Qualitative data are data representing information and concepts that are not represented by numbers. They are often gathered from interviews and focus groups, personal diaries and lab notebooks, maps, photographs, and other printed materials or observations. Qualitative data are distinguished from quantitative data, which focus primarily on data that can be represented with numbers.
Qualitative data can be analyzed in multiple ways. One common method is data coding, which refers to the process of transforming the raw collected data into a set of meaningful categories that describe essential concepts of the data. Qualitative data and methods may be used more frequently in humanities or social science research and may be collected in descriptive studies.
(From the Data Glossary, National Center for Data Services, National Library of Medicine)
Below are some methods texts recommended by qualitative workshop leaders from the UC Berkeley Library and the D-Lab:
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design by
John W. Creswell and Cheryl N. Poth explore the philosophical underpinnings, history, and key elements of five qualitative inquiry approaches: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. The authors compare the approaches and relate research designs to each of the traditions of inquiry in a highly accessible manner.
Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, & Methodological by
This book helps readers understand what the authors call "criticality" in qualitative research by communicating the foundations and processes of qualitative research... the book humanizes the qualitative research endeavor, illustrates the types of scenarios that arise, and emphasizes the importance of actively considering paradigmatic values throughout every stage of the research process. The authors illustrate the qualitative research process as decidedly ideological, political, and subjective using themes of criticality, reflexivity, collaboration, and rigor.
Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach by
This book provides researchers and students with a step-by-step guide to planning qualitative research. It shows how the components of design interact with each other, and highlights key design issues. The new Third Edition incorporates examples and hands-on exercises.
Paradigms of Research for the 21st Century by
What is research and who is a researcher? Why engage in research and what can be its value? This book addresses questions pertaining to the nature and process of educational research. It offers an insightful and detailed account of Western and non-Western perspectives on reality, knowledge, and values. These accounts form a paradigm - a system of inquiry, a model, or a way of knowing. Empirical-analytic, pragmatic, interpretive, critical, poststructuralist, and transcendental paradigms are distinguished as an alternative to a quantitative-qualitative typology of paradigms in educational research.
Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook by
Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña's book is the authoritative text for analyzing and displaying qualitative research data... As the authors demonstrate, when researchers "think display," their analyses of social life capture the complex and vivid processes of the people and institutions studied.
The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers by
Johnny Saldaña's manual demystifies the qualitative coding process with an assessment of different coding types, examples and exercises. It guides you through the multiple approaches available for coding qualitative data. For each code, Saldaña provides information about the method's origin, gives a detailed description of the method, demonstrates its practical applications, and sets out a clearly illustrated example with analytic follow-up.
Thinking Qualitatively: Methods of Mind by
This book addresses not just how to collect and analyze data, but how to actively think about them. Each chapter presents one "method of mind" (thinking analytically, realistically, symbolically, ethically, multidisciplinarily, artistically, summarily, interpretively, and narratively), together with applications, a vignette or story related to the thinking modality, points to remember, and exercises. Designed to help researchers "rise above the data," the book explores how qualitative research designs, data collection, data analyses, and write-ups can be enriched through over 60 different lenses, filters, and angles on social life. The book reveals how the researcher's mind thinks heuristically to transcend the descriptive and develop "highdeep" insights about the human condition.
Unfortunately, Berkeley does not yet have a sitewide license for any qualitative analysis software.
If you are a student, you can find affordable student licenses with a web search.
If you are a faculty member, instructor, lecturer, or visiting scholar without grant funding, unfortunately software is quite expensive.
You can find reviews of many qualitative software packages at this University of Surrey link:
You can also check out the websites of several major options below:
Interpretations related to mixed (sometimes called merged) methods vary; be wary of jargon! Gery Ryan, of the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, gives these definitions, while arguing that we should be thinking of the purposes of the research rather than the methodological labels:
Mixed methods research: “Combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e. g., use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration.”
Multimethod research: “Either solely combine multiple qualitative approaches or solely combine multiple quantitative approaches.”
Data triangulation: “Uses multiple sources of data or multiple approaches to analyzing data to enhance the credibility of a research study.”
(From "Mixed Methods Research Designs and Data Triangulation" by Gery Ryan, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine)