Apply content analysis and interviews as data collection methods

Now, let’s do a recap of important notes for this topic:

• The term qualitative research is a general definition that includes many different methods used in understanding and explaining social phenomena, with minimum interference of the natural environment.
• Qualitative research begins by accepting that there are many different ways of understanding and of making sense of the world.
• Qualitative research focuses on interpretation of phenomena in their natural settings; to make sense of the meanings people bring to these settings.
• In the 1950s and 1960s, research in education was very much influenced by the behaviouristic perspective, which used the scientific method in studying animal behaviour later generalised to humans. This is described as the quantitative approach which dominated much of educational research until the publication of the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.
• The idea proposed by Kuhn was the concept of “paradigm”, which was identified as the scientific achievements and discoveries which provided solutions and explanations of various phenomena at a particular point in time. A paradigm shift will lead to the introduction of new research methods and tools, and how the researcher sees the world.
• In education, Carr and Kemmis (1986) differentiated the two types of research as positivism and phenomenology. According to the positivist approach, knowledge obtained using the scientific method is objective and measurable. On the other hand, the phenomenological perspective in education focuses on the processes and experiences one goes through as positivism and phenomenology. 
• Proponents of qualitative and quantitative research have argued and still argue about the differences between the two approaches of conducting research. Proponents of quantitative research have been critical of qualitative research arguing that it is not scientific and too subjective. Specifically, we can differentiate them through focus, philosophy, method, design, sample and so on.
• Ethnography is a type of qualitative research method employed by anthropologists to study human society and culture. The term “ethnography” means “portrait of a people” which involves a description of a people and its culture.
• The case study is a method used in both quantitative and qualitative research. It has been widely used as a research method in law and medicine, and is increasingly used in education.
• Action research is based on the belief that the practitioner is the best judge of his or her practice; it encourages the researcher to put personal theories into practice. Action research adopts a spiral approach comprising four steps, namely, planning, acting, observing and reflecting.
• The generic qualitative method does not have a guiding set of philosophic assumptions in the form of one established qualitative methodology, but instead employs the techniques of data collection of other qualitative methods.

I hope all of you have a clear understanding on the concept of Qualitative Research and you can employ this method in your research.