We had exposure to both qualitative and quantitative research methods. With respect to qualitative methods, certain key elements made an impact on me during a workshop conducted on the 9th February.

All research is about telling a story

• In the world of qualitative encoding – words, emotions, tone, words body sensations use of metaphors are all important.
• It is necessary to go deep enough to create  a good story – to obtain a rich description
• Stories are a way to give life and colour to research
• Telling a story should not be bland. Sell and share good information through research edutainment using other forms than traditional means of disseminating you research. Make the research come alive through humour/graphics/etc.

In the workshop on thematic analysis, the following came out as important…

• Qualitative data is a mass of words obtained from recordings of interviews, field notes, document analysis etc.
• The data is raw or disorganised information
• Purpose of data analysis is to bring order to the data & to understand rather than explain
• Characteristics of qualitative data = rich, thick, voluminous disorganised.