Why I'm not calling myself a qualitative researcher anymore
Effective immediately, I'm no longer referring to myself as a qualitative researcher. And if this is your role, you shouldn't either.
Because the term fundamentally undersells what’s actually happening when we sit across from someone in an interview or moderate a focus group.
“Qualitative researcher” makes us sound like we collect non-numerical data and type it up later. Like we’re note-takers. Human tape recorders with occasional probes.
That’s not what’s happening. Not even close.
What “Qualitative Researchers” Actually Do
Here’s the truth: We are translators and sensemakers doing real-time computational work that AI is desperately trying to replicate, but can’t.
When we’re in the room with consumers, we’re not just collecting data to analyze later. We’re:
Building trust that makes people say things they’ve never articulated before
Reading micro-expressions and body language in real-time
Noticing the participant who stays silent but whose face is screaming something important
Sensing when to push deeper and when to let silence sit
Pivoting the entire conversation because we felt something shift in the room
Synthesizing patterns across conversations while simultaneously staying present
Creating psychological safety that unlocks honest insight
And we’re not passively gathering information. While I’m nodding and asking “tell me more about that,” my brain is running analysis in the background much like AI does—except I’m doing it on the spot, immediately, as I’m processing:
Pattern matching across everything I’ve heard before
Testing hypotheses as they form
Reading body language and micro-expressions
Tracking what’s not being said
Building frameworks from chaos
Adapting my questions based on what I’m learning
Maintaining rapport and psychological safety
Translating messy human reality into actionable insight
All of this is happening simultaneously. I want to stress: we’re doing interpretive work in the moment of gathering. The sensemaking and the data collection aren’t separate steps—they’re happening at the same time.
This is interpretive labor that creates frameworks where none existed. It’s not research. It’s real-time organizational intelligence. And that's what makes our job so compelling, and draining, at the same time.
The term “Qualitative Researcher” Makes Us Sound Like We’re Competing With AI
Here’s the problem with calling ourselves researchers: it positions us as doing the same work as AI, just with words instead of numbers.
AI does research. It analyzes transcripts, finds patterns, clusters themes, identifies sentiment. And honestly, as we’ve all found out - it does that part fairly well.
But AI needs the data first, then does analysis. That’s a fundamentally different workflow than what we humans do, collecting data and conducting analysis simultaneously. You can absolutely use AI to analyze transcripts after the fact, and it’s great at that. But by then, I’ve already:
Made real-time decisions about what to explore
Built the frameworks in my mind
Connected dots across multiple conversations
Translated the insight into strategic implications
We’re not competing with AI. We’re doing entirely different categories of work. AI does analysis. We do real-time sensemaking + relationship building + interpretive synthesis + strategic translation.
The problem is we call both activities “research,” and that obscures what makes our work irreplaceable. And fundamentally undersells qualitative research and researchers.
And Another Thing about “Qualitative Research” - It’s the Qualitative vs. Quantitative Trap
I’ve never liked that the term “qualitative researcher” positions us as one half of a binary: qualitative vs. quantitative. As if we’re two sides of the same coin, just using different types of data.
But this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. It’s not even apples-to-oranges. It’s more like comparing architecture to measurement.
Quantitative research is incredibly valuable—it measures specific things with precision. It tells you how much, how many, and how often. It’s focused, targeted, and efficient. You design your questions, collect your data, and get clear numerical answers.
But here’s the thing: quantitative research requires you to know what questions to ask before you start. If your survey questions aren’t constructed properly from the beginning, you can miss entire dimensions of the problem. You’re drilling deep into something very specific, which means you might not see the patterns happening outside your frame.
What we do isn’t the “softer” version of that work. It’s broader, more time-intensive, and fundamentally more expansive. We’re not measuring something specific- we’re discovering what questions should even be asked:
Uncovering problems organizations didn’t know they had
Finding opportunities that weren’t on anyone’s radar
Understanding the “why” behind behaviors before anyone measures the “what”
Creating the conceptual frameworks that quantitative research can later validate
Quantitative research needs a hypothesis. We generate those hypotheses. Quantitative research needs well-constructed questions. We figure out what those questions should be.
We’re not two equal options for answering the same question. We’re operating at different stages of understanding, with different purposes. Calling us both “researchers” flattens that distinction and makes it sound like we’re interchangeable—just pick whichever data type you prefer.
That fundamentally misrepresents the scope and value of what we do.
Spoiler Alert: I Actually Don't Know What I Will Replace the Title “Qualitative Researcher” With
But I do know the term “qualitative researcher” is way too narrow to effectively describe our value.
When people hear “qualitative researcher,” they don’t see:
The frameworks we’re building in our minds as someone talks
The connections we’re making across twelve different interviews
The way we’re actively constructing meaning, not just discovering it
The interpretive labor of turning “people said things” into “here’s what you should do”
So…if we’re not researchers - are we:
Sensemakers who create meaning from chaos?
Translators who convert messy human reality into strategic frameworks?
Organizational psychoanalysts reading between the lines?
Real-time pattern recognition experts with empathy?
Change Managers? Innovation Implementers?
Truth be told, I don’t have the perfect term yet. Maybe there isn’t one. But I do know this:
The next time someone asks what you do, don’t say “I’m a qualitative researcher” and leave it at that. Tell them what you actually do:
“I translate human insight into strategic action. I make sense of chaos and create frameworks that help organizations decide what to do next. I do real-time pattern recognition while people are talking to me, not after. I surface what’s invisible.”
And when someone suggests you use AI to “help” with your analysis, smile and nod - but let them know: Your brain already did what they’re trying to get the AI to do. You did it faster. You did it better. And you did it while looking at the actual consumer.
What do you call the work you do? I’m genuinely curious if other practitioners feel as undersold by “qualitative researcher” as I do. Hit reply or leave a comment—I want to know what language actually captures what we do.
