Qualitative Research

Mass Communication Research
Qualitative Research

Differences in Quantitative v. Qualitative

	Quantitative	Qualitative
Techniques	Uses mathematical logic	Uses variety of intuitive techniques to understand how people think
Theoretical Aims	Tests theory developed in advance	Lets theories emerge from evidence
Questions Addressed	How many and how much? (counts and amounts)	What do you care about and how do you express it?
Emphasis and Strengths	Better at generalizing to populations	Seeks understanding

Qualitative Designs

Though the book lists several types of qualitative designs, we're going to focus on three for this course: Focus Groups, Personal Interviews (One on One) and Intensive Interviews.

Focus Groups
Also known as group interviewing, focus groups allow researchers to understand audience attitudes and behavior. They also allow researchers to find out what each participant thinks about the topic under discussion. An Internet search for "focus groups" will indicate many different settings in which they are used. www.focusgroups.com provides a national registry of focus group facilities.

A focus group usually consists of six to 12 people with a moderator leading a discussion. Kerlinger and Lee (2000) notes the size of the focus group should be large enough to generate diverse viewpoints, but small enough to be manageable. The moderator must be well trained to keep the discussion from straying too far from the topic of interest. It is a controlled group discussion that is used to gather preliminary information to help design a research project or questionnaire items.

Advantages: Pilot studies allow for preliminary data collection and ideas Relatively fast Cost is usually inexpensive, but can be expensive Flexibility in question design and follow-up Complete answers Less inhibited than one-on-one interviews	Disadvantages Someone can monopolize the conversation Quantitative data cannot be gathered Are not representative of the population Conversation may stray from topic of concern Location may inhibit some responses
Methodology Define the problem Select a sample Determine the number of groups needed Prepare the study mechanics Prepare the focus group materials Conduct the session Analyze the data and prepare a summary report	The respondents active shy know-it-all over-talker obnoxious

Additional Reading: Rubenstein, Chapters 8, 9.

Personal Interviews (One on One)

A. Structured Interviews
1. Standardized questions asked in pre-determined order
2. Little freedom for interviewers
3. Little room for detail
4. Easy to tabulate B. Unstructured Interviews
1. Broad questions
2. No set question order
3. Interviewer freedom to 'steer' interview
4. More detail (rich)
5. Time-consuming in tabulation General Guidelines:
-Select sample
-Construct questionnaire
-Prepare interviewer instruction guide
-Train interviewers
-Collect data
-Make callbacks
-Verify results
-Tabulate data
Intensive Interviews

Hybrid of one-on-one interviews
Provide detailed background of respondent's answers, i.e. why the question answered as it was.
allow for lengthy obersvation of nonverbal responses
Very long, may last several hours or take several sessions
Customized to individual respondents.
Influenced by interview climate.
Advantages:

Wealth of detail
More accurate responses on sensitive issues
Only practical technique for some research, e.g. studying media habits of US senators
Disadvantages:

Hard to generalize (usually non-random sample)
Questions may be slightly different
Sensitive to interviewer bias
Same data, but analysis different by different researchers

If you don't understand something in this Web note, please e-mail Dr. Sitton.

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