Qualitative Research

Qualitative research focuses on subjective data that is not easily coded into numbers. The emphasis is on words and feelings rather than numbers. Qualitative research tends to work with fewer subjects or respondents (cases) but analyses each case to a deeper level. It is particularly useful when management needs to answer questions relaating to motivation and emotions such as consumer needs and perceptions, subjective opinions, brand images, brand personality and testing of advertisements. It follows that qualitative analysis is a set of techniques specifically developed to analyze qualitative data like content analysis, text analysis, and conceptual analysis. Key qualitative research techniques include focus groups, the Qsort, and observational techniques like the disposable camera method for the observation of behaviour in natural settings.