The Standard · Research and Insight
Qualitative Research Methods
Applies qualitative methods with AI support and keeps interpretation rigorous and human.
You analyse interviews, focus groups, survey responses, fieldnotes, and documents to develop defensible themes and insights. You can use an AI assistant to surface patterns, but it may flatten participant voice or erase exceptions.
The exam for Qualitative Research Methods is not open yet. A skill opens once its questions are approved and tested.
What it measures
Whatever the skill, the exam rates your work in the same six areas of the Standard. Three are for the value you get from the assistant, and three for the control you keep. Each area gets one of 4 ratings (Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Accomplished). For Qualitative Research Methods, a strong performance looks like this. What each area includes and excludes.
Value
What you get from the assistant: how far it takes the work, how well you brief it, and the piece you hand in.
- Reaching further
You use the reply to surface rival interpretations, negative cases, and participant needs beyond your initial reading.
Using the assistant to produce work beyond what you could have produced alone, rather than the same work faster.
- Briefing the assistant
You brief the assistant with the research question, participant context, source excerpts, coding purpose, and required analytic structure.
Giving the assistant the reader, purpose and source facts the work depends on, and the form, length and contents you need back.
- The finished piece
You turn suggested codes into a defensible thematic account preserving participant voice, reflexive interpretation, and methodological context.
Turning the assistant's output into something a colleague could use: editing it, combining it and adding original thinking.
Control
What you keep in hand: checking its work, keeping information safe, and deciding what stays with a person.
- Checking its work
You check proposed themes, quotations, and interpretations against transcripts, fieldnotes, and documented analytic decisions.
Checking the assistant's claims, figures and assumptions against the source before the work is used.
- Safety and confidentiality
You anonymise participant data, withhold identifiers, and decline requests that could expose people or misuse their accounts.
Handling confidential and personal data, seeing compliance, ethical and reputational risk, and declining unsafe requests.
- Knowing what to delegate
You keep interpretive judgement, methodological choices, and final claims while delegating pattern surfacing and draft organisation.
Deciding what to hand to the assistant and what to keep, and at what stakes, before any output exists.
What you do in the exam
Every skill of the Standard is examined the same way, at the same pass mark, in the Applied AI Badge. Two tasks with the assistant and two sets of questions, over 15 minutes. You do real work with an AI assistant beside you, hand in what you would send, then answer follow-up questions about your own work.
- 01
A thematic analysis from anonymised interview excerpts, with codes, themes, exceptions, and supporting quotations.
- 02
A coding audit trail from mixed qualitative sources, showing AI contributions and researcher judgements.
- 03
A methods section from a qualitative study plan, explaining AI use, trustworthiness, consent, and reflexivity.
These are the kinds of task the exam sets. Your exam draws its own from a bank the Examination Board has approved.
- Exam
- Applied AI Badge
- Price
- US$19
- Length
- 15 minutes
- Attempts
- One for each purchase, then a 7-day wait
What the badge certifies
What an employer reads
Passed an Institute exam in qualitative research methods. They briefed the assistant with anonymised transcripts, caught unsupported themes, and delivered an auditable thematic analysis.
You earn it in one exam, never by finishing a course.
- Name on the certificate
- Applied AI Badge: Qualitative Research Methods
- Who it is for
- Qualitative researchers, evaluators, policy analysts, and insight practitioners.
- Valid for
- 2 years, then renew
- Verification
- Every badge has a public verification page an employer can open, and a place in the public register if you choose it.
- Marked by
- An AI examiner marks your work against a marking guide and quotes your own words as evidence. A person checks anything borderline.
Near it in the Standard
- Academic Research
Conducts academic research with AI and verifies every source and claim.
- Market Research
Runs market research with AI and separates evidence from confident guesswork.
- Policy Research
Researches policy with AI and confirms every citation against the primary text.
- Academic Writing
Writes academically with AI's help, with sources real, cited and read.
- Critical Evaluation
Evaluates claims and evidence critically with and about AI.
- Customer Research & Insight
Gathers customer insight with AI and checks that the synthesis reflects what customers said.
- Competitor Analysis
Analyses competitors with AI and verifies the facts before they shape strategy.
- Systematic Literature Reviews
Runs systematic literature reviews with AI and confirms every included study exists and says what is claimed.
Everything in Research and Insight, including the level exams that name the whole function.
Practise it before you pay for it
Practice is free (up to 50 sessions a day) and shaped like the exam, with a coach that tells you what to change. It never counts towards a credential, and an exercise you practised is kept out of your exam.
Want to learn it first? AI+ Qualitative Research Methods covers this skill. No book is required to pass.