Reconciling Methodological Paradigms: Employing Large Language Models as Novice Qualitative Research Assistants in Talent Management Research

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Main Authors: Bhaduri, Sreyoshi, Kapoor, Satya, Gil, Alex, Mittal, Anshul, Mulkar, Rutu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Bhaduri, Sreyoshi
Kapoor, Satya
Gil, Alex
Mittal, Anshul
Mulkar, Rutu
author_facet Bhaduri, Sreyoshi
Kapoor, Satya
Gil, Alex
Mittal, Anshul
Mulkar, Rutu
contents Qualitative data collection and analysis approaches, such as those employing interviews and focus groups, provide rich insights into customer attitudes, sentiment, and behavior. However, manually analyzing qualitative data requires extensive time and effort to identify relevant topics and thematic insights. This study proposes a novel approach to address this challenge by leveraging Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) based Large Language Models (LLMs) for analyzing interview transcripts. The novelty of this work lies in strategizing the research inquiry as one that is augmented by an LLM that serves as a novice research assistant. This research explores the mental model of LLMs to serve as novice qualitative research assistants for researchers in the talent management space. A RAG-based LLM approach is extended to enable topic modeling of semi-structured interview data, showcasing the versatility of these models beyond their traditional use in information retrieval and search. Our findings demonstrate that the LLM-augmented RAG approach can successfully extract topics of interest, with significant coverage compared to manually generated topics from the same dataset. This establishes the viability of employing LLMs as novice qualitative research assistants. Additionally, the study recommends that researchers leveraging such models lean heavily on quality criteria used in traditional qualitative research to ensure rigor and trustworthiness of their approach. Finally, the paper presents key recommendations for industry practitioners seeking to reconcile the use of LLMs with established qualitative research paradigms, providing a roadmap for the effective integration of these powerful, albeit novice, AI tools in the analysis of qualitative datasets within talent
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_11043
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reconciling Methodological Paradigms: Employing Large Language Models as Novice Qualitative Research Assistants in Talent Management Research
Bhaduri, Sreyoshi
Kapoor, Satya
Gil, Alex
Mittal, Anshul
Mulkar, Rutu
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
Qualitative data collection and analysis approaches, such as those employing interviews and focus groups, provide rich insights into customer attitudes, sentiment, and behavior. However, manually analyzing qualitative data requires extensive time and effort to identify relevant topics and thematic insights. This study proposes a novel approach to address this challenge by leveraging Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) based Large Language Models (LLMs) for analyzing interview transcripts. The novelty of this work lies in strategizing the research inquiry as one that is augmented by an LLM that serves as a novice research assistant. This research explores the mental model of LLMs to serve as novice qualitative research assistants for researchers in the talent management space. A RAG-based LLM approach is extended to enable topic modeling of semi-structured interview data, showcasing the versatility of these models beyond their traditional use in information retrieval and search. Our findings demonstrate that the LLM-augmented RAG approach can successfully extract topics of interest, with significant coverage compared to manually generated topics from the same dataset. This establishes the viability of employing LLMs as novice qualitative research assistants. Additionally, the study recommends that researchers leveraging such models lean heavily on quality criteria used in traditional qualitative research to ensure rigor and trustworthiness of their approach. Finally, the paper presents key recommendations for industry practitioners seeking to reconcile the use of LLMs with established qualitative research paradigms, providing a roadmap for the effective integration of these powerful, albeit novice, AI tools in the analysis of qualitative datasets within talent
title Reconciling Methodological Paradigms: Employing Large Language Models as Novice Qualitative Research Assistants in Talent Management Research
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.11043