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When Consent Is Not Enough
There is a quiet assumption running through much of the current conversation about AI in qualitative research: that participant consent is the decisive criterion for whether a tool can be used. If your participants agreed to take part in the study, the reasoning goes, you are free to use their data as your analysis requires — including feeding...
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Data Collection, Data Analysis, AI, Conversational Analysis, Interviewing
The Making of 'Lonely in Rotterdam' - AI, Synthetic Interviews, and the Validation Problem
There is a particular kind of problem that only conference organisers understand: the gap. Someone drops out, a session runs short, the schedule you've been carefully building for weeks suddenly has a hole in it, and you're the one who has to fill it. That is, more or less, how I ended up running a qualitative research study in two
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AI as teammate, Data Analysis, Conversational Analysis, Ethics
Fast Food vs. Slow Science: Traveling at the Speed of Our Souls with AI
We are currently witnessing a massive backlash against using genartiveAI in qualitative research. Calls for "Slow Scholarship" and "Handmade Research" are growing louder, positioning themselves as the moral antithesis to the encroaching wave of artificial intelligence. Recently, I analysed the language used in these critique and I found a...
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LLM, Data Analysis, AI Literacy, Prompting, thematic analysis
The Prompt That Couldn’t Work: An AI Literacy Breakdown for Qualitative Researchers
In mid-2023, there were only a handful of academic articles on using generative AI in qualitative research. Early pieces included work by Anis and French (2023), Gao et al. (2023), and Christou (2023). Now there are hundreds of papers, both preprints and peer-reviewed publications. The rapid growth, however, has not been matched by an equivalent...
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AI as teammate, Data Analysis, AI, Conversational Analysis
Working With AI in Qualitative Research Means Steering Not Surrendering
In qualitative research, newcomers to genartive AI and critiques of generative AI often assume that the technology is here to replace interpretation. Many stop before they start because they think “analysis” means pressing a button. When these first attempts don’t produce finished, nuanced insights, they conclude AI can’t do qualitative
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AI vs Human, Ethics, AI, Conversational Analysis
Response to the Open Letter that Opposes the Use of Generative AI for Reflexive Qualitative Research
Last week an open letter against the use of generative AI for reflexive qualitative research made the round. At the time of writing about 400 qualitative researchers had signed it. Open Letter Here is their position: “We hold the position that analytic approaches such as reflexive thematic analysis are human research practices requiring a...
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AI and Human Collaboration in Market Research Moderation (guest article)
What happens to the role of the human moderator in an AI-driven world? In this article, Frank-Thomas Naether, Managing Director of Naether Marktforschung GmbH, explores this pressing question from the inside out. With over 30 years of experience in qualitative market research, he shares a strong conviction: “In a world that is becoming...
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LLM, Data Analysis, AI, Conversational Analysis, Coding
How AI Understands Qualitative Research: Conversations from Inside the AI Mind
How AI Understands Qualitative Research: Conversations from Inside the AI Mind is a series of thought-provoking articles where I engage in dialogue with a chatbot to explore the nuances of qualitative research—particularly the process of data analysis. The goal is to uncover how a large language model (LLM) “thinks” when it analyzes data and...
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Ethics, AI, Research Reports, Writing
AI, Ethics, and Transparency in Research – Part 3
As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into qualitative research, transparency in its use is important to maintaining ethical integrity and research credibility. In this final instalment of our trilogy on ethics in AI-augmented qualitative research, we discuss best practices for documenting AI’s contributions in research reports. This...
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Data Analysis, AI, Conversational Analysis
Ethical Aspects of AI in Qualitative Research - Part 2
In this article, I discuss key considerations for using generative AI to analyse qualitative data in an ethical manner and I present an example. In Part 1 of this series, I outlined the ethical research criteria established by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research in Austria. For the context of data analysis, the following...
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Navigating Ethics in AI-Driven Qualitative Research - Part 1
Data Privacy and Confidentiality Agreements As AI technology, particularly generative AI, becomes more prevalent in research practices, understanding and addressing its ethical implications is crucial. This three-part series will explore the landscape of ethical research, initially setting a foundation by examining general standards....
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Looking into the Mirror: Reflection on AI and Human Bias in Research
When discussing the application of AI in qualitative research, the conversation invariably gravitates towards two pivotal concerns: bias and ethics. For some researchers, these concerns are deal-breakers, effectively ruling out the use of AI. For others, they introduce a level of discomfort and uncertainty, leading to reluctance in adopting AI...
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Data Analysis, AI, Conversational Analysis, Coding
Life without Coding in Qualitative Analysis
Does Generative AI Fulfill This Dream? By Dr. Susanne Friese Coding is one of the most established practices in qualitative research—yet also one of the most debated. For decades, it has been considered the backbone of rigorous qualitative analysis, allowing us to systematically organize, retrieve, and interpret large volumes of unstructured...
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Embracing Digital Transformation: The Evolution of Qualitative Research from Tape Recorders to AI
The landscape of qualitative research has witnessed profound transformations, evolving from the days of notetaking to leveraging the sophisticated capabilities of generative AI. This journey reflects not just technological advancements but also multiple paradigm shifts in how researchers approach, analyze, and interpret qualitative
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Beyond the Comfort Zone: The Dynamics of Technological Acceptance
In recent weeks, when introducing our new AI-based platform for qualitative data analysis LUDRA, a few people expressed some uneasiness with the new technology pointing out issues around ethics and data privacy. There was also a lively discussion around it at the recent Symposium on AI in Qualitative Research organized by the CAQDAS Networking...
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Conversing with AI: My encounter with an Interview Bot
I recently was given the opportunity to try out Qualia (formerly StorySurvey). Qualia is a platform for designing and delivering online interviews led by an AI interviewer. Possible use cases for Qualia are: Opinion research with hundreds of anonymous contributors, where interviews are conducted at regular
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Navigating the AI-Hype
A few days ago, I encountered yet another bold claim that qualitative data analysis can now be done instantly. The tool being touted not only collected the data but also, without delay, provided researchers with immediate access to the insights generated from that data, all through a fully automated
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Tempting generative AI into Hallucinating
...when analysing qualitative data You may have come across chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard, which are known to sometimes generate imaginative responses, a phenomenon often referred to as "hallucination." This, for instance, occurs if the chatbot faces a prompt that is not well-represented in its training data. Despite being powered by complex...
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Historical Review, AI, Data Analysis
Rethinking Qualitative Data Analysis: Do we truly want a faster horse?
You may have come across the quote: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Although often attributed to Henry Ford, there is no evidence that he actually said it. The essence of the quote is that true innovation goes beyond customer input. While customer input is generally important for product development,...
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Will we soon talk about the AI interviewer effect?
Recently, I came across three pieces of information– one came in the form of a brochure where a company was advertising the fantastic new ways AI will transform marketing research. The second was a presentation of a new tool incorporating AI. The third was an interview in the Wall Street Journal with Prof. Gerd Gigerenzer, director of the...
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