Qualitative research is a method for exploring and understanding social problems through observation and structured questioning to understand people's experiences, opinions, and views. It differs from quantitative research in being subjective, holistic, phenomenological, descriptive, and naturalistic rather than objective, reductionist, scientific, experimental, and contrived. Some key techniques of qualitative research include interviews, focus groups, and participant observation to collect data which is then organized and sorted into frameworks for descriptive analysis. The advantages include greater accuracy of data and avoiding issues like recall errors, while limitations include being time-consuming and results not always being representative.