Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Research, Studies, Enquiries, University of Applied Sciences Wernigerode, language: English, abstract: Qualitative research methods have become increasingly important in recent years. They are used especially in communication science, but meanwhile also in psychology, educational science or sociology. Due to the increased resonance, the present work deals more closely with the topic of qualitative research. The focus here is primarily on the area of guided interviews and qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. For this purpose, the following procedure is followed: Under point 2 the Qualitative Research is presented in the overview and is distinguished from the Quantitative Research. Subsequently, the qualitative approach is considered more specifically and the meaning of the qualitative research for the organization development is worked out. Point 3 of the work deals with the topic of the guideline interview as instrument of the qualitative data collection. For this the concept of the interview is explained first and guide interviews as special form with their advantages and disadvantages are represented. In addition to the presentation of typical characteristics, instructions for the preparation and execution of the interview are given. For the evaluation of the collected data the approach according to Mayring is presented in section 4. For this purpose, the term Qualitative Content Analysis is defined and its characteristics and objectives are elaborated. Furthermore, typical techniques of Qualitative Content Analysis are presented. The point 5 refers - referring to the presented Qualitative Content Analysis - again explicitly to the quality criteria. For this purpose first the meaning of the classical quality criteria objectivity, reliability and validity are seized and afterwards supplementing special content-analytical quality criteria are pointed out. The thesis concludes with a summary and a critical appraisal of the topic.