Common Qualitative Research Designs
and Data Collection Methods
(Moller & Vossler, 2015, p. 93)
DESIGN TYPES
DATA COLLECTION METHODS
Ethnography (an approach that involves generating a deep understanding of a grouping of people by sharing a lot of time with them)
E.g. Can humanistic counselling work with asylum seekers? Applications and observations from the field.
Case study (reflecting upon a single case in detail - a case may be a person, service, community, etc. in order to provide insight into a particular issue)
E.g. Working humanistically with depression in children: the case of Laura
Phenomenology (research which focuses on a particular aspect of people's experience of a chosen phenomenon)
E.g. Exploring the lived experience of depression in second-generation South Asian women
Grounded theory (adopting a very bottom-up attitude to making sense of the information collected in order to generate a theory about an underlying common process)
E.g. What theory best explains the therapeutic effects of humanistic counselling with moderately depressed clients?
Participatory action research (involving the community to address a particular issue needing change)
E.g. How do community health centres utilise humanistic counselling with depressed clients?
Narrative research (involves gathering detailed stories to help understand a topic or issue)
E.g. What stories do depressed clients tell us about receiving humanistic counselling?
One-to-one interviews (structured or semi-structured)
Focus groups (led by a facilitator and involving a group of participants discussing a particular topic)
Observation (unstructured or semi-structured)
Document analysis (e.g. thematic content analysis of autobiographical material about personal experience of depression)
Qualitative survey (focused on meaning and words rather than numbers and categories)