Formulating a research problem in qualitative research

The difference in qualitative and quantitative studies starts with the way you formulate your research problem. In quantitative research you strive to be as specific as possible, attempt to narrow the magnitude of your study and develop a framework within which you confine your search. On the other hand, in qualitative research, this specificity in scope, methods and frame­work is almost completely ignored. You strive to maintain flexibility, openness and freedom to include any new ideas or exclude any aspect that you initially included but later consider not to be relevant. At the initial stage you only identify the main thrust of your study and some specific aspects which you want to find out about. Qualitative research primarily employs inductive reasoning. In contrast to quantitative research, where a research problem is stated before data collection, in qualitative research the problem is reformulated several times after you have begun the data collection. The research problem as well as data collection strategies are reformulated as necessary throughout data collection either to acquire the ‘totality’ of a phenomenon or to select certain aspects for greater in-depth study.

This flexibility and freedom, though providing you with certain advantages, can also cre­ate problems in terms of comparability of the information gathered. It is possible that your areas of search may become markedly different during the preliminary and final stages of data gathering. During the initial developmental phase, many researchers produce a framework of ‘reminders’ (a conceptual framework of enquiry) to ensure that key issues/aspects are covered during discussions with the respondents. As the study progresses, if needs be, issues or themes are added to this framework. This is not a list of questions but reminders that are only used if for some reason the interaction with respondents lacks discussion.

Let us take an example to detail the process of formulation of a research problem in qualitative research:

Once I supervised a student who was interested in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She wanted to find out, as she put it, ‘What does it means to have a child with ADHD in the family?’ of course my first question to her was, ‘What do you mean by “what does it mean”?’ She paused for a while and then said, ‘it means what it means’. i asked her to treat me as one of her respondents and ask the question. She asked me, ‘What does it mean to have a child with ADHD?’ to which my answer was, ‘i do not understand your question. Could you please explain to me the meaning of “what does it mean”?’ She found it difficult to explain and immediately realised the problem with the question. What she thought was very clear to her became quite difficult to explain. it took her a while to explain to me what she had in mind. During the discussion that followed, though she could explain some of the things she had in mind, she realised that she could not go to a respondent with her initial question.

The student knew a family who had a child with ADHD from which her interest in the topic had probably stemmed. i suggested that she have a talk with the mother. She did, and, to her surprise, the mother asked her the same question that i had.

I advised her to read some literature on ADHD and also have informal talks with two families who have a child with ADHD. We decided to select one single mother family and the other where the father and the mother both take responsibility for the child. She was advised to record all the issues and aspects that reflected her understanding of ‘what does it mean’, relating to bringing up a child with ADHD in the family. After going through the above, she developed a list three and a half pages long of the aspects and issues that, according to her, reflected her understanding of ‘what does it mean’. She did not construct any specific questions around these aspects or issues. They served as back­ground for her to raise with potential respondents in case respondents did not come up with issues or aspects for discussion in terms of ‘What does it mean to have a child with ADHD in the family?’

This list brought immense clarification to her thinking about ‘what does it mean’ and served as the basis of her interviews with the families. A number of times during the super­visory sessions she had mentioned that she would not have been able to do much without the conceptual framework. You should not confuse it with the interview guide. The list is a conceptual construction of the thoughts that serve as background and become the basis of discussions in case there is insufficient dialogue with your potential respondents.

Source: Kumar Ranjit (2012), Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners, SAGE Publications Ltd; Third edition.