Language and Meaning: Data Collection In Qualitative Research

()ualitativc research is inquiry nimed at describing and clarifying human experience as it appears in people's lives. Researchers ming qualitative methods gather data that serve as evidence for their distilled descriptions. Qualitative data are gathered primarily in the form of spoken or written language rather than in the form of numbers. Possible data sources arc interviews with participants, observations, documents, and artifa~ts. The uata arc u.,ually transformed into written text for analytic usc. Selection of interview participants requires purposive and iterative strategies. Production of interview data req11ires awareness of the complexity of self-reports and the relation between experience and languaged expression. To generate interview datu of sufficient breadth and depth requires practiced skill and time. Production of useful data from other sources is addressed.