from our pages.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The links are deleted and my patience for your Wikipedian politics is depleted. I doubt that I will invest my time or expertise in this project anytime soon. Nice movement! Former user:stustu12

External links in light of state of article

I think this article is a bit of a mess in terms of the references. I tagged it with nofootnotes because I think it should be a priority to actually identify where (and if) the references are being used for WP:V.

That said, I think the article is at a point where the external links should be to reliable sources that aren't currently being used, or other articles that might not clearly meet WP:RS. I'm always a bit confused as to how lists of professional associations, research institutes, etc are useful at this point. If others are inclined to keep them, I think it would be useful to look to WP:LIST and come up with an inclusion criteria so we can manage what is included in the external links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronz (talk • contribs) 21:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

adding citations

hi all - i have a citation that could be added at the 1st [citation needed] tag in the 1st few lines of the article - re how & why vs who, what, where when.

i'm not game to play with the html - it isn't something i've done before, so can i submit a citation for a more experienced editor to add?

61.69.190.228 (talk) 01:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to edit the article, and if you want I can also do the edit for you. Or you can post the excerpt here with a request to do the job. Btw, you're whole-heartily invited to register, you will find it useful (you will be able e.g. to track changes to your favorite articles). Pundit|utter 04:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Monotonic function ?

Is there any reason to list Monotonic function as a related page ? OliAtlason (talk) 01:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I highly doubt it -- perhaps someone considered it relevant to some form of qualitative research discussed. I've omitted it, if to be included it should be clear why it's there. Cheers Holon (talk) 01:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Content from Qualitative data

The following was added to Qualitative data by 90.44.39.221. I think it belongs here instead.

The Assumptions of Qualitative Designs

1) Qualitative researchers are concerned primarily with process, rather than outcomes or products.
2) Qualitative researchers are interested in meaning, how people make sense of their lives, experiences, and their structures of the world.
3) The qualitative researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. Data are mediated through this human instrument, rather than through inventories, questionnaires, or machines.
4) Qualitative research involves fieldwork. The researcher physically goes to the people, setting, site, or institution to observe or record behavior in its natural setting.
5) Qualitative research is descriptive in that the researcher is interested in process, meaning, and understanding gained through words or pictures.
6) The process of qualitative research is inductive in that the researcher builds abstractions, concepts, hypotheses, and theories from details. [1]

Taemyr (talk) 22:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

the prose is, er, dense

As a reader and a writer, I have to say that the meaning is occasionally lost in the verbiage.

I still can't figure out what this means:

This is because in qualitative research the possibility of the researcher taking a 'neutral' or transcendental position is seen as more problematic in practical and/or philosophical terms. Hence qualitative researchers are often exhorted to reflect on their role in the research process and make this clear in the analysis.

Maybe it reads better in the original language?

If someone with more expertise would like to team up to clarify the article, I would be happy to help. Please leave a message at my talk page. Katharine908 (talk) 23:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

References?

Philosophical Research is mentioned as a methodology but what are the sources about this methodology? I've never heard of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.1.208.141 (talk) 02:03, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Disambig or redirect at Qualitative analysis?

Please see Talk:Qualitative_analysis#Primary_use. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 17:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Definition

This article needs an adequate definition. The few sentences in the first paragraph do not adequately distinguish it from quantitative research (I'm sure quantitative researchers are looking for hows and whys, for example, and examining things in depth). And how does it differ from journalism, say?

John FitzGerald (talk) 21:49, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree, the definition must better distinguish qualitative vs quantitative by going beyond goals and briefly indicate differences in methods and also discussing the limitations of qualitative research. (Such as the inability of qualitative to make causal inferences.) I also suggest that the intro should indicate how qualitative research can work with quantitative by suggesting lines of investigation. Robotczar (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Good points, especially the last one. I've had the experience of discovering something unsuspected in focus group results, then confirming its existence powerfully with quantitative research. John FitzGerald (talk)

Limitations

This article needs to discuss the limitations of qualitative research, most importantly the inability to make causal inferences from qualitative "data". The subjective nature of the evaluation is also an issue. The article needs to point out that qualitative research lacks several key steps or processes of scientific method and, from a scientific perspective, is simply a first observational and speculative step in applying scientific method. It seems important to point our that there is some conflict between practitioners of humanities-oriented research, which sees qualitative research as sufficient; and scientific researchers who see qualitative research as preliminary.Robotczar (talk) 15:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There are no limitations

There is a false dichotomy appropriated by some to assume that qualitative research is somehow deficient as it doesn't result in a scientific deduction. We would all be worse for wear if we accepted what hard empiricists (positivists) wanted us to believe that the only good knowledge out there is defined purely by objective reasoning. Unfortunately this discussion has gone on ever since Plato deduced that we could solve all of the worlds problems with mathematical knowledge, more recently Locke, Kant, Comte, et. al have all been drawn into this debate.

I will reiterate this with one simple phrase. The dichotomy is false, the allegiance between us and them is completely unnecessary and in the end it is detrimental to the development of Wikipedia as a well reasoned source of encyclopedic information. The positivists need to naff off and start their bun fight elsewhere. Without the subjectivity of life we would be completely unable to operate as human beings, end of story. There are plenty of things that cannot be answered with an quantitative answer and it doesn't mean that the information gathered is any less valid. --121.222.14.129 (talk) 09:47, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Cleanup

This article is overly dense, confusing and disjointed. It goes into too much detail in not enough places and isn't really clear to a lay reader. Here are some thoughts on how to restructure:

• a better lede paragraph that summarizes what qual research is and what it is used for, in basic terms
• a section that describes the type of problems & fields qual research is used on
• splitting data collection methods and data analysis methods into two sections
• adding a "relationship with quantitative research" section
• general prose and reference cleanup; this reads like an undergrad paper rather than an encyclopedia article.

-- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:24, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

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Major overhaul of the entire article

I am working on a major overhaul of the entire article. I dragged it into my sandbox and am working on it there. If you have suggestions, please share. Thanks. QRfrag (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2017 (UTC)QRfrag

Hi QRfrag, I'm happy to see this. I would be interested in helping with the rewrite. If you like, can you share a link to your rewrite and maybe describe what you want to tackle? Thanks. --Simulo (talk) 20:50, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi there, fairly new to this page, and just wondering whether the 'Coding and "thinking"' section (version at 7 April 2018) should be significant revised, deleted, or moved elsewhere... it doesn't currently seem to be a good fit for the context of where it is in the wikipedia article, and some content seemed to be more about quantitative research instead?!? Freebeliever101 (talk) 11:27, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't the very first sentence in the page be a definition of qualitative research instead of the existing statement of what the qualitative research approach is? These aren't exactly the same thing. If I go, for example, to Wikipedia's 'Refrigerator' page, the first sentence is "A refrigerator is a box-shaped piece of modern domestic technology for keeping food cold", and not "A refrigerator is used to keep food cold". Similar, but not the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.55.79.4 (talk) 02:19, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Let's work to make this happen. AnaSoc (talk) 22:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

• Lead article sentence could begin with; (today) The field of qualitative research is toward the reality of observation while the field of empirical research (including quantitative research) is toward the reality of experience...
  • In philosophy this idea is meant to suggest, the independence of observation with causal thinking, as necessary for formulative thought...see A priori and a posteriori.Arnlodg (talk) 15:39, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

I like the current opening paragraph. I don't see the problem with it. Bondegezou (talk) 19:30, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

• • • • Well at least there could be listed--Qualitive research in philosophy--in the articles contents column; as the original meaning of quality is found in philosophy. then we would need some content provided, hmmm.Arnlodg (talk) 00:43, 26 May 2019 (UTC)