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Qualitative researches have an intensive focus on exploring the nature of certain phenomena in the
field of education, instead of setting out to test hypotheses about them. It also inclines to deal with
‘unstructured data’, which refers to the kind of data that have not been coded during the collection process
regarding a closed set of analytical categories. As a result, when engaging in observation, qualitative
researchers use audio or video devices to record what happens or write in detail open-ended field-notes,
instead of coding behaviour concerning a pre-determined set of categories, which is what quantitative
researchers typically would do when conducting ‘systematic observation’. Similarly, in an interview,
interviewers will ask open-ended questions instead of ones that require specific predefined answers of the
kind typical, like in a postal questionnaire. Actually, qualitative interviews are often designed to resemble
casual conversations.
The primary forms of data analysis include verbal description and explanations and involve explicit
interpretations of both the meanings and functions of human behaviours. At most, quantification and
statistical analysis only play a subordinate role. The sociology of education and evaluation studies were the
two areas of educational research where-criticism of quantitative research and the development of
qualitative methodologies initially emerged in the most intense way. A series of studies conducted by Lacey,
Hargreaves and Lambert in a boys’ grammar school, a boys’ secondary modem school, and a girls’ grammar
school in Britain in the 1960s marked the beginning of the trend towards qualitative research in the
sociology of education. Researchers employed an ethnographic or participant observation approach,
although they did also collect some quantitative data, for instance on friendship patterns among the students.
These researchers observed lessons, interviewed both the teachers and the students, and made the most of
school records. They studied the schools for a considerable amount of time and spent plenty of months
gathering data and tracking changes over all these years.