Table 2.

Common Qualitative Data Collection Methods

Technique	Advantages	Challenges	Example(s) of Use
Participant observation	Provides insight into a specific culture or setting. Useful when information provided in interviews/questionnaires differ from actual behavior or beliefs. Captures full complexity of a health event or behavior, including roots, interconnectedness, and meaning. Minimizes observer’s influence on data obtained.	Time consuming. Gaining entry may be challenging. Researchers may be unable to obtain context behind observed behaviors using observation alone.	Observation and content analysis of verbal instructions provided at ED discharge for asthma.
Open-ended interviewing	Efficient: key informant likely to have insight in many aspects of the issue.	Careful purposive sampling necessary to identify appropriate informants and ensure they are representative.	Interviews with ED clinicians to determine the barriers faced in managing children with asthma. prior to designing an ED-based intervention.
Semi-structured interviewing	Collaborative effort between investigator and participant to gain in-depth understanding of an issue. Allows discussion of sensitive/private topics.	May take significant time to collect an appropriate population and range of narratives and viewpoints (esp. compared to focus groups).	Exit interviews after participation in an RCT with questioning designed to determine acceptability and cultural sensitivity of an asthma intervention.
Cognitive interviewing	Important step in survey development and validation. Development of intervention materials (video, pamphlets, etc.).	Iterative process required.	Analysis of a planned asthma data collection instrument at an item-by-item level using participant feedback.
Focus groups	Allows exploration of different experiences and opinions. Focus group as unit of measure promotes group discussion / collaboration.	May not be appropriate for sensitive topics. Logistically more difficult to coordinate than interviews. Typically cannot achieve the same depth of understanding of individual concepts as you can in individual interviews.	Thematic analysis of the collective experience of parents whose children had a prolonged delay in asthma diagnosis.