Slide 4 of 38
Notes:
I had a professor tell a class that qualitative research is an attempt to discover “What is.” It’s often done in the field, or in a setting that is as natural as possible.
It should be full of description. Where did the research take place? What was this place like? How big was it? Who was there? What is that person like? Who else was there? What else was there?
The researcher “observers” the situation in as unobtrusive manner as possible. That may be pretty obtrusive, but not unnecessarily so.
Online manuals - Watch people using the manuals. How are they used? Who uses them? Do people like using them?
Goal is to get better understanding of the subject under study (requires a great deal of description) in order to determine further research, or variables to manipulate or simply to understand.
Strength - Depicts things as they are
Weakness - Not always easy to generalize the results