Further thinking: The qualitative dimension

The conventional view of qualitative research sees it as being a more ‘in depth’, ‘psychological’ version of its quantitative counterpart. But the differences are more profound than this.

The purpose of qualitative research is to understand ‘how’ respondents think rather than to just uncover ‘what’ they think in more depth or detail.

The ‘how’ of consumer thinking works along two axes and is applicable to all concepts, but especially those of brands.

 

Understanding meaning – the horizontal dimension

How consumers understand the world around them is determined by the way in which they slice it up. The words and concepts that they use to do this are arbitrary and the exact points at which they make distinctions are what create specific meanings. How consumers distinguish a yogurt from a dessert, or a snack from a piece of confectionery, is something that they learn from the culture that they live in. The answers in one culture will be different from another and, within one culture, there will also be differences between age, demographic groups and consumer need.state.

Beyond the world of brands and products, in social research, the same dynamics are present.  What defines something as being ‘right’ or ‘just’ or ‘deserved’ are equally determined by how people make distinctions along the horizontal axis.

Understanding meaning – the vertical dimension

But concepts, ideas and, therefore, brands are not just ‘collections’ of associations and values.  The consumer is able to categorise what sorts of values are contained within a brand (the horizontal axis described above), but there is another important dynamic – how brands are structured along the vertical dimension. Which values, and which concepts, are the ones which define what a thing is? Which values are near the top of the propositional hierarchy?  The meaning of a brand is more than just the sum of the values that consumers associate with it.  Critically, it is also the result of how they are structured in the consumer’s mind.

The role of qualitative research

Qualitative research aims to understand the role of these two dimensions by identifying the words that consumers use and the concepts that brands invoke. The task is one of understanding ‘how’ consumers interpret what they experience – not just listening to ‘what’ they say about it. This leads to a number of key qualitative questions:

• How, and why, do consumers make distinctions?
• What meanings do the concepts that they use contain?
• Where are the edges of the words and concepts they use?
• What are the ‘not-nesses’ of the words – how does a ‘not-ness’ define the meaning of the word that that they are using?
• As a result, what sort of things are the brands and products that consumers experience in their lives?
• What are the propositional hierarchies that they are employing?

These questions are at the heart of qualitative research and they tie back to its linguistic cornerstone. The quantitative way of looking at the world is based on the concept of counting – the Latin word ‘Quanto?’ is its etymological basis and means how many? The qualitative equivalent is less known, but equally as important. ‘Qualis?’ means what sort of? and it creates a different way of thinking about the reality that our respondents live in. Asking ‘Qualis?’ is where qualitative research begins.

To read more ...

Qualis? From Theory to Practice

Qualitative Market Research: Volume 11, Number 4, 2008.