Greetings, I was wondering what are some qualitative methods that:
1)are credible globally (considering there are many qualitative methods)
2) can be performed with the least budget but can also produce high-quality results
3) can address different data collection methods which may either collect both primary and secondary data
4) disregard of the affiliation, (which is an independent researcher) a method that has more chances of its proposal being accepted by other researchers for collaboration
AND
why?
Would appreciate the response from fellow researchers
Arash Moghadasi
1. The most common ways of doing qualitative research are participant observation (ethnography), individuals interview, and focus groups. Of those three, participant observation is the most demanding.
2. Almost all qualitative methods can be done on a low budget, but they tend to be very time consuming, especially during the analysis process.
3. It is rare for qualitative research to use secondary data in the sense of data that was already collected by someone else. The most frequent example of that would be document analysis.
4. Teamwork in qualitative research is quite common and it can do a lot to improve the research process. Of course, the typical reason for collaboration is a shared interest in the research topic, but it is also necessary to have a shared interest in the kinds of insights that qualitative data can generate.
Focus groups: relatively cost-effective, but can cost money to organise (room hire, gifts, food). It can be used to create rich narratives that can lead to rich insights. And independent researchers can collaborate by pooling resources.
In-depth interviews: cheaper, especially if done by phone or online, but it is also appropriate to give a gift.
Document analysis: analysing reports, articles, archival material. Usually low cost.
Photovoice: I first saw this at a conference not long ago. Participants mainly take photographs to show their field experiences and work on the results.
Community-based participatory research (CBPR): worth a search online. Rarely used but very interesting method.
A common research method in Social Sciences is the comparative analysis (instead of statistical analysis). However, it is usually recommended when the number of cases (units) is relatively small.
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