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Chapter 7
Qualitative Research Tools
AT-A-GLANCE
I. What Is Qualitative Research?
A. Uses of qualitative research
II. Qualitative “versus” Quantitative Research
A. Contrasting qualitative and quantitative methods
B. Contrasting exploratory and confirmatory research
III. Orientations to Qualitative Research
A. Phenomenology
What is a phenomenological approach to research?
What is hermeneutics?
B. Ethnography
What is ethnography?
Observation in ethnography
C. Grounded theory
What is grounded theory?
How is grounded theory used?
D. Case studies
What are case studies?
How are case studies used?
IV. Common Techniques Used In Qualitative Research
A. What is a focus group interview?
Advantages of focus group interviews
Speed and ease
Piggybacking and multiple perspectives
Flexibility
Scrutiny
Focus group illustration
Group composition
Environmental conditions
The focus group moderator
Planning the focus group outline
Focus groups as diagnostic tools
Videoconferencing and streaming media
Interactive media and online focus groups
Online versus face-to-face focus group techniques
Disadvantages of focus groups
B. Depth interviews
C. Conversations
Semi-structured interviews
Social networking
D. Free-association/sentence completion method
E. Observation
F. Collages
G. Projective research techniques
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
V. Exploratory Research In Science And In Practice
A. Misuses of exploratory and qualitative research
Scientific decision processes
Time
Money
Emotion
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. List and understand the differences between qualitative research and quantitative research
2. Understand the role of qualitative research in exploratory research designs
3. Describe the basic qualitative research orientations
4. Prepare a focus group interview outline
5. Recognize technological advances in the application of qualitative research approaches
6. Recognize common qualitative research tools and know the advantages and limitations of their use
7. Know the risks associated with acting on only exploratory results
CHAPTER VIGNETTE: What’s in the Van?
Vans shoes traditionally are synonymous with skate boarding and skate board culture. A decade before
VF Corporation acquired the brand, Vans was practically a dead brand. However, the last 10 years has
seen a revival in skate board interest, and Vans has remained the number one skate-board shoe provider.
Now management wants to increase sales to $500 million per year. Two important research questions
involve “What is the meaning of a pair of Vans?” and “What things define the skate-boarding
experience?” These questions call for qualitative research methods, and one way to collect this data is to
hire young, energetic research employees to become “boarders” and immerse themselves into the culture.
Depth interviews of Vans wearers will also be useful.
SURVEY THIS!
Surveys can be used to collect qualitative data. Students are asked to look at a question from the survey
that asks respondents to provide suggestions about improving the quality of business education at their
school, which is qualitative in nature. Students are asked to look over the comments provided by the
students in their class, to identify major themes or issues, and to offer suggestions to administrators at
their school for improving the educational environment.
RESEARCH SNAPSHOTS
Discoveries at P&G!
With thousands of products to manage, Proctor and Gamble (P&G) finds itself conducting
qualitative research almost daily. P&G doesn’t introduce a product that hasn’t been reviewed
from nearly every possible angle. At times, P&G seeks outside help for its research. Qualitative
research techniques (i.e., depth interviews, observational techniques, and focus groups) with
managers and marketing employees revealed a management problem. Marketing problems were
really due to low morale among the marketing employees. A quantitative study followed up these
findings and supported the idea and led to suggestions for improving marketing morale.
“When Will I Ever Learn?”
A hermeneutic approach has been used to provide insight into car shopping experiences, which
uses a small number of consumers providing relatively lengthy stories about recent car shopping
experiences. The goal is trying to discover particular reasons why certain car models are
eliminated from consideration. One consumer’s story enumerated the problems with the GM
automobiles she has purchased and why she came to the conclusion to never purchase a GM
automobile again. The research concludes that a hermeneutic link existed between the phrase
“When am I going to learn?” and the plot of self-responsibility.
A Sensory Safari Provides Play Time (and Good Research) for Time Warner Cable
Spark, a market research firm, seeks to engage all of the senses of consumers as a way to
understand potential products or services. The Sensory Safari gives a new meaning to “play
time,” giving consumers all kinds of materials, including Styrofoam, toys, fresh flowers, and even
coffee beans and asking them to build collages that reflect how they feel regarding a new product.
Time Warner Cable wanted to see the impact of a new ad campaign, and consumers included
heart-shaped images with technology in the middle of it. When people are allowed to fully
engage all of their senses, they can “say a lot.”
OUTLINE
I. WHAT IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?
Qualitative business research – addresses business objectives through techniques that allow
the researcher to provide elaborate interpretations of phenomena without depending on
numerical measurement.
Less structured than most quantitative approaches.
More researcher-dependent in that the research must extract meaning from unstructured
responses (i.e., text from a recorded interview or a collage representing the meaning of
some experience).
Uses of Qualitative Research
Generally, the less specific the research objective and/or when the emphasis is on a
deeper understanding of motivations or on developing novel concepts, the more likely
that qualitative research tools will be appropriate.
Commons situations that often call for qualitative research:
1. When it is difficult to develop specific and actionable decision statements or research
objectives.
2. When the research objective is to develop an understanding of some phenomena in
greater detail and in much depth.
3. When the research objective is to learn how a phenomenon occurs in its natural
setting or to learn how to express some concept in colloquial terms.
4. When some behavior the researcher is studying is particularly context dependent.
5. When a fresh approach to studying some problem is needed.
II. QUALITATIVE “versus” QUANTITIVE RESEARCH
Qualitative research can accomplish research objectives that quantitative research cannot and
vice versa.
Many good research projects combine both.
Quantitative business research – business research that addresses research objectives
through empirical assessments that involve numerical measurement and analysis approaches.
Quantitative research is more apt to stand on its own in the sense that it requires less
interpretation.
Contrasting Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
Exhibit 7.1 illustrates some differences between qualitative and quantitative research.
Quantitative researchers measure concepts with scales that provide numeric values.
Qualitative researchers are more interested in observing, listening, and interpreting.
Researcher is intimately involved in the research process and in constructing the
results.
Qualitative research is said to be more subjective, meaning the results are
researcher-dependent.
Qualitative research lacks intersubjective certifiability (sometimes called
intersubjective verifiability), which means the ability of different individuals
following the same procedures to produce the same results or come to the same
conclusion.
Qualitative research usually involves a handful of people, which is acceptable in
discovery-oriented research.
Smaller sample does not necessarily mean cheaper because of the greater researcher
involvement.
Qualitative is most often used in exploratory designs.
Contrasting Exploratory and Confirmatory Research
Philosophically, research can be considered as either exploratory (i.e., develop ideas that
lead to hypotheses) or confirmatory (i.e., tests hypotheses).
Most exploratory research designs produce qualitative data – data that is not numerical,
but rather is textual, visual, or oral.
Quantitative data represent phenomena by assigning numbers in an ordered and
meaningful way.
Exploratory research may be a single formal investigation or a series of informal studies.
A qualitative approach can, but does not necessarily, save time.
III. ORIENTATIONS TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Orientations to qualitative research are very much influenced by the different fields of study
involved in research.
Major categories of qualitative research:
1. Phenomenology – originating in philosophy and psychology.
2. Ethnography – originating in anthropology.
3. Grounded theory – originating in sociology
4. Case studies – originating in psychology and in business research.
Phenomenology
What Is a Phenomenological Approach to Research?
Phenomenology represents a philosophical approach to studying human experiences
based on the idea that human experience itself is inherently subjective and
determined by the context in which they live.
Researcher focuses on how a person’s behavior is shaped by the relationship they
have with their physical environment, objects, people, and situations.
Relies largely on conversational interview tools.
Interviews are usually video or audiotaped and then interpreted by the researcher.
Researcher tries to avoid asking direct questions and asks the respondent to tell a
story about some experience.
Respondents must be comfortable telling their story, and ways to accomplish this
include becoming a member of the group or avoid having the person use his or her
real name.
What Is Hermeneutics?
Hermeneutics is an approach to understanding phenomenology that relies on
analysis of texts in which a person tells a story about themselves.
Meaning is drawn by connecting text passages to one another or to themes expressed
outside the story.
Hermeneutic unit – a text passage from a respondent’s story that is linked with a key
theme from within this story or provided by the researcher.
Software exists to assist in interpreting texts (e.g., Atlas-Ti).
Also appropriate in grounded theory approaches.
Ethnography
What Is Ethnography?
Ethnography represents ways of studying cultures through methods that involve
becoming highly involved within that culture.
Participant-observation typifies this approach and means the researcher becomes
immersed within a culture that he or she is studying and draws data from his or her
observations.
Culture can be broad (i.e., American culture) or narrow (i.e., urban gang).
.
Observation in Ethnography
Plays a key role.
Useful when a particular culture is comprised of individuals who cannot or will not
verbalize their thoughts and feelings.
Grounded Theory
What Is Grounded Theory?
Grounded theory represents an inductive investigation in which the researcher poses
questions about information provided by respondents or taken from historical
records.
The researcher asks the questions to him or herself and repeatedly questions the
responses to derive deeper explanations.
Particularly applicable in highly dynamic situations involving rapid and significant
change.
Two key questions asked:
“What is happening here?”
“How is it different?”
Distinguishing characteristics of this theory is that it does not begin with a theory but
instead extracts one from whatever emerges from an area of inquiry.
How Is Grounded Theory Used?
Analyzing several years of text can reveal underlying problems.
Software can be useful.
Grounded theorists often rely on visual representations.
Case Studies
What Are Case Studies?
Case studies simply refer to the documented history of a particular person, group,
organization, or event.
Can be analyzed for important themes, which are identified by the frequency with
which the same term (or a synonym) arises in the narrative description.
Themes may be useful in discovering relevant variables.
How Are Case Studies Used?
Commonly applied in business.
Often overlap with one of the other categories of qualitative research.
A primary advantage is that an entire organization or entity can be investigated in
depth with meticulous attention to detail.
Allows the researcher to study the order of events or to concentrate on identifying
relationships among functions, individuals, or entities.
Often requires the cooperation of the party whose history is being studied.
IV. COMMON TECHNIQUES USED IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Exhibit 7.2 lists characteristics of some common qualitative research techniques.
What Is a Focus Group Interview?
A focus group interview is an unstructured, free-flowing interview with a small group of
people (i.e., 6-10 people).
Led by a trained moderator who follows a flexible format encouraging dialog among
respondents.
Moderator begins by providing an opening statement to broadly steer discussion in the
intended direction.
Ideally, discussion topics emerge at the group’s initiative, not the moderator’s.
Advantages of Focus Group Interviews
1. Relatively fast.
2. Easy to execute.
3. Allow respondents to piggy-back off each other’s ideas – one respondent stimulates
thought among the others.
4. Provide multiple perspectives.
5. Flexibility to allow more detailed descriptions.
6. High degree of scrutiny – session can be observed since they are usually conducted in
a room with a two-way mirror and are generally tape recorded or videotaped for later
examination.
Focus Group Illustration
A brief example of how RJR is using focus groups in developing a smokeless
cigarette in the U.K.
Group Composition
Ideal size is 6-10 people.
Homogeneous groups work best because they allow researchers to concentrate on
consumers with similar lifestyles, experiences, and communication skills.
From an ethnographic perspective, the respondents should all be members of a
unique culture.
Researchers who wish to collect information from different types of people should
conduct several focus groups.
Environmental Conditions
Facilities usually have videotape cameras in observation rooms behind two-way
mirrors and microphone systems connected to tape recorders and speakers to allow
observation by others.
Refreshments are usually provided to create a more relaxed atmosphere.
The Focus Group Moderator
The moderator is a person who leads a focus group interview and ensures that
everyone gets a chance to speak and contribute to the discussion.
Qualities that a good moderator must possess:
1. Must develop rapport with the group to promote interaction among all
participants.
2. Must be a good listener.
3. Must try not to interject his or her own opinions.
4. Must be able to control discussion without being overbearing.
Planning the Focus Group Outline
A discussion guide includes written introductory comments informing the group
about the focus group purpose and rules and then outlines topics or questions to be
addressed in the session.
The amount of content depends on the nature and experience of the researcher and
the complexity of the topic.
Steps to be used to conduct an effective focus group discussion guide:
1. Welcome and introductions should take place first.
2. Begin the interview with a broad icebreaker that does not reveal too many
specifics about the interview.
3. Questions become increasingly more specific as the interview proceeds.
4. If there is a very specific objective to be accomplished (i.e., explaining why a
respondent would either buy or not buy a product), that question should probably
be saved for last.
5. A debriefing statement should be provided providing respondents with the actual
focus group objectives and answering any questions any may have.
Focus Groups As Diagnostic Tools
Focus groups can be helpful in later stages of a research project, particularly when
the findings from quantitative techniques raise more questions than they answer.
Also an excellent diagnostic tool for spotting problems with ideas (i.e., idea
screening).
Videoconferencing and Focus Groups
With the widespread utilization of videoconferencing, the number of companies using
these systems has increased.
Interactive Media and Online Focus Groups
Online focus group refers to a qualitative research effort in which a group of
individuals provide unstructured comments by entering their remarks into an
electronic, Internet display board of some type of chat-room session or in the form of
a blog.
Because comments are entered into the computer, transcripts of verbatim responses
are available immediately after the group session.
Quick and cost-efficient.
However, group synergy and snowballing of ideas may be diminished.
“Continuous” focus groups can be established through an Internet blog.
Can call this technique a focus blog when the intention is to mine the site for
business research purposes.
On-Line Versus Face-To-Face Focus Group Technique
Respondents feel online anonymity is very secure.
Online focus groups can be larger because participants do not have to be in the same
room at a research facility (i.e., 25 participants or more is not uncommon).
The Internet does not have geographical restrictions.
Disadvantages of online focus groups:
researcher does not exercise as much control over who is participating
moderators cannot see body language and facial expressions
moderators’ ability to probe and ask additional questions on the spot is
reduced
respondents cannot touch or taste something
Disadvantages of Focus Groups
1. Requires objective, sensitive and effective moderators that will not interject his or her
opinion or allow one or a few participants to dominate.
2. Sampling problems – participants may not be representative of the entire target
market.
3. Face to face focus groups may not be useful for discussing sensitive topics.
4. Expensive, especially if conducted by an outside research company (i.e., $5,000 or
more).
Depth Interviews
A depth interview is a one-on-one interview between a professional researcher and a
research respondent.
The interviewer’s role is critical, and he or she must be highly skilled and can encourage
the respondent to talk freely without influencing the direction of the conversation.
Probing questions are critical.
Laddering – a particular approach to probing asking respondents to compare differences
between brands at different levels.
The first distinctions are usually attribute-level distinctions, the second are
benefit-level distinctions and the third are at the value or motivation level.
Interviews last more than an hour.
Each interview produces about the same amount of text as does a focus group interview,
which has to be analyzed and interpreted.
Another issue stems from the necessity of recording both surface reactions and
subconscious motivations of the respondent, and the analysis and interpretation of such
data are highly subjective.
Provide more insight into a particular individual than do focus groups.
Respondents are more likely to discuss sensitive topics than in focus groups.
Costs are similar to focus groups if only a few interviews are conducted but higher if
more are conducted due to the increased interviewing and analysis time.
Conversations
Conversations are an informal data gathering approach in which the researcher engages
a respondent in a discussion of the relevant subject matter.
Approach is almost completely unstructured and the researcher enters the conversation
with few expectations.
Goal is to have the respondent produce a dialog about their lived experiences, and
meaning is extracted from that.
Particularly appropriate in phenomenological research and for developing grounded
theory.
Computer-based consumer dialogs may enable the discovery of product problems and
ideas for overcoming them.
Interviews are usually inexpensive to conduct.
However, prone to produce little relevant information since little effort is made to steer
the conversation.
Data analysis is very much researcher dependent.
Semi-Structured Interviews
Usually come in written form and ask respondents for short essay-type responses to
specific open-ended questions and respondents are free to write as much as they
want.
Advantages include:
ability to address more specific issues
responses are usually easier to interpret than other qualitative approaches
questions can be administered without the presence of an interviewer
relatively cost effective
Social Networking
One of the most impactful trends in recent times, becoming the primary tool for
communicating with friends for many consumers.
A large portion of this information discusses business and consumer-related
information.
Companies monitor these sites for information related to their particular brands and
code it as positive or negative.
Free-Association/Sentence Completion Method
Free-association techniques simply record a respondent’s first cognitive reactions
(top-of-mind) to some stimulus (e.g., Rorschach or inkblot test).
Allows researchers to map a respondent’s thoughts or memory.
The sentence completion method requires respondents to complete a few partial
sentences with the first word or phrase that comes to mind (e.g., People who drink beer
are ______.).
Effective for finding out what is on a respondent’s mind, but the ability to probe for
meaning is not possible.
Can be done quickly and cheaply.
Sometimes used in conjunction with other approaches (i.e., used as an icebreaker in a
focus group interview).
Observation
The participant-observer approach typifies how observation can be used to explore
various issues.
Field notes are the researchers’ descriptions of what actually happens in the field,
and these notes then become the text from which meaning is extracted.
May also take place in visual form (e.g., observing consumers in their homes).
Advantageous for gaining insight into things that respondents cannot or will not
verbalize.
Collages
Respondents’ collages that represent their experience with some good, service, or
brand are analyzed for meaning much in the same manner as text dialogs are
analyzed.
Software can be applied to help develop potential grounded theories.
Often used with other approaches.
Flexible, but also very subject to the researcher’s interpretations.
Projective Research Techniques
A projective technique is an indirect means of questioning enabling respondents to
project beliefs and feelings onto a third party, an inanimate object, or a task situation.
Individuals are expected to interpret the situation within the context of their own
experiences, attitudes, and personalities and to express opinions and emotions that
may be hidden from others and possibly themselves.
Particularly useful in studying sensitive issues.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A thematic apperception test (TAT) presents subjects with an ambiguous picture(s)
in which consumers and products are the center of attention.
Investigator asks the subject to tell what is happening in the picture now and what
might happen next.
Themes (thematic) are elicited on the basis of the perceptual-interpretative
(apperception) use of the pictures.
Researcher analyzes the contents of the stories that the subjects relate.
If subjects are to project their own views into the situation, the environmental setting
should be a well-defined, familiar problem, but the solution should be ambiguous.
V. EXPLORATORY RESEARCH IN SCIENCE AND IN PRACTICE
Misuses of Exploratory and Qualitative Research
Exploratory research cannot take the place of conclusive, confirmatory research.
One of the biggest drawbacks is the subjectivity that comes along with “interpretation”
(sometimes the term interpretive research is used synonymously with qualitative
research).
Is the result replicable, meaning it could be reproduced by another researcher?
The “motivational research” era brought about negative perceptions of these methods due
to some interesting and occasionally bizarre reasons for consumers’ purchasing behavior
(i.e., baking a cake is symbolic of giving birth).
Today, qualitative tools have won acceptance once again as researchers realize they have
greater power in discovering insights that would be difficult to capture in typical survey
research.
Scientific Decision Processes
Objectivity and replicability are two characteristics of scientific inquiry.
A focus group or depth interview or TAT alone does not best represent scientific
inquiry.
However, if the thoughts discovered through these techniques are developed into
research hypotheses, they can be further tested.
Thus, exploratory research approaches using qualitative tools are very much a part of
scientific inquiry.
Before making a scientific decision, a research project should include a confirmatory
study, but is it always necessary?
In practice, many decisions are based solely on the results of focus group interviews
or some other exploratory result for the following reasons:
1. Time – sometimes the risk of delaying a decision may be seen as greater than the
risk of proceeding without completing the scientific process.
2. Money – sometimes the costs are too high to follow up on exploratory research
results.
3. Emotion – sometimes decision makers become so anxious to have something
resolved, or they get so excited about some novel discovery resulting from a
focus group interview, they may act rashly.
