Hi, my name is Shady Attia, professor at Liege University in Belgium. And I'm going to present you today qualitative research methods. Well, this presentation is the first of a series of presentations on qualitative
research methods and there is a playlist on my YouTube channel. I would like to recommend you follow up the following videos
that go more specific in more detail methods. But this presentation is giving a general overview
of qualitative research methods so that you have an idea. The audience of this presentation is mainly researchers who are preparing
a research thesis or a dissertation or conference or journal publication, they are looking to conduct the research and communicate it
and therefore they need to know this as an approach to conduct their research. And the goal of this presentation is to enhance your capacity to conceptualize
design and conduct in qualitative research, qualitative method-based research. Also, the aim of this presentation is to conduct
data analysis for qualitative research, how to do that, investigate the methodology of this particular approach, and provide some specific advice for each step
to help to reach your objectives. So stay tuned. It's a very interesting presentation. And it's an opener for several following presentations
on qualitative research methods. Well, this is the scheme that I developed
to structure the different research methods. And as you can see, I grouped the research
on the left side under quantitative methods, mainly the modeling approach, the empirical approach,
and the experimental. But I'm going to talk in this presentation and the following series
mainly on qualitative methods. And my focus here is to provide a general presentation
on qualitative research methods. And later on, you will find follow-up videos on systematic reviews,
content analysis, observation, ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews, focus groups, usability, case studies, sketch, and 3d models. And even in the future, we go beyond depending
on the request of our viewers. So as you can see, this is the division
of the two different types of methods. And in general, there are people who are attempting
to mix those approaches and when people use methods from the quantitative realm or from the qualitative realm, we call that the mixed-method approach. So this is a general slide that you need to have in mind
that can help you to structurize your methods, and later on, we will provide videos for each of those approaches. Well, let's go started. When we talk about qualitative research methods, we can group the research methods under two major classifications. As you can see, on the left side, the population-based
qualitative research methods, where we are looking at surveys, polls,
interviews, focus group observations, and here human beings or people are the objects where we get our data
so they are the source of our data. While on the other side, these are research that we call
the desktop research approaches where we have documents, we look at online research, literature review, case study research. And those are the main two groups of methods
that we can find under the qualitative research title. So back to the objective of this presentation,
the goal here is to enhance your capacity to conceptualize design and conduct qualitative methods-based research. And to have an overall idea, what is the process
for this research methodology? As I said before, we will look at how to select qualitative data generation
and how to look at different analysis methods. What is the particular approach of this methodology in general? And the content of this presentation, we'll look at the introduction,
introducing qualitative research, talking about some qualitative research methods, how to do sampling,
how to do validation, what is mixed-method research, and conclude the presentation. So let's start first of all with an introduction. Well, first of all, I need to explain to you a very important term,
it's called epistemology. Epistemology is simply the theory of knowledge,
especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion. And you as a researcher need to know what are the epistemologies
that are used in your field, in your domain, in your department, and your area of research, so that you are aware
of the different epistemology. So we have different passages of research, and it has to do with the culture,
with the history, and the general practices. Another important term that you need to know for this presentation
is called research design. Well, the overall strategy that you choose to integrate the different components
of this study in a coherent and logical way, thereby ensuring you will be effectively addressing the research problem
is named the research design. It constitutes the blueprint for the collection, measurement, and analysis of data. So, when we are working on our research proposal, and we are developing
the concept or the study concept, we look at our research design. So we start to design our research. And normally when we do that, we try to select
the methods and the methodologies that are best appropriate for our research question
and for our research problem. And in this sense, this step, this phase where we start to discuss and check and optimize the choices of our methodology and methods,
we call it the research design. So this presentation is very helpful to help you
during the process of your research design, when you are designing the setting of your research, and selecting the methodology and methods for your research. As you know, any research design is based on four major steps,
research design requires that you describe your data collection process,
your data processing, your instrument creation, or what is the thing you're coming up or you're going to create. Is it a framework? Is it something to understand? Is it a model? Is it a tool? Is it a policy? Is it an action plan? Whatever you are going to get is the methodology, the instrument we call it
that you will come up and create. And finally, we talk about how you apply it and validate it? So these are the four major components in any research design. And once you have an idea, what are your methodology and methods,
you have to answer the question, how are you going to collect the data? How are you going to process it? What are you going to make with it at the end? And finally, how you will test what you developed or created and how you will apply it? So let's move now to qualitative research in particular. Well, what is qualitative research? Qualitative research simply entails looking at phenomena
or events from the perspective of the people. So, we try to understand, describe and define the event
from the personal experiences of the people. We do that by collecting documentation about the research problem
by observing people or by interviewing them or by discussing the research problem in a focus group
or by testing their interaction in a particular setting. So this is the overall definition of qualitative research. So you need to make sure that when you are approaching
or selecting this methodology, you will have to do something, either with documents, manuscripts,
text images, or you're going to do something with people. So this is the main definition based on the objects
that you start to process the entry. Okay, another definition, when we look at different definitions,
another definition pops up. Qualitative research relies primarily on words, images,
and some kind of description as opposed to numbers in quantitative studies and you need to keep that into account. When we do qualitative research, we are looking at images,
we look at words we try to grow people under different categories. We are observing behavior, we are analyzing, trying to understand,
trying to interpret, trying to describe and in this sense, qualitative research is strongly bounced to text words, images,
and descriptions compared to quantitative research. Well, another definition looks at qualitative research
and tries to distinguish it in the context of quantitative research. With qualitative research, we seek understanding, we are looking
to understand something, we are trying to go in-depth. While when we do quantitative research, we are trying to generalize,
we're trying to get more objective generalizable information. And mixed research is always between both trying to benefit
from both however, mixed research is very complex because it requires you to master both methodologies,
the quantitative methodology, and the qualitative one. Okay, let's look at another type of classification. When we look at qualitative research as shown here,
it's more seen as a broad, whole picture, exploratory while quantitative is seen as narrow, focused, and conclusive. And this is another way to compare both approaches regarding
the hypothesis, the description, and the type of research. And in general, we consider qualitative research more flexible
compared with quantitative research. It can be spontaneous with quality of data and it has an ease of analysis. However, I need to warn you here qualitative research takes
a huge amount of time. And this is the risk here when we talk about qualitative research methods. Another table can show us some differences. Qualitative research is focused on the meaning of the experience. It's looking more from our philosophical roots
on the constructivism, the interpretivism, when we look at the goals of the investigation, they are so seeking,
understanding, describing, and discovering. When we look at the design characteristic, flexible, evolving, and emergent. And data collection is mainly looking at the researcher as an instrument, he or she is getting emerged in the process by extracting the information
either from documents or images or getting it out from people. So, now, what are the goals of qualitative research? In general, when we look at the different approaches of research,
there are goals, when you look at testing, then it's testing
whether the theory is appropriate or not. And this is something we try to do when we conduct qualitative research
or we try to explain. So we are inquiring why something happens. Or we start to describe and some people underestimate the importance
of description because sometimes we have serious problems, we are unable to understand and we do not find the documentation about it. So, therefore, the description is important,
because it can provide a further detailed description of a certain phenomenon or a certain behavior. And also we look when we do qualitative research to explore. So when we have no previous knowledge or academic knowledge
in this sense about the topic, we start to explore using qualitative research methods. So, these are all goals that you can use or embed in your research design
when you conduct qualitative research. And normally, we test whether the theory is applicable to the study domain,
then we are in the testing, in the exploration side, but when we try to build a theory on the study domain, then we are more
in the description and exploration. Also, another goal of qualitative research is
to identify and characterize the patterns of behavior or individual group interaction or interactions or individual perceptions, or identifying important factors,
or informing predictions about relationships. So, these are also goals that you can select
when you perform qualitative research. So this is an overall idea about the goal of qualitative research methodology
or methods in general. Now, how do I know if qualitative research is the right approach for my study? You have to consider the nature of the phenomena you want to study. And you need to determine what you know about the phenomenon. And you need to be clear with your goal,
and this has to do with your research question. So when you're in the phase of creation or preparation of your research, and you are consulting with your peers or consulting with your supervisors, this moment is very important, because, at that moment, you will need
to define a clear research question based on a specific problem definition. And from there, you can start to first ask yourself: Am I going to approach and answer my research question through
a methodology that is qualitative or quantitative? So it's very important to take this into account. But in order to answer this question, and to be able
to select a method, first of all, what are the existing qualitative research methods? As you know, qualitative research is a methodology
but entails several methods. So, what are the methods that are part
of the qualitative research methodology in general? As you can see, this is one of the classifications that I found on the internet
and as you can see, we can say qualitative research method can be one on one interview,
people are involved, focus group discussion, people are involved, ethnographic research people
are involved and you are more observing them. Case Study research, which is considered more on the desktop. Recordkeeping, you go into archives, you go into historical data,
you go into public records, and you start to look at these records and you start to analyze them. So you're again on the desktop, you're looking at documents. Or the process of observation, it's similar to the ethnographic
but here if the ethnographic research is focused on human beings and their behavior and their relations, here you are looking at the observation
of phenomena in general, in your research domain. So, these are different examples of methods of qualitative research
and it will be very important that you have an idea of these methods so that you are able
to select the best method according to your research question. Okay, so what are also other qualitative methods? We can classify them through a different definition in a text. First of all document review, we look to identify patterns or communications, describe characteristics of organizations of all processes,
this is the documents reviews. We can look at also observation. Here, we are trying to learn about behaviors and interactions
in natural settings, study cultural aspects of a setting or particular context. When we talk about interviews, mainly in-depth interviews, we try
to explore individual experiences and perceptions in rich detail. Another type or method of qualitative research is the focus groups. Focus groups, here, we try to generate unique insights into shared
experiences and social norms and practices. And this is another approach. The fifth approach is usability testing. And it's a very interesting method under qualitative research,
where we try to inform on design decision and usability issues and find solutions for them
and interactions between human beings and certain phenomena or a certain object or a certain decision approach. So this is also an interesting method. Another method
is case study research, very famous, where we look here at research strategies that investigate a phenomenon
or interaction within its real-life context. And here it is a mix of observations with documentation. We have also intervention research, where we tried
to have a systematic study of the purpose of change strategies, and this is considered a quasi-experimental method. And we have ethnographic research where we look at observing
and interacting with the participant and their real-life environment. And I added one more, which is the sketching study where we try
to have observational sketching to generate a different form of visual data, which has the considerable potential of understanding or highlighting or articulating a certain perception of humans or understanding of humans. Those are all examples of methods. There's a lot of different methods, much more,
but those are the most famous one. Don't hesitate to go beyond that. And in the following detailed videos,
we will explain some of them in specific detail. Now, what are the approaches when we do qualitative research? We have two main approaches, the first approach we call deductive research. So the deductive approach is aimed at the testing theory and an inductive approach is mainly concerned with the degeneration
of new theories emerging from data. So mainly I have data and I'm trying to look at interpreting this data
to build up a theory and this is called the deductive approach, where we try to test, explain general relations from data. We try to make from the data, find patterns, find relations
and from there, we build up a theory. Opposed to this deductive approach, we have the inductive approach, when here we try from general to specific while we try to do inductions
moving from more specific to more general, and here it is, we do a different approach when we have exploration
and general relationship. And these are two different approaches, when you have here in this sense,
theory, and you try to move from the theory to data. So, you have a general theory that explains
or sets us a kind of rule or a general expectation and then you go through data to test this theory
and make sure if it works or not. So, those are the two major approaches when we conduct qualitative research. Now, moving to the fourth part of our presentation, sampling. Sampling is a very important component of qualitative research
and also quantitative research, but in the context of qualitative research, you need to know that you will sample meaning that you will have
a lot of information and you need to have a sample. So, when we look at qualitative research methods,
we can say what is the definition of sampling? Sampling can differ depending on your research method.
When we are talking about people-based methods, then we are sampling mainly population,
people that we will interview how many people who interview and so on. How many people are we going to discuss with a certain problem
for focus group discussion, the same that goes with sampling. On the opposite side, we call it coding, coding is something related
to what kind of documents are you going to select. Because again, when you have your object of data
or your data input coming from documents, then also you need to do a sampling approach. What is the meaning of that? I need to select consciously the documents that I'm going to treat
and process and I need to start to code them. Meaning, I find meanings and start to group these documents
and synthesize them under certain concepts and certain codes so that later on I can create a summary and a better understanding. So, sampling in this sense is important and I always ask my researchers
when they select a document-based methodology, I tell them, what kind of documents are you going to explore,
how many, in which domain? Do you have a limit of documents? And the same when it comes to population-based methods, I asked them -
how many people are going to interview? And so on. What is sampling in qualitative research? Well, we look as I told you, what population or documents,
the entire aggregation of cases that meet a specified set of criteria. And here we need to have eligibility criteria that determines the attributes
or the descriptions of the target population. So, once we have decided which methodology and method we will select,
we need to work on the sampling and the number one question when I asked somebody, what will be your sampling? You need to be able to answer because, in this sense, you need to say
what will be the aggregation of cases that you will meet your criteria. And in this sense, you need to have criteria to make a selection. Also, a sample entails the process of selecting a portion
of the overall population to represent the entire population, the same if we are doing it with papers. So, for example, if you are looking at documents, it will be the process
of selecting a portion of the documents or images or manuscript or general artifacts to represent the entire artifacts, imagine you have access to the archives of a certain epoch
or a certain time period. You will need also to sample because you will need to select certain documents at certain times to make sure that this is representative. Otherwise, you will have exhaustive research on exploring
or going through a lot of documents. So, sampling here is very important. Also, we need to make sure when we do sampling,
that we will have access to our samples. So, this is called the accessible population or accessible artifacts and this is the population of people available for the study
or the artifacts that are available for our studies. So, here is accessibility, very important to look at. And for sure, after we define our sample of people or of artifacts or documents,
then we need to define the target population, which is the entire population in which the researcher is interested
and to which he or she wants to generalize the results. So, when I ask you what is your target population
or what is your target documents? Then you say it will be the National Archives between 1962 till 1965. Or it can be people who are in a certain age category, working, pensioned
and they have living single, for example. So, the target population is the overall entire population
of your pool of information that you will later start to sample from to conduct your research. How to sample in qualitative studies? In general, we use small samples in qualitative research,
we do not use large samples like in quantitative research methods. We do non-random samples, so we do purposive sampling,
we can select our own people without doing that is non-random. We do sample design during the process, so it's emergent. I can be in the process of interviewing people, and then I am in this process
starting to continue selecting others. So it doesn't need to be present early on. I will have most probably a small sample size as I said before. And the sample size depends mainly on the informant's needs so I do not go and look at representative samples or large-scale samples. Data saturation can allow me to stop once I have a saturation, meaning, that the results that I'm getting out from people are repeating
or from documents. I can stop and do not continue my process
because the sample is giving a saturation. And sampling to the point at which new information is obtained
and redundancy is achieved. So this is the definition of data saturation. Also, we do an evaluation, we evaluate the sample plans based on adequacy,
based on appropriateness, and based on using the best informal for the sample
those who will provide the best information. So sampling in this sense, is not very rigid,
or formal, like quantitative methods. It's more here evolving, emerging and there's flexibility with your sample
when you do qualitative research in general. In general, when you look at sampling methods,
the probability sampling and random sampling, this is used mainly for quantitative methods, but in our approach in qualitative research, we do purposive sampling. So, we select ourselves until we reach a certain saturation
and we assure heterogeneity, and then we also do select our own respondents, like I told you
based on interactions, and based on informal approaches. So, these are the major difference between quantitative sampling
and qualitative sampling methods. So, this is how you do your sampling. Well, this is another overview
of the different methods, I did not provide all of them but I just highlighted in-depth interviews,
focus group discussions, case studies, and usability testings. Those are all methods under qualitative research methodology. And the objective of those methods is varying. Let's start with in-depth interviews, the objective of the in-depth interview
is to describe and test and the sample size in this sense is always small,
and the number of variables is large. So, we investigate different topics, different parameters, different conditions,
but we have a small sample of people. When it comes to focusing group description discussion,
we are trying also this to describe and test. But the sample size is medium, we're looking at groups. So, we are talking about groups of 12, 20, 25, even more. And we are looking at a large number of a number of variables, parameters, points that we are discussing with our focus group in general. Now, moving to the case studies, when we look at the objective,
the objective here is to explore describe and explain. But the sample size is small and the number of variables is large. So we just select three case studies as a minimum to start with. Sometimes it's only one if it's difficult context, it depends
on the state of development regarding the research question. But we say in general, three or more for case studies, and then we start to look at different parameters associated
with our case study. And finally, when we look at usability testing, we try to explain
and test, the sample sizes medium, again, similar to the focus group discussion, we are talking about 12 plus, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, very great. And we are looking at a small variable variation because we want to focus on
testing and interaction, for example. Or a correlation in certain settings. So this table is very useful to start with to have an idea of
what are the sampling approaches? What kind of sample size do I need?
And what kind of variation I can have with my parameters? And what are the objectives associated with each method? And therefore, as a researcher, you need to know
what are the overall qualitative research methods available in order to be able to pick up one or more that corresponds
to your research question. Now, I'm almost moving to the end of my presentation
and I need to highlight something very important when we conduct qualitative research methods. It is called validation. Validation is a very important key step
and the definition of validity in qualitative research. By default, qualitative research produces subjective results. However, the role of the researcher is to avoid bias and assure replicability. So it's very important to take into account that qualitative research by default
is producing subjective research, because the researcher is influencing strongly the research approach,
and it's very difficult to make it objective. We do not focus much on the representation,
we do not focus much on the sampling, large sample size, we are not looking here to generalization. We're looking here mainly to understand, we need to understand,
we need to interpret, we need to observe relations. And since this work is done by the researcher, it is subjective, which is fine,
it does not under a minute, it does not make it less important, but it needs to have a very important, serious step
where we show to the scientific community where we are publishing or sharing our results that yes,
it is subjective, we made deliberate choices. However, we were not biased we made our best to avoid bias. So let me explain to you how to avoid bias and how to prove
that we can have adequate replicability of our research. Well, the questions that we pose in order
to validate our research in qualitative methods. Can you study results become generalized to a wider population? A point of discussion. Did you measure what was intended to be measured and here we are talking about something called internal validity
as opposed to external validity. This first question, can you study results become generalized
to a wider population? This is a generalization, this is the external validity. We try after we conduct our research to ask ourselves:
Do my findings that I came up are able to be generalized? Can I generalize them to different contexts, to different communities,
to similar populations, or not? So, this is external validity. Then I start to ask myself:
Did I measure what was intended to be measured? And this is related to the intention and intention of my research
related to reality and this is called internal validity. And those on those approaches, we look at four major concepts. When we talk about internal validity, we are looking at the credibility
and the confirmability of your research. And when we look at external validity,
we are looking at transferability and dependability. And it's very important for you as a researcher to start to learn
about these validation approaches, looking at the internal validity of your approach
and the external validity of your approach. So validity here is crucial to make sure that you are not biased
and that you're serious in your approach and that replicability is possible. So, just a small glimpse of the mixed methods. People who select mixed methods, what do they do?
They simply decide not to ignore numbers, and at the same time, they do not want to ignore the human experience. So, they are between do those two words of qualitative and quantitative. And they start to say - Okay, I want to combine numbers,
the quantitative approach with human experiences, the qualitative approach or documents and I do mixed methods where
you can get the best out of qualitative and quantitative methodology. However, I warn you, you need to be well trained in this area because you need to master two methodologies with their different methods
and it's difficult. And in our sector, in my domain of sustainable building
or the construction sector, in general, we do, for example, post-occupancy evaluation,
the same for healthcare, they do also this mixed method. So, in post-occupancy evaluation in the building sector,
we start to identify and describe user experiences. We try to observe people and their behavior, but at the same time,
we combine that with vital signs on temperature and indoor environmental quality and overall measures
related to comfort conditions. So, as you can see, we have numbers we have people we have behavior
and we try to mix it and this is called post-occupancy evaluation in the architecture
and engineering and construction industry. And in healthcare, they do the same, you will go to any medical sector
or medical field, they try always to combine the human experience with the vital signs
of your blood pressure, sugar, and so on and so on in blood and so on. So, you can see that some areas, combine the mixed approach. So let's go to the conclusion of today's presentation. I give you some recommendations and do not forget
that your research design is very important. You need to keep into account, what will be the data you will collect, how you will process it,
what will be the thing that you are looking to create? And how are you going to test it and validate it? And in order to come up with that, you should have already developed
your research question and your research, define your research problem. But in this sense, the aim of this presentation is to help you to select:
Is qualitative research methodology, in general, is suitable for me or not, and which type of method I'm going to select? So, qualitative methods can provide a unique contribution
to human-centered research. So this is one thing to keep into account. There are rigorous and widely accepted procedures
for study, sampling, data collection, and data analysis, and even data validation. You need just to go deeper and inquire and learn about it. So that when you are starting your research, you are conscious, and you are knowledgeable enough in order to do all these steps
in a good way, in a perfect way. And to deliver good results, avoid bias and guarantee or assure replicability. Well, by that I would like to end my presentation. I would like to invite you to subscribe to my channel. They are following videos related to qualitative research methods
and quantitative research methods. Don't hesitate to comment, subscribe, like the presentation if you like,
and share your comments if you have any special requests. By that, I would like to thank you for your attention. This was a presentation on quality qualitative research methods. And thanks again.
