| 1. | Time and labor intensity of qualitative research | All stages | The long duration of the entire research – from design to analysis and interpretation (often longer than assumed at the outset and hard to predict), being all the more problematic for novice researchers with limited resources, especially given the budget and time to complete a PhD dissertation:
the labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of preparing for interviews, e.g., the long process of modifying research questions (often due to a lack of experience) or searching for data prior to the empirical study; long duration of the research itself (e.g., due to long in-depth interviews) making the process of interviewee recruitment difficult; raising some dilemmas for novice researchers, e.g., whether to inform about the potential time required for the interview, also potentially affects the quality of the interview being conducted (research credibility); time- and labor-intensive data analysis and interpretation—a lengthy and difficult coding process; a necessity to go back to previous stages due to the iterative nature of qualitative research (see point 6.) – all the more difficult for novice researchers. |
| 2. | Field work | Running the research |
The need to adapt in the field to the interlocutors, especially to their accessibility and competences; Logistical, organizational problems, especially in unfamiliar territory
all cause additional stress for novice researchers related to their limited experience and resources (time [for finishing their PhD thesis), budget for research, etc.]. |
| 3. | Difficulty of “grasping” a large amount of material | Analyzing |
The difficulty of synthesizing, selecting and structuring the material from various sources, especially for a novice researcher, being often stressful or even “paralyzing” (especially with limited time to complete the research and the limited volume of the future PhD thesis); A large amount of material in the form of transcripts that demands tedious, long and often difficult working with words. At the same time, working with words, although labor-intensive, was perceived by novice researchers as inspiring and satisfying. |
| 4. | Lack of universal algorithms/accepted patterns of conducting qualitative research | All stages, in particular, running and analyzing |
The difficulty – especially for inexperienced researchers – of choosing one of the many options in qualitative research approaches, for example, the way of data analysis (coding). At the same time, this challenge perceived as an advantage of qualitative research by some novice researchers. |
| 5. | Need to meet multiple requirements for ensuring rigor in the research procedure | All stages | Difficulty in ensuring methodological rigor at various stages of the research procedure aimed at increasing the trustworthiness of qualitative research (i.e. credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability). Problems in this regard arise from:
Lack of theoretical and practical knowledge of how to meet the criteria of methodological rigor – lack of opportunities to acquire this knowledge in the course of doctoral studies; Many doubts during the field research, potentially reducing the credibility of the research—related to ethical issues, the quality of the interview conducted (e.g., did the interviewees properly understand the question? If not, what could be the consequences? Were the identities of other interviewees accidentally revealed – did the interviewee guess who the researcher had spoken to earlier? Were answers not suggested by the interviewer?, etc.); Difficulty for novice researchers of applying triangulation of research methods in the field – difficult to focus simultaneously on observation and interviewing, which can also reduce the credibility of the research; Difficulty in ensuring credibility by providing faithful transcriptions—due to limited time for PhD thesis preparation, outsourcing transcriptions that are not always faithful to the original; Difficulty in ensuring trustworthiness of the research, especially dependability and confirmability, due to doubts of inexperienced researchers in carrying out the research procedure at later stages—especially at the stage of data analysis and presentation, e.g., doubts about the way of coding the material, selection of citations accurately reflecting the studied phenomenon, etc.; Difficulty in ensuring trustworthiness of the research, especially confirmability, due to the need for constant reflection by the researcher regarding his/her relationship with the studied subjects and social context (reflexivity) at each stage of the research, which distinguishes quantitative from qualitative research and for inexperienced/less experienced researchers constitutes an additional difficulty (reflexivity as a process based on experience that novice researchers lack). |
| 6. | Consistency of the story told with adherence to methodological rigor – the researcher’s panache vs. methodological rigor | Presenting and publishing | Novice researchers’ doubts about how many quotes to present, about their style of expression, often very unusual and informal, so that the presented story does not dominate the requirements of methodological rigor and allows consistency to be maintained with the objectives of the work, and conversely, to ensure that the researcher’s desire to meet scientific requirements, including the use of scientific language and the methodological rigor associated with it, does not overshadow the story. |
| 7. | Uncertainty of the research process (qualitative research roller coaster) | All stages | Uncertainty accompanying the entire research process due to the many twists and turns resulting from the emergent, as well as the iterative nature of qualitative research (important especially for novice researchers due to the need to complete their thesis within a certain time frame):
Uncertainty resulting from the frequent lack of hypotheses, causing the researcher to never know where the study will go or how long it will last (when the saturation effect will occur) Numerous twists and turns due to the iterative nature of qualitative research and the emerging character of the findings, i.e., the need to revisit previous steps of the research procedure, e.g., re-coding, going back to the literature, emergence of new themes from interviews that the researcher previously considered irrelevant to the topic, etc.
All this gives novice researchers the feeling that data analysis is a “never-ending story” and hinders the development of findings and the formulation of final conclusions in the doctoral thesis. |
| 8. | Specific qualities of the researcher | All stages | Particularly strongly emphasized the lack of experience in conducting qualitative research by novice researchers, especially at the beginning of the research process, strongly hindering it. |
