Qualitative Data Collection
The qualitative approaches described previously help explain why a researcher might choose a qualitative design. But what does it actually look like to conduct qualitative research in practice? Typically, researchers use one or more of four primary data collection strategies: interviews, focus groups, observations, and document review. Other techniques—such as visual methods (e.g., photo elicitation) and biographical approaches (e.g., autoethnography)—are also used, either on their own or in combination with these core strategies.
It’s important to understand that qualitative approaches and data collection strategies are related but not the same. Different qualitative approaches may use similar methods, which can lead to confusion. For example, a phenomenological study often relies on interviews to explore lived experiences. However, interviews are not exclusive to phenomenology—they are also used in ethnography, grounded theory, and other designs. In fact, many studies combine multiple methods, such as interviews and observations, to create a more complete understanding of the topic. The key is how the chosen strategies are applied and interpreted within the framework of the overall qualitative approach.
| TYPE | As in… | Approaches where you commonly see this technique… | Guidelines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interviews | Interview-based studies | Phenomenology; Ethnography (along with Observations); Mixed Methods; Grounded Theory; Narrative Inquiry; Feminist Approaches | Semi-structured or unstructured interviews with one to 100 participants, depending on tradition |
| Focus Groups | Evaluation studies; market research; participatory action research | Case Study; Feminist Approaches; Mixed Methods; often used as a supplementary technique | Single or comparative focused discussions with 5-12 persons |
| Observations | Participant-observation studies; ethnographic studies | Ethnography; Grounded Theory; Symbolic Interactionism; Case Study | Multiple observations in “field,” with written fieldnotes serving as the data |
| Document review | Historical or archival research or content analysis | Case Study; Content Analysis; Narrative Inquiry; Mixed Methods | Systematic and rigorous analyses of documents employing coding techniques |
| Visual analysis | Photo/drawing elicitations; photovoice | Phenomenology; Grounded Theory; Ethnography | Supplemental technique asking participants to draw/explain or view/explain visual material |
| Biographies | Autoethnography; Oral Histories | Narrative Inquiry; Case Study; Oral History | Largely chronologically-structured collection of a person’s life history; can be a single illustrative case |
Figure 10.1. Qualitative Data Collection Techniques
Each of these data collection techniques could be the subject of an entire book (and many are – in many books!). This chapter serves as an orienting overview and as the bridge between the conceptual/design portion of qualitative research and the actual practice of conducting qualitative research. As such, we will focus on only a few techniques. If this calls to you, seek out additional opportunities to learn and practice this kind of research!
Overview of the Four Primary Data Collection Techniques
The Four Primary Techniques of Qualitative Data Analysis
Interviews
Interviews are at the heart of qualitative research. Returning to epistemological foundations, it is during the interview that the researcher truly opens herself to hearing what others have to say, encouraging her interview subjects to reflect deeply on the meanings and values they hold. Interviews are used in almost every qualitative tradition but are particularly salient in phenomenological studies, studies seeking to understand the meaning of people’s lived experiences.
Focus Groups
Focus groups can be seen as a type of interview, one in which a group of persons (ideally between five and twelve) is asked a series of questions focused on a particular topic or subject. They are sometimes used as the primary form of data collection, especially outside academic research. For example, businesses often employ focus groups to determine if a particular product is likely to sell. Among qualitative researchers, it is often used in conjunction with any other primary data collection technique as a form of “triangulation,” or a way of increasing the reliability of the study by getting at the object of study from multiple directions.[2] Some traditions, such as feminist approaches, also see the focus group as an important “consciousness-raising” tool.
Observations
If interviews are at the heart of qualitative research, observations are its lifeblood (and this doesn’t always look the same as the observations we’ve talked about in other chapters). Researchers who are more interested in the practices and behaviors of people than what they think or who are trying to understand the parameters of an organizational culture rely on observations as their primary form of data collection. The notes they make “in the field” (either during observations or afterward) form the “data” that will be analyzed. Ethnographers, those seeking to describe a particular ethnos, or culture, believe that observations are more reliable guides to that culture than what people have to say about it. Observations are thus the primary form of data collection for ethnographers, albeit often supplemented with in-depth interviews.
Media and Document Review
Some would say that those first three—interviews, focus groups, and observations—are really the foundational techniques of data collection. They are far and away the three techniques most frequently used separately, in conjunction with one another, and even sometimes in mixed methods qualitative/quantitative studies.
Document review, either as a form of content analysis or separately, however, is an important addition to the qualitative researcher’s toolkit and should not be overlooked (figure 10.1). Although it is rare for a qualitative researcher to make document review their primary or sole form of data collection, including documents in the research design can help expand the reach and the reliability of a study. Document review can take many forms, from historical and archival research, in which the researcher pieces together a narrative of the past by finding and analyzing a variety of “documents” and records (including photographs and physical artifacts), to analyses of contemporary media content, as in the case of compiling and coding blog posts or other online commentaries, and content analysis that identifies and describes communicative aspects of media or documents.
Other Data Collection Strategies
In addition to these four major techniques, there are a host of emerging and incidental data collection techniques, from photo elicitation or photo voice, in which respondents are asked to comment upon a photograph or image (particularly useful as a supplement to interviews when the respondents are hesitant or unable to answer direct questions), to autoethnographies, in which the researcher uses his own position and life to increase our understanding about a phenomenon and its historical and social context. Case studies may also be considered a qualitative technique, as this is, at the core, a close, rich examination of a single subject (sometimes a single person, but sometimes a single “entity” like a business or family) to tell the story of the subject. We will not explore these in detail in this chapter, but you are invited to explore them if they interest you!
Taken together, these various techniques provide a wide range of practices and tools with which to discover the world. They are particularly suited to addressing the questions that qualitative researchers ask—questions about how things happen and why people act the way they do, given particular social contexts and shared meanings about the world. There are many types of qualitative research designs, but the four mentioned above are some of the most widely used. We’ll go over these types of qualitative designs in more detail throughout this chapter.
