Classic Approaches

The classic research approach we call the researcher down method; a researcher spots a question, a “why this?” The researcher then finds out who else asked and what they discovered, considers who would be the best people to help answer the question, designs a way of asking, goes to ask, gets some results, analyses and comes up with an answer. Classic research is largely driven by the researcher. Amongst our team are trained and skilled researchers, handling both qualitative and quantitative data. We are keen to ensure validity, are rigorous in our methodology design, and are skilled in finding existing information while creating the right mix of people to find new information.

Because we work in the social sector, it is not unusual for research budgets to be smaller than desired to accumulate and analyse as rich data as we prefer; however, we are dedicated and creative in our approach to data collection and analysis even in these circumstances. As we so often combine these approaches with grass roots approaches, we are able to analyse data collected by classic methods against that collected and analysed by community groups.

We also speed the process and make it more rigorous by using the Qualitative Research software, NVivo. The newest version allows us to analyse multi media, making it incredibly useful when we are combining a wealth of material.