Study design
Questions, sampling, recruitment, interview or focus-group guides, ethics materials, and analytic plans.
Qualitative and mixed-methods research
Understand the experience behind the outcome.
MCRC Health designs and conducts qualitative and mixed-methods studies that explain context, implementation, meaning, and why results vary.
Capabilities
Depth, transparency, and integration.
Data collection
Interviews, focus groups, observations, open-ended surveys, and think-aloud usability sessions.
Qualitative analysis
Reflexive thematic analysis, framework analysis, coding systems, memoing, and defensible interpretation.
Mixed-methods integration
Designs, joint displays, comparison, explanation, and integrated conclusions across data sources.
Direct answer
When should an organization use qualitative research?
Qualitative research is useful when an organization needs to understand experiences, meanings, context, implementation, barriers, or how and why outcomes occur.
It can stand alone or explain quantitative patterns. The method should follow the question: interviews can provide individual depth, focus groups can examine shared or contested perspectives, and observation can show how work happens in practice.
Good fit
Questions numbers cannot answer alone.
How was the service experienced?
Understand acceptability, trust, burden, unmet needs, and meaningful change.
Why did implementation vary?
Identify workflow, leadership, resource, context, and adaptation factors.
How can a tool be improved?
Use interviews and think-aloud sessions to examine comprehension, usability, tone, and fit.
How do findings connect?
Integrate qualitative themes with surveys, outcomes, or administrative data.
Questions
Qualitative and mixed methods, clearly.
What is mixed-methods research?
Mixed-methods research intentionally combines quantitative and qualitative evidence so each addresses a different part of the question and the findings are integrated into one interpretation.
How many interviews are needed?
There is no universal number. Sample size depends on the study purpose, diversity of perspectives, analytic approach, information power, practical constraints, and the confidence needed for the decision.
Can you analyze data we already collected?
Yes. We can review the questions, consent and governance conditions, dataset quality, and available context before recommending an appropriate analytic approach.
Need to understand context, experience, or implementation?
We can design the study, analyze existing material, or integrate qualitative and quantitative findings.
Discuss the question