Importance Of Qualitative Research

Importance of Theoretical Considerations in Analyzing Qualitative Data

As part of our academic course, this term-paper has been given to us for the further practice and learning on writing term-paper and to understand the importance of theoretical considerations in analyzing qualitative data.

Research is a process of building up a thought or idea into knowledge or fact with the help of precise procedure and strategy, to legitimate its truthfulness and accuracy. Creswell states that – “Research is a process of steps used to collect and analyze information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue”. A broad definition of research is given by Martyn Shuttleworth – “In the broadest sense of the word, the definition of research includes

Collecting and analyzing data comes as an essential step in any research to give an end result. In every research a data is the main source of information, whether it is quantitative or qualitative research. According to Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin there are three main components of Qualitative research and first one is data which actually comes from “sources like interviews, observations, documents, records and films.”(A Strauss, J Corbin, 1990, p 11-12) Qualitative data are not numeric like in Quantitative data which can be calculated with accuracy. “Qualitative data is extremely varied in nature. It includes virtually any information that can be captured that is not numerical in nature.”(William M.K. Trochim, 2006). According to Amir B.Marvasrti, “qualitative research provides detailed description and analysis of the quality, or the substance, of the human experience.”(Marvasrti A.B, 2004, p 7) Hence qualitative research is more or less about the exploring of human thoughts, ideas, behaviors, experiences in relation to the society. Qualitative data is the collection of such ideas, behaviors and experiences of humans in relation to society and to create a meaning out of such data there must be understanding of social theories which are created from the society

Amir B. Marvasti briefly talks about two perspectives objectivism and constructivism.”Objectivism assumes that the information about the social world could be analyzed to reveal a reality or social structure beyond the data itself where as constructivism approaches data or social structure as a way of showing how the data, text or talk is organized and created through social interaction.” (Marvasrti A.B, 2004, p 83) Both of these perspectives are different from one another but they both interpret the information about society. It helps in analyzing qualitative data in different perspective because data in social research can be analysis through theory. Amir B. Marvasti trying to sate is that, there are different perspective from which we can analysis qualitative data but then there is this every changing relation between data and theory which is inevitable. Data is analyzed through theory and theory is produce through data, such theory is grounded theory that was developed by Glaser and Strauss in 1964. Grounded theory also knows as inductive approach gives importance to two main ideas, one is to highlighting on data analysis within the boundaries of data and another is to develop new theories from data. There are two type of grounded theory, formal and substantive. If you are viewing the data in an aspect of social life and asking questions of why and how then it is