Question

Discuss the characteristics of qualitative research studies as opposed to the characteristics of obtaining knowledge via tradition, authority, intuition, and practice wisdom methods.

Answer 1

Ans.

Characteristics and advantages of Qualitative Research :

1. Real-world Setting:  qualitative researchers gather up-close information by actually talking directly to people and seeing them behave and act within their context. In the natural setting, the researchers have face-to-face interaction over time. For example, A teacher will conduct qualitative research if he wants to know about the reason for the declining marks of students in the class. Qualitative research will be helpful to get real information.

2. Researcher as key instrument : Qualitative researchers collect data themselves by examining documents, observing behaviour, and interviewing of participants. They may use an instrument, but it is one designed by the researcher using open-ended questions. They do not tend to use or rely on questionnaires or instruments developed by other researchers.

3. Complex reasoning : An essential characteristic of the qualitative research method is that it is beneficial for complex reasoning. Sometimes, there are search situations which are required to have complex reasoning to get the exact results rather than direct statistical answers.  For example, if a restaurant owner wants to know about what kind of entertainment people prefer at different hours of the day and why then he is required to adopt one of the qualitative research methods to understand the psychology of customers behind the choice of their entertainment.

4. Complex reasoning

An essential characteristic of the qualitative research method is that it is beneficial for complex reasoning. Sometimes, there are search situations which are required to have complex rationale to get the right results rather than direct statistical answers. For example, if the owner of restaurant wants to know about what kind of entertainment people prefer at different hours of the day and why then he is required to adopt one of the qualitative research methods to understand the psychology of customers behind the choice of their entertainment.

5. Participants meanings : In qualitative research, like the researcher, the role of a participant is also very important. During the whole research process, the focus of a researcher is to understand and determine the meaning that a participant brings to the research rather than the definition given or thought by the researcher based on the literature reviews. Based on the different perspectives of participants, different meaning of research is observed.

6. Flexible : Qualitative research is flexible. It can change at any stage of the research and based on the change, the course of research might also get changed. Therefore, qualitative research is used in such a scenario where the flexible nature of research is acceptable.

7. Multiple methods : Qualitative researchers typically gather multiple forms of data, such as interviews, observations, and documents, rather than rely on a single data source. Then they review all of the data and make sense of it, organizing it into categories or themes that cut across all of the data sources.

8. Purposeful selection of participants : In qualitative research, participants are selected randomly from a carefully chosen segment of potential participants. The persistent range of participants increases the accuracy of the outcome of the research.

Tradition method : Method of traditional knowledge has been orally passed oral tradition for generations from person to person. Some forms of traditional knowledge find expression in culture, stories, legends, folklore, rituals, songs, and laws.

Limitation :

- In tradition method there are no multiple souces of gather data because the knowledge is passed through tradiotion.

- unlike qualitative reseach the data might be based on beliefs and rational.

Authority : This method involves accepting ideas because some authority figure states that they are true. These authorities include parents, the media, doctors, Priests and other religious authorities, the government, and professors.

Limitation :

- Authorities can be wrong or not truthful.

- Authority is sometimes largely just a function of the political power of a person or tradition.

- Deference to authorities can hinder of our own critical judgment or cause us to discount our own wisdom.

Intuition : Intuition means relying on our guts, our emotions, and/or our instincts to guide us. Rather than examining facts or using rational thought, intuition involves believing what feels true.

Limitaion :

- It may be based on personal misconceptions/delusions.

- As it is such a personal and private way of knowing, it might  be hard to communicate or translate the knowledge for others’ use.

Practice wisdom : Practice wisdom is known as a personal and value-driven system of knowledge that emerges out of the transaction between the phenomenological experience of the person's situation and the use of scientific information.