Critical thinkingArticle: Coyle, A (2015)Introduction to qualitative psychological researchIntroductionThis chapter examines the development of psychological interest in qualitative methods in historical context and point to the benefits that psychology gains from qualitative research.It also looks at some important issues and developments in qualitative psychology. At its most basic, qualitative psychological research may be regarded as involving the collection and analysis of non-numerical data through a psychological lens in order to provide rich descriptions and possibly explanations of peoples meaning-making, how they make sense of the world and how they experience particular events.Qualitative research is bound up with particular sets of assumptions about the bases or possibilities of knowledge.Epistemology: particular sets of assumptions about the bases or possibilities of knowledge.Epistemology refers to a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the theory of knowledge and that tries to answer questions about how we can know what we know.Ontology: the assumptions we make about the nature of being, existence or reality.Different research approaches and methods are associated with different epistemologies.The term ‘qualitative research’ covers a variety of methods with a range of epistemologies, resulting in a domain that is characterized by difference and tension.The epistemology adopted by a particular study can be...