Qualitative is an iterative process and means researchers may have to go back to back data collection stage and add more N after initial analysis to confirm or disconfirm pattern.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Quantification is difficult
- Nature of qualitative is iterative

Why Qualitative Data is more difficult than Quantitative Data

Polkinghorne, Donald. (2005). Language and Meaning: Data Collection in Qualitative Research. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 52. 137-145. 10.1037/0022-0167.52.2.137. 

Language and Meaning: Data Collection in Qualitative Research

Qualitative data cannot be collected by quantitative methods, because "discourse data" is hard to quantify. One cannot just analyze individual words as variables because they are connected through sentences that are part of whole conversations and written text. The aim of qualitative is not to take an average mean of experiences, but rather search for themes; usually select a smaller number of participants.

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