Why does the use of small number of participants become a weakness of a qualitative research

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Using Quantitative and Qualitative Research Together

Qualitative methods tend to collect very rich data in an efficient manner: rather than being limited to the responders to a set of pre-defined questions, it is possible to explore interesting concepts that can lead to novel theory by analysing the entirety of a participant’s interview/story/interaction.
Qualitative methods can lead to the generation of new theory from unexpected findings that go against “conventional” public health understanding
When combined with quantitative methods, qualitative research can provide a much more complete picture. For example, a well-designed process evaluation of a trial may provide important insights into participant attitudes, beliefs, and thoughts about the intervention and its acceptability, which may not be evident from the quantitative outcome evaluation.

It is important that qualitative researchers adhere to robust methodology in order to ensure high quality research. Poor quality qualitative work can lead to misleading findings.
Qualitative research alone is often insufficient to make population-level summaries. The research is not designed for this purpose, as the aim is not to generate summaries generalisable to the wider population.
Policy makers may not understand or value the interpretive position and therefore may not recognize the importance of qualitative research.
Qualitative research can be time and labour-intensive. Conducting multiple interviews and focus groups can be logistically difficult to arrange and time consuming. Furthermore, tranalysanscription and analysis of the data (comparing, coding, and inducting) requires intense concentration and full immersion in the data – a process that can be far more time-consuming than a descriptive statistical analysis.

Practical Research

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Write your answers on the answer sheet provided. I. Read. and answer each item carefully. 1. What is the best explanation why we are conducting research? a. We conduct research because we want to improve our lives. b. We conduct research because we make money out of it. c. We conduct research because we don't have anything to do. d. We conduct research because we want be recognized 2. How can a qualitative research be done in a naturalistic manner? a. It should manipulate the data. b. It should control the data. c. It should focus on artiﬁcial responses. d. It should solicit responses from real—life situations. 3. How can a researcher select participants in a purposive manner? a. Select the participants based on mere convenience of the researcher. b. Select the participants who can pass the set criteria. c. Select the participants by means of "draw lots." d. Select The participants randomly. 4. Which of the following does not characterize a qualitative research? a. The research follows an induc1ive procedure. b. The research is done using a linear and cause and eﬂ'ect relationship approach. c. The research considers thick description of the gathered data. d. The research focuses on personal experiences and insights. 5. Which of the following is not commonly used in a qualitative research? a. interview b. observation c. questionnaire d. documents ...

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6. Why does the use of small number of participants become a weakness of a qualitative research? a. It requires more resources; hence, it is not cost-efficient. b. It cannot provide detailed information of the phenomenon to be investigated. c. It cannot provide sufficient information of the phenomenon to be investigated. d. It cannot be a source of data. 7. What is a strength of a qualitative research? a. Qualitative research cannot generalize the findings to the study population. b. Qualitative research is time consuming. c. Qualitative research provides more detailed information to explain complex issues. d. Qualitative research is more difficult to analyze. 8. Which of the following is the most efficient way to determine a research gap? a. interviewing at least a person b. immersing oneself in a community c. reading relevant literature and studies d. synthesizing ideas from a day-to-day experience...

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9. What does "novelty" suggest? a. fairness b. newness c. conciseness d. completeness 10. What criterion in the selection of research problem emphasizes the security and safety among the participants? a. novelty b. time factor c. ethical considerations d- availability of equipment 11. Which of the following should be avoided in the formulation of a research title? a. subtitle b. key variables c. incomplete sentence d. abbreviation of terms H. Alternate Response. Write TRUE if the statement is correct. Otherwise, write FALSE. 12. The general problem of a study indicates what phenomenon will be investigated. 13. Stating a general problem requires identifying the participants of the study. 14. Speciﬁc problems are stated in declarative form. 15. Questions begin with ﬁvhat" or "how" are non—researchable type. 16. Rationale pertains to the reasons for conducting the study. 17. An anecdote or evidence from personal experience can serve as a valid justification. 18. It will be more reasonable to conduct research if there is no urgent need to solve the existing problem. 19. Validity of justiﬁcation can be expressed by referring to a policy, press report, or other reputable information souroe. 20. Research gaps pertain to problems, issues or questions that have already been addressed and understood. ...

Qualitative research studies can provide you with details about human behavior, emotion, and personality characteristics that quantitative studies cannot match.

Data from qualitative studies describes the qualities or characteristics of something. You cannot easily reduce these descriptions to numbers—as you can the findings from quantitative research; though you can achieve this through an encoding process. Qualitative research studies can provide you with details about human behavior, emotion, and personality characteristics that quantitative studies cannot match. Qualitative data includes information about user behaviors, needs, desires, routines, use cases, and a variety of other information that is essential in designing a product that will actually fit into a user’s life.

While quantitative research requires the standardization of data collection to allow statistical comparison, qualitative research requires flexibility, allowing you to respond to user data as it emerges during a session. Thus, qualitative research usually takes the form of either some form of naturalistic observation such as ethnography or structured interviews. In this case, a researcher must observe and document behaviors, opinions, patterns, needs, pain points, and other types of information without yet fully understanding what data will be meaningful.

Following data collection, rather than performing a statistical analysis, researchers look for trends in the data. When it comes to identifying trends, researchers look for statements that are identical across different research participants. The rule of thumb is that hearing a statement from just one participant is an anecdote; from two, a coincidence; and hearing it from three makes it a trend. The trends that you identify can then guide product development, business decisions, and marketing strategies.

Because you cannot subject these trends to statistical analysis, you cannot validate trends by calculating a p-value or an effect size—as you could validate quantitative data—so you must employ them with care. Plus, you should continually verify such data through an ongoing qualitative research program.

With enough time and budget, you can engage in an activity called behavioral coding, which involves assigning numeric identifiers to qualitative behavior, thus transforming them into quantitative data that you can then subject to statistical analysis. In addition to the analyses we described earlier, behavioral coding lets you perform a variety of additional analyses such as lag sequential analysis, a statistical test that identifies sequences of behavior—for example, those for Web site navigation or task workflows.?However, applying behavioral coding to your observations is extremely time consuming and expensive. Plus, typically, only very highly trained researchers are qualified to encode behavior. Thus, this approach tends to be cost prohibitive.

Additionally, because it is not possible to automate qualitative-data collection as effectively as you can automate quantitative-data collection, it is usually extremely time consuming and expensive to gather large amounts of data, as would be typical for quantitative research studies. Therefore, it is usual to perform qualitative research with only 6 to 12 participants, while for quantitative research, it’s common for there to be hundreds or even thousands of participants. As a result, qualitative research tends to have less statistical power than quantitative research when it comes to discovering and verifying trends.

Using Quantitative and Qualitative Research Together

While quantitative and qualitative research approaches each have their strengths and weaknesses, they can be extremely effective in combination with one another.

While quantitative and qualitative research approaches each have their strengths and weaknesses, they can be extremely effective in combination with one another. You can use qualitative research to identify the factors that affect the areas under investigation, then use that information to devise quantitative research that assesses how these factors would affect user preferences. To continue our earlier example regarding display preferences: if qualitative research had identified display type—such as TV, computer monitor, or mobile phone display—the researchers could have used that information to construct quantitative research that would let them determine how these variables might affect user preferences. At the same time, you can build trends that you’ve identified through quantitative research into qualitative data-collection methods and, thus verify the trends.

While this might sound contrary to what we’ve described above, the approach is actually quite straightforward. An example of a qualitative trend might be that younger users prefer autostereoscopic displays only on mobile devices, while older users prefer traditional displays on all devices. You may have discovered this by asking an open-ended, qualitative question along these lines: “What do you think of 3D displays?” This question would have opened up a discussion about 3D displays that uncovered a difference between stereoscopic displays, autostereoscopic displays, and traditional displays. In a subsequent quantitative study, you could address these factors through a series of questions such as: “Rate your level of preference for a traditional 3D display—which requires your using 3D glasses—on a mobile device,” with options ranging from strongly prefer to strongly dislike. An automated system assigns a numeric value to whatever option a participant chooses, allowing a researcher to quickly gather and analyze large amounts of data.

Conclusion

When setting out to perform user research, … it is important to understand the different applications of these two approaches to research.

When setting out to perform user research—whether performing the research yourself or assigning it to an employee or a consultant—it is important to understand the different applications of these two approaches to research. This understanding can help you to choose the appropriate research approach yourself, understand why a researcher has chosen a particular approach, or communicate with researchers or stakeholders about a research approach and your overarching research strategy. The examples we’ve provided here provide just a small sampling of the many ways in which can analyze and employ qualitative and quantitative data. In what other ways do you use and combine qualitative and quantitative research?