Qualitative knowledge presents info utilizing descriptive language, photos, and movies as a substitute of numbers.
To assist make sense of any such knowledge—versus quantitative knowledge, which is all about numbers—we’ve compiled an inventory for you. It options a number of the finest examples of qualitative knowledge round.
So what makes these examples so nice?
They use qualitative knowledge to inform a narrative.
#1. The FBI Vault
The Freedom of Data Act (FOIA) Library, aka The Vault, is an enchanting first cease on our journey to attending to know top-notch qualitative knowledge.
Due to FOIA requests, the FBI has been required by regulation to launch details about all types of instances. On The Vault, you’ll discover all the pieces from interview transcripts with serial killers and crime lords to security plans for Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth’s visits to the USA.
Supply: FBI Records: The Vault — Al Capone
I might get misplaced in The Vault for hours, simply poking round in numerous instances. Even after spending simply half an hour studying completely different case information, I got here away with all types of information I didn’t have earlier than.
Like the truth that Steven Paul Jobs—as in the Steve Jobs—was as soon as thought of as a candidate for an appointed place on the U.S. President’s Export Council. And that the FBI did a radical background investigation of Jobs in 1991 as a part of the method.
The Vault’s case file on Jobs reveals intriguing info. Like that a few of Jobs’ former workers alleged he might “distort the reality” and let ambition get in the way in which of relationships with workers and friends.
Supply: FBI Records: The Vault — Steven Paul Jobs
This knowledge tells a narrative. It pulls you in. And it leaves you with further inquiries to discover.
That’s some wealthy qualitative knowledge proper there.
And The Vault is filled with it—principally within the type of letters, interview transcripts, investigator observations, newspaper articles, and case summaries.
#2. The Feedback Part (AKA Reddit, Quora, and Different Social Media)
There’s a purpose we discover the feedback part—or boards like Reddit, that are principally all one large feedback part—so fascinating.
They’re stuffed with qualitative knowledge.
In a 2015 study revealed in Data, Communication & Society, German researchers Nina Springer, Ines Englemann, and Christian Pfaffinger got down to discover out why the feedback part has such a magnetic pull.
The researchers started with a baseline understanding that “consumer feedback enable ‘annotative reporting’ by embedding customers’ viewpoints inside an article’s context, offering readers with further info to kind opinions, which might doubtlessly improve deliberative processes.”
In different phrases, consumer feedback on an article or a discussion board put up are engaging as a result of they provide further info to assist readers kind opinions, as a gaggle, with different commenters.
To dig deeper, the examine surveyed “650 commenters, lurkers, and non-users” in Germany.
The outcomes are stunning and present how completely different the comments-section expertise is for contributors, lurkers, and non-participants.
Contributors, in accordance with the examine, seem to principally interact for the sake of “social-interactive motives to take part in journalism, and to debate with different customers.”
Lurkers, however, are there each for “cognitive and leisure motives.” The decrease the standard of the feedback part dialogue, the decrease the lurker’s satisfaction.
And non-participants? They’re simply aggravated that the boards and feedback sections exist.
Right here’s the factor: in the event you’re studying boards and feedback sections as a qualitative researcher, you’re taking part as a lurker. So the examine’s outcomes about lurkers primarily getting satisfaction from high quality discussions make quite a lot of sense.
You don’t simply need fluff feedback. You need wealthy knowledge from these posts.
And in the event you take your time to learn by way of a bunch of feedback, you could find it.
If you wish to be taught concerning the ugly and good components of marriage, head over to r/Marriage, the place individuals routinely put up major sources, like this put up of a partner’s procuring listing.
Supply: Reddit r/Marriage
What will get me is the mixture of shrimp and Past Meat. However the unique poster, or OP, is lamenting the horizontal nature of the procuring listing.
The feedback part is wealthy with further qualitative knowledge:
- “Nevermind the horizontal… who writes an S like that?!”
- “You guys are going to be zig zagging throughout that grocery retailer.”
- “That is the content material i come to r/marriage for”
- “This lady is gonna boil your rabbit.”
- “My query is, Who in god’s identify writes their S like that? The horizontal listing didn’t hassle me half as a lot as your spouse’s disturbing and bizarre handwriting. I want an expert handwriting analyst to search out out when her subsequent homicide spree will probably be.”
If you happen to have been finding out marital satire or procuring types in marriage/partnership, this put up can be an ideal place to search out qualitative knowledge in your analysis.
So would any Fb teams, Quora posts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok movies on grocery procuring, marriage, partnership, and marital humor.
#3. Market Analysis Survey Responses
If you happen to’re conducting market analysis, there are all types of locations you may go to achieve insights in your merchandise. PickFu is one in all them. It’s a market analysis instrument the place you may check completely different variations of your merchandise and adverts and get goal, written suggestions on them.
Instruments like SurveyMonkey, Jotform, Qualtrics, and Typeform can all offer you survey responses like this, too.
However right here’s an instance of what I’m speaking about. Within the picture beneath, an Amazon vendor is asking 30 female Amazon Prime subscribers which bundle would encourage them to click on by way of.
Supply: PickFu
The respondents selected the second possibility, however that’s simply quantitative knowledge. It tells us that of the 30 respondents, 20 individuals voted for Possibility B, versus Possibility A’s 10 votes. If there have been no survey responses, the Amazon vendor wouldn’t know why the vast majority of respondents picked the second possibility.
The qualitative knowledge, however, reveals the reply: the eyes on the packaging design, the clear info, and the product identify on Possibility B are extra intriguing for many respondents.
Right here’s a written recap of a number of the feedback arguing in favor of Possibility B:
- “B is my selection. It appears to be like attention-grabbing. One thing I’d need to use within the kitchen. A appears to be like like a pesticide I’d sprinkle on the home windows to maintain ants out of the home. The container appears to be like sophisticated and I don’t prefer it. It appears to be like like a cleaner, like Ajax, or yeah, a pesticide to sprinkle round to kill bugs.”
- “The writing on B could be seen extra clearly, particularly the textual content “sleepy chocolate” which made me intrigued. I wished to know extra about why these phrases have been there as a result of I usually affiliate chocolate with staying awake. Subsequently B extra efficiently acquired me to click on to search out out extra.”
- “The picture with the sleepy eyes will get my consideration and as I learn the knowledge off each photos, B tells me sufficient to know it could be my selection.”
- “These eyes undoubtedly get my consideration! And calling it ‘sleepy scorching chocolate’ is ideal! I’d undoubtedly click on by way of to be taught extra about it!”
You possibly can run surveys utilizing instruments like this—and you may both comb by way of the info your self or use instruments like ATLAS.ti and Nvivo that can assist you analyze your qualitative data.
#4. Pew Analysis Heart Survey Evaluation
The Pew Analysis Heart is an enchanting trove of quantitative knowledge, but it surely additionally presents qualitative knowledge within the type of survey evaluation. If you happen to’re finding out how web use amongst youngsters modified as smartphones grew to become ubiquitous, as an example, you’ll discover quantitative knowledge on the Pew Analysis Heart. However you’ll additionally discover an evaluation of the quantitative knowledge, which reaches deeper into the numbers and responses to deliver you the researchers’ observations or conclusions. That is qualitative knowledge.
For instance, this Pew Analysis Heart study on teen internet use reveals that almost all U.S. youngsters use the web each day, with some utilizing it nearly continually—and so they’re not on Fb. You’re extra more likely to discover teen women on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram and teenage boys on Reddit and Twitch.
Supply: Pew Research Center
As a substitute of utilizing the numbers gleaned from this piece—or maybe along with that—you may use the observations and evaluation to help or inform your selections.
The methodology part of those surveys can also be a fantastic place to search out qualitative analysis as a result of it reveals you how the survey was performed.
Supply: Pew Research Center
The ethical of the story right here is that you would be able to, and will, search for the qualitative knowledge that outcomes from quantitative analysis—whether or not it’s on Pew Analysis Heart or some place else.
It’s there, and it may well assist information your analysis.
#5. Authorities Insurance policies and Data
This may seem to be a boring place to search out qualitative knowledge, however any authorities web site is wealthy with descriptive, dependable, authoritative info.
Take the Alaska State Legislature’s web site, akleg.gov, as an example. On it, you could find the total textual content of assorted payments and legal guidelines, plus the historical past of how they have been enacted (or not).
If you happen to’re researching something associated to state, native, or federal authorities coverage, authorities web sites are wealthy with qualitative knowledge within the type of paperwork, audio information, movies, and notes.
#6. Scholarly and Scientific Analysis
Google Scholar is one in all my favourite web sites for locating peer-reviewed, scholarly qualitative knowledge. There’s additionally a whole part dedicated to case regulation. All you need to do is put in a key phrase or keyphrase and also you’ll get lots of of authoritative sources to select from.
You will discover analysis on all types of subjects, however particularly medical, academic, and political research. Some are paywalled, however you may as well take a look at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAI) for non-paywalled, educational, qualitative knowledge.
Supply: DOAI
Right here’s what the info will sometimes seem like on Google Scholar after you run a search—which, by the way in which, you may customise in accordance with date, which implies you’ll get the freshest knowledge if you need it.
Supply: Google Scholar
You’ll discover that almost all of this analysis has quantitative knowledge too, which implies it’s mixed-method. But it surely’s stuffed with qualitative evaluation and observations as properly.
Additionally, for the reason that outcomes you get from Google Scholar could be something from books to articles to journals, some sources have extra qualitative knowledge than others.
Whenever you want secondary analysis that’s additionally qualitative, Google Scholar is a perfect place to search out it.
#7. Pictures, Movies, and Audio Recordsdata
You know the way regulation enforcement takes crime scene photographs on the scene of a criminal offense? That’s as a result of the photographs supply proof within the type of qualitative knowledge. The rooms describe a scene in a manner that phrases can’t.
Audio information use one thing aside from written language to explain info or sounds. And video information can mix sound with photos to offer detailed details about an occasion.
Within the picture beneath, you’ll see a sequence of non-graphic photos taken on the crime scene of the homicide of Marilyn Sheppard in 1954. The police used them as proof throughout Sam Sheppard’s trial—he was accused of committing the homicide—and Cleveland State College now makes use of the photographs to assist regulation college students examine case regulation.
Supply: CSU Ohio
That’s one other function of wonderful qualitative knowledge—it may be utilized in multiple manner, used for multiple scenario or analysis goal.
In brief, qualitative knowledge presents nuance, flexibility, and data you may’t get from quantitative knowledge.
That stated, each are beneficial and have their place in analysis. Our information to qualitative vs quantitative data can provide you extra perception into how the dance between the 2 works.
