Example Of A Qualitative Paper

Quantitative is numerical or statistical data which often comes from surveys, surveillance or administration records. Quantitative evidence provides a good overall picture of a population or geographical region. It can often be used to measure trends over time. It describes who, what, where and when. Quantitative has four main designs, Descriptive, Correlational, Experimental and Quasi-experimental. Descriptive is the characteristics of individuals, situations or groups and the frequency which with certain phenomena occur using statistics to summarise and describe data. Correlational, interrelationship amongst variables of interest without any active intervention by the researcher. Experimental is systematic and objective, investigator controls the independent variable and randomly assigns subjects to different conditions (Ingham-Broomfield, n.d.).

It provides richer, deeper and broader information based on a few individuals or case examples. It describes how and why. Qualitative has become the standard by which researchers generate knowledge for nursing practice. Qualitative methods employed in nursing research are grounded theory methods of inquiry for collecting and analyzing data. Phenomenology is a qualitative method of inquiry in which researchers attempt to discover the meaning of lived experience by human beings and they exist in the world. Ethnography which allows the generation of a detailed description of a culture or subculture based on observation, interviews and dialogue and genealogical analysis of kinships descent. Grounded theory is designed to explore and describe a social process. It is a method used to explore a process that people use to deal with problematic areas of their lives, such as coping with a terminal illness or adjusting to bereavement (Broader,