How Things Work - Doha Academy of Tertiary Studies

70 QUaLItatIVe ReSeaRCH
description of personal experience. The evidence should be affirmed by
repetition and challenge, much of it experiential. Qualitative research
is a disciplined working through to experiential understanding, small
amounts aggregating to larger insights.
This chapter has connected the reality of qualitative research with
the reality of personal experience. The topic of the research is not always
human activity, but the perspective is the human perspective. As soon
as the writing starts to talk of variables, descriptors, scales, indicators,
and attributes, then it is moving away from the experiential and toward
quantitative thinking. Nevertheless, many qualitative designs include
some quantitative thinking, bringing to it a certain depth. A different
kind of depth comes from recognizing the multiple realities people have
experienced. Qualitative researchers look for ways of gathering the experiences
of others and finding still others to add new interpretations.