Qualitative Research Methods

Its basic features can be listed as follows: sensitivity to natural environment, participatory role of the researcher, holistic approach, identifying the perceptions, flexibility in research design, and inductive analysis.

Sensitivity to natural environment refers to the condition that the focal phenomenon/phenomena or event(s) of a qualitative research has/have to be examined in their natural environment, or context.

Case study refers to examination of a case in real life (context) when the boundaries between an event and its context are obscure. It also is close examination of an event or phenomenon in its context in a given time-period.

Primary focus of theorizing and testing case studies is collection of empirical data for a theory whose effectiveness is still blurry.

Ethnography is a research design where a researcher analyzes common behaviors, language, and action models of an intact culture within their natural environment during a long time-span.

Narrative inquiry is a study design where the researcher analyzes individuals’ lives and asks for life stories about their lives. Accordingly, a researcher aspires to explore in narrative inquiry are the participants’ experiences.

Narrative inquiry design can bring significant contributions into IR. One of these contributions is the potential that narrative inquiries bear to comprehensively analyze the events or phenomena and their institutional operations. Besides, obtained results may produce significant information for development and policy formation.

Phenomenology as a research design aims to study participants’ experiences about a phenomenon they define.

This design focuses on phenomena which participants are aware of but do not have enough in-depth and comprehensive understanding about.

Although these two approaches aim to dig out personal experiences about a phenomenon, they differ in terms of viewpoint and focal point. Descriptive phenomenology suggests that human behaviors are influenced by anything that is perceived real, and therefore they should be described in order to understand human motives. On the other hand, interpretive phenomenology focuses on meanings embedded in individuals’ lives rather than simple definitions of concepts and their qualities.

Phenomenological research is frequently employed for studies within the field of IR. For example, policies developed for the field can be examined in terms of international treaties and experiences of individuals that compromise the society. In this sense, phenomenological research can be utilized to depict the current status of available arrangements in IR and to devise propositions that could improve the process.

The researcher in a grounded theory tries to explore participants’ social processes, behavioral patterns, acceptances, and meanings. In other words, researchers focus on a process or action that has a different step or phase formed in time.

Any qualitative research process starts with identification of the research topic, phenomenon, or problem.

If the research aims to determine the experiences of a group, not individuals, then snowball sampling can be utilized.

In qualitative research, triangulation refers to the use of more than one method in order to study, define, and explain the problem as comprehensively as possible and to establish necessary credibility (reliability) and validity.

Unlike the other two types, unstructured interview is based on natural flow of interaction during which questions are raised, and it is almost never predetermined where the course of conversation will steer during an unstructured interview. In this type, the researcher does no employ pre-written questions, and the interview is based on exploration. 

Employing documents as a data collection technique in a qualitative research may produce the following advantages: Variety in data collection, aid to other data collection techniques, quick access, direct focus onto the topic, low costs.

The final step of a qualitative research process is reporting, which includes the following sections: theoretical background, method, findings, and results. In reporting step, themes, categories, and digital data are utilized; findings are related with the relevant literature; results are discussed, and suggestions are made.

Rigor refers to assessing quality and accuracy of research processes and conclusions.

Credibility (consistency) is another criterion for rigor. Credibility means that data collected during a research process will yield the same results if recollected and undergone the same steps.