Application Qualitative Field Research Methods Assignment

APPLICATION QUALITATIVE FIELD RESEARCH METHODSByInstitution
Application Qualitative Field Research Methods
Qualitative research is a unique type of research method that seeks to gather information by using the simplest methods. It uses questions to ask different types of questions in order to gather data and learn something about the social world of another person. Qualitative research uses participant observation, intensive interviewing, focus groups and systematic observation as data collection methods when interacting with the subjects in the field. This study highlights these methods and their strengths and limitations.
Focus Groups
This method uses a special type of group chosen mainly because of its composition, size and purpose. The reason for choosing this group is to develop interventions, assess needs, test ideas, or coming up with a range of topics and ideas for the purpose of creating questionnaires. Group leaders may want to gather people’s perception, beliefs, opinions and attitudes concerning something or a certain subject of matter (Marelli, 2016). The group leader engages participants in an interview concerning a specific subject of interest, and other members of the research team could be observing the group secretly (Salkind, 2013). Focus group interview helps in gathering a lot of information from many people easily, helps one understand people’s insights on a range of topic and helps construct viewpoints in a group manner. It has the disadvantage of reliability on the group leader for its effectiveness and success.
Systematic Observation
This is a form of data collection where the researcher sets up decision rules before data collection. The decision rules help in avoiding inference and avoiding bias (Bachman & Schutt, 2013). This helps in making a study reliable and reproducible as anyone else doing the same study should get the same results. The observer directly observes the participants in the field without getting involved. The researcher confirms or disconfirms the observation in real life setting withou...