ABSTRACT
The expression ‘qualitative research’ is a loose description for a varied set of techniques. An examination of relevant books yields a long list of qualitative methods, ranging from the familiar to the exotic, and including participant observation (e.g. Festinger, Riecken & Schacter, 1956; King, 1978); case studies (e.g. Yin, 1984; Bromley, 1986); discourse analysis (e.g. Labov & Fanshel, 1977); protocol analysis (e.g. Ericsson & Simon, 1984); conversation analysis (e.g. Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks, 1977); voice-centred techniques (e.g. Gilligan, 1993); photographic analysis (e.g. Becker, 1981); diary studies (e.g. Pollock, 1983); document analysis (e.g. Bogdan, 1974); computational modelling (e.g. Colby, Weber & Hill, 1971; Hand, 1985) and many others. All these methods are concerned with both data collection and analysis. Some are purely qualitative, though many can also generate quantitative data. Most are relatively new to psychology, and have their origins in the related disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, and sociology. This is not to say, though, that the assumptions at the heart of good qualitative work are alien to the psychologist. Clinical psychologists, in particular, are well acquainted with making judgments of a qualitative character and one of the attractions of qualitative research is the possibility it offers for developing such judgments into a formal research strategy capable of yielding substantive and reliable contributions to knowledge.
