Qualitative Research

Qualitative research, also known as qualitative inquiry, is an umbrella term used to cover a wide variety of research methods and methodologies that provide holistic, in-depth accounts and attempt to reflect the complicated, contextual, interactive, and interpretive nature of our social world. For example, grounded theory, ethnography, phenomenology, ethnomethodology, narratology, photovoice, and participatory action research (PAR) may all be included under the qualitative label, although each of these individual methods is based on its own set of assumptions and procedures. What unifies these various approaches to inquiry is their primary reliance on non-numeric forms of data (also known as empirical evidence) and their rejection of some of the underlying philosophical principles that guide methods employed in the physical and natural sciences and frequently in the ...