what is qualitative information

Qualitative information is non-numerical data that describes qualities or characteristics. It is collected through methods such as interviews, focus groups, or observations, and often appears in narrative form. Qualitative research aims to gather and analyze this type of data to gain an understanding of individuals social reality, including their attitudes, beliefs, and motivations. Qualitative data may be difficult to precisely measure and analyze, but it allows researchers to gain insights, reasoning, and understanding of complex phenomena or peoples experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. Qualitative data can be analyzed in multiple ways, such as through data coding, which refers to the process of transforming the raw collected data into a set of meaningful categories that describe essential concepts of the data. Qualitative research methods have been used in various fields, including sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, communication studies, social work, folklore, educational research, information science, and software engineering research.