Summary
Key Takeaways
- Qualitative research is an important alternative to quantitative research in psychology. It generally involves asking broader research questions, collecting more detailed data (e.g., interviews), and using non-statistical analyses.
- Many researchers conceptualize quantitative and qualitative research as complementary and advocate combining them. For example, qualitative research can be used to generate hypotheses and quantitative research can test them.
- There are several different approaches to observational research including naturalistic observation, participant observation, structured observation, case studies, and archival research.
- Naturalistic observation is used to observe people in their natural setting; participant observation involves becoming an active member of the group being observed; structured observation involves coding a small number of behaviours in a quantitative manner; case studies are typically used to collect in-depth information on a single individual; and archival research involves analyzing existing data.
Acknowledgements
This chapter was adapted from parts of the following OER:
- Research Methods in Psychology, 4th edition by Jhiangiani et al. (2019), via Kwantlen Polytechnic University, is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
