Qualitative Research Qualitative research generally examines peoples words or actions in narrative or descriptive ways more closely representing the experiences of the people involved, it focuses on understandings, meanings and it takes seriously lay accounts and concepts

Basic information that is classified without rank or hierarchy. For example, nominal data such as the distribution of different types of soil, vegetation, or employment is qualitative.

description (objective and subjective) of behaviors, phenomenon (what occurs and how it occurs).

Descriptive information that is a record of what is observed, presented in narrative by the respondent. Also referred to as “soft data.

Data in which the values of a variable differ in quality, not quantity.

record, observation, opinion, or words and typically from asking open-ended questions to which the answers are not limited by a set of choices or a scale. Qualitative data are best used for questions that produce too many possible answers to list them all, or if it is preferable to have people answer in their own words. Qualitative data are more time-consuming to analyze than quantitative data.

information or data arising from observations which are not numerical; qualitative data can be categorical.

Information based on empirical observations that is collected and presented in non-numerical form. This includes text materials as well as pictures, maps, diagrams, and other patterned information.

Data that is non-numerical, or not easily reduced to numbers, collected for the purpose of discovering underlying meanings and patterns of relationships. For instance, what people think about their own neighborhoods, or how neighbors feel about their neighborhood, is qualitative data.

Data relating to, or involving quality or kind, which cannot be represented numerically, such as portfolios of work, narrative description and evaluation of a performance, learner description and analysis of a learning experience.

Data based on information gathered from one-on-one interviews, focus groups or general observations over time (as opposed to quantitative data).

Descriptive or subjective information provided in narrative terms.

Data that are characterized by narrative description and interpretation; the collection and interpretation of data is not constrained by predetermined categories or responses.

Data that use non-numeric information for description. Generally words, but may include photographs and films, audio recordings, and artifacts.

Information gathered from individuals about their experiences. Qualitative data usually gives less emphasis to statistics.