What Is Qualitative Research?

Qualitative research is an investigative framework or exploratory strategy that focuses on studying people’s thoughts, feelings, and interactions in depth and in context. Rather than measuring or quantifying variables, qualitative research aims to explore meaning, experience, and perspective. A core principle of qualitative research is that human behavior and meaning are best understood within real-life circumstances—i.e., in natural settings such as homes, schools, workplaces, or communities, rather than in artificial or controlled environments. Patton (2015) emphasized this point, stating: “Context is essential for understanding complex, dynamic, and interactive processes. Without context, findings can be superficial and misleading” (p. 17). Qualitative research underscores the importance of gathering data in environments where participants live and interact, rather than in controlled or artificial settings.

Qualitative research aims not to test a hypothesis or produce generalizable statistics, but rather to explore how and why specific experiences unfold the way they do. For example, a researcher may seek to understand how a family copes with a child’s chronic illness or why college students choose to leave school before graduating. This approach prioritizes depth of understanding, focusing on participants whose experiences, perspectives, and stories are examined in rich detail. The goal is to uncover meaningful patterns and insights that can inform theory, guide policy decisions, or enhance professional practice.

Limitations of Qualitative Research

While qualitative research offers valuable insights into human experience, it is important to acknowledge its limitations. One key limitation is that findings from qualitative studies are not generalizable in a statistical sense. Because these studies often rely on small, purposefully selected samples, they are not designed to represent entire populations. Instead, they aim to provide a deep, contextual understanding of a particular group, setting, or experience. This trade-off allows for rich detail but limits how much findings can be applied broadly.

Another limitation is the time-intensive nature of both data collection and analysis. Conducting interviews, making detailed observations, or reviewing personal documents requires patience, trust-building, and extended engagement with participants. Once the data are collected, the analysis process can be equally time-consuming, often involving careful coding, categorizing, and interpreting large volumes of qualitative material. Although this requires a significant investment of time and effort, it is essential for producing meaningful findings.

Finally, researcher bias presents an ongoing challenge in qualitative research. Because the researcher serves as the primary instrument for data collection and interpretation, their values, experiences, and assumptions can influence how they engage with participants and analyze the data. Rather than striving for complete objectivity—an unrealistic goal in qualitative inquiry—researchers must practice reflexivity, or the continual process of examining their own influence on the research.

When conducted with care, qualitative research offers insights that are rich, meaningful, and deeply relevant to understanding the human experience.

In this section, we’ll introduce you to three important qualitative approaches: Grounded Theory, Phenomenology, and Ethnography. These approaches differ in what they aim to discover and how they go about collecting and analyzing data.

Philosophical Approaches to Qualitative Research

Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory is a well-known approach in qualitative research. It was first introduced by sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in their 1967 book, The Discovery of Grounded Theory. They wanted to challenge the idea that social scientists should only test existing scientific theories. Instead, they argued that sociologists should build new theories from the ground up, based on what they observe in the real world.

The main goal of Grounded Theory is to generate new theories by analyzing qualitative data like interviews and observations. This approach uses the constant comparative method, in which researchers collect and analyze data at the same time, constantly comparing new findings to what they’ve already seen. This process is inductive, meaning it moves from specific observations to broader ideas or theories.

Although all qualitative research involves some kind of back-and-forth between data and analysis, Grounded Theory is unique due to its systematic approach and because it is informed by theory. It’s especially useful in exploratory studies, when existing scientific theories cannot fully explain the phenomenon being studied. Grounded theory often uses data collection strategies like interviews, focus groups, or observations. After collecting data, researchers use a systematic process to analyze the data by identifying themes and ideas that help them understand the phenomena they are exploring.

Phenomenology

While Grounded Theory focuses on developing new theories, Phenomenology is a great approach to use if you are interested in understanding people’s lived experiences. Phenomenology has its roots in philosophy and is often used in social science research. This approach is built upon the assumption that people uniquely experience and interpret the world around them. Phenomenologists explore how people subjectively experience events, cultural norms, and experiences.

For example, a phenomenological study might explore what it’s like to live in poverty, how tourists experience a foreign culture, or what arranged marriage means to those in cultures where arranged marriage is common. What similarities do you see in those research questions?

To do this, phenomenologists primarily collect data via in-depth interviews. Observations aren’t as effective in phenomenological research because of the focus on how people feel and think, not just what they do. Phenomenology doesn’t aim to describe an objective reality. Instead, it explores how people understand their own experiences. If someone says one thing and seems to do another, that’s not necessarily a problem—it reflects how people interpret their world, which is what phenomenology is all about.

Ethnography

Ethnography comes from the field of anthropology, where it was originally used to study cultures around the world. Today, ethnographers study all kinds of groups, from marginalized communities to organizations, classrooms, or even a single person’s life. Early ethnographers often examined diverse cultures, yet often imposed their own Western worldviews or exploited the communities they studied through unethical research practices. However, modern ethnographers generally take an action-oriented approach to research by challenging power dynamics and focusing on groups that are overlooked or misunderstood. Sometimes they even study dominant cultures to show how “normal” practices can seem strange when examined closely.

Ethnographers usually spend a long time in the field, observing and participating in the daily lives of the people they study. They take detailed field notes, often supplemented by interviews and informal conversations. The result is a rich, detailed account called a “thick description”, which helps readers feel immersed in the group’s world.

A variation of ethnography is autoethnography, where the researcher studies their own experiences to understand broader cultural patterns. For example, someone might reflect on their identity, emotions, or daily routines as a way of analyzing the society they’re part of. This approach connects personal stories to larger social issues and often draws on feminist or critical theory.

Case Study

Case study research is a widely used qualitative approach that allows researchers to explore a specific case in depth and within its real-life context. In qualitative research, a “case” can refer to an individual, family, organization, event, classroom, or community—essentially any subject that is clearly defined and limited in scope.. The goal is to understand the case deeply by collecting rich, detailed data using multiple techniques, such as interviews, observations, and documents.

Case studies are especially valuable when researchers want to investigate complex phenomena as they unfold in everyday settings. Rather than trying to generalize findings to a larger population, case study research focuses on the uniqueness of the case and the insights it can offer about processes, relationships, or contextual influences. This approach is often used in education, healthcare, family science, and social work to better understand lived experiences, program implementation, or decision-making in real-world settings.

Narrative Research

Narrative research is a qualitative approach that focuses on the stories people tell to make sense of their lives, identities, and experiences. At its core, this method values storytelling as both a way of communicating meaning and a rich data source. Researchers using narrative methods often collect detailed personal accounts through interviews, written journals, letters, or other expressive formats, then analyze these narratives’ structure, content, and context to uncover deeper insights.

This approach is instrumental when studying how individuals experience major life events, transitions, or social challenges. Rather than breaking a participant’s story into isolated themes or codes, narrative researchers preserve the sequence and flow of the story to understand how people construct meaning over time. For example, a narrative study might explore how a survivor of domestic violence tells the story of leaving an abusive relationship, highlighting turning points, values, and cultural influences. Narrative research often explores identity, resilience, trauma, and transformation through a deeply personal lens.

Summary

Grounded theory, phenomenology, and ethnography, case studies, and narrative research each offer a unique approach to understanding human experience. These approaches often stem from different knowledge paradigms or ways of knowing in scientific research. Although some data collection strategies are more commonly used in some qualitative approaches than others, qualitative approaches are not synonymous with data collection strategies. Instead, they provide a philosophical or theoretical orientation upon which their entire research design – from their research question to data collection and analysis techniques – are founded.

As you learn more about qualitative research, you may find one approach fits your research interests best. Or you might draw from several, depending on your goals. However, the most important thing is to use an approach and research design that can best answer your research question! Many researchers collaborate with others who have different methodological expertise, allowing them to collectively answer questions that no one scholar could on their own.