In order to understand the changes in Qualitative Research, you have to...

...understand the history of Qualitative Research. This video from MarketResearchVideos, gives a brief history of the Qualitative Research industry.

In the 1930s, the term Focus interviews emerged, this became known as depth interviews or simply depths. Several of these carried out simultaneously became known as focus groups. In the 1950s, we saw Action research and the Delphi forecasting method. In the 1960s, motivational research emerged with Dichter, who integrated psychoanalysis into marketing. By the 1970s, group discussions were fully accepted in marketing research. In the 1980s ethnography and semiotic approaches were introduced into commercial research. http://www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/bradley2e