Week five Flashcards
Qualitative research methods
What is qualitative research?
- OBSERVING people’s behaviour.
- INTERACTING with people, asking them to reflect upon and express their views in their own terms.
- INTERPRETING their beliefs and bahaviour.
What’s the rationale for qualitative research?
- Researcher’s preferences.
- User’s preferences.
- Sensitive info. Eg. privacy etc.
- Taps into respondents subconscious.
- Complex phenomena.
- Holistic dimension. Eg. to gain a comprehensive picture.
- Developing new theory.
- Data that is not characterised by numbers.
- Focuses on stories, interpretations.
What is ethnography?
- A research approach based on observation of the customs, habit and differences between people in every day situations. Eg. Living amongst the people.
What are some of the ethnographic methods in retail context?
Everything that impacts the customer experience:
- lighting
- smells
- signage
- displays
- location
- size and orientation of shelving
What is the delphi technique?
- Developing a view of the future
- use of a group of disparate experts
- a series of interactions… starting with a broad question(s)
- Experts offer views - moderator summaries
- Experts offer views - moderator refines
- Consensus. Eg. The future impacts of mobile technologies, the future of coach travel, the future of newspapers.
What is a focus group?
- A trained moderator leads an interactive discussion on the research problem with a small group of respondents.
What does the moderator hope to get out of a focus group?
- unexpected findings
- free-flowing group discussion
What important skills should a moderator of a focus group have?
- communication
- interpersonal
- probing
- observing
- interpretative
Disadvantages of focus groups?
- some people aren’t truthful
- one person may take over the conversation and not allow others to contribute
- participants may feel uncomfortable answering some questions.
- expensive.
- over reliance on focus groups.
- misuse
- misjudge. Eg. difficulty in interpreting.
- messy. Eg. Coding and analysis is cumbersome.
- Misrepresentation Eg. group is not generalisable.
What are some variations in focus groups?
- Two-way focus groups. Eg. Drs observing patients through a mirrored window.
- Dual-moderator group.
- Duelling-moderator group.
- Respondent moderator group.
- Client participant group.
- Mini groups.
- Conference call group.
- On-line focus group.
Advantages of focus groups?
- synergy
- snowballing
- stimulation
- security
- spontaneity
- serendipity
- specialisation
- scientific scrutiny
- structure
- speed
What are in-depth personal interviews?
- a conversation
- personal interview
- single respondent is probed
- unstructured
- discussion of confidential or sensitive topics
- respondents can be anyone. Eg. customers, experts, non-customers, etc.
Advantages of in-depth interviews?
- uncover greater depth of insights
- large amount of detailed data cab be obtained from the participant.
- attribute the responses directly to the participant
- free exchange of info.
Disadvantages of in-depth interviews?
- skilled interviewers required.
- lack of generalisability and reliability
- reduced accuracy due to potential biases from respondent bias or interviewer errors.
- data is difficult to analyse and interpret.
What are convergent interviews?
- at least 2 interviewers working independently but concurrently
- initiated using broad open questions
- interviewers then compare data, seeking convergence
- convergence achieved by discarding low-priority data mentioned only once
- data mentioned more than once becomes topic of future interviews
- process continues until no new data emerges.
What are some techniques for in-depth interviews?
- Laddering
- Hidden issue questioning
- Symbolic analysis
- Semiotics Eg. how do words carry meaning
- Photosort
- Kelly’s triads
- Q-method
What is projective techniques?
- indirect way of getting info
- encourages respondents to project their underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes or feelings regarding the issue
What is association technique?
An individual is presented with a stimulus and asked to respond with the first thing that comes to mind. Eg. word association.
What is completion technique?
Participants are asked to complete a sentence or story. Eg. A person who shops at David Jones is…
What is construction technique?
Similar to completion but requires participant to construct a response in the form of a story or description. Eg. Describe what is going on in this picture.
What is expressive technique?
Participants presented with verbal or visual situation and asked to relate the feelings and attitudes of other people to the situation. Eg. If you were the lecturer, how would you make the lectures on quantitative data analysis interesting? Or, what approach do you think your best friend would use for hair removal?
Software packages that analyse data from focus groups, in-depth interviews, open ended questions do not:
- automate the analysis process
- interpret the data
- qualitative data analysis is not formulaic
- involves an iterative cycle of reflection and innovation.
What is Malhotra’s 4 stages of analysing qualitative data?
- Data assembly
- Data reduction
- Data display
- Data verification
What are the strength of qualitative data?
- Research in natural settings
- Emphasis on informant interpretations and meanings
- Humanising research process by raising the role of the researched
- High levels of flexibility in research process.
What are the weaknesses of qualitative data?
- Reliability issues
- Problems of generalizability and representativeness
- Risk of collecting meaningless and useless info
- Problems of ethics
