ABSTRACT
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as qualitative research. There are only qualitative data. In many studies both quantitative and qualitative data are used; so if we wanted to distinguish research according to data types, there should be a third one: ‘mixed’. Of course, everyone would consider this quite ridiculous. ‘Qualitative’ research, as the term is used by many scholars, means a certain approach to knowledge production. It does not refer only to data. For the purposes of this book, however, it is useful to take ‘qualitative’ literally and consider qualitative research any research that uses qualitative data.
