Thursday, October 21, 2010

Qualitative Concerns Post

My biggest concerns when doing qualitative research are asking the right questions, and finding enough research to write on. When I am conducting my interviews, I want to make sure I am getting genuine responses, not anything that the person getting interviewed thinks I want to hear. So, as I am writing my interview questions, I have to be very careful to ask only open-ended questions, without any hints to lead the answers in a certain direction. Also, I am concerned about finding things online to give me enough information to write on. I know there are blogs and other resources out there, I am just nervous about finding them. I guess to ensure I have enough information to write on, I will pick only sources that are in depth.
I am a little worried about making sure my information is qualitative and not quantitative. In order to prevent my paper from sounding quantitative, I will try to include my viewpoints when starting the research and what I actually found when researching. I will also make sure I am including statistics and data like that, but not more than the information from personal sources such as interviews and blogs.
The best aspects I think about qualitative research is the variety of research you can explore. I am not just stuck with charts, graphs, and statistics, but can also look at people's personal opinions and how they express them. I get to immerse myself in the subject instead of having to stay objective. I think I will enjoy really learning the truth of what people out in society think about the topic I am researching. I think it will be a very interesting and unique experience.
I definitely expect to face limited information, especially from my interviews. There is only so much someone is going to sit down and say on one subject, so the rest is up to me to find. I plan to get past this limitation by planning my interview questions very precisely and carefully. Also when searching online, I will try not to just use the first source I come upon. I am going to search for awhile looking for the best possible sources of information I can use in my writing.

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