Qualitative Research
Before discussing qualitative research design in detail, we have to familiarize ourselves with the differences between causal, explanatory and descriptive research methods. The causal method draws its results from cause and effect; explanatory is mainly concerned with the "why" of a research problem (people's personal opinions) and descriptive focuses on the "how" of a research problem (on statistical grounds).
Explanatory research is qualitative in nature. Qualitative research method takes into account the subjective responses of the participants and an overall insight of the whole situation under study. The data gathered from the "inside" is interprative and its analysis is done in words. For the most part, qualitative research design is an analysis of words (the written and/or transcribed data) in words (the analysis). An example of qualitative research would be to answer "why the Saraiki vocabulary in Mianwali is different than in Multan?"
Types of Qualitative Research
Interviews: Interviews are structured conversations with a purpose or objective. Interviews are conducted to gain subjective perspectives of the participants regarding the research problem. The responses are recorded in either audio or video form to conduct an analysis later.
Focus Groups: A group of 6 to 8 respondents who are interviewed together. Since there are more than one people being interviewed together, we can use a rather unstructured format. Participants must also be facilitated to increase the effectiveness of the data gathering.
Ethnography: A researcher becomes a part of the society he is trying to conduct research on. He may employ different techniques such as asking questions or joining them to obseve them. He could be an insider who joins the people or an outsider who marely observes them outside their setting.
Documentary Analysis: Creating research on already existing documents such as newspapers and censuses. Though these documented resources might be state-sponsored and may only present a one-sided or limited picture.
Key Things to Look for When Conducting Qualitative Research
First, the researcher must determine whether the qualitative approach is appropriate for the research questions he is attempting to answer and then what method he should use to gather data, whether it is through interviews or focus groups. Second, the findings of the researcher should link back to the data he is relying on. Thirdly, he should remain as much unbiased as he can since his analysis will be based on his (personal) interpretation which can be biased. Also, he should make sure the subjects he selects for his research are appropriate. For example, if the research is about finding the reasons why young students do not like to use the closing words in Urdu while conversing, the researcher should include the young students, not the older ones.
Quantitative Research
Factual quantity is the backbone behind quantitative research. The data in quantitative research is numerical, and the analysis of such numerical data is conducted through formulas and statistical equations. Quantitative method is used in descriptive research.
Types
Questionaires: Survey questionaires help us cover a wide range of populations. But the close-ended nature of such questions may limit how much we can measure. Also, survey questions may restrict people's ability to respond, especially those who are not that tech-savvy to fill out a Google Form based survey.
Existing Databases: Already existing databases will surely make conducting research much easier and it also does away with errors in gathered data due to bad design. But that data might be old.
Experiments: The researcher in this kind of quantitative study changes the variables to see the effect of change in both the control and experimental groups.
Final Words
Quantitative method of research is suitable for most research problems in Linguistics but when we add the social science aspects to it, the qualitative research design makes more sense, especially when we are assessing the "why" aspect of something.
Sources and Suggested Readings
Lecture of Sir Tariq Usman
