What is Qualitative Research?

Qualitative research is characterised by its aims, which relate to understanding some aspect of social life, and its methods which (in general) generate words, rather than numbers, as data for analysis.

For researchers more familiar with quantitative methods, which aim to measure something (such as the percentage of people with a particular disease in a community, or the number of households owning a bed net), the aims and methods of qualitative research can seem imprecise. Common criticisms include:

• samples are small and not necessarily representative of the broader population, so it is difficult to know how far we can generalise the results;
• the findings lack rigour;
• it is difficult to tell how far the findings are biased by the researcher’s own opinions.

Qualitative methods generally aim to understand the experiences and attitudes of patients, the community or health care worker. These methods aim to answer questions about the ‘what’, ‘how’ or ‘why’ of a phenomenon rather than ‘how many’ or ‘how much’, which are answered by quantitative methods.

Source:www.alnap.org/pool/files/qualitative-research-methodology.pdf

The ethnographic approach to qualitative research comes largely from the field of anthropology. The emphasis in ethnography is on studying an entire culture. Originally, the idea of a culture was tied to the notion of ethnicity and geographic location (e.g., the culture of the Trobriand Islands), but it has been broadened to include virtually any group or organization. That is, we can study the "culture" of a business or defined group (e.g., a Rotary club).

Source: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualapp.php