A Comparative Analysis Of Qualitative Research Methods

Qualitative research is a method of inquiry, where the overall objective is uncovering the meaning of a phenomenon under study pertaining to the lived experiences of people (Patton, 2015) in their natural or social settings (Hennink, Hutter, &Bailey, 2011). Among the common qualitative research methods of inquiry are case studies, ethnological studies, narratives and phenomenon studies (Cibangu, 2013; Patton, 2015; Laloo & Sumnyan, 2017). Since qualitative research seeks to the uncover meaning of phenomenon from the natural setting, the main methods which are appropriate for collecting data are; interviews, focus group discussions and observations with other methods including content analysis, videography, and documents (Hennink et al.,

And as such unstructured interviews are appropriate for collecting data in narrative research design (Hennink et al., 2011). One of the primary disadvantages of using the unstructured interview methods is that this method is time-consuming and produces a lot of data (Alsaawi, 2014). However, this voluminous data is appropriate in enabling the researcher to understand and get in-depth information on a phenomenon (Bryman, 2016).

Of the various approaches of interviewing, the semi-structured interview is the most commonly used data collecting method in social science research (Brinkman, 2013). It employs both the structured and unstructured interview methods, meaning that the researcher uses both the open-ended and close-ended questions. As such it balances the advantages and disadvantages of both the structured and unstructured interviewing methods. The semi-structured interview can be administered either face to face, through a questionnaire, via telephone or any other electronic method such as Skype (McIntosh & Morse,

According to Hennink (2017), the interview instrument is well prepared in advance by the moderator and is used to guide the conversation while at the same time allowing members of the group to also have interactive discussions among themselves asking each other questions and clarifying issues.

One of the advantages of focus group discussion interviews is that it elicits different views on an issue (Hennink, 2014). In a study to identify how smallholder pig value chain can be used to transform and benefit the farmers, Ouma et al., (2015), interviewed 1400 pig owners in various sessions on different sub-topics such as animal health, animal management, breeding and feeding management.

Focus group discussion, provide an understanding of why a certain group of people does what they do, and the results can be used to harness the benefits of these actions. For example, using nine focus group discussions of students from universities in Malaysia and Australian universities Hamid, Waycott, Kurnia, and Chang (2015) identified elements that enable them to understand how the students used technology to interact among themselves and with their