THE QUALITATIVE APPROACH Sample Clauses

THE QUALITATIVE APPROACH. According to ▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2012:380), the qualitative research approach is distinguished from quantitative research by favouring words over numbers, having an inductive, constructivist view, an ‘interpretivist’ epistemological position where “stress is on the understanding of the social world through an examination of the interpretation of that world by its participants”. Among many possible research methods commonly used in qualitative research, this study consist of qualitative interviewing and qualitative analysis of texts and documents. Figure 2 outlines one possible series of steps in qualitative research. ▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2012:387) mentions that “two particularly distinctive aspects of the sequence of steps in qualitative research are the highly related issues of the links between theory and concepts with research data”. General Research Questions Selection of Relevant Sites and Subjects Collection of Relevant Data Interpretation of Data Conceptual and Theoretical Work Writing up Findings/Conclusions Figure 2: Steps of Qualitative Research (based on Bryman, 2012:384) Identification and use of concepts is essential to qualitative research, and the development and employment differs from quantitative research. The concepts should not be fixed, but ‘sensitizing’ and “give a very general sense of what to look for and act as a means for uncovering the variety of forms that the phenomena to which they refer can assume” (▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2012:388). The analysis in this study employs a thematic approach, were themes and concepts emanating from the collected data is sorted as main themes and sub-themes.