Types of Research Method and why I choose qualitative over quantitative

Phenomenology is a type of qualitative research method where the researcher experiences some certain phenomenon. The researcher collects data from many varieties of sources such as interviewing, television news, going to some places or watching videos. The researcher in this research has chosen a famous method which many people prefer in this type of research method. In this assignment different types of research methods has been discussed. The assignment provides information regarding the different types of research techniques which is adapted by researcher in order to collect information. The project also discusses about the researcher’s reason for choosing qualitative method instead of quantitative method. The assignment also provides the information regarding various types of qualitative methods. The researcher in this assignment has gathered information from different sources and the aim of this assignment is to spread knowledge regarding the topic. The main topic in this assignment which has been discussed in this assignment is Phenomenal Analysis. The research shows that how the phenomenal method is helpful to collect data. As the empirical phenomenal process has many techniques to collect data. During this assignment the researcher has gone through various data and documents so that crystal clear information will be provided to the readers. The researcher has selected phenomenological analysis over other research methods like ethnography, grounded theory, case study and narrative. Though all these research methods are also been mentioned in this assignment. At the end of the assignment the reader will be able to know everything regarding research methodology and will get to know lot about Phenomenological Analysis.

Though there are different types of research methods like Basic Research, Applied Research, Problem Oriented research, etc. the main two methods are Qualitative research and quantitative research.

a) Qualitative Research- The researcher in qualitative research analyses and observes people and what they say in order to collect data (Smith, 2015)The researcher does a deep research to understand the information of various things.

b) Quantitative Research- The researcher in quantitative research compares data with previous written records. The researcher use statistics technique based on mathematics theory to collect data.

The reason for choosing qualitative research over quantitative research is that qualitative research is a broader concept of understanding perceptions in a different way. The researcher by choosing qualitative research will be able to understand things clearly as it follows the observational process. Through qualitative research the researcher can look different problems and will be able to create an idea to solve the problem (Zhang and Wildemuth 2016). The qualitative research provides developing concepts and theory regarding various methods. The researcher in qualitative research looks into a problem deeper and tries to take out suggestions. The qualitative research is more exploratory and by using this method the researcher will be able to form a proper statement. The qualitative research methods are done through interviews, journals checking, document analysis.(Mackey and Gass 2015). Through the method of qualitative research technique the researcher sometimes notices the gesture and posture and observes them and studies them to understand the problem in order to search the solution.

Types of Qualitative Research Method

There are basically five types of qualitative research methods which are mentioned below:

a) Ethnography- In ethnography research method the researcher completely indulge themselves into a particular organisation or in a particular event so that they can understand the motives, goals, culture, position etc. Ethnography is very much familiar type of research method. Ethnography follows the process of anthropology (Denneson 2017). In anthropology also the researcher used to be a part of some culture or cultural festival for more than a year to understand completely the culture and to gather information about that culture or its festival. The researcher who follows the method of ethnography does not do any special kind of survey or interview to collect data. They directly become the part of that occurrence to experience the real so that later they can write their data which they gathered during their own personal experience.

b) Narrative-In narrative research method the work of the researcher a bit different for collecting data. The researcher gathers information with the help of interviews and some written documents. There is no specific date or time for the researcher that’s why they can take more than one interview from the interviewee until and unless they are not getting abundant amount of information. The researcher also collects data from various documents. In the of need they get very deep during interview session and try to find as much information as they can. The interviews happen very frequently over a week, month or year(Cortazzi2014). In the narrative research method it is not important that everything has to be in sequence. Rather it is presented in a narrative form or story

c) Phenomenological- In phenomenological research method the research adapts various types of methods to collect data. Sometimes they organise interview and the number of interview can be more if they think to do so. It is also seen in phenomenological method that sometimes the researcher sometimes visits on the site where events are going to happen to experience that. The phenomenological researchers also watch videos to collect much information. They also search documents to find records which sometimes become very information source of data (Pietkiewicz and Smith 2014). The phenomenological research method is one of the well-known research methods which are used by many researchers. Adapting every kind of methods helps the researcher to collect appropriate data.

d) Grounded Theory- In grounded theory the researcher takes the help of interview and other documents. The researcher takes a series of interview on primary basis and collects appropriate information. The researcher also follows axial coding in which they collect information through various methods and link all the data and proceeds on analysis then they come to conclusion. The axial coding is important method in grounded theory. It helps in the linkage of various sources to find one main connecting point.(Glaser and Strauss 2017) The grounded theory is not much used by researcher but still there are people who use this theory in their research method. The grounded theory helps in finding the main connecting point which helps the researchers to find their actual research product.

e) Case Study-The last method of research methodology is the case study. This is the method where researcher collects data from different types of records. In a case study method the research get plenty amount of information from different types of documents and all those information are explained in detail. The case study method is the process where the researcher can explore different places, libraries or can gather information by surfing any site. In this method the researcher indulge in very deep thoughts and in the records (Hancock and Algozzine2016). A case study method is rather easier than the previous methods since in this the researcher does not have to work hard as they only have to go through documents of particular research.

What is triangulation, why it is important, types of triangulation and why I choose methodological triangulation?

The phenomenological analysis is one of the most detailed analyses in the research method. In the phenomenological analysis the researcher to collect data participates in an event. (Finlay et al. 2018) This method helps them to gather and collect data in a more detailed way and in a broader sense. The researcher prefers phenomenological analyses as it provides much more information as compared to other research method like case study, grounded theory, narrative and ethnography. Through phenomenological analyses all hidden things gets exposed and therefore more information about things are gained (Groves et al. 2018). The phenomenological analysis main aim is to understand selected experience that has been experienced by human beings so that the researcher can understand everything in a clear way. The phenomenological analysis being a psychological qualitative research method is rich in its advance quality. There are things which are still hidden from researchers but with the help of phenomenological analysis the psychologist or the researcher unearths those hidden secrets. The phenomenological analysis does not subdue the research data of other method but it provides more specific information about the existing data. The researchers in phenomenological analysis sue various techniques for collecting information sometimes they go through diaries, or sometimes they do group discussions and sometimes they also take interviews (Gee et al.2015). The interview session does not have limited number. The researcher if they think necessary can take more than one interview. There are researchers and there are cases where the researcher has taken more than ten interviews. Until and unless they are not getting total amount of information regarding the problem they won’t stop in their work. It is very difficult to collect data through documents or interviews or any research methods that’s why the researchers sometimes becomes the part of the event in order to understand the event and to experience that event so that they can describe that in their own way. This process helps the researcher to collect much information about the subject and they uncover all those are hidden since a long time or those that has been avoided in previous method (Smith and Osborn 2015). That’s why the researcher in this research has adopted the Phenomenological Analysis method instead of using some other methods because the phenomenological research technique is much more detailed and provides more information than any other research method.

Under the context of a research process Triangulation is evident process that is often used to validate data and data sources that are used in research process. It can be said that Triangulation is process in which there are cross checking of data and data sources to check there validation and viability (Flick 2017).  The following can be used in both Qualitative as well as quantitative studies. It is regarded as valid process in checking the credibility of data used in Qualitative studies.  Now there are various Types of Triangulation methods which are discussed as below:

Under this type of Triangulation Method there various types researcher involved in the validation process. It can be said that under this process various researcher and investigation research on the same subject and study the subject in there respective manner (Archibald 2016). At the end of the process the researcher present there research conclusion through which a broader aspect over the subject is gained through which the view of research expands and validates the data and data sources which are appropriate for the current research process and shows their respective validity.

Methodological triangulation that will be use in this study

In this method different sources of data are consider in the study of common subject. Data are collected from different sources of information which then is taken in to the study for drawing conclusion in this case conclusion of research are drawn different they are based on different set of data which proclaim a broader view of the subject also stated that most valid conclusion which is gained through the research process (Carter 2014). This further validates the data collected under the study.

Methodological triangulation is a method in which the researchers use multiple qualitative and quantitative methods of research process. It can be said that the under this method thee research use surveys,  interviews, document analysis and other feasible methods to gather and research data at the same to time (Durif-Brucket 2015). The conclusions then drawn by different sources of information within research validate the data proclaiming to give a better view on the subjected topic complimented with In depth analysis.

In this method the various perspectives over subjected topic is overviewed in order to gain the diverse source of knowledge. It can be said that through effective use of various perspective the researched is able to gain knowledge on the subject topic in efficient way (Josline and Müller 2016).  Under this method the researcher uses professional which are outside the field of study as they will have different perspective for the study in their minds giving different ideas and data which will derive a distinctive conclusion. 

In this research the researcher has taken the Methodological Triangulation process as it is more evident than that of other method. As the researcher here wants to gain in depth analysis over the subjected topic it will be more evident that the former choose Methodological Triangulation process as it is more suitable for the researcher to derive in depth and analysis over the subjected topic which will give out a broader and distinctive research conclusion which will valid and viable.

Under this research process, the researcher will use Methodological Triangulation in which there will be Semi Structured Interview, Document analysis. Participation observation and project site visit. As the project is important to researched it is important that interviews are take in a optimised manner which will derive knowledge related to the project and will help in extracting the detail regarding the project with document analysis (Hussein 2015). It can be said that through this observation over crucial documents will lead to extracting all the relevant information. Data will be collected and will be validate through constant comparison method and cross case analysis. This will increase the extent to which the research will be able know the viability of data collected from interviews and document analysis. With the help of methodological triangulation the researcher will be able to collect more data rather than using other survey method. The methodological triangulation method will be beneficial for this research as the methodological method does many techniques related to both quantitative and qualitative research. Data analysis will be done in a more detailed way and the researcher will able to understand the problem of the research. The researcher after doing a critical research will be able to identify the core of the problem and will be able to search for solution to fix those problem so that in future it won’t create any predicament.

References

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Cortazzi, M., 2014.Narrative analysis.Routledge.

Denneson, L.M., Cromer, R., Williams, H.B., Pisciotta, M. and Dobscha, S.K., 2017. A qualitative analysis of how online access to mental health notes is changing clinician perceptions of power and the therapeutic relationship. Journal of medical Internet research, 19(6).

Durif?Bruckert, C., Roux, P., Morelle, M., Mignotte, H., Faure, C. and Moumjid?Ferdjaoui, N., 2015. Shared decision?making in medical encounters regarding breast cancer treatment: the contribution of methodological triangulation. European journal of cancer care, 24(4), pp.461-472.

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Groves, E., Rayner, K. and Muncer, S., 2018. “It’s good, they’re like me; the same but different.” An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the identities of women with down’s syndrome. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 31(3), pp.445-453.

Hancock, D.R. and Algozzine, B., 2016. Doing case study research: A practical guide for beginning researchers.Teachers College Press.

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