To understand the needs, desires, and ideas of the broader public, or to assess how the public feels about an issue (otherwise known as public opinion), we need to engage in research. Since people are complex, often that research needs to gather data that is not easily reducible to numbers – hence, qualitative methods can help to understand some of the more complex opinions held by diverse publics.
Methods in Context:
The Government of Canada provides a useful overview of how public opinion research is used in the context of policy. You can access the website: Public opinion research in the Government of Canada if you want to know more about how public opinion is collected here.
The measurement of public opinion is often survey based, but can include other methods such as focus groups, interviews or public engagement sessions, among others. For example, if you are developing a public consultation, workshop style, you will probably collect many different opinions or experiences from people that could not be captured easily via multiple choice or scale based survey questions.
This video, of Professor Andrew Stirling from The University of Sussex, provides a good discussion of why qualitative methods are useful for creating science policy (16 mins).
One should consider the following factors when designing research for the measurement of public opinion:
- Sampling – use a sampling strategy that best addresses the aims of the research.
- Question bias – how the questions are designed could influence the outcome.
- Respondent bias – participants may answer in a way they think “pleases” the researcher.
- Question design – questions or research methods don’t always measure strength of opinion (strong opinions held by a minority can still be very influential).
- Elite influence – Respondents may be repeating what they think is the dominant opinion.
In the next section, you will be provided with an overview (at a glance) of different common methods for qualitative public opinion research, to help you choose which approach to use.