An In Depth Interview Psychology Essay

An In Depth Interview Psychology Essay What is research. When asked, most people would answer questionnaires or surveys. These kinds of research people more familiar with are quantitative research. However, in this article, the main focus is on qualitative research, which is widely used in academic and professional areas (Holliday, 2002). So, what is quantitative research? Mason (2002:1) believes that: â€Å"Through qualitative research we can explore a wide array of dimensions of the social world, including the texture and weave of everyday life, the understanding, experiences and imagining of our research participants, the ways that social processes, institutions, discourses or relationship work, and the significance of the meaning that they generate.† Therefore, from this perspective, it could be derived that for qualitative research, pure statistic and numerical data are not sufficient. It needs more description evidence to discover the subjective qualities that govern human behaviours (Holliday, 2002). The so called ‘thick description’, which could be collected through interview, observation or other methods, is the basis for qualitative researchers to understand and explore the social world(Draper, 2004). Due to the complexity of modern society, there are many problems emerged when conducting qualitative researches, for instance, the ethical dilemmas. In order to get a more critical view of qualitative research, the distinction between qualitative research and quantitative research will be highlighted first. Then two typical qualitative research methods, in-depth interview and participate observation, will be critically examined. Followed by that, three examples will be used to further illustrate the challenges of qualitative research. In the end, a conclusion regarding the merits and demerits of qualitative research will be drawn. Two paradigms Primarily, the philosophical basis for qualitative research and quantitative research are different. Both Holliday (2002) and Dra per (2004) state that quantitative research believes that by using right quantitative measurements people could reveal objective facts, while qualitative research rooted in interpretive tradition, which focus on exploring the underlying meanings of social phenomena. As a result, qualitative and quantitative research differ in their analytical process, research design, methods of collecting data and the approach to analyse and interpret data(Draper, 2004). Rather than by using a deductive process, qualitative research prefers inductive procedure (Gephart, 2004). Therefore, qualitative research provides extra opportunities for researchers to discover insight views and get new understandings of social phenomena (Willig, 2008). Also, Gephart (2004) states that the ‘thick description’ provided by qualitative research enriches the basis for understanding the social world. However, qualitative research also has its own limitations. As Willig (2008) points out that qualitative research do not ensure certainty, the objectivity of researcher is not realistic and the results are not predictive, since qualitative studies always carry out with small sample size but in depth. Moreover, similar qualitative studies due to the different use of methods are impossible to compare or integrate (Willig, 2008). As a consequence, Draper (2004) suggests, although qualitative and quantitative researches are different from their ontological foundation, they could complement each other. In addition, recent studies (Bryman, 2006; Kinn and Curzio, 2005; Sherman and Strang, 2004) show that there is a growth trend of combining these two methods together, in spite of the continuation of debate about integrating qualitative and quantitative methods. After examining the merits and demerits of qualitative research, it is the time to discuss the two dominant methods used in qualitative research, in-depth interview and participant observation.