Very Interresting to a Qualitative Researcher

I do qualitative research and I started reading this book because I'd heard that Gen. Marshall was one of the first to do qualitative surveys. In other words, he collected information from people based on interviews, not a multiple choice questionnaire. This is an important part of social research now but it wasn't before the 1960's, so Marshall was really ahead of his time. Also, it's very difficult to take unstructured answers to questions and make conclusions. No matter what conclusion Marshall came to through his interviews it would be easy to challenge. I don't know if there has been research since that proves Marshall wrong but I do know that it isn't unusual for a researcher to their gut when interpreting their findings, even with the research tools we have today.