Qualitative methods

From EvaluationWiki

Approaches to data-gathering and explanation that do not emphasize or depend on quantitative measurement and sophisticated statistical analysis, although they may incidentally use counts; hence they emphasize open-ended interviews, focus groups, and the individual case rather than generalizability (cf. quantitative methods). These methods tend to be associated with or described in such terms as "hermeneutics," "naturalistic inquiry," "constructivist," "inductive approaches," "story-telling," and "ethnomethodology." Probably the most accurate characterization of this perspective is the general rejection of what they take to be the standard scientific approach, although what they reject is in fact only the grossly inaccurate neo-positivist caricature of that approach. This leads them-to give just one of many possible examples-to sharply distinguish understanding from explanation. They make the distinction because they (rightly) see understanding as including insights from verstehen, story-telling, in-depth interviewing, etc., and they (wrongly) accept the view that (scientific) explanation is deduction from general laws, and rejects the approaches just listed. In fact, understanding and explanation are just two sides of the same coin, and scientific explanation is only occasionally accompanied by deduction from general laws, and always requires considerably more than that formalistic exercise.