Qualitative data presents information using descriptive language, images, and videos instead of numbers.
To help make sense of this type of data—as opposed to quantitative data, which is all about numbers—we’ve compiled a list for you. It features some of the best examples of qualitative data around.
So what makes these examples so great?
They use qualitative data to tell a story.
#1. The FBI Vault
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Library, aka The Vault, is a fascinating first stop on our journey to getting to know top-notch qualitative data.
Because of FOIA requests, the FBI has been required by law to release information about all sorts of cases. On The Vault, you’ll find everything from interview transcripts with serial killers and crime lords to safety plans for Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth’s visits to the United States.
Source: FBI Records: The Vault — Al Capone
I could get lost in The Vault for hours, just poking around in different cases. Even after spending just half an hour reading different case files, I came away with all sorts of knowledge I didn’t have before.
Like the fact that Steven Paul Jobs—as in the Steve Jobs—was once considered as a candidate for an appointed position on the U.S. President’s Export Council. And that the FBI did a thorough background investigation of Jobs in 1991 as part of the process.
The Vault’s case file on Jobs reveals intriguing information. Like that some of Jobs’ former employees alleged he could “distort the truth” and let ambition get in the way of relationships with employees and peers.
Source: FBI Records: The Vault — Steven Paul Jobs
This data tells a story. It pulls you in. And it leaves you with additional questions to explore.
That’s some rich qualitative data right there.
And The Vault is full of it—mostly in the form of letters, interview transcripts, investigator observations, newspaper articles, and case summaries.
#2. The Comments Section (AKA Reddit, Quora, and Other Social Media)
There’s a reason we find the comments section—or forums like Reddit, which are basically all one big comments section—so fascinating.
They’re full of qualitative data.
In a 2015 study published in Information, Communication & Society, German researchers Nina Springer, Ines Englemann, and Christian Pfaffinger set out to find out why the comments section has such a magnetic pull.
The researchers began with a baseline understanding that “user comments allow ‘annotative reporting’ by embedding users’ viewpoints within an article’s context, providing readers with additional information to form opinions, which can potentially enhance deliberative processes.”
In other words, user comments on an article or a forum post are attractive because they offer extra information to help readers form opinions, as a group, with other commenters.
To dig deeper, the study surveyed “650 commenters, lurkers, and non-users” in Germany.
The results are surprising and show how different the comments-section experience is for contributors, lurkers, and non-participants.
Contributors, according to the study, appear to mostly engage for the sake of “social-interactive motives to participate in journalism, and to discuss with other users.”
Lurkers, on the other hand, are there both for “cognitive and entertainment motives.” The lower the quality of the comments section discussion, the lower the lurker’s satisfaction.
And non-participants? They’re just annoyed that the forums and comments sections exist.
Here’s the thing: if you’re reading forums and comments sections as a qualitative researcher, you’re participating as a lurker. So the study’s results about lurkers primarily getting satisfaction from quality discussions make a lot of sense.
You don’t just want fluff comments. You want rich data from those posts.
And if you take your time to read through a bunch of comments, you can find it.
If you want to learn about the ugly and good parts of marriage, head over to r/Marriage, where people routinely post primary sources, like this post of a spouse’s shopping list.
Source: Reddit r/Marriage
What gets me is the combination of shrimp and Beyond Meat. But the original poster, or OP, is lamenting the horizontal nature of the shopping list.
The comments section is rich with additional qualitative data:
- “Nevermind the horizontal… who writes an S like that?!”
- “You guys are going to be zig zagging all over that grocery store.”
- “This is the content i come to r/marriage for”
- “This girl is gonna boil your rabbit.”
- “My question is, Who in god’s name writes their S like that? The horizontal list didn’t bother me half as much as your wife’s disturbing and weird handwriting. I need a professional handwriting analyst to find out when her next murder spree will be.”
If you were studying marital satire or shopping styles in marriage/partnership, this post would be a perfect place to find qualitative data for your research.
So would any Facebook groups, Quora posts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok videos on grocery shopping, marriage, partnership, and marital humor.
#3. Market Research Survey Responses
If you’re conducting market research, there are all sorts of places you can go to gain insights on your products. PickFu is one of them. It’s a market research tool where you can test different versions of your products and ads and get objective, written feedback on them.
Tools like SurveyMonkey, Jotform, Qualtrics, and Typeform can all give you survey responses like this, too.
But here’s an example of what I’m talking about. In the image below, an Amazon seller is asking 30 female Amazon Prime subscribers which package would inspire them to click through.
Source: PickFu
The respondents chose the second option, but that’s just quantitative data. It tells us that of the 30 respondents, 20 people voted for Option B, versus Option A’s 10 votes. If there were no survey responses, the Amazon seller wouldn’t know why the majority of respondents picked the second option.
The qualitative data, on the other hand, reveals the answer: the eyes on the packaging design, the clear information, and the product name on Option B are more intriguing for most respondents.
Here’s a written recap of some of the comments arguing in favor of Option B:
- “B is my choice. It looks interesting. Something I might want to use in the kitchen. A looks like a pesticide I’d sprinkle on the windows to keep ants out of the house. The container looks complicated and I don’t like it. It looks like a cleaner, like Ajax, or yeah, a pesticide to sprinkle around to kill bugs.”
- “The writing on B can be seen more clearly, especially the text “sleepy chocolate” which made me intrigued. I wanted to know more about why those words were there because I normally associate chocolate with staying awake. Therefore B more successfully got me to click to find out more.”
- “The image with the sleepy eyes gets my attention and as I read the information off both images, B tells me enough to know it would be my choice.”
- “Those eyes definitely get my attention! And calling it ‘sleepy hot chocolate’ is perfect! I’d definitely click through to learn more about it!”
You can run surveys using tools like this—and you can either comb through the data yourself or use tools like ATLAS.ti and Nvivo to help you analyze your qualitative data.
#4. Pew Research Center Survey Analysis
The Pew Research Center is a fascinating trove of quantitative data, but it also offers qualitative data in the form of survey analysis. If you’re studying how internet use among teenagers changed as smartphones became ubiquitous, for instance, you’ll find quantitative data on the Pew Research Center. But you’ll also find an analysis of the quantitative data, which reaches deeper into the numbers and responses to bring you the researchers’ observations or conclusions. This is qualitative data.
For example, this Pew Research Center study on teen internet use shows that most U.S. teenagers use the internet every day, with some using it almost constantly—and they’re not on Facebook. You’re more likely to find teen girls on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram and teen boys on Reddit and Twitch.
Source: Pew Research Center
Instead of using the numbers gleaned from this piece—or perhaps in addition to that—you could use the observations and analysis to support or inform your choices.
The methodology section of these surveys is also a great place to find qualitative research because it shows you how the survey was conducted.
Source: Pew Research Center
The moral of the story here is that you can, and should, look for the qualitative data that results from quantitative research—whether it’s on Pew Research Center or somewhere else.
It’s there, and it can help guide your research.
#5. Government Policies and Information
This might seem like a boring place to find qualitative data, but any government website is rich with descriptive, reliable, authoritative information.
Take the Alaska State Legislature’s website, akleg.gov, for instance. On it, you can find the full text of various bills and laws, plus the history of how they were enacted (or not).
If you’re researching anything related to state, local, or federal government policy, government websites are rich with qualitative data in the form of documents, audio files, videos, and notes.
#6. Scholarly and Scientific Research
Google Scholar is one of my favorite websites for finding peer-reviewed, scholarly qualitative data. There’s also an entire section devoted to case law. All you have to do is put in a keyword or keyphrase and you’ll get hundreds of authoritative sources to choose from.
You can find research on all sorts of topics, but especially medical, educational, and political studies. Some are paywalled, but you can also look at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAI) for non-paywalled, academic, qualitative data.
Source: DOAI
Here’s what the data will typically look like on Google Scholar after you run a search—which, by the way, you can customize according to date, which means you’ll get the freshest data if you want it.
Source: Google Scholar
You’ll notice that most of this research has quantitative data too, which means it’s mixed-method. But it’s full of qualitative analysis and observations as well.
Also, since the results you get from Google Scholar can be anything from books to articles to journals, some sources have more qualitative data than others.
When you need secondary research that’s also qualitative, Google Scholar is an ideal place to find it.
#7. Photos, Videos, and Audio Files
You know how law enforcement takes crime scene photos at the scene of a crime? That’s because the photos offer evidence in the form of qualitative data. The rooms describe a scene in a way that words can’t.
Audio files use something other than written language to describe information or sounds. And video files can combine sound with images to provide detailed information about an event.
In the image below, you’ll see a series of non-graphic images taken at the crime scene of the murder of Marilyn Sheppard in 1954. The police used them as evidence during Sam Sheppard’s trial—he was accused of committing the murder—and Cleveland State University now uses the images to help law students study case law.
Source: CSU Ohio
That’s another feature of excellent qualitative data—it can be applied in more than one way, used for more than one situation or research objective.
In short, qualitative data offers nuance, flexibility, and knowledge you can’t get from quantitative data.
That said, both are valuable and have their place in research. Our guide to qualitative vs quantitative data can give you more insight into how the dance between the two works.
