Explain one strength and one weakness in collecting qualitative data

One strength of qualitative data is that the answers are rich in detail so you are more likely to find out more about the topic being studied. The psychologist is able to ask queations that allow the participant to explain why they undergo the behaviour or feel that way. For example when Elms and Milgram followed up the electric shock experiment they were able to understand why the participants carried on the shocks not just how many people did. This allows the psychologist to build a bigger picture as to what drives human behaviour in order to more accurately form theories. 

However, qualitative data is more time consuming to conduct and so only a small sample is used. This means that each case is a unique perspective and cannot be generalised to the whole population. For example when following up Milgrams study only looked into 40 of the original sample. Therefore, the rest of the participants could have had a completely different reason but due to time constraints it was not possible to find out these reasons. This means that qualitative data is less generalisable to the population as a whole.