The methodology that you use for a research work is essentially the approach adopted for collecting and assessing the information that will lead you to the required results. Qualitative methodology is followed mostly for social science studies, which involve subjective information, not numeric data. Examples of such projects are case studies, ethnographic research and grounded theory studies. An important aspect of such research is that it focuses on knowing about the behavioral pattern of the target group, interaction between participants, events and their causes. So, it is also concerned with ‘how’ and ‘why’ things happen, instead of just ‘what’ and ‘when’.

Since the information collected is mostly in non-numeric form, it has to be made measurable before it can be analyzed. This is done by assigning codes to the data. Coding is the process of giving weight or values to the information according to a pre defined scale. For most data sets, the information is segmented in related groups, and some tags or values are assigned to each group. The analysis is done on the basis of how these values are spread and the correlation between them. When the information is structured, then coding may be done without segmenting it further. While coding qualitative data, researchers must remember to keep the variety, tone and intrinsic meaning of the information intact.

Another method of analyzing such information without coding is abstraction. It is a process in which the matter is successively summarized, till a point where a very crisp and meaningful summary is attained for the entire study and this serves as the conclusion. However, the problem here is that some fine points which impact the study may be left out while summarizing, leading to a false outcome.

Content analysis is another popular way of analyzing qualitative data. Here, the information is broken down in small, related parts. Then the researcher tries to find similar words or phrases in the text. These can be thought of as keywords. The analysis is conducted on the basis of frequency of such words and their meaning. Content analysis can be of two types: conceptual analysis and relational analysis. While the first one only looks for concepts and provides an outcome on basis of the presence of such concept, the latter goes a step further to investigate the relation between the words and phrases that support a certain concept.

Qualitative analysis has become easier with the advent of computerized techniques for analysis of such information. Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software is a collective term used for such programs. Further, there are specialized tools like NVivo and ATLAS.ti which enable analysis and interpretation of qualitative data. Using them, one can go arrange and assess conversations, video clips, website sources and other forms of data. Learning the use of these tools and applying them accurately will help research scholars working with large sets of qualitative data.