What is Qualitative Research?

The Better Bottle staff already decided their question would be best answered by qualitative research, but Jonathan isn’t sure why, so he asks Maxine to explain.

Maxine explains that one of the primary reasons the team determined that a qualitative study is right for this investigation is because qualitative research methods allow us, as researchers, to uncover and understand the processes by which events and actions take place.

The team is using qualitative research to answer a question related to a public health program, but qualitative research is used in many fields and disciplines. Anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers were the first to use qualitative methods, and there are many elements of qualitative research which speak to its origins in these fields (Denzin and Lincoln, 37). In the late 20th century, qualitative research became more multidisciplinary, being used in education, history, nursing, social work, communication, public health, and other fields. This multidisciplinary genesis has contributed to publication of many different definitions of qualitative research.

A current, commonly used definition describes qualitative research as “an inquiry process of understanding… whereby the researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting,” (Creswell 249). The Better Bottle team is hoping that qualitative research will expose the underlying factors that impact or contribute to why pregnant women are not taking advantage of the program. Ideally, they will be able to make changes to the program based on the qualitative research findings.