100 blog articles on qualitative research!

Since our regular series of articles started nearly three years ago, we have clocked up 100 blog posts on a wide variety of topics in qualitative research and analysis! These are mainly short overviews, aimed at students, newcomers and those looking to refresh their practice. However, they are all referenced with links to full-text academic articles should you need more depth. Some articles also cover practical tips that don't get into the literature, like transcribing without getting back-ache, and hot to write handy semi-strucutred interview guides. These have become the most popular part of our website, and there's now more than 80,000 words in my blog posts, easily the length of a good sized PhD thesis!

That's quite a lot to digest, so in addition to the full archive of qualitative research articles, I've put together a 'best-of', with top 5 articles on some of the main topics. These include Epistemology, Qualitative methods, Practicalities of qualitative research, Coding qualitative data, Tips and tricks for using Quirkos, and Qualitative evaluations and market research. Bookmark and share this page, and use it as a reference whenever you get stuck with any aspect of your qualitative research.

While some of them are specific to Quirkos (the easiest tool for qualitative research) most of the principles are universal and will work whatever software you are using. But don't forget you can download a free trial of Quirkos at any time, and see for yourself!

Epistemology

What is a Qualitative approach?
A basic overview of what constitutes a qualitative research methodology, and the differences between quantitative methods and epistimologies

What actually is Grounded Theory? A brief introduction
An overview of applying a grounded theory approach to qualitative research

Thinking About Me: Reflexivity in science and qualitative research
How to integrate a continuing reflexive process in a qualitative research project

Participatory Qualitative Analysis
Quirkos is designed to facilitate participatory research, and this post explores some of the benefits of including respondents in the interpretation of qualitative data

Top-down or bottom-up qualitative coding
Deciding whether to analyse data with high-level theory-driven codes, or smaller descriptive topics (hint – it's probably both!)

Qualitative methods

An overview of qualitative methods
A brief summary of some of the commonly used approaches to collect qualitative data

Starting out in Qualitative Analysis
First things to consider when choosing an analytical strategy

10 tips for semi-structured qualitative interviewing
Semi-structured interviews are one of the most commonly adopted qualitative methods, this article provides some hints to make sure they go smoothly, and provide rich data

Finding, using and some cautions on secondary qualitative data
Social media analysis is an increasingly popular research tool, but as with all secondary data analysis, requires acknowledging some caveats

Participant diaries for qualitative research
Longitudinal and self-recorded data can be a real gold mine for qualitative analysis, find out how it can help your study

Practicalities of qualitative research

Transcription for qualitative interviews and focus-groups
Part of a whole series of blog articles on getting qualitative audio transcribed, or doing it yourself, and how to avoid some of the pitfalls

Designing a semi-structured interview guide for qualitative interviews
An interview guide can give the researcher confidence and the right level of consistency, but shouldn't be too long or too descriptive...

Recruitment for qualitative research
While finding people to take part in your qualitative study can seem daunting, there are many strategies to choose, and should be closely matched with the research objectives

Sampling considerations in qualitative research
How do you know if you have the right people in your study? Going beyond snowball sampling for qualitative research

Reaching saturation point in qualitative research
You'll frequently hear people talking about getting to data saturation, and this post explains what that means, and how to plan for it

Coding qualitative data

Developing and populating a qualitative coding framework in Quirkos
How to start out with an analytical coding framework for exploring, dissecting and building up your qualitative data

Play and Experimentation in Qualitative Analysis
I feel that great insight often comes from experimenting with qualitative data and trying new ways to examine it, and your analytical approach should allow for this

6 meta-categories for qualitative coding and analysis
Don't just think of descriptive codes, use qualitative software to log and keep track of the best quotes, surprises and other meta-categories

Turning qualitative coding on its head
Sometimes the most productive way forward is to try a completely new approach. This post outlines several strange but insightful ways to recategorise and examine your qualitative data

Merging and splitting themes in qualitative analysis
It's important to have an iterative coding process, and you will usually want to re-examine themes and decide whether they need to be more specific or vague

Quirkos tips and tricks

Using Quirkos for Systematic Reviews and Evidence Synthesis
Qualitative software makes a great tool for literature reviews, and this article outlines how to sep up a project to make useful reports and outputs

How to organise notes and memos in Quirkos
Keeping memos is an important tool during the analytical process, and Quirkos allows you to organise and code memo sources in the same way you work with other data

Bringing survey data and mixed-method research into Quirkos
Data from online survey platforms often contains both qualitative and quantitative components, which can be easily brought into Quirkos with a quick tool

Levels: 3-dimensional node and topic grouping in Quirkos
When clustering themes isn't comprehensive enough, levels allows you to create grouped categories of themes that go across multiple clustered bubbles

10 reasons to try qualitative analysis with Quirkos
Some short tips to make the most of Quirkos, and get going quickly with your qualitative analysis

Qualitative market research and evaluations

Delivering qualitative market insights with Quirkos
A case study from an LA based market research firm on how Quirkos allowed whole teams to get involved in data interpretation for their client

Paper vs. computer assisted qualitative analysis
Many smaller market research firms still do most of their qualitative analysis on paper, but there are huge advantages to agencies and clients to adopt a computer-assisted approach

The importance of keeping open-ended qualitative responses in surveys
While many survey designers attempt to reduce costs by removing qualitative answers, these can be a vital source of context and satisfaction for users

Qualitative evaluations: methods, data and analysis
Evaluating programmes can take many approaches, but it's important to make sure qualitative depth is one of the methods adopted

Evaluating feedback
Feedback on events, satisfaction and engagement is a vital source of knowledge for improvement, and Quirkos lets you quickly segment this to identify trends and problems