**2. Qualitative research and its relevance for social work**

Qualitative methods are an established component of research models in various branches of inquiry, including social work, and have been used by social work researchers studying a range of dimensions, such as the family [11–14], women [15–17], children [18–21], and mental health services [18, 22–24]. Thus, qualitative research methods have served to develop various domains of social work intervention (**Table 1**).

Over the past three decades, many authors have proposed varying definitions of qualitative research. **Table 2** shows the major components of those definitions, providing clues as to the fundamental elements of the "DNA" of qualitative research and their relevance for social work.


**185**

**Table 3.**

*Research questions typology.*

**Table 3**.

**Table 2.**

Criteria

tive studies.

**Explore, name, discover, or understand**

*Thematic Analysis in Social Work: A Case Study DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89464*

and study participants [31].

interactions under study [31].

complexity.

*Qualitative research criteria.*

meanings of its experience in the lives of individuals.

3.The subject requires a comprehensive and detailed approach.

**3. Applications of qualitative research**

The elaboration of a research protocol or project requires asking whether qualitative research is relevant to the study's methods and goals. The choice to adopt a qualitative approach is generally based on at least one of the criteria presented in

1.Questions are designed to discover, explore, and understand a little-studied phenomenon, as well as the

2.Little information is available on the variables of a phenomenon, and they are impossible to measure.

4.The goal is to restore people's agency or mitigate the power relations that may arise between researchers

5.Existing theoretical frameworks are fragmentary or inadequate to frame the phenomenon in its

6.Quantitative analysis cannot account for the effects of variables (race gender, etc.) on the human

7. The study aims to describe or examine the perspective of the actors experiencing a phenomenon.

These seven elements represent contexts in which qualitative research is apposite. In order to demonstrate the application of these elements in fieldwork, **Table 3** presents examples of questions used by the authors in previous qualita-

Qualitative research includes a range of analytical methods applicable in various contexts. Those that appear to be adopted most often include phenomenographic analysis, phenomenological analysis, grounded theory (GT), case studies [32], narrative analysis [31], content analysis [33–35], participatory action research [36–38], aboriginal

> What affection do adult adopted children show toward their birth parents? What are the secondary effects of triple combination therapy on people over the age

> What are the characteristics of professional burnout among health care workers in rural

What does it mean for parents to have a child

What are the social representations of HIV/ AIDS expressed by men who have sexual

What are high school students' perceptions

of 60 living with HIV/AIDS?

contexts?

infected by HIV?

of online bullying?

relations with other men?

research [39–41], discourse analysis [42–45], and systematic analysis [46, 47].

**Level Core question Question types**

representations, and perceptions?

What is? What are?

**Experience** What are the meanings,

#### **Table 1.**

*Characteristics of qualitative research.*

*Morse and Richards [30].*

#### Criteria

1.Questions are designed to discover, explore, and understand a little-studied phenomenon, as well as the meanings of its experience in the lives of individuals.

2.Little information is available on the variables of a phenomenon, and they are impossible to measure.


#### **Table 2.**

*Qualitative research criteria.*
