ot be allowed to undermine it. Other important considerations must be considered such as the data collection method, as well as, the human resources available to the project and their skills must be taken into account (Wilmot, 2005). Qualitative research can require an enormous amount of time and be extremely labour intensive. It can also produce results that may not be generalizable for policy-making or decision making, and many funding sources think it may be simply too expensive (Trochim, 2006). The democratization of social work research is one direction in which the politics of the research have moved centre-stage. The belated increase in the awareness of research funders that qualitative research makes an important and distinctive contribution to policy, practice, and strategic research poses new challenges to qualitative researchers to address ethical issues in a persuasive and original way when applying for funding (Shaw, 2008).

Qualitative methods are particularly suitable for use with people who are more comfortable responding in an interview format than to a standardized survey questionnaire. It has been suggested that the gender of respondents should be a consideration in selecting a research strategy because many women may prefer qualitative research techniques to quantitative approaches as they favour opportunities to discuss subjects in context. Additionally, some members of ethnic groups, low income populations, or people who are socially distant from the researcher are more likely to participate in the in-depth interviews characteristic of qualitative research than to complete a structured questionnaire or survey. To enhance the validity of results in research with diverse populations, research questions must be clearly constructed and must not be subject to different cultural interpretations. Moreover, due to the subjective nature of qualitative research, it is important for the researcher to continually engage in self-examination to be certain that his or her own biases and stereotypes are not influencing the interpretation of the findings. On the other hand, because qualitative analysis allows researchers to explore in depth all factors that might affect a particular issue, this strategy permits sensitive consideration of the complexities of human diversity (McCoy, 2010). Then again, when compared with surveys and experiments, qualitative research measurements normally provide more depth of meaning but have less reliability. Also, qualitative research results cannot be generalized as safely as those based on rigorous sampling and standardized questionnaires (Rubin & Babbin, 2009).