Unit Qualitative Research and Its

II Importance in Daily Life

Introduction
Around you are different people, things, and places. All these vary from one another as
regards character or qualities. Curious about a person or a thing, you are inclined to conduct
a qualitative research to discover such individual’s thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about a
certain topic, or to find out something beneath the surface of an inanimate thing or the effects
of such object or place to some people. To discover facts and information about the object of
your interest is to work collaboratively with some people, for the answers to your questions
about your topic do not come only from yourself but from others as well. Here lies the
importance of qualitative research. It promotes people’s interdependence or interpersonal
relationships that the world needs for solving its societal problems.

LESSON 3 Qualitative Research

Intended Learning Outcomes
After this lesson, you should be able to:
1. analyze the use of an unfamiliar term in a sentence to know its meaning;
2. obtain a thorough or in-depth knowledge of qualitative research;
3. clarify your understanding of qualitative research;
4. explain the elements or characteristics of qualitative research;
5. justify the usefulness of qualitative research;
6. compare and contrast the types of qualitative research; and
7. match a given research topic with the right research type.

Connecting Concepts
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN DAILY LIFE • 3

ACTIVITY 1
Stirring Up Imagination

BRAINSTORMING SESSION
Directions: How knowledgeable are you about your surroundings? How can you know more
about people, places, and things in this world? Share with your classmates some ways
and techniques you know about becoming knowledgeable about a lot of things in this
world such as those within your own world, among your friends, schoolmates, loved
ones, and so on.
1.What do you know about qualitative research as a method of understanding your
surroundings better?

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Discovering More Concepts

Read this text to find out more about qualitative research.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Definition of Qualitative Research

As a curious student, you want to know so many things about your surroundings as well
as the people, places, and things you find interesting, intriguing, mysterious,
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or unique. Try looking at the people around you. Perhaps, you are interested in knowing
these people’s ideas, views, feelings, attitudes, or lifestyle. The information these people
give you reflect their mental, spiritual, emotional, or social upbringing, which in turn, show
how they view the world.
Resulting from internal aspects, people cannot measure worldviews but can know them
through numbers. Obtaining world knowledge in this manner directs you to do a research
called Qualitative Research. This is a research type that puts premium or high value on
people’s thinking or point of view conditioned by their personal traits. As such, it usually
takes place in soft sciences like social sciences, politics, economics, humanities, education,
psychology, nursing, and all business-related subjects.
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Subjectivity in qualitative research is true, not only for an individual or a group under
study, but also for you, the researcher, because of your personal involvement in every stage
of your research. For instance, during interviews, you tend to admire or appreciate people’s
ideas based on their answers or your observations and analysis of certain objects. By
carefully looking at or listening to the subject or object in a natural setting, you become
affected by their expressions of what they think and feel about a topic. (Coghan 2014)
In a qualitative research, the reality is conditioned by society and people’s intentions
are involved in explaining cause-effect relationships. Things are studied in their natural
setting, enough for you to conclude that qualitative research is an act of inquiry or
investigation of real-life events. Giving you more concepts about a qualitative research are
the following paragraphs that comprehensively present the elements or characteristics, types,
and advantages of this kind of research (Silverman 2013; Litchman 2013; Walliman 2014;
Suter 2012):

Characteristics of a Qualitative Research

1. Human understanding and interpretation
Data analysis results show an individual’s mental, social, and spiritual
understanding of the world. Hence, through their worldviews, you come to know
what kind of human being he or she is, including his or her values, beliefs, likes,
and dislikes.
2. Active, powerful, and forceful
A lot of changes occur continuously in every stage of a qualitative
research. As you go through the research process, you find the need to amend or
rephrase interview questions and consider varied ways of getting answers, like
shifting from mere speculating to traveling to places for data gathering. You are
not fixated to a certain plan. Rather, you are inclined to discover your qualitative
research design as your study gradually unfolds or reveals itself in accordance
with your research objectives.
3. Multiple research approaches and methods
Qualitative research allows you to approach or plan your study in varied
ways. You are free to combine this with quantitative research and use all gathered
data and analysis techniques. Being a multi-method research, a qualitative study
applies to all research types: descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, case study, etc.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

4. Specificity to generalization
Specific ideas in a qualitative research are directed to a general
understanding of something. It follows an inductive or scientific method of
thinking, where you start thinking of particular or specific concept that will
eventually lead you to more complex ideas such as generalizations or conclusions.
5. Contextualization
A quantitative research involves all variables, factors, or conditions
affecting the study. Your goal here is to understand human behavior. Thus, it is
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN DAILY LIFE • 5
crucial for you to examine the context or situation of an individual’s life—the
who, what, why, how, and other circumstances—affecting his or her way of life.
6. Diversified data in real-life situations
A qualitative researcher prefers collecting data in a natural setting like
observing people as they live and work, analyzing photographs or videos as they
genuinely appear to people, and looking at classrooms unchanged or adjusted to
people’s intentional observations.
7. Abounds with words and visuals
Words, words, and more words come in big quantity in this kind of research.
Data gathering through interviews or library reading, as well as the presentation of
data analysis results, is done verbally. In some cases, it resorts to quoting some
respondents’ answers. Likewise, presenting people’s world views through visual
presentation (i.e., pictures, videos, drawings, and graphs) are significantly used in
a qualitative research.
8. Internal analysis
Here, you examine the data yielded by the internal traits of the subject
individuals (i.e., emotional, mental, spiritual characteristics). You study people’s
perception or views about your topic, not the effects of their physical existence on
your study. In case of objects (e.g., books and artworks) that are subjected to a
qualitative research, the investigation centers on underlying theories or principles
that govern these materials and their usefulness to people.

Types of Qualitative Research

1. Case Study
This type of qualitative research usually takes place in the field of social
care, nursing, psychology, rehabilitation centers, education, etc. This involves a
long-time study of a person, group, organization, or situation. It seeks to find
answers to why such thing occurs to the subject. Finding the reason/s behind such
occurrence drives you to also delve into relationships of people related to the case
under study. Varieties of data collection methods
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such as interviews, questionnaires, observations, and documentary analysis are used in

a case study.
2. Ethnography
Falling in the field of anthropology, ethnography is the study of a particular
cultural group to get a clear understanding of its organizational set-up, internal
operation, and lifestyle. A particular group reveals the nature or characteristics of their
own culture through the world perceptions of the cultural group’s members.
3. Phenomenology
Coming from the word “phenomenon,” which means something known through
sensory experience, phenomenology refers to the study of how people find their
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN DAILY LIFE • 6
experiences meaningful. Its primary goal is to make people understand their
experiences about death of loved ones, care for handicapped persons, friendliness of
people, etc. In doing so, other people will likewise understand the meanings attached to
their experiences. Those engaged in assisting people to manage their own lives properly
often do this qualitative kind of research.
4. Content and Discourse Analysis
Content analysis is a method of quantitative research that requires an analysis or
examination of the substance or content of the mode of communication (letters, books,
journals, photos, video recordings, SMS, online messages, emails, audio-visual
materials, etc.) used by a person, group, organization, or any institution in
communicating. A study of language structures used in the medium of communication
to discover the effects of sociological, cultural, institutional, and ideological factors on
the content makes it a discourse analysis. In studying the content or structures of the
material, you need a question or a set of questions to guide you in
your analysis.
5. Historical Analysis
Central to this qualitative research method is the examination of primary
documents to make you understand the connection of past events to the present time.
The results of your content analysis will help you specify phenomenological changes in
unchanged aspects of society through the
years.
6. Grounded Theory
Grounded theory takes place when you discover a new theory to underlie your
study at the time of data collection and analysis. Through your observation on your
subjects, you will happen to find a theory that applies to your current study. Interview,
observation, and documentary analysis are the data gathering techniques for this type of
qualitative research.
PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1

Advantages or Strengths of Qualitative Research

1. It adopts a naturalistic approach to its subject matter, which means that those
involve in the research understand things based on what they find meaningful.
2. It promotes a full understanding of human behavior or personality traits in their
natural setting.
3. It is instrumental for positive societal changes.
4. It engenders respect for people’s individuality as it demands the researcher’s
careful and attentive stand toward people’s world views.
5. It is a way of understanding and interpreting social interactions.
6. It increases the researcher’s interest in the study as it includes the researcher’s
experience or background knowledge in interpreting verbal and visual data.
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7. It offers multiple ways of acquiring and examining knowledge about something.

Disadvantages or Weaknesses of Qualitative Research

1. It involves a lot of researcher’s subjectivity in data analysis.
2. It is hard to know the validity or reliability of the data.
3. Its open-ended questions yield “data overload” that requires long-time analysis.
4. It is time-consuming.
5. It involves several processes, which results greatly depend on the researcher’s
views or interpretations.

Explaining Learned Concepts

Activity 2

Directions: INDIVIDUAL WORK. Explain the concepts you have learned by answering the
following questions.
1. What comes to your mind the moment you hear qualitative research?
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2. If you want to conduct a research study about your favorite restaurant in town,
what method of qualitative research is appropriate for your study? Explain your
choice.
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3. Differentiate subjectivity from objectivity.

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4. Explain the connection between subjectivity/objectivity and your research work.
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5. How is grounded theory different from other qualitative research methods?
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6. Is the researcher himself the data gathering instrument? Why? Why not?
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7. Can all research methods be used in one research study? Give reasons for your answer.
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8. Pretend you are the subject of a phenomenological study, how will the researcher obtain data
through you?
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9. Given the chance to research, would you right away choose qualitative research? Give
reasons for your answers.
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10. If you will do a qualitative research about the area in which your house is situated, what
could be your research problem or topic?
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Activity 2

Directions: Name the type of qualitative research best suited for the following topics.
1. The Mangyans’ Burial Practices ______________________________________ 2.
Relatives of Typhoon Victims ________________________________________
3. The Effectiveness of the K–12 Curriculum _____________________________
PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1

4. Spiderman: The Very First Film in the 21st Century _____________________

5. Philippines’ Political Party System: Then and Now _____________________
6. Filipino Caregivers in Japan _________________________________________
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7. Travails of Senior Citizens at the LRT/MRT Stations ____________________

8. The Lone Grade VI Speed Reader of UST High School __________________
9. Grade 11 Science Textbook __________________________________________

10. Student Activism Since the Marcos Era _______________________________

LESSON 2 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

Definition
Design is a word which means a plan or something that is conceptualized by the mind. As a result
of a mental activity characterized by unfixed formation of something but an extensive interconnection of
things, a design in the field of research serves as a blueprint or a skeletal framework of your research
study. It includes many related aspects of your research work. A choice of a research design requires you
to finalize your mind on the purpose, philosophical basis, and types of data of your research, including
your method of collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting the data. It is a plan that directs your
mind to several stages of your research work. (De Mey 2013)
There are five research designs that are commonly used in a qualitative research, but these are also
labelled as types of qualitative research by some books on qualitative research because when you speak
of a research design, you plan your methods or techniques in collecting and analyzing data. Your
research design is realized by any of these types of qualitative research that has its own data collecting
technique: case study, ethnography, historical study, phenomenology, and grounded theory. Whether you
think of them as research types or research designs, just the same, you get to deal with the same features
or aspects involved in each type or design.

Types
In addition to what Lesson 3 has already explained about these research designs, this present lesson
discusses these as qualitative research designs detailing both your plan and method or technique on doing
your research study.
1. Case Study
To do a research study based on this research design is to describe a person, a thing, or
any creature on Earth for the purpose of explaining the reasons behind the nature of its
existence. Your aim here is to determine why such creature (person, organization, thing, or
event) acts, behaves, occurs, or exists in a particular manner. Usually, a case study centers on
an individual or single subject matter. Your methods of collecting data for this qualitative
research design are interview, observation, and questionnaire. One advantage of case study is
its capacity to deal with a lot of factors to determine the unique characteristics of the entity.
(Meng 2012; Yin, 2012)
2. Ethnography
A qualitative research design called ethnography involves a study of a certain cultural
group or organization in which you, the researcher, to obtain knowledge about the
characteristics, organizational set-up, and relationships of the group members, must
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN DAILY LIFE • 10

necessarily involve you in their group activities. Since this design gives stress to the study of
a group of people, in a way, this is one special kind of a case study. The only thing that makes
it different from the latter is your participation as a researcher in the activities of the group.
Ethnography requires your actual participation in the group members’ activities while a
case study treats you, the researcher, as an outsider whose role is just to observe the group.
Realizing this qualitative research design is living with the subjects in several months; hence,
this is usually done by anthropologists whose interests basically lie in cultural studies. (Winn
2014)
3. Historical Study
This qualitative research design tells you the right research method to determine the
reasons for changes or permanence of things in the physical world in a certain period (i.e.,
years, decades, or centuries). What is referred to in the study as time of changes is not a time
shorter than a year but a period indicating a big number of years. Obviously, historical study
differs from other research designs because of this one element that is peculiar to it, the scope.
The scope or coverage of a historical study refers to the number of years covered, the kind of
events focused on, and the extent of new knowledge or discoveries resulting from the
historical study. A clue about the scope is usually reflected by the title of the study such as the
following
examples:
A Five-Year Study of the Impact of the K-12 Curriculum on the
Philippine Employment System

The Rise and Fall of the Twenty-Year Reign of Former Philippine

President, Ferdinand E. Marcos

Filipino-Student Activism from the Spanish Era to the

Contemporary Period

Telephones from the Nuclear Era to the Digital Age

The data collecting techniques for a study following a historical research design are
biography or autobiography reading, documentary analysis, and chronicling activities. This
last technique, chronicling activities, makes you interview people to trace series of events in
the lives of people in a span of time. However, one drawback of historical study, is the
absence, or loss of complete and well-kept old that may hinder the completion of the study.
4. Phenomenology
A phenomenon is something you experience on Earth as a person. It is a sensory
experience that makes you perceive or understand things that naturally occur in your life such
as death, joy, friendship, caregiving, defeat, victory, and the like. This qualitative research
design makes you follow a research method that will let you understand the ways of how
people go through inevitable events in their lives. You are prone to extending your time in
listening to people’s recount of their significant experiences to be able to get a clue or pattern
of their techniques in coming to terms with the positive or negative results of their life
experiences.
Comparing these two qualitative research designs, phenomenology and ethnography, the
first aims at getting a thorough understanding of an individual’s life experiences for this same
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN DAILY LIFE • 11

person’s realistic dealings with hard facts of life while the second aims at defining,
describing, or portraying a certain group of people possessing unique cultural traits.
Focusing on people’s meaning and making strategies in relation to their life experiences,
phenomenology as a qualitative research design finds itself relevant or useful to people such
as teachers, nurses, guidance counselors, and the like, whose work entails giving physical and
emotional assistance or relief to people. Unstructured interview is what this research design
directs you to use in collecting data. (Paris 2014; Winn 2014)
5. Grounded Theory
A research study adhering to a grounded theory research design aims at developing
a theory to increase your understanding of something in a psycho-social context. Such study
enables you to develop theories to explain sociologically and psychologically influenced
phenomena for proper identification of a certain educational process. Occurring in an
inductive manner, a research study following a grounded theory design takes place in an
inductive manner, wherein one basic category of people’s action and interactions gets related
to a second category; to third category; and so on, until a new theory emerges from the
previous data. (Gibson 2014; Creswell 2012)
A return to the previous data to validate a newly found theory is a zigzag sampling.
Moving from category to category, a study using a grounded theory design is done by
a researcher wanting to know how people fair up in a process-bound activity such as
writing. Collecting data based on this qualitative research design called grounded
theory is through formal, informal, or semi-structured interview, as well as analysis of
written works, notes, phone calls, meeting proceedings, and training sessions.
(Picardie 2014)

Explaining Learned Concepts

Activity 1

Directions: INDIVIDUAL WORK. Circle the letter of the correct answer. 1. A research
design is made up of things indicating
a. separation c. singularity
b. relationship d. craftsmanship
2. Wanting to increase your understanding of the burial practices of the
Mangyans, you choose the qualitative research design called
a. historical c. phenomenological
b. ethnographical d. grounded theory
3. Grounded theory involves a series of
a. theories c. designs
b. books d. instructions
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4. A great degree of man’s emotionality surfaces in a research design called

a. case study c. historical
b. ethnography d. phenomenology

5. Determining what makes an individual distinct from others is the goal of

a. case study c. phenomenology
b. historical d. ethnography

6. No research design means no research

a. motivation c. direction
b. title d. data

7. This cliché—When you are in Rome, do what the Romans do—is true for
a. case study c. phenomenology
b. historical study d. ethnography

8. The who, what, why, and how of your research study are determined by your research
a. data c. question
b. title d. design

9. Zigzag sampling requires data

a. analysis c. recording
b. accumulation d. review

10. A researcher’s personal participation in people’s activities is necessary in

a. historical c. ethnography
b. phenomenological d. case study

Activity 2

Directions: Answer the following questions intelligently and concisely.

1. In what way are the qualitative research designs also called qualitative research types?

2. Which aspect of your personality is significantly involved in designing a research study?

Why?
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3. What comes to your mind when you think of the word “research design”?

4. Are you going to work on old and new data in a grounded theory research design? Why? Why
not?

5. In choosing historical design, what could prevent you from finishing your study?

6. Could an impatient researcher prosper under a phenomenological research design? Why? Why
not?

7. If one teacher of yours requires you to do a research following the historical research design,
would you fully agree with him/her on such kind of study? Explain your answer.

8. Does choosing which qualitative research design to follow demand a lot of HOTS? Give
reasons for your answer.

9. Do you know of one who has done a research based on one of the qualitative research designs?

10. If you were to conduct a study, on which qualitative research design would you like to base
your research work? Justify your point.
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LESSON 3 Research Problem and Research Question

Intended Learning Outcomes

After this lesson, you should be able to:
1. expand your vocabulary;
2. communicate your worldviews using newly learned words;
3. define a research question and a research problem;
4. give the relationship between research problem and research question;
5. formulate correct research questions;
6. identify the sources of research problem and research question; and 7. justify the essence of
having background knowledge of the problem.

Connecting Concepts
Linking Old and New Knowledge

Activity 1: Making Words Meaningful

Directions: INDIVIDUAL WORK. From the box, choose the expression that corresponds to the
meaning of the italicized word in the sentence.

Driving force .................. felt uncertain or doubtful result from

Final Permanent decision riddle
Being in a relative position Taking things as factual
Deep coming before

Sentences
1. ______________________ You will be perplexed by something you know nothing about.

2. ______________________ Their closeness stems from their two-month togetherness in the

2015 ClimateChange Summit in Alaska.
3. ______________________ Why don’t you give me a clue to that conundrum you want me
answer instantly?
4. ______________________ Coming from different cultural backgrounds, you can’t have an
alignment of beliefs and ideas about that matter.

45
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5. ______________________ Wanting to graduate as a valedictorian could be the impetus

behind that student’s frequent library work.
6. ______________________ Try to get an intense understanding of that theory to avoid
flunking the test.
7. ______________________ Preceding number seven is eight.
8. ______________________ You’ve already heard my conclusive statement; hence, close the
deal now.
9. ______________________ What you see around you, what you read in papers, and what you
hear from people help you adopt an objective view of the case.
10. ______________________ I’ve joined so many singing competitions already, this time, I’ll
try The Voice, the ultimate contest I’ll be participating in.

Activity 2: Using the Newly Learned Words

Directions: Write a paragraph with seven to ten sentences about an interesting topic to you. Use some of
the newly learned words in your short composition and give an interesting title to your work. Write
this on the lines provided.

Stirring Up Imagination
What immediately comes to your mind the moment you hear these two words: PROBLEM and
QUESTION? How would you compare and contrast the two? In the space below, make an appropriate
graph (e.g., table or a Venn diagram) to show their similarities and differences.
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN DAILY LIFE • 16

PROBLEM VS. QUESTION

Recall the concepts about research that you learned through this module. In the space
provided, list them down based on the extent of your understanding of them; meaning, those well
understood concepts should be the first ones in the list, slightly understood; the middle ones in the
list; poorly understood, the last part of the list.

A List of Learned Concepts

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