13966: AI and Qualitative Research

New generative artificial intelligence tools based on large language models can extract, summarize, and categorize insights from textual data. As this technology is leveraged by diverse professions to automate and augment knowledge work, it is pertinent to ask whether and how qualitative researchers can benefit from such tools. While scholars have long used computational tools to quantify and categorize textual data, the next generation of computational text analysis tools holds a promise to facilitating new and innovative forms of interpretive qualitative analyses. Yet, the new powerful technology is not without its limitations and perils for both research ethics and practice. The ability of tools to conduct increasingly sophisticated analyses may be deceptive, pushing researchers to conduct analysis that excels in replicability but lacks in creativity and originality. We propose that rather than outsourcing analytical steps to AI tools, qualitative researchers may benefit the most from computational tools by approaching them as partners in abductive scientific exploration. The purpose of this PDW is to share emerging insights on the new research approaches and to form a community of qualitative scholars interested in developing new research methods around artificial intelligence to augment qualitative analysis.