Suggest one strength and one weakness of the qualitative data used in your chosen study

 This question will ask you to choose a certain study from the three on the question paper and then suggest one strength and one weakness of the qualitative date used in your chosen study. In order to obtain the most marks from the question you will need to follow a certain formulaic structure in answering the question – you will need to:

identify and explain a strength or weakness of qualitative data;link the strength or weakness to a certain study; andsupport your explanation with a specific example from the study that you have chosen.

So, an outline of an answer could look like this:

A generic strength of qualitative data
Qualitative data allows researchers to get rich, in-depth and detailed information about a particular individual or small group of people.

Link to study
This can be exemplified by the fruit machine gamblers in the study carried out by Griffths.

Specific example from study
They were able to gather in-depth information about the thoughts and actions of the regular and non-regular gamblers whilst they played on the fruit machines – for example, in some instances where some of the participants personified the machines.

A generic weakness of qualitative data
Qualitative data is frequently unique; as such the data can be difficult to analyse and compare to other data that has been gathered.

Link to study
This weakness can be illustrated by the fruit machine gambling study carried out by Griffths.

Specific example from study
Griffths found that one regular gambler had an erroneous perception of gambling; when he began gambling he put a one pound coin in because he believed it would bluff the machine. However, other gamblers may have had other thoughts and reasons to put a one pound coin into the machine at the beginning.