An introduction to Qualitative Research Methods

During this course we will discuss the mindset you need for doing qualitative research and focus on the quality of qualitative research.

Qualitative research is a powerful type of research for a researcher aiming at understanding the richness of human life and social interaction. It allows for a deep exploration of participants’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences, providing rich insights. Qualitative research emphasizes the context in which social phenomena occur, helping to uncover how social, cultural, and historical factors shape human behaviour. The methods (like interviews, focus groups, and observations) can adapt as the research progresses, allowing for a deeper exploration of unexpected findings.

In this course you will discuss the entire qualitative research process, including data selection, data collection, and data analysis. Bearing in mind the flexibility of qualitative research, with different stages, steps, and decision points for various formulations and types, we will discuss the core principles of this process.

The course will cover the main methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews, focus groups, observation and documents as data. You will practice with doing semi-structured interviews and field observations, which you will use to write a vignette. The course also covers the quality of qualitative research, such as rigor and trustworthiness, ethics, positionality, and different frequently used quality criteria. Also, different methods for data analysis will be discussed, with a focus on inductive coding, fitting the goals of the grounded theory approach. You will practice with the different stages in inductive coding of interview data.

The course is organized in a way that allows students to learn by doing. Therefore, the students will perform various practical exercises which will give them a hands-on experience on how to do qualitative research. Examples are an interview training, doing field observations, writing a vignette, and doing coding.

This course introduces participants to qualitative research methods. A preliminary understanding of general research is preferable (although not mandatory).