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Write a summary relating to qualitative research design that is a useful tool for answering questions in the fields of sociology, psychology, and medicine.
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The qualitative research design is a useful tool for answering questions in the fields of sociology, psychology, and medicine. It is easier to plan and implement than quantitative research, and it provides more accurate into the subject matter. However, it is also more prone to be affected by personal opinion and judgment, and it gives more observations than results.
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essay based on the summary above. Start with the sentence '#Research Design: Medical and Psychological Practice Essay
The qualitative research design helps to answer the questions of how and why as a result of observations, interviews, and other methods based on the reflection of the detailed information regarding a certain theme'.
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#Research Design: Medical and Psychological Practice Essay
The qualitative research design helps to answer the questions of how and why as a result of observations, interviews, and other methods based on the reflection of the detailed information regarding a certain theme. The mentioned research questions are associated with sociology, psychology, and medicine – the areas that require precise attention and acquaintance of qualitative information. In particular, the method of the direct observation or case study as well as in-depth interviews may be utilized to explore the specified questions.
Among the key strengths of the qualitative research design, it is possible to note that the qualitative method is a rather useful when the topic is too complicated, and the core question needs to be answered in a descriptive manner. Such methods are much easier to plan and implement, and they are useful when there is the need to take budget decisions (Creswell, 2014). The relatively wider coverage area of ​​the qualitative research design ensures that useful data is generated in any case, whereas the unproven hypothesis in the quantitative experiment can indicate the erroneous nature of the study. Nevertheless, the qualitative research methods are just as independent of sample sizes as the quantitative methods. The medicine research, for example, can provide the meaningful result even with a small sample group.
However, some disadvantages of the qualitative research method are to be specified as well. According to Ritchie, Lewis, Nicholls, and Ormston (2013), even though time and resource consumption do not matter for the qualitative method to the extent as for quantitative research, it still requires the cautious approach and planning to guarantee that the results obtained are accurate with the maximum possible. The qualitative data cannot be analyzed mathematically in the same comprehensive way as the quantitative results, and one can merely provide information on the general trends. More to the point, it is much more prone to be affected by the personal opinion and judgment, and, therefore, gives more observations than results.
In spite of the mentioned weaknesses of the qualitative research design, its implication seems to be beneficial to initiate the relevant study in order to answer the selected research questions through the interpretation of data. When using qualitative methods between the stage of obtaining primary data and the one of meaningful analysis, there is no link of formalized mathematical operations such as widely known and applied methods of statistical data processing (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015).
However, the qualitative methods include certain quantitative ways of collecting and processing information: content analysis, observation, interviewing, etc. When making the significant decisions to select the best course of action, the so-called decision tree technique may be utilized from the available options, which is a schematic specification of the decision-making issue.
It is also appropriate to pinpoint that the qualitative methods make it possible to distinguish between the motivational component of attitudes and perception of objects of either medical or psychological research, thus raising the informativeness of conclusions and even seriously changing them (Green & Thorogood, 2013). One more argument in favor of the qualitative research design is that it is aimed at studying the widest possible range of opinions along with the disclosure of the most complete representation of the situation, allowing analyzing the internal structure, external environment, and the interrelationships of the phenomenon under the study.