What is the impact of qualitative research on policy and practice?

Qualitative research plays a significant role in shaping healthcare policy and practice. Qualitative research provides valuable insights into patient experiences, healthcare gaps, stakeholder perspectives, and policy effectiveness. By integrating these findings, policymakers and healthcare professionals can develop more informed and responsive policies and practices that enhance the quality of healthcare delivery and promote patient-centered care.

In my view, qualitative research is invaluable. It offers user-centric insights, deep contextual understanding, informs ethical policy development, identifies barriers, enhances user experiences, supports crisis response, and fosters public trust. It goes beyond raw data, offering insights into the 'why' behind the research question. Furthermore, it unravels the contextual nuances of the real world in which we all operate, shedding light on societal, cultural, and environmental factors.

Qualitative research influences policy by providing in-depth lived experience feedback about the influence of policy on people's lives - especially health-related policies. In practice - qualitative research can provide deep insights into the lived experience of interventions and highlight where these interventions may require modifications to improve their outcomes. While quantitative studies can demonstrate high-level trends, qualitative findings bring to light the lived experience of policies and practices.

Qualitative research gives an indepth understanding of "how" and "why" questions that cannot be easily put into numerical data in understanding human experiences. It allows for personal indepth exploration of attitudes and behavior which makes it very important in educational research. Due to it's small sample size, it allows for flexibility in adapting to different enviroment, which could inturn lead to better results. Another important aspect of qualitative research is that it has more targeted audience. Being able to concentrate on a specific target reduces time spent, improves quality of data, minimize noise in data collection, and the source can be easily retraced for further clarifications.

Qualitative research can have a significant impact on policy and practice by providing policymakers and practitioners with a deeper understanding of the needs and experiences of people. This information can be used to develop more effective and equitable policies and practices. However, there are some challenges associated with using qualitative research to inform policy and practice, such as its complexity and its lack of statistical rigor. To overcome these challenges, researchers can conduct research that is relevant to the needs of policymakers and practitioners, communicate their findings in a clear and concise way, and build relationships with policymakers and practitioners.

Qualitative research faces several challenges, including subjectivity, limited generalizability, complex data analysis, resource demands, ethical concerns, potential bias, data credibility, and effective communication of findings. Researchers must navigate these obstacles with care and transparency, but qualitative research remains valuable for in-depth insights into complex human phenomena.

In my opinion qualitative research is challenging due to biases, time consuming, perceived as subjective and lack of rigor. There is so specific guidelines.

The main challenge of qualitative research is getting the right samples for the data. The bias starts when you select some individuals based on who is available right away. These individuals might be different than the population, and whatever you get from them might not represent the rest of the population. To address this, you can do randomization but the issue is it needs many individuals who truly represent the population. And, you know, it is burdensome to include many people in qualitative research.

Qualitative data takes a lot more time to analyse. Data analysis will usually have to involve a team if it needs to be synthesised quickly. In this case, the team has to get together regularly, at least at the start, to align their interpretations of the data and agree on common terminology. Despite this challenge, analysing qualitative data can feel a lot more meaningful because researchers get to have a context-rich data source that is more human and evokes more empathy. When combined with quantitative findings, it can be a very powerful tool.

Being part of a team who has qualitative researchers, I do agree that it can be more challenging and time consuming. However, I know because of my experience interacting with stakeholders that include policy makers, that they love the combination of good numbers with powerful stories. And qualitative research in that regard is a very powerful tool to create powerful stories.

Qualitative research has the unique strength of capturing nuanced human experiences, which is vital for influencing policy and practice. One strategy to increase its impact is triangulation with quantitative data, which enriches the research by offering a more comprehensive view. Employing rigorous and transparent methods for data collection, analysis, and interpretation enhances the research's credibility. Creative dissemination strategies, such as narratives or multimedia presentations, can make findings more accessible and relatable to various audiences, including policymakers.

As a program evaluator, I champion the use of mixed methods as long as it is used properly. Mixed methods is a very powerful tool, but it is important to point out that it requires skill and a careful planning. "Piling up" quant and qual with no clear goal in mind can make the final result confusing, and will not advance the cause of a program/implementation.

I agree with @Haena Kim about the fact that a good researcher should determine the type of approach you need based on the research question(s). But that requires an understanding that not all the research questions can be answered with one research methodology, and that can be very difficult based on your educational background and beliefs.

In a world where the value of quantitative research often takes center stage, and qualitative research is often considered less substantial, I'd like to present a different perspective. Both research types are valuable and the choice between them depends on the research question, context, and purpose. At dBIAS LAB, we recently undertook a qualitative research focusing on the financial decision-making of women of color in the USA. Our deliberate choice was to conduct interview-based qualitative research to unearth the underlying beliefs, attitudes, and lived experiences that shape individuals' perceptions and decisions concerning money. Getting such personal, nuanced, and detailed information is only possible with qualitative research.

Qualitative research is essential to understanding human experience. Where quantitative research measures the impact of policy based on data indicators, qualitative research can be used to interrogate the validity of the measures used to evaluate policy. Any quantitative data used for policy design is a proxy, qualitative research is critical to ensuring these proxies are reliable indicators of the impact of policy on people's lives.

One key advantage of using qualitative research is that it enables researchers to get nuances of local context and people's behaviors which are often difficult to express in quantitative terms, for e.g. body expressions are very important to read or observe especially when conducting studies in Asian context where words are less preferred and people express through their gesture.

Through a cultural lens, qualitative research reveals the various cultural norms and practices within a given community. This allows for the customization of policies for inclusive development initiatives. Ultimately, this approach ensures that policies and practices are implemented in a way that deeply connects with the community, fostering sustainability. Additionally, it helps in the recognition of local resources and capacities, which encourages community-driven initiatives.

Qualitative research enables policy makers to choose policies that would work best for target communities because local people have capacity to advise on what can work best within their community based on a deeper understanding of who they are and what is feasible in their context.