Limitations and Risk of Qualitative Market Research: Accept Limitations, Mitigate Risks, and Communicate Both

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来自 University of California, Davis 的课程

Qualitative Research

47 个评分

University of California, Davis

Qualitative Research

47 个评分

课程 2（共 4 门，Specialization Market Research）

In this course, the second in the Market Research Specialization, you will go in-depth with qualitative market research methods, from design to implementation to analysis. Week 1: Define qualitative research and how it differs from quantitative research. Explore the various qualitative research methods and evaluate when and how to use them for your research project. Week 2: Design the qualitative instruments necessary for your interviews or focus groups, and plan your recruitment efforts. Write questions and prompts to ask in an interview or focus group. Design a moderator guide and a screening questionnaire to use when recruiting your participants. Week 3: Recruit participants for your focus group and apply techniques to ensure they show up and participate. Act as a moderator during your focus group and apply strategies to handle various types of situations. Probe responses and engage participants in a group discussion, while collecting qualitative data and keep the discussion moving. Week 4: Organize and analyze the data you have collected. Transcribe the audio from your focus group or interview and interpret your notes. Write a focus group report that can be presented to your stakeholders and see how this information might relate to your quantitative research. Take Qualitative Research as a standalone course or as part of the Market Research Specialization. You should have equivalent experience to completing the first course in this specialization, Research Report: Initiating Research, before taking this course. By completing the second class in the Specialization you will gain the skills needed to succeed in the full program.

从本节课中

Getting Started and Qualitative Research

In this module, you will be able to define qualitative research and distinguish it from quantitative research. You will be able to practice choosing from various methods for conducting qualitative research, recognize limitations of qualitative research, avoid associated risks and confidently decide to use qualitative market research when it is appropriate given a business question. You will be able to distinguish good and bad qualities for a qualitative researcher and be able to start secondary research for a qualitative investigation of a problem or project.

Qualitative Market Research Introduction1:00

Essential Components of Qualitative Research10:29

Choosing Qualitative Research in the Market Research Process8:38

Choosing Qualitative Research in a Business Case Scenario5:15

Common Qualitative Research Methods (Part 1): Background, Observational, and Panel Research6:22

Common Qualitative Research Methods (Part 2): In-Depth Interviews and Focus Groups7:30

Limitations and Risk of Qualitative Market Research: Accept Limitations, Mitigate Risks, and Communicate Both10:00

Good and Bad Qualities for Conducting Qualitative Research4:40

Begin Qualitative Investigation of a Problem or Project10:54

与讲师见面

Susan Berman
President, Impact Research
UC Davis Division of Continuing and Professional Education

High again. Qualitative research,

though very meady and interesting cannot tell you

how an entire population would react to a product or project.

The research is not generalizable for a few major reasons.

After this lesson you'll be able to explain and

communicate limitations of qualitative research,

identify the risks and explain how to mitigate them.

You will also be able to describe interviewer and

respondent bias and explain ways to moderate both.

First, respondents are purposefully chosen and not randomly picked.

They are chosen due to certain demographics or characteristics.

They also may be chosen as a result of

snowball sampling where one participant suggests another.

Second, the individual interviews or

focus groups yield a number that is not quantifiable.

Whereas with quantitative research the magic number is usually

400 respondents that have been randomly chosen.

Third, the responses are not quantifiable during a focus group

since a number of respondents and responses from them are too few.

Rather you should summarize them as few,

some, many, most or all.

Fourth, research is heavily dependent on the skill of the researcher.

A bad or sloppy interviewer can bias results.

Fifth, due to the volume of information the analysis can be time consuming.

And lastly, sometimes anonymity can be compromised when presenting findings.

The presence of the researcher during the interview or focus group can

affect the responses of the participant.

Some of these limitations,

like a small number of respondents chosen on purpose,

are limitations we accept, some pose risks.

You can mitigate by developing your skills.

I'd like to focus on those.

Considering all the limitations just listed,

the last one related to the interviewer affecting

the respondent is one area where practice makes perfect.

To get sound findings you need to be aware of how to make

yourself the least intrusive so that the respondent can speak freely.

Think of your friendly counselor.

Does she tell you how to respond?

Does he give you a time to formulate your own words?

Does she interject herself into the scenario or does he remain neutral?

Does she make you feel like you have to please her with

your response or do you feel like

your counselor is accepting of whatever you have to say.

A good qualitative research moderator needs to act like your friendly counselor.

You pretend that you are very interested for

the respondent to teach you about whatever their feedback is about the project.

Three areas that are under your control are: 1) leading up respondent,

2) interviewer bias and 3) participant or respondent bias.

First, one of the risks of

qualitative research is that it is possible to lead the participant.

Leading happens when the moderator gives an idea to

the participants of what they expect in the response.

So if I were to say,

you look really sad today,

how are you feeling,

I would be leading a person in a direction that might not be necessarily how they feel.

Second, interviewer bias happens

as a result of how and where you were doing your interviewing.

The place of the interview alone can cause bias

and the way you phrase a question may reveal how you feel about the situation.

So if you interview someone at their work they might be more

guarded than if you met them at a local restaurant.

So think about how you best respond to questions from friends,

family, colleagues or bosses.

When do you feel the most comfortable?

Most likely you feel the most comfortable with

someone who seems accepting of any comment you make,

someone who doesn't judge you.

As a moderator or interviewer,

you need to think of yourself as the confidant to the person you're interviewing.

You want to create a safe place where they can speak their mind.

That will help mitigate the risk of interviewer bias.

Next let's look at respondent bias.

Respondent bias or participant bias usually happens in

a focus group atmosphere where some participants feel pressured to respond in

a way that the majority of the group is responding or

don't want to enter their opinions with others since they feel it wouldn't be accepted.

For example, I had a group once of AIDS patients.

There was one group that was just an I.V.

drug user group period.

Within that group there were I.V.

drug users, homosexual men and other ethnicities.

It turned out that a couple of the homosexual participants

blamed the people from another culture and vice versa.

It ended up being a very tense situation.

One type of people felt like they had to answer the questions in

a certain way due to the ethnicity or characteristic of the other.

I had to listen very carefully and

interrupt and tell them that all of their opinions are valuable.

I wanted to hear from each and every one of them individually.

Everything worked out in the end.

You can mitigate respondent bias by not letting

people who know each other sit next to each other.

Be aware that some participants may be forceful

and try to get recognition from the group while they speak.

Part of your job is to make sure

that other participants can voice their opinions right away,

especially if another participant is forcefully presenting their bias.

Once you're aware of the limitations and risks of the qualitative research,

part of your job is to communicate this clearly to clients and stakeholders.

You should always be clear from the start with

your client about the strengths and limitations of

qualitative research so that they can make

a good choice as to what kind of research they want to conduct.

I would run through all the limitations I've outlined here in

the proposal for the research as well as in the final report.

Many people want a qualitative research project to be

generalizable to the public and thus want to run with your findings.

They should know upfront how much they can rely on the data you collected.

So for example, when I conducted focus groups about

immunization services I knew that the results would be time sensitive.

The client refined their advertising campaign as a result of the research.

The research showed immunizations are more acceptable by

certain ethnic groups who shied away in the past.

Therefore, it is important to relate this limitation to the client.

The fact that findings are time sensitive can influence their decision making

therefore in this case I needed to alert the client

to this limitation to help them make the best decision.

Here's an example of a time I needed to emphasize

the limitations of qualitative research for the good of the client.

After a series of 15 individual interviews with a local group of

hospital physicians about what they felt about

the hospital atmosphere and their productivity,

the hospital's CEO wanted a presentation to

his corporate board as well as to senior staff.

He felt I had to have all the answers and that

the hospital should be totally revamped after

many staff expressed their disapproval about their jobs.

I had to explain to him that we may need to look at other things besides the interviews

like patient satisfaction or other hospitals in the area and what they offer.

He had no clue about the limitations of qualitative research or

that the remarks of some of the staff did not mean that all the staff felt that way.

That wraps up our lesson on the limitations and risks of qualitative research.

I hope you can see that it is important to understand and accept certain limitations,

mitigate the risks you can and prepare yourself to

communicate these limitations and risks to your clients.

After this lesson you should now be able

to explain and communicate limitations of qualitative research,

identify risks associated with qualitative research and explain how to mitigate them,

describe interviewer and respondent bias and explain ways to mitigate both.

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