You can find some useful tips in our how-to guide.
The maximum length of your abstract should be 250 words in total, including keywords and article classification (see the sections below).
Your submission should include up to 12 appropriate and short keywords that capture the principal topics of the paper. Our how to guide contains some practical guidance on choosing search-engine friendly keywords.
Please note, while we will always try to use the keywords you’ve suggested, the in-house editorial team may replace some of them with matching terms to ensure consistency across publications and improve your article’s visibility.
During the submission process, you will be asked to select a type for your paper; the options are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit:
You will also be asked to select a category for your paper. The options for this are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit:
Reports on any type of research undertaken by the author(s), including:
Covers any paper where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation. This includes journalistic and magazine-style pieces.
Describes and evaluates technical products, processes or services.
Focuses on developing hypotheses and is usually discursive. Covers philosophical discussions and comparative studies of other authors’ work and thinking.
Describes actual interventions or experiences within organizations. It can be subjective and doesn’t generally report on research. Also covers a description of a legal case or a hypothetical case study used as a teaching exercise.
This category should only be used if the main purpose of the paper is to annotate and/or critique the literature in a particular field. It could be a selective bibliography providing advice on information sources, or the paper may aim to cover the main contributors to the development of a topic and explore their different views.
Provides an overview or historical examination of some concept, technique or phenomenon. Papers are likely to be more descriptive or instructional (‘how to’ papers) than discursive.
Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the required hierarchy.
The preferred format is for first level headings to be in bold, and subsequent sub-headings to be in medium italics.
Notes or endnotes should only be used if absolutely necessary. They should be identified in the text by consecutive numbers enclosed in square brackets. These numbers should then be listed, and explained, at the end of the article.
All figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, webpages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted electronically. Both colour and black and white files are accepted.
There are a few other important points to note:
Tables should be typed and submitted in a separate file to the main body of the article. The position of each table should be clearly labelled in the main body of the article with corresponding labels clearly shown in the table file. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals (e.g. I, II, etc.).
Give each table a brief title. Ensure that any superscripts or asterisks are shown next to the relevant items and have explanations displayed as footnotes to the table, figure or plate.
Where tables, figures, appendices, and other additional content are supplementary to the article but not critical to the reader’s understanding of it, you can choose to host these supplementary files alongside your article on Insight, Emerald’s content-hosting platform (this is Emerald's recommended option as we are able to ensure the data remain accessible), or on an alternative trusted online repository. All supplementary material must be submitted prior to acceptance.
Emerald recommends that authors use the following two lists when searching for a suitable and trusted repository:
, you must submit these as separate files alongside your article. Files should be clearly labelled in such a way that makes it clear they are supplementary; Emerald recommends that the file name is descriptive and that it follows the format ‘Supplementary_material_appendix_1’ or ‘Supplementary tables’. All supplementary material must be mentioned at the appropriate moment in the main text of the article; there is no need to include the content of the file only the file name. A link to the supplementary material will be added to the article during production, and the material will be made available alongside the main text of the article at the point of EarlyCite publication.
Please note that Emerald will not make any changes to the material; it will not be copy-edited or typeset, and authors will not receive proofs of this content. Emerald therefore strongly recommends that you style all supplementary material ahead of acceptance of the article.
Emerald Insight can host the following file types and extensions:
, you should ensure that the supplementary material is hosted on the repository ahead of submission, and then include a link only to the repository within the article. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to ensure that the material is free to access and that it remains permanently available. Where an alternative trusted online repository is used, the files hosted should always be presented as read-only; please be aware that such usage risks compromising your anonymity during the review process if the repository contains any information that may enable the reviewer to identify you; as such, we recommend that all links to alternative repositories are reviewed carefully prior to submission.
Please note that extensive supplementary material may be subject to peer review; this is at the discretion of the journal Editor and dependent on the content of the material (for example, whether including it would support the reviewer making a decision on the article during the peer review process).
All references in your manuscript must be formatted using one of the recognised Harvard styles. You are welcome to use the Harvard style Emerald has adopted – we’ve provided a detailed guide below. Want to use a different Harvard style? That’s fine, our typesetters will make any necessary changes to your manuscript if it is accepted. Please ensure you check all your citations for completeness, accuracy and consistency.
References to other publications in your text should be written as follows:
, 2006) Please note, ‘ ' should always be written in italics.A few other style points. These apply to both the main body of text and your final list of references.
At the end of your paper, please supply a reference list in alphabetical order using the style guidelines below. Where a DOI is available, this should be included at the end of the reference.
Surname, initials (year), , publisher, place of publication.
e.g. Harrow, R. (2005), , Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
Surname, initials (year), "chapter title", editor's surname, initials (Ed.), , publisher, place of publication, page numbers.
e.g. Calabrese, F.A. (2005), "The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum", Stankosky, M. (Ed.), , Elsevier, New York, NY, pp.15-20.
Surname, initials (year), "title of article", , volume issue, page numbers.
e.g. Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), "Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century", , Vol. 22 No. 2, pp.72-80.
Surname, initials (year of publication), "title of paper", in editor’s surname, initials (Ed.), , publisher, place of publication, page numbers.
e.g. Wilde, S. and Cox, C. (2008), “Principal factors contributing to the competitiveness of tourism destinations at varying stages of development”, in Richardson, S., Fredline, L., Patiar A., & Ternel, M. (Ed.s), , Griffith University, Gold Coast, Qld, pp.115-118.
Surname, initials (year), "title of paper", paper presented at [name of conference], [date of conference], [place of conference], available at: URL if freely available on the internet (accessed date).
e.g. Aumueller, D. (2005), "Semantic authoring and retrieval within a wiki", paper presented at the European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC), 29 May-1 June, Heraklion, Crete, available at: http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de/file/aumueller05wiksar.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).
Surname, initials (year), "title of article", working paper [number if available], institution or organization, place of organization, date.
e.g. Moizer, P. (2003), "How published academic research can inform policy decisions: the case of mandatory rotation of audit appointments", working paper, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, 28 March.
(year), "title of entry", volume, edition, title of encyclopaedia, publisher, place of publication, page numbers.
e.g. (1926), "Psychology of culture contact", Vol. 1, 13th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannica, London and New York, NY, pp.765-771.
(for authored entries, please refer to book chapter guidelines above)
Surname, initials (year), "article title", , date, page numbers.
e.g. Smith, A. (2008), "Money for old rope", , 21 January, pp.1, 3-4.
(year), "article title", date, page numbers.
e.g. (2008), "Small change", 2 February, p.7.
Surname, initials (year), "title of document", unpublished manuscript, collection name, inventory record, name of archive, location of archive.
e.g. Litman, S. (1902), "Mechanism & Technique of Commerce", unpublished manuscript, Simon Litman Papers, Record series 9/5/29 Box 3, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana-Champaign, IL.
If available online, the full URL should be supplied at the end of the reference, as well as the date that the resource was accessed.
Surname, initials (year), “title of electronic source”, available at: persistent URL (accessed date month year).
e.g. Weida, S. and Stolley, K. (2013), “Developing strong thesis statements”, available at: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/1/ (accessed 20 June 2018)
Standalone URLs, i.e. those without an author or date, should be included either inside parentheses within the main text, or preferably set as a note (Roman numeral within square brackets within text followed by the full URL address at the end of the paper).
Surname, initials (year), , name of data repository, available at: persistent URL, (accessed date month year).
e.g. Campbell, A. and Kahn, R.L. (2015), , ICPSR07218-v4, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (distributor), Ann Arbor, MI, available at: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07218.v4 (accessed 20 June 2018)
There are a number of key steps you should follow to ensure a smooth and trouble-free submission.
Before submitting your work, it is your responsibility to check that the manuscript is complete, grammatically correct, and without spelling or typographical errors. A few other important points:
You will find a helpful submission checklist on the website Think.Check.Submit .
All manuscripts should be submitted through our editorial system by the corresponding author.
The only way to submit to the journal is through the journal’s ScholarOne site as accessed via the Emerald website, and not by email or through any third-party agent/company, journal representative, or website. Submissions should be done directly by the author(s) through the ScholarOne site and not via a third-party proxy on their behalf.
A separate author account is required for each journal you submit to. If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please choose the Create an account or Register now option in the editorial system. If you already have an Emerald login, you are welcome to reuse the existing username and password here.
Please note, the next time you log into the system, you will be asked for your username. This will be the email address you entered when you set up your account.
Don't forget to add your ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article, along with a link to the ORCiD registry allowing others to easily match you with your work.
Don’t have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier .
Visit the ScholarOne support centre for further help and guidance.
You will receive an automated email from the journal editor, confirming your successful submission. It will provide you with a manuscript number, which will be used in all future correspondence about your submission. If you have any reason to suspect the confirmation email you receive might be fraudulent, please contact the journal editor in the first instance.
Review and decision process.
Each submission is checked by the editor. At this stage, they may choose to decline or unsubmit your manuscript if it doesn’t fit the journal aims and scope, or they feel the language/manuscript quality is too low.
If they think it might be suitable for the publication, they will send it to at least two independent referees for double anonymous peer review. Once these reviewers have provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.
While all journals work to different timescales, the goal is that the editor will inform you of their first decision within 60 days.
During this period, we will send you automated updates on the progress of your manuscript via our submission system, or you can log in to check on the current status of your paper. Each time we contact you, we will quote the manuscript number you were given at the point of submission. If you receive an email that does not match these criteria, it could be fraudulent and we recommend you contact the journal editor in the first instance.
Emerald’s manuscript transfer service takes the pain out of the submission process if your manuscript doesn’t fit your initial journal choice. Our team of expert Editors from participating journals work together to identify alternative journals that better align with your research, ensuring your work finds the ideal publication home it deserves. Our dedicated team is committed to supporting authors like you in finding the right home for your research.
If a journal is participating in the manuscript transfer program, the Editor has the option to recommend your paper for transfer. If a transfer decision is made by the Editor, you will receive an email with the details of the recommended journal and the option to accept or reject the transfer. It’s always down to you as the author to decide if you’d like to accept. If you do accept, your paper and any reviewer reports will automatically be transferred to the recommended journals. Authors will then confirm resubmissions in the new journal’s ScholarOne system.
Our Manuscript Transfer Service page has more information on the process.
Open access.
Once your paper is accepted, you will have the opportunity to indicate whether you would like to publish your paper via the gold open access route.
If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the APC (article processing charge). This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence , which outlines how readers can reuse your work.
For UK journal article authors - if you wish to submit your work accepted by Emerald to REF 2021, you must make a ‘closed deposit’ of your accepted manuscript to your respective institutional repository upon acceptance of your article. Articles accepted for publication after 1st April 2018 should be deposited as soon as possible, but no later than three months after the acceptance date. For further information and guidance, please refer to the REF 2021 website.
All accepted authors are sent an email with a link to a licence form. This should be checked for accuracy, for example whether contact and affiliation details are up to date and your name is spelled correctly, and then returned to us electronically. If there is a reason why you can’t assign copyright to us, you should discuss this with your journal content editor. You will find their contact details on the editorial team section above.
Once we have received your completed licence form, the article will pass directly into the production process. We will carry out editorial checks, copyediting, and typesetting and then return proofs to you (if you are the corresponding author) for your review. This is your opportunity to correct any typographical errors, grammatical errors or incorrect author details. We can’t accept requests to rewrite texts at this stage.
When the page proofs are finalised, the fully typeset and proofed version of record is published online. This is referred to as the EarlyCite version. While an EarlyCite article has yet to be assigned to a volume or issue, it does have a digital object identifier (DOI) and is fully citable. It will be compiled into an issue according to the journal’s issue schedule, with papers being added by chronological date of publication.
Visit our author rights page to find out how you can reuse and share your work.
To find tips on increasing the visibility of your published paper, read about how to promote your work .
Sometimes errors are made during the research, writing and publishing processes. When these issues arise, we have the option of withdrawing the paper or introducing a correction notice. Find out more about our article withdrawal and correction policies .
Need to make a change to the author list? See our frequently asked questions (FAQs) below.
| The only time we will ever ask you for money to publish in an Emerald journal is if you have chosen to publish via the gold open access route. You will be asked to pay an APC (article-processing charge) once your paper has been accepted (unless it is a sponsored open access journal), and never at submission.
At no other time will you be asked to contribute financially towards your article’s publication, processing, or review. If you haven’t chosen gold open access and you receive an email that appears to be from Emerald, the journal, or a third party, asking you for payment to publish, please contact our support team via . |
| Please contact the editor for the journal, with a copy of your CV. You will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page. |
| Typically, papers are added to an issue according to their date of publication. If you would like to know in advance which issue your paper will appear in, please contact the content editor of the journal. You will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page. Once your paper has been published in an issue, you will be notified by email. |
| Please email the journal editor – you will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page. If you ever suspect an email you’ve received from Emerald might not be genuine, you are welcome to verify it with the content editor for the journal, whose contact details can be found on the editorial team tab on this page. |
| If you’ve read the aims and scope on the journal landing page and are still unsure whether your paper is suitable for the journal, please email the editor and include your paper's title and structured abstract. They will be able to advise on your manuscript’s suitability. You will find their contact details on the Editorial team tab on this page. |
| Authorship and the order in which the authors are listed on the paper should be agreed prior to submission. We have a right first time policy on this and no changes can be made to the list once submitted. If you have made an error in the submission process, please email the Journal Editorial Office who will look into your request – you will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page. |
CiteScore 2023
CiteScore is a simple way of measuring the citation impact of sources, such as journals.
Calculating the CiteScore is based on the number of citations to documents (articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters, and data papers) by a journal over four years, divided by the number of the same document types indexed in Scopus and published in those same four years.
For more information and methodology visit the Scopus definition
CiteScore Tracker 2024
(updated monthly)
CiteScore Tracker is calculated in the same way as CiteScore, but for the current year rather than previous, complete years.
The CiteScore Tracker calculation is updated every month, as a current indication of a title's performance.
2023 Impact Factor
The Journal Impact Factor is published each year by Clarivate Analytics. It is a measure of the number of times an average paper in a particular journal is cited during the preceding two years.
For more information and methodology see Clarivate Analytics
5-year Impact Factor (2023)
A base of five years may be more appropriate for journals in certain fields because the body of citations may not be large enough to make reasonable comparisons, or it may take longer than two years to publish and distribute leading to a longer period before others cite the work.
Actual value is intentionally only displayed for the most recent year. Earlier values are available in the Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate Analytics .
Time to first decision
Time to first decision , expressed in days, the "first decision" occurs when the journal’s editorial team reviews the peer reviewers’ comments and recommendations. Based on this feedback, they decide whether to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript.
Data is taken from submissions between 1st June 2023 and 31st May 2024
Acceptance to publication
Acceptance to publication , expressed in days, is the average time between when the journal’s editorial team decide whether to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript and the date of publication in the journal.
Data is taken from the previous 12 months (Last updated July 2024)
Acceptance rate
The acceptance rate is a measurement of how many manuscripts a journal accepts for publication compared to the total number of manuscripts submitted expressed as a percentage %
Data is taken from submissions between 1st June 2023 and 31st May 2024 .
This figure is the total amount of downloads for all articles published early cite in the last 12 months
(Last updated: July 2024)
Peer review process.
This journal engages in a double-anonymous peer review process, which strives to match the expertise of a reviewer with the submitted manuscript. Reviews are completed with evidence of thoughtful engagement with the manuscript, provide constructive feedback, and add value to the overall knowledge and information presented in the manuscript.
The mission of the peer review process is to achieve excellence and rigour in scholarly publications and research.
Our vision is to give voice to professionals in the subject area who contribute unique and diverse scholarly perspectives to the field.
The journal values diverse perspectives from the field and reviewers who provide critical, constructive, and respectful feedback to authors. Reviewers come from a variety of organizations, careers, and backgrounds from around the world.
All invitations to review, abstracts, manuscripts, and reviews should be kept confidential. Reviewers must not share their review or information about the review process with anyone without the agreement of the editors and authors involved, even after publication. This also applies to other reviewers’ “comments to author” which are shared with you on decision.
Discover practical tips and guidance on all aspects of peer review in our reviewers' section. See how being a reviewer could benefit your career, and discover what's involved in shaping a review.
More reviewer information
Decentring the human in qualitative research: exploring diverse approaches by creating online communities.
Introduction This special issue emerged from the Australian Association for Research in Education Qualitative Research Methodologies Special Interest Group Seminar Series on Decentring the Human in Qualitative Research (cl...
The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2023 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...
The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2022 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...
The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2021 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has ...
We are pleased to announce our 2023 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Papers Extended Qualitative Content Analysis: ...
We are pleased to announce our 2021 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Collaborative autoethnography:...
Qualitative Research Journal is an international journal dedicated to communicating the theory and practice of qualitative research in the human sciences. Interdisciplinary and eclectic, QRJ covers all methodologies that can be described as qualitative.
Qualitative Research Journal (QRJ) deals comprehensively with the collection, analysis and presentation of qualitative data in the human sciences as well as theoretical and conceptual inquiry and provides an international forum for researchers and practitioners to advance knowledge and promote good qualitative research practices.
These are the latest articles published in this journal (Last updated: July 2024)
“oh my phone, i can't live without you”: a phenomenological study of nomophobia among college students, the opportunity of struggle: a case study on developing a maori-centric nursing course, top downloaded articles.
These are the most downloaded articles over the last 12 months for this journal (Last updated: July 2024)
Visual tools for supporting interviews in qualitative research: new approaches, women leaders' lived experiences of bravery in leadership.
These are the top cited articles for this journal, from the last 12 months according to Crossref (Last updated: July 2024)
Creating spaces of wellbeing in academia to mitigate academic burnout: a collaborative autoethnography, children's voices through play-based practice: listening, intensities and critique., related journals.
This journal is part of our Education collection. Explore our Education subject area to find out more.
See all related journals
Social Studies Research and Practice (SSRP) is a quality peer-reviewed, electronic journal. Research and practice...
On the Horizon: The International Journal of Learning Futures (OTH) is a strategic planning resource for decision makers...
The first journal of its kind, the International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies publishes lesson and learning...
We believe in quality education for everyone, everywhere and by highlighting the issue and working with experts in the field, we can start to find ways we can all be part of the solution.
You have full access to this open access article
99k Accesses
46 Citations
70 Altmetric
Explore all metrics
This review aims to synthesize a published set of evaluative criteria for good qualitative research. The aim is to shed light on existing standards for assessing the rigor of qualitative research encompassing a range of epistemological and ontological standpoints. Using a systematic search strategy, published journal articles that deliberate criteria for rigorous research were identified. Then, references of relevant articles were surveyed to find noteworthy, distinct, and well-defined pointers to good qualitative research. This review presents an investigative assessment of the pivotal features in qualitative research that can permit the readers to pass judgment on its quality and to condemn it as good research when objectively and adequately utilized. Overall, this review underlines the crux of qualitative research and accentuates the necessity to evaluate such research by the very tenets of its being. It also offers some prospects and recommendations to improve the quality of qualitative research. Based on the findings of this review, it is concluded that quality criteria are the aftereffect of socio-institutional procedures and existing paradigmatic conducts. Owing to the paradigmatic diversity of qualitative research, a single and specific set of quality criteria is neither feasible nor anticipated. Since qualitative research is not a cohesive discipline, researchers need to educate and familiarize themselves with applicable norms and decisive factors to evaluate qualitative research from within its theoretical and methodological framework of origin.
Beyond qualitative/quantitative structuralism: the positivist qualitative research and the paradigmatic disclaimer.
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
“… It is important to regularly dialogue about what makes for good qualitative research” (Tracy, 2010 , p. 837)
To decide what represents good qualitative research is highly debatable. There are numerous methods that are contained within qualitative research and that are established on diverse philosophical perspectives. Bryman et al., ( 2008 , p. 262) suggest that “It is widely assumed that whereas quality criteria for quantitative research are well‐known and widely agreed, this is not the case for qualitative research.” Hence, the question “how to evaluate the quality of qualitative research” has been continuously debated. There are many areas of science and technology wherein these debates on the assessment of qualitative research have taken place. Examples include various areas of psychology: general psychology (Madill et al., 2000 ); counseling psychology (Morrow, 2005 ); and clinical psychology (Barker & Pistrang, 2005 ), and other disciplines of social sciences: social policy (Bryman et al., 2008 ); health research (Sparkes, 2001 ); business and management research (Johnson et al., 2006 ); information systems (Klein & Myers, 1999 ); and environmental studies (Reid & Gough, 2000 ). In the literature, these debates are enthused by the impression that the blanket application of criteria for good qualitative research developed around the positivist paradigm is improper. Such debates are based on the wide range of philosophical backgrounds within which qualitative research is conducted (e.g., Sandberg, 2000 ; Schwandt, 1996 ). The existence of methodological diversity led to the formulation of different sets of criteria applicable to qualitative research.
Among qualitative researchers, the dilemma of governing the measures to assess the quality of research is not a new phenomenon, especially when the virtuous triad of objectivity, reliability, and validity (Spencer et al., 2004 ) are not adequate. Occasionally, the criteria of quantitative research are used to evaluate qualitative research (Cohen & Crabtree, 2008 ; Lather, 2004 ). Indeed, Howe ( 2004 ) claims that the prevailing paradigm in educational research is scientifically based experimental research. Hypotheses and conjectures about the preeminence of quantitative research can weaken the worth and usefulness of qualitative research by neglecting the prominence of harmonizing match for purpose on research paradigm, the epistemological stance of the researcher, and the choice of methodology. Researchers have been reprimanded concerning this in “paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000 ).
In general, qualitative research tends to come from a very different paradigmatic stance and intrinsically demands distinctive and out-of-the-ordinary criteria for evaluating good research and varieties of research contributions that can be made. This review attempts to present a series of evaluative criteria for qualitative researchers, arguing that their choice of criteria needs to be compatible with the unique nature of the research in question (its methodology, aims, and assumptions). This review aims to assist researchers in identifying some of the indispensable features or markers of high-quality qualitative research. In a nutshell, the purpose of this systematic literature review is to analyze the existing knowledge on high-quality qualitative research and to verify the existence of research studies dealing with the critical assessment of qualitative research based on the concept of diverse paradigmatic stances. Contrary to the existing reviews, this review also suggests some critical directions to follow to improve the quality of qualitative research in different epistemological and ontological perspectives. This review is also intended to provide guidelines for the acceleration of future developments and dialogues among qualitative researchers in the context of assessing the qualitative research.
The rest of this review article is structured in the following fashion: Sect. Methods describes the method followed for performing this review. Section Criteria for Evaluating Qualitative Studies provides a comprehensive description of the criteria for evaluating qualitative studies. This section is followed by a summary of the strategies to improve the quality of qualitative research in Sect. Improving Quality: Strategies . Section How to Assess the Quality of the Research Findings? provides details on how to assess the quality of the research findings. After that, some of the quality checklists (as tools to evaluate quality) are discussed in Sect. Quality Checklists: Tools for Assessing the Quality . At last, the review ends with the concluding remarks presented in Sect. Conclusions, Future Directions and Outlook . Some prospects in qualitative research for enhancing its quality and usefulness in the social and techno-scientific research community are also presented in Sect. Conclusions, Future Directions and Outlook .
For this review, a comprehensive literature search was performed from many databases using generic search terms such as Qualitative Research , Criteria , etc . The following databases were chosen for the literature search based on the high number of results: IEEE Explore, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The following keywords (and their combinations using Boolean connectives OR/AND) were adopted for the literature search: qualitative research, criteria, quality, assessment, and validity. The synonyms for these keywords were collected and arranged in a logical structure (see Table 1 ). All publications in journals and conference proceedings later than 1950 till 2021 were considered for the search. Other articles extracted from the references of the papers identified in the electronic search were also included. A large number of publications on qualitative research were retrieved during the initial screening. Hence, to include the searches with the main focus on criteria for good qualitative research, an inclusion criterion was utilized in the search string.
From the selected databases, the search retrieved a total of 765 publications. Then, the duplicate records were removed. After that, based on the title and abstract, the remaining 426 publications were screened for their relevance by using the following inclusion and exclusion criteria (see Table 2 ). Publications focusing on evaluation criteria for good qualitative research were included, whereas those works which delivered theoretical concepts on qualitative research were excluded. Based on the screening and eligibility, 45 research articles were identified that offered explicit criteria for evaluating the quality of qualitative research and were found to be relevant to this review.
Figure 1 illustrates the complete review process in the form of PRISMA flow diagram. PRISMA, i.e., “preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses” is employed in systematic reviews to refine the quality of reporting.
PRISMA flow diagram illustrating the search and inclusion process. N represents the number of records
Fundamental criteria: general research quality.
Various researchers have put forward criteria for evaluating qualitative research, which have been summarized in Table 3 . Also, the criteria outlined in Table 4 effectively deliver the various approaches to evaluate and assess the quality of qualitative work. The entries in Table 4 are based on Tracy’s “Eight big‐tent criteria for excellent qualitative research” (Tracy, 2010 ). Tracy argues that high-quality qualitative work should formulate criteria focusing on the worthiness, relevance, timeliness, significance, morality, and practicality of the research topic, and the ethical stance of the research itself. Researchers have also suggested a series of questions as guiding principles to assess the quality of a qualitative study (Mays & Pope, 2020 ). Nassaji ( 2020 ) argues that good qualitative research should be robust, well informed, and thoroughly documented.
All qualitative researchers follow highly abstract principles which bring together beliefs about ontology, epistemology, and methodology. These beliefs govern how the researcher perceives and acts. The net, which encompasses the researcher’s epistemological, ontological, and methodological premises, is referred to as a paradigm, or an interpretive structure, a “Basic set of beliefs that guides action” (Guba, 1990 ). Four major interpretive paradigms structure the qualitative research: positivist and postpositivist, constructivist interpretive, critical (Marxist, emancipatory), and feminist poststructural. The complexity of these four abstract paradigms increases at the level of concrete, specific interpretive communities. Table 5 presents these paradigms and their assumptions, including their criteria for evaluating research, and the typical form that an interpretive or theoretical statement assumes in each paradigm. Moreover, for evaluating qualitative research, quantitative conceptualizations of reliability and validity are proven to be incompatible (Horsburgh, 2003 ). In addition, a series of questions have been put forward in the literature to assist a reviewer (who is proficient in qualitative methods) for meticulous assessment and endorsement of qualitative research (Morse, 2003 ). Hammersley ( 2007 ) also suggests that guiding principles for qualitative research are advantageous, but methodological pluralism should not be simply acknowledged for all qualitative approaches. Seale ( 1999 ) also points out the significance of methodological cognizance in research studies.
Table 5 reflects that criteria for assessing the quality of qualitative research are the aftermath of socio-institutional practices and existing paradigmatic standpoints. Owing to the paradigmatic diversity of qualitative research, a single set of quality criteria is neither possible nor desirable. Hence, the researchers must be reflexive about the criteria they use in the various roles they play within their research community.
Another critical question is “How can the qualitative researchers ensure that the abovementioned quality criteria can be met?” Lincoln and Guba ( 1986 ) delineated several strategies to intensify each criteria of trustworthiness. Other researchers (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ; Shenton, 2004 ) also presented such strategies. A brief description of these strategies is shown in Table 6 .
It is worth mentioning that generalizability is also an integral part of qualitative research (Hays & McKibben, 2021 ). In general, the guiding principle pertaining to generalizability speaks about inducing and comprehending knowledge to synthesize interpretive components of an underlying context. Table 7 summarizes the main metasynthesis steps required to ascertain generalizability in qualitative research.
Figure 2 reflects the crucial components of a conceptual framework and their contribution to decisions regarding research design, implementation, and applications of results to future thinking, study, and practice (Johnson et al., 2020 ). The synergy and interrelationship of these components signifies their role to different stances of a qualitative research study.
Essential elements of a conceptual framework
In a nutshell, to assess the rationale of a study, its conceptual framework and research question(s), quality criteria must take account of the following: lucid context for the problem statement in the introduction; well-articulated research problems and questions; precise conceptual framework; distinct research purpose; and clear presentation and investigation of the paradigms. These criteria would expedite the quality of qualitative research.
The inclusion of quotes or similar research data enhances the confirmability in the write-up of the findings. The use of expressions (for instance, “80% of all respondents agreed that” or “only one of the interviewees mentioned that”) may also quantify qualitative findings (Stenfors et al., 2020 ). On the other hand, the persuasive reason for “why this may not help in intensifying the research” has also been provided (Monrouxe & Rees, 2020 ). Further, the Discussion and Conclusion sections of an article also prove robust markers of high-quality qualitative research, as elucidated in Table 8 .
Numerous checklists are available to speed up the assessment of the quality of qualitative research. However, if used uncritically and recklessly concerning the research context, these checklists may be counterproductive. I recommend that such lists and guiding principles may assist in pinpointing the markers of high-quality qualitative research. However, considering enormous variations in the authors’ theoretical and philosophical contexts, I would emphasize that high dependability on such checklists may say little about whether the findings can be applied in your setting. A combination of such checklists might be appropriate for novice researchers. Some of these checklists are listed below:
The most commonly used framework is Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) (Tong et al., 2007 ). This framework is recommended by some journals to be followed by the authors during article submission.
Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) is another checklist that has been created particularly for medical education (O’Brien et al., 2014 ).
Also, Tracy ( 2010 ) and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP, 2021 ) offer criteria for qualitative research relevant across methods and approaches.
Further, researchers have also outlined different criteria as hallmarks of high-quality qualitative research. For instance, the “Road Trip Checklist” (Epp & Otnes, 2021 ) provides a quick reference to specific questions to address different elements of high-quality qualitative research.
This work presents a broad review of the criteria for good qualitative research. In addition, this article presents an exploratory analysis of the essential elements in qualitative research that can enable the readers of qualitative work to judge it as good research when objectively and adequately utilized. In this review, some of the essential markers that indicate high-quality qualitative research have been highlighted. I scope them narrowly to achieve rigor in qualitative research and note that they do not completely cover the broader considerations necessary for high-quality research. This review points out that a universal and versatile one-size-fits-all guideline for evaluating the quality of qualitative research does not exist. In other words, this review also emphasizes the non-existence of a set of common guidelines among qualitative researchers. In unison, this review reinforces that each qualitative approach should be treated uniquely on account of its own distinctive features for different epistemological and disciplinary positions. Owing to the sensitivity of the worth of qualitative research towards the specific context and the type of paradigmatic stance, researchers should themselves analyze what approaches can be and must be tailored to ensemble the distinct characteristics of the phenomenon under investigation. Although this article does not assert to put forward a magic bullet and to provide a one-stop solution for dealing with dilemmas about how, why, or whether to evaluate the “goodness” of qualitative research, it offers a platform to assist the researchers in improving their qualitative studies. This work provides an assembly of concerns to reflect on, a series of questions to ask, and multiple sets of criteria to look at, when attempting to determine the quality of qualitative research. Overall, this review underlines the crux of qualitative research and accentuates the need to evaluate such research by the very tenets of its being. Bringing together the vital arguments and delineating the requirements that good qualitative research should satisfy, this review strives to equip the researchers as well as reviewers to make well-versed judgment about the worth and significance of the qualitative research under scrutiny. In a nutshell, a comprehensive portrayal of the research process (from the context of research to the research objectives, research questions and design, speculative foundations, and from approaches of collecting data to analyzing the results, to deriving inferences) frequently proliferates the quality of a qualitative research.
Irrefutably, qualitative research is a vivacious and evolving discipline wherein different epistemological and disciplinary positions have their own characteristics and importance. In addition, not surprisingly, owing to the sprouting and varied features of qualitative research, no consensus has been pulled off till date. Researchers have reflected various concerns and proposed several recommendations for editors and reviewers on conducting reviews of critical qualitative research (Levitt et al., 2021 ; McGinley et al., 2021 ). Following are some prospects and a few recommendations put forward towards the maturation of qualitative research and its quality evaluation:
In general, most of the manuscript and grant reviewers are not qualitative experts. Hence, it is more likely that they would prefer to adopt a broad set of criteria. However, researchers and reviewers need to keep in mind that it is inappropriate to utilize the same approaches and conducts among all qualitative research. Therefore, future work needs to focus on educating researchers and reviewers about the criteria to evaluate qualitative research from within the suitable theoretical and methodological context.
There is an urgent need to refurbish and augment critical assessment of some well-known and widely accepted tools (including checklists such as COREQ, SRQR) to interrogate their applicability on different aspects (along with their epistemological ramifications).
Efforts should be made towards creating more space for creativity, experimentation, and a dialogue between the diverse traditions of qualitative research. This would potentially help to avoid the enforcement of one's own set of quality criteria on the work carried out by others.
Moreover, journal reviewers need to be aware of various methodological practices and philosophical debates.
It is pivotal to highlight the expressions and considerations of qualitative researchers and bring them into a more open and transparent dialogue about assessing qualitative research in techno-scientific, academic, sociocultural, and political rooms.
Frequent debates on the use of evaluative criteria are required to solve some potentially resolved issues (including the applicability of a single set of criteria in multi-disciplinary aspects). Such debates would not only benefit the group of qualitative researchers themselves, but primarily assist in augmenting the well-being and vivacity of the entire discipline.
To conclude, I speculate that the criteria, and my perspective, may transfer to other methods, approaches, and contexts. I hope that they spark dialog and debate – about criteria for excellent qualitative research and the underpinnings of the discipline more broadly – and, therefore, help improve the quality of a qualitative study. Further, I anticipate that this review will assist the researchers to contemplate on the quality of their own research, to substantiate research design and help the reviewers to review qualitative research for journals. On a final note, I pinpoint the need to formulate a framework (encompassing the prerequisites of a qualitative study) by the cohesive efforts of qualitative researchers of different disciplines with different theoretic-paradigmatic origins. I believe that tailoring such a framework (of guiding principles) paves the way for qualitative researchers to consolidate the status of qualitative research in the wide-ranging open science debate. Dialogue on this issue across different approaches is crucial for the impending prospects of socio-techno-educational research.
Amin, M. E. K., Nørgaard, L. S., Cavaco, A. M., Witry, M. J., Hillman, L., Cernasev, A., & Desselle, S. P. (2020). Establishing trustworthiness and authenticity in qualitative pharmacy research. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 16 (10), 1472–1482.
Article Google Scholar
Barker, C., & Pistrang, N. (2005). Quality criteria under methodological pluralism: Implications for conducting and evaluating research. American Journal of Community Psychology, 35 (3–4), 201–212.
Bryman, A., Becker, S., & Sempik, J. (2008). Quality criteria for quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research: A view from social policy. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11 (4), 261–276.
Caelli, K., Ray, L., & Mill, J. (2003). ‘Clear as mud’: Toward greater clarity in generic qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2 (2), 1–13.
CASP (2021). CASP checklists. Retrieved May 2021 from https://casp-uk.net/casp-tools-checklists/
Cohen, D. J., & Crabtree, B. F. (2008). Evaluative criteria for qualitative research in health care: Controversies and recommendations. The Annals of Family Medicine, 6 (4), 331–339.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 1–32). Sage Publications Ltd.
Google Scholar
Elliott, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (1999). Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38 (3), 215–229.
Epp, A. M., & Otnes, C. C. (2021). High-quality qualitative research: Getting into gear. Journal of Service Research . https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670520961445
Guba, E. G. (1990). The paradigm dialog. In Alternative paradigms conference, mar, 1989, Indiana u, school of education, San Francisco, ca, us . Sage Publications, Inc.
Hammersley, M. (2007). The issue of quality in qualitative research. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 30 (3), 287–305.
Haven, T. L., Errington, T. M., Gleditsch, K. S., van Grootel, L., Jacobs, A. M., Kern, F. G., & Mokkink, L. B. (2020). Preregistering qualitative research: A Delphi study. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19 , 1609406920976417.
Hays, D. G., & McKibben, W. B. (2021). Promoting rigorous research: Generalizability and qualitative research. Journal of Counseling and Development, 99 (2), 178–188.
Horsburgh, D. (2003). Evaluation of qualitative research. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 12 (2), 307–312.
Howe, K. R. (2004). A critique of experimentalism. Qualitative Inquiry, 10 (1), 42–46.
Johnson, J. L., Adkins, D., & Chauvin, S. (2020). A review of the quality indicators of rigor in qualitative research. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 84 (1), 7120.
Johnson, P., Buehring, A., Cassell, C., & Symon, G. (2006). Evaluating qualitative management research: Towards a contingent criteriology. International Journal of Management Reviews, 8 (3), 131–156.
Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 23 (1), 67–93.
Lather, P. (2004). This is your father’s paradigm: Government intrusion and the case of qualitative research in education. Qualitative Inquiry, 10 (1), 15–34.
Levitt, H. M., Morrill, Z., Collins, K. M., & Rizo, J. L. (2021). The methodological integrity of critical qualitative research: Principles to support design and research review. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 68 (3), 357.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1986). But is it rigorous? Trustworthiness and authenticity in naturalistic evaluation. New Directions for Program Evaluation, 1986 (30), 73–84.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (2000). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 163–188). Sage Publications.
Madill, A., Jordan, A., & Shirley, C. (2000). Objectivity and reliability in qualitative analysis: Realist, contextualist and radical constructionist epistemologies. British Journal of Psychology, 91 (1), 1–20.
Mays, N., & Pope, C. (2020). Quality in qualitative research. Qualitative Research in Health Care . https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119410867.ch15
McGinley, S., Wei, W., Zhang, L., & Zheng, Y. (2021). The state of qualitative research in hospitality: A 5-year review 2014 to 2019. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 62 (1), 8–20.
Merriam, S., & Tisdell, E. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, US.
Meyer, M., & Dykes, J. (2019). Criteria for rigor in visualization design study. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 26 (1), 87–97.
Monrouxe, L. V., & Rees, C. E. (2020). When I say… quantification in qualitative research. Medical Education, 54 (3), 186–187.
Morrow, S. L. (2005). Quality and trustworthiness in qualitative research in counseling psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52 (2), 250.
Morse, J. M. (2003). A review committee’s guide for evaluating qualitative proposals. Qualitative Health Research, 13 (6), 833–851.
Nassaji, H. (2020). Good qualitative research. Language Teaching Research, 24 (4), 427–431.
O’Brien, B. C., Harris, I. B., Beckman, T. J., Reed, D. A., & Cook, D. A. (2014). Standards for reporting qualitative research: A synthesis of recommendations. Academic Medicine, 89 (9), 1245–1251.
O’Connor, C., & Joffe, H. (2020). Intercoder reliability in qualitative research: Debates and practical guidelines. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19 , 1609406919899220.
Reid, A., & Gough, S. (2000). Guidelines for reporting and evaluating qualitative research: What are the alternatives? Environmental Education Research, 6 (1), 59–91.
Rocco, T. S. (2010). Criteria for evaluating qualitative studies. Human Resource Development International . https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2010.501959
Sandberg, J. (2000). Understanding human competence at work: An interpretative approach. Academy of Management Journal, 43 (1), 9–25.
Schwandt, T. A. (1996). Farewell to criteriology. Qualitative Inquiry, 2 (1), 58–72.
Seale, C. (1999). Quality in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 5 (4), 465–478.
Shenton, A. K. (2004). Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. Education for Information, 22 (2), 63–75.
Sparkes, A. C. (2001). Myth 94: Qualitative health researchers will agree about validity. Qualitative Health Research, 11 (4), 538–552.
Spencer, L., Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., & Dillon, L. (2004). Quality in qualitative evaluation: A framework for assessing research evidence.
Stenfors, T., Kajamaa, A., & Bennett, D. (2020). How to assess the quality of qualitative research. The Clinical Teacher, 17 (6), 596–599.
Taylor, E. W., Beck, J., & Ainsworth, E. (2001). Publishing qualitative adult education research: A peer review perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 33 (2), 163–179.
Tong, A., Sainsbury, P., & Craig, J. (2007). Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): A 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19 (6), 349–357.
Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16 (10), 837–851.
Download references
Open access funding provided by TU Wien (TUW).
Authors and affiliations.
Faculty of Informatics, Technische Universität Wien, 1040, Vienna, Austria
Drishti Yadav
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Correspondence to Drishti Yadav .
Conflict of interest.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Publisher's note.
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .
Reprints and permissions
Yadav, D. Criteria for Good Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Review. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 31 , 679–689 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-021-00619-0
Download citation
Accepted : 28 August 2021
Published : 18 September 2021
Issue Date : December 2022
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-021-00619-0
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Issue(s) available: 61 – From Volume: 6 Issue: 1 , to Volume: 24 Issue: 4
The objective of this study is to explore Generation Z’s interpretation of educational practices at the secondary education level. By examining the expectations of Generation Z…
This paper centers a decolonial and Indigenous methodological approaches to educational history research. This research offers how Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and…
While higher education has been encouraging interdisciplinary research, few studies have been conducted to understand how interdisciplinarity shapes the identity construction of…
To share the narratives of six Indigenous Researchers representing the diverse thinking of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The narratives describe the impact Decolonizing…
In Decolonizing Methodologies (1999), Linda Tuhiwai Smith asserted that “the master’s tools of colonization will not work to decolonize what the master built.” Smith challenged…
This article focuses on understanding the evolution of the academic identity of a university academic within the contemporary university context, highlighting the significant…
The principal objective of the study is to analyze the influence of ethnicity, culture and collective intelligence in entrepreneurial creativity, innovation and marketing of…
This paper is based on the personal connections of the four authors to Shivaji Park, the largest public space in Mumbai. Three of the authors are childhood friends and were once…
This paper examines the impact of lived experiences and attitudinal blueprints on researchers within the context of masculinities research. It explores the negotiation of gendered…
This study aims to explore individual leader identity development across four key dimensions: strength, integration, meaning and inclusiveness.
Silences in qualitative social science research present a unique and sometimes ambiguous challenge for researchers. When working with transcription artefacts, considering not only…
Previous studies have identified concerns and anxiety in individuals who are without their mobile phones, which is known as nomophobia, an acronym for “no mobile phone phobia.”…
This paper delves into the enduring influence of Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s groundbreaking work, “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples,” while examining how the…
This collaborative paper presents three case studies on four scholars' experiences with remote data collection. The authors highlight the challenges and strengths of online…
This article argues the value of integrating pragmatism in applying behavioural science to complex challenges. We describe a behaviour change-led knowledge co-production process…
This study aims to explore the NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training) experiences of young people living in impoverished settings.
Using a feminist, post-structural and posthuman theoretical framing the paper argues for elevating the complexity of conceptions of migrant children’s engagements with and…
This study aims to explore motives behind teachers' and students' use of translanguaging and how they use it in Tanzanian public secondary school classrooms.
This study aims to describe key elements that are critical to virtual qualitative research especially while working with practitioners as participants.
We articulate cycles of creative storying and data analysis and the wonder that motivated the project by detailing our reading, thinking and writing processes to contribute to the…
In this study, we illuminate how techniques can be incorporated into interview protocols when conducting research with educational leaders who are being asked to discuss their…
Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self…
This study aims to analyze translanguaging practices and beliefs of Iranian English for General Purposes (EGP) teachers and find discrepancies between the practice and perception…
We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity…
The research aims to understand the stories of women leaders who have demonstrated bravery in leadership. By analyzing their lived experiences through storytelling and narratives…
This autoethnographic article presents the adaptation of collage—an arts-based method traditionally used in face-to-face settings—into an online research tool. It emphasizes the…
The aim of this article is to address some aspects of a cross-cultural interview study conducted in a PhD research project. This is done by reflecting on and discussing the…
In ethnographic research, negotiating insider–outsider perspectives is essential in order to get closer to the participants’ lives. By highlighting the importance of empathy and…
This article approaches the possibilities of photo elicitation as a technique for social research in the landscape of technology-mediated instantaneous interpersonal communication.
While many works have reported adopting exploratory practice (EP) principles in language teaching research, only a few studies have explored the enactment of EP in an online…
This paper contributes to a dialogue about the psychoanalytic concept of free association and its application in the context of qualitative research interviewing. In doing so, it…
The following study aimed to better understand rural dwelling LGBTQ+ adults’ experiences of the challenges and opportunities facing their working lives in England.
The purpose of this scoping rapid review was to identify and analyse existing qualitative methodologies that have been used to investigate K-12 teachers' lived experiences of…
The pandemic presented many new challenges is all spheres of life including faith communities. Around the globe, lockdowns took pace at various stages with varying restrictions…
Copyright holder:, open access:.
Please share your general feedback
Contact Customer Support
Introduction, when to use qualitative research, how to judge qualitative research, conclusions, authors' roles, conflict of interest.
K. Hammarberg, M. Kirkman, S. de Lacey, Qualitative research methods: when to use them and how to judge them, Human Reproduction , Volume 31, Issue 3, March 2016, Pages 498–501, https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dev334
In March 2015, an impressive set of guidelines for best practice on how to incorporate psychosocial care in routine infertility care was published by the ESHRE Psychology and Counselling Guideline Development Group ( ESHRE Psychology and Counselling Guideline Development Group, 2015 ). The authors report that the guidelines are based on a comprehensive review of the literature and we congratulate them on their meticulous compilation of evidence into a clinically useful document. However, when we read the methodology section, we were baffled and disappointed to find that evidence from research using qualitative methods was not included in the formulation of the guidelines. Despite stating that ‘qualitative research has significant value to assess the lived experience of infertility and fertility treatment’, the group excluded this body of evidence because qualitative research is ‘not generally hypothesis-driven and not objective/neutral, as the researcher puts him/herself in the position of the participant to understand how the world is from the person's perspective’.
Qualitative and quantitative research methods are often juxtaposed as representing two different world views. In quantitative circles, qualitative research is commonly viewed with suspicion and considered lightweight because it involves small samples which may not be representative of the broader population, it is seen as not objective, and the results are assessed as biased by the researchers' own experiences or opinions. In qualitative circles, quantitative research can be dismissed as over-simplifying individual experience in the cause of generalisation, failing to acknowledge researcher biases and expectations in research design, and requiring guesswork to understand the human meaning of aggregate data.
As social scientists who investigate psychosocial aspects of human reproduction, we use qualitative and quantitative methods, separately or together, depending on the research question. The crucial part is to know when to use what method.
The peer-review process is a pillar of scientific publishing. One of the important roles of reviewers is to assess the scientific rigour of the studies from which authors draw their conclusions. If rigour is lacking, the paper should not be published. As with research using quantitative methods, research using qualitative methods is home to the good, the bad and the ugly. It is essential that reviewers know the difference. Rejection letters are hard to take but more often than not they are based on legitimate critique. However, from time to time it is obvious that the reviewer has little grasp of what constitutes rigour or quality in qualitative research. The first author (K.H.) recently submitted a paper that reported findings from a qualitative study about fertility-related knowledge and information-seeking behaviour among people of reproductive age. In the rejection letter one of the reviewers (not from Human Reproduction ) lamented, ‘Even for a qualitative study, I would expect that some form of confidence interval and paired t-tables analysis, etc. be used to analyse the significance of results'. This comment reveals the reviewer's inappropriate application to qualitative research of criteria relevant only to quantitative research.
In this commentary, we give illustrative examples of questions most appropriately answered using qualitative methods and provide general advice about how to appraise the scientific rigour of qualitative studies. We hope this will help the journal's reviewers and readers appreciate the legitimate place of qualitative research and ensure we do not throw the baby out with the bath water by excluding or rejecting papers simply because they report the results of qualitative studies.
In psychosocial research, ‘quantitative’ research methods are appropriate when ‘factual’ data are required to answer the research question; when general or probability information is sought on opinions, attitudes, views, beliefs or preferences; when variables can be isolated and defined; when variables can be linked to form hypotheses before data collection; and when the question or problem is known, clear and unambiguous. Quantitative methods can reveal, for example, what percentage of the population supports assisted conception, their distribution by age, marital status, residential area and so on, as well as changes from one survey to the next ( Kovacs et al. , 2012 ); the number of donors and donor siblings located by parents of donor-conceived children ( Freeman et al. , 2009 ); and the relationship between the attitude of donor-conceived people to learning of their donor insemination conception and their family ‘type’ (one or two parents, lesbian or heterosexual parents; Beeson et al. , 2011 ).
In contrast, ‘qualitative’ methods are used to answer questions about experience, meaning and perspective, most often from the standpoint of the participant. These data are usually not amenable to counting or measuring. Qualitative research techniques include ‘small-group discussions’ for investigating beliefs, attitudes and concepts of normative behaviour; ‘semi-structured interviews’, to seek views on a focused topic or, with key informants, for background information or an institutional perspective; ‘in-depth interviews’ to understand a condition, experience, or event from a personal perspective; and ‘analysis of texts and documents’, such as government reports, media articles, websites or diaries, to learn about distributed or private knowledge.
Qualitative methods have been used to reveal, for example, potential problems in implementing a proposed trial of elective single embryo transfer, where small-group discussions enabled staff to explain their own resistance, leading to an amended approach ( Porter and Bhattacharya, 2005 ). Small-group discussions among assisted reproductive technology (ART) counsellors were used to investigate how the welfare principle is interpreted and practised by health professionals who must apply it in ART ( de Lacey et al. , 2015 ). When legislative change meant that gamete donors could seek identifying details of people conceived from their gametes, parents needed advice on how best to tell their children. Small-group discussions were convened to ask adolescents (not known to be donor-conceived) to reflect on how they would prefer to be told ( Kirkman et al. , 2007 ).
When a population cannot be identified, such as anonymous sperm donors from the 1980s, a qualitative approach with wide publicity can reach people who do not usually volunteer for research and reveal (for example) their attitudes to proposed legislation to remove anonymity with retrospective effect ( Hammarberg et al. , 2014 ). When researchers invite people to talk about their reflections on experience, they can sometimes learn more than they set out to discover. In describing their responses to proposed legislative change, participants also talked about people conceived as a result of their donations, demonstrating various constructions and expectations of relationships ( Kirkman et al. , 2014 ).
Interviews with parents in lesbian-parented families generated insight into the diverse meanings of the sperm donor in the creation and life of the family ( Wyverkens et al. , 2014 ). Oral and written interviews also revealed the embarrassment and ambivalence surrounding sperm donors evident in participants in donor-assisted conception ( Kirkman, 2004 ). The way in which parents conceptualise unused embryos and why they discard rather than donate was explored and understood via in-depth interviews, showing how and why the meaning of those embryos changed with parenthood ( de Lacey, 2005 ). In-depth interviews were also used to establish the intricate understanding by embryo donors and recipients of the meaning of embryo donation and the families built as a result ( Goedeke et al. , 2015 ).
It is possible to combine quantitative and qualitative methods, although great care should be taken to ensure that the theory behind each method is compatible and that the methods are being used for appropriate reasons. The two methods can be used sequentially (first a quantitative then a qualitative study or vice versa), where the first approach is used to facilitate the design of the second; they can be used in parallel as different approaches to the same question; or a dominant method may be enriched with a small component of an alternative method (such as qualitative interviews ‘nested’ in a large survey). It is important to note that free text in surveys represents qualitative data but does not constitute qualitative research. Qualitative and quantitative methods may be used together for corroboration (hoping for similar outcomes from both methods), elaboration (using qualitative data to explain or interpret quantitative data, or to demonstrate how the quantitative findings apply in particular cases), complementarity (where the qualitative and quantitative results differ but generate complementary insights) or contradiction (where qualitative and quantitative data lead to different conclusions). Each has its advantages and challenges ( Brannen, 2005 ).
Qualitative research is gaining increased momentum in the clinical setting and carries different criteria for evaluating its rigour or quality. Quantitative studies generally involve the systematic collection of data about a phenomenon, using standardized measures and statistical analysis. In contrast, qualitative studies involve the systematic collection, organization, description and interpretation of textual, verbal or visual data. The particular approach taken determines to a certain extent the criteria used for judging the quality of the report. However, research using qualitative methods can be evaluated ( Dixon-Woods et al. , 2006 ; Young et al. , 2014 ) and there are some generic guidelines for assessing qualitative research ( Kitto et al. , 2008 ).
Although the terms ‘reliability’ and ‘validity’ are contentious among qualitative researchers ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ) with some preferring ‘verification’, research integrity and robustness are as important in qualitative studies as they are in other forms of research. It is widely accepted that qualitative research should be ethical, important, intelligibly described, and use appropriate and rigorous methods ( Cohen and Crabtree, 2008 ). In research investigating data that can be counted or measured, replicability is essential. When other kinds of data are gathered in order to answer questions of personal or social meaning, we need to be able to capture real-life experiences, which cannot be identical from one person to the next. Furthermore, meaning is culturally determined and subject to evolutionary change. The way of explaining a phenomenon—such as what it means to use donated gametes—will vary, for example, according to the cultural significance of ‘blood’ or genes, interpretations of marital infidelity and religious constructs of sexual relationships and families. Culture may apply to a country, a community, or other actual or virtual group, and a person may be engaged at various levels of culture. In identifying meaning for members of a particular group, consistency may indeed be found from one research project to another. However, individuals within a cultural group may present different experiences and perceptions or transgress cultural expectations. That does not make them ‘wrong’ or invalidate the research. Rather, it offers insight into diversity and adds a piece to the puzzle to which other researchers also contribute.
In qualitative research the objective stance is obsolete, the researcher is the instrument, and ‘subjects’ become ‘participants’ who may contribute to data interpretation and analysis ( Denzin and Lincoln, 1998 ). Qualitative researchers defend the integrity of their work by different means: trustworthiness, credibility, applicability and consistency are the evaluative criteria ( Leininger, 1994 ).
A report of a qualitative study should contain the same robust procedural description as any other study. The purpose of the research, how it was conducted, procedural decisions, and details of data generation and management should be transparent and explicit. A reviewer should be able to follow the progression of events and decisions and understand their logic because there is adequate description, explanation and justification of the methodology and methods ( Kitto et al. , 2008 )
Credibility is the criterion for evaluating the truth value or internal validity of qualitative research. A qualitative study is credible when its results, presented with adequate descriptions of context, are recognizable to people who share the experience and those who care for or treat them. As the instrument in qualitative research, the researcher defends its credibility through practices such as reflexivity (reflection on the influence of the researcher on the research), triangulation (where appropriate, answering the research question in several ways, such as through interviews, observation and documentary analysis) and substantial description of the interpretation process; verbatim quotations from the data are supplied to illustrate and support their interpretations ( Sandelowski, 1986 ). Where excerpts of data and interpretations are incongruent, the credibility of the study is in doubt.
Applicability, or transferability of the research findings, is the criterion for evaluating external validity. A study is considered to meet the criterion of applicability when its findings can fit into contexts outside the study situation and when clinicians and researchers view the findings as meaningful and applicable in their own experiences.
Larger sample sizes do not produce greater applicability. Depth may be sacrificed to breadth or there may be too much data for adequate analysis. Sample sizes in qualitative research are typically small. The term ‘saturation’ is often used in reference to decisions about sample size in research using qualitative methods. Emerging from grounded theory, where filling theoretical categories is considered essential to the robustness of the developing theory, data saturation has been expanded to describe a situation where data tend towards repetition or where data cease to offer new directions and raise new questions ( Charmaz, 2005 ). However, the legitimacy of saturation as a generic marker of sampling adequacy has been questioned ( O'Reilly and Parker, 2013 ). Caution must be exercised to ensure that a commitment to saturation does not assume an ‘essence’ of an experience in which limited diversity is anticipated; each account is likely to be subtly different and each ‘sample’ will contribute to knowledge without telling the whole story. Increasingly, it is expected that researchers will report the kind of saturation they have applied and their criteria for recognising its achievement; an assessor will need to judge whether the choice is appropriate and consistent with the theoretical context within which the research has been conducted.
Sampling strategies are usually purposive, convenient, theoretical or snowballed. Maximum variation sampling may be used to seek representation of diverse perspectives on the topic. Homogeneous sampling may be used to recruit a group of participants with specified criteria. The threat of bias is irrelevant; participants are recruited and selected specifically because they can illuminate the phenomenon being studied. Rather than being predetermined by statistical power analysis, qualitative study samples are dependent on the nature of the data, the availability of participants and where those data take the investigator. Multiple data collections may also take place to obtain maximum insight into sensitive topics. For instance, the question of how decisions are made for embryo disposition may involve sampling within the patient group as well as from scientists, clinicians, counsellors and clinic administrators.
Consistency, or dependability of the results, is the criterion for assessing reliability. This does not mean that the same result would necessarily be found in other contexts but that, given the same data, other researchers would find similar patterns. Researchers often seek maximum variation in the experience of a phenomenon, not only to illuminate it but also to discourage fulfilment of limited researcher expectations (for example, negative cases or instances that do not fit the emerging interpretation or theory should be actively sought and explored). Qualitative researchers sometimes describe the processes by which verification of the theoretical findings by another team member takes place ( Morse and Richards, 2002 ).
Research that uses qualitative methods is not, as it seems sometimes to be represented, the easy option, nor is it a collation of anecdotes. It usually involves a complex theoretical or philosophical framework. Rigorous analysis is conducted without the aid of straightforward mathematical rules. Researchers must demonstrate the validity of their analysis and conclusions, resulting in longer papers and occasional frustration with the word limits of appropriate journals. Nevertheless, we need the different kinds of evidence that is generated by qualitative methods. The experience of health, illness and medical intervention cannot always be counted and measured; researchers need to understand what they mean to individuals and groups. Knowledge gained from qualitative research methods can inform clinical practice, indicate how to support people living with chronic conditions and contribute to community education and awareness about people who are (for example) experiencing infertility or using assisted conception.
Each author drafted a section of the manuscript and the manuscript as a whole was reviewed and revised by all authors in consultation.
No external funding was either sought or obtained for this study.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Beeson D , Jennings P , Kramer W . Offspring searching for their sperm donors: how family types shape the process . Hum Reprod 2011 ; 26 : 2415 – 2424 .
Google Scholar
Brannen J . Mixing methods: the entry of qualitative and quantitative approaches into the research process . Int J Soc Res Methodol 2005 ; 8 : 173 – 184 .
Charmaz K . Grounded Theory in the 21st century; applications for advancing social justice studies . In: Denzin NK , Lincoln YS (eds). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research . California : Sage Publications Inc. , 2005 .
Google Preview
Cohen D , Crabtree B . Evaluative criteria for qualitative research in health care: controversies and recommendations . Ann Fam Med 2008 ; 6 : 331 – 339 .
de Lacey S . Parent identity and ‘virtual’ children: why patients discard rather than donate unused embryos . Hum Reprod 2005 ; 20 : 1661 – 1669 .
de Lacey SL , Peterson K , McMillan J . Child interests in assisted reproductive technology: how is the welfare principle applied in practice? Hum Reprod 2015 ; 30 : 616 – 624 .
Denzin N , Lincoln Y . Entering the field of qualitative research . In: Denzin NK , Lincoln YS (eds). The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues . Thousand Oaks : Sage , 1998 , 1 – 34 .
Dixon-Woods M , Bonas S , Booth A , Jones DR , Miller T , Shaw RL , Smith JA , Young B . How can systematic reviews incorporate qualitative research? A critical perspective . Qual Res 2006 ; 6 : 27 – 44 .
ESHRE Psychology and Counselling Guideline Development Group . Routine Psychosocial Care in Infertility and Medically Assisted Reproduction: A Guide for Fertility Staff , 2015 . http://www.eshre.eu/Guidelines-and-Legal/Guidelines/Psychosocial-care-guideline.aspx .
Freeman T , Jadva V , Kramer W , Golombok S . Gamete donation: parents' experiences of searching for their child's donor siblings or donor . Hum Reprod 2009 ; 24 : 505 – 516 .
Goedeke S , Daniels K , Thorpe M , Du Preez E . Building extended families through embryo donation: the experiences of donors and recipients . Hum Reprod 2015 ; 30 : 2340 – 2350 .
Hammarberg K , Johnson L , Bourne K , Fisher J , Kirkman M . Proposed legislative change mandating retrospective release of identifying information: consultation with donors and Government response . Hum Reprod 2014 ; 29 : 286 – 292 .
Kirkman M . Saviours and satyrs: ambivalence in narrative meanings of sperm provision . Cult Health Sex 2004 ; 6 : 319 – 336 .
Kirkman M , Rosenthal D , Johnson L . Families working it out: adolescents' views on communicating about donor-assisted conception . Hum Reprod 2007 ; 22 : 2318 – 2324 .
Kirkman M , Bourne K , Fisher J , Johnson L , Hammarberg K . Gamete donors' expectations and experiences of contact with their donor offspring . Hum Reprod 2014 ; 29 : 731 – 738 .
Kitto S , Chesters J , Grbich C . Quality in qualitative research . Med J Aust 2008 ; 188 : 243 – 246 .
Kovacs GT , Morgan G , Levine M , McCrann J . The Australian community overwhelmingly approves IVF to treat subfertility, with increasing support over three decades . Aust N Z J Obstetr Gynaecol 2012 ; 52 : 302 – 304 .
Leininger M . Evaluation criteria and critique of qualitative research studies . In: Morse J (ed). Critical Issues in Qualitative Research Methods . Thousand Oaks : Sage , 1994 , 95 – 115 .
Lincoln YS , Guba EG . Naturalistic Inquiry . Newbury Park, CA : Sage Publications , 1985 .
Morse J , Richards L . Readme First for a Users Guide to Qualitative Methods . Thousand Oaks : Sage , 2002 .
O'Reilly M , Parker N . ‘Unsatisfactory saturation’: a critical exploration of the notion of saturated sample sizes in qualitative research . Qual Res 2013 ; 13 : 190 – 197 .
Porter M , Bhattacharya S . Investigation of staff and patients' opinions of a proposed trial of elective single embryo transfer . Hum Reprod 2005 ; 20 : 2523 – 2530 .
Sandelowski M . The problem of rigor in qualitative research . Adv Nurs Sci 1986 ; 8 : 27 – 37 .
Wyverkens E , Provoost V , Ravelingien A , De Sutter P , Pennings G , Buysse A . Beyond sperm cells: a qualitative study on constructed meanings of the sperm donor in lesbian families . Hum Reprod 2014 ; 29 : 1248 – 1254 .
Young K , Fisher J , Kirkman M . Women's experiences of endometriosis: a systematic review of qualitative research . J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 2014 ; 41 : 225 – 234 .
Month: | Total Views: |
---|---|
December 2016 | 1 |
January 2017 | 4 |
February 2017 | 41 |
March 2017 | 82 |
April 2017 | 111 |
May 2017 | 88 |
June 2017 | 71 |
July 2017 | 73 |
August 2017 | 92 |
September 2017 | 59 |
October 2017 | 76 |
November 2017 | 84 |
December 2017 | 179 |
January 2018 | 177 |
February 2018 | 235 |
March 2018 | 377 |
April 2018 | 504 |
May 2018 | 914 |
June 2018 | 1,052 |
July 2018 | 2,122 |
August 2018 | 4,606 |
September 2018 | 5,764 |
October 2018 | 7,844 |
November 2018 | 11,701 |
December 2018 | 8,722 |
January 2019 | 10,884 |
February 2019 | 10,938 |
March 2019 | 13,846 |
April 2019 | 17,949 |
May 2019 | 17,333 |
June 2019 | 12,257 |
July 2019 | 12,485 |
August 2019 | 14,138 |
September 2019 | 11,868 |
October 2019 | 13,410 |
November 2019 | 17,044 |
December 2019 | 12,312 |
January 2020 | 14,664 |
February 2020 | 15,928 |
March 2020 | 16,475 |
April 2020 | 22,019 |
May 2020 | 12,941 |
June 2020 | 15,155 |
July 2020 | 13,648 |
August 2020 | 12,338 |
September 2020 | 12,599 |
October 2020 | 13,599 |
November 2020 | 12,718 |
December 2020 | 10,484 |
January 2021 | 11,352 |
February 2021 | 12,734 |
March 2021 | 15,285 |
April 2021 | 14,133 |
May 2021 | 12,930 |
June 2021 | 8,304 |
July 2021 | 7,175 |
August 2021 | 7,738 |
September 2021 | 7,781 |
October 2021 | 7,080 |
November 2021 | 7,031 |
December 2021 | 5,549 |
January 2022 | 6,326 |
February 2022 | 6,135 |
March 2022 | 9,371 |
April 2022 | 10,448 |
May 2022 | 10,467 |
June 2022 | 6,905 |
July 2022 | 5,981 |
August 2022 | 7,254 |
September 2022 | 7,249 |
October 2022 | 7,709 |
November 2022 | 7,660 |
December 2022 | 6,075 |
January 2023 | 6,936 |
February 2023 | 7,205 |
March 2023 | 8,530 |
April 2023 | 8,302 |
May 2023 | 7,630 |
June 2023 | 5,434 |
July 2023 | 4,658 |
August 2023 | 5,289 |
September 2023 | 4,781 |
October 2023 | 6,221 |
November 2023 | 6,384 |
December 2023 | 4,798 |
January 2024 | 5,907 |
February 2024 | 5,875 |
March 2024 | 8,614 |
April 2024 | 8,526 |
May 2024 | 7,309 |
June 2024 | 4,280 |
July 2024 | 3,615 |
August 2024 | 2,924 |
Citing articles via.
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide
Sign In or Create an Account
This PDF is available to Subscribers Only
For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.
Preview this book.
Qualitative Research publishes papers with a clear methodological focus. We invite scholarship that has multi-disciplinary appeal, that debates and enlivens qualitative methods, and that pushes at the boundaries of established ways of doing qualitative research. We are interested in papers that are attentive to a wide audience, that are alive to new and diverse ways of thinking about qualitative methods, and that contribute to discussions within the pages of this journal. These discussions can be brought to life through empirical studies and research encounters, but we do not accept papers that focus on reporting the findings from qualitative research studies.
We see our journal as contributing to the community of academics across different fields who use qualitative methods as a way of making sense of the world. We understand methods and methodology as a practice and as a perspective, and welcome contributions that reflect on and critically engage with both aspects. Qualitative Research is a space where ideas and understandings are used to open up methodological issues for reflection and debate, and we work hard to provide a supportive environment to foster this ethos.
Cardiff University, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK |
University of Auckland, New Zealand | |
University of South Carolina, USA | |
University of Leeds, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
University of Surrey, UK | |
Griffith University, Australia | |
University of New Brunswick, Canada | |
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK | |
University of Bath, UK | |
University of Newcastle, Australia | |
University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
Exeter University, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
Brock University, Canada | |
EMLYON Business School, France | |
The Open University, UK | |
Bowling Green State University, USA | |
University of Surrey, UK | |
University of Macau, China | |
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK | |
Freie Universtität Berlin, Germany | |
University of Georgia, USA | |
Edge Hill University, UK | |
University of Georgia, USA | |
Universidad Santo Tomás, Columbia | |
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong | |
Brunel University, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
University of Oulu, Finland | |
University of Lincoln, UK | |
University of Surrey, UK | |
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
Concordia University, Canada | |
LSE, UK and University of Oxford, UK | |
Exeter University, UK | |
King’s College London, UK | |
University of Bristol, UK | |
McMaster University, Canada | |
University of Oslo, Norway | |
University of the Free State, South Africa | |
McGill University, Canada | |
University of Nottingham, UK | |
University of Kent, UK | |
Newman University, Birmingham, USA | |
Athabasca University, Canada | |
The University of Queensland, Australia | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany | |
University of Calgary, Canada | |
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA | |
LSE, UK | |
Newcastle University, UK | |
University of Melbourne | |
University of the South Pacific, Fiji Islands | |
Victoria University, Australia | |
Australian Catholic University, Australia | |
University of Brighton, UK | |
King's College London, UK | |
University College Cork, Ireland | |
University of Memphis, USA | |
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK | |
University of the West of Scotland, UK | |
Rutgers University, USA | |
University of Queensland, Australia | |
University of Southern Queensland, Australia | |
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka | |
University of Canterbury, New Zealand | |
Newcastle University, UK | |
University of Melbourne, Australia | |
Massey University, New Zealand | |
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico | |
University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA | |
University of Georgia, USA | |
University of Sheffield, UK | |
University of Agder, Norway | |
Migration Institute of Finland, Finland | |
University of Sussex, UK | |
The University of Sheffield, UK | |
Drexel University, USA | |
University of Sheffield, UK | |
Cardiff University, UK | |
University of Birmingham, UK | |
University of Fort Hare, South Africa | |
Ritsumeikan University, Japan | |
University of Greenwich, UK | |
Royal Roads University, Canada | |
King’s College London, UK | |
UNSW, Australia | |
University of Cambridge, UK | |
Griffith University, Australia | |
University of Salford, UK | |
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK |
Manuscript submission guidelines can be accessed on Sage Journals.
Individual Subscription, Print Only
Institutional Subscription, E-access
Institutional Subscription, Print Only
Institutional Subscription, Combined (Print & E-access)
Individual, Single Print Issue
Institutional, Single Print Issue
To order single issues of this journal, please contact SAGE Customer Services at 1-800-818-7243 / 1-805-583-9774 with details of the volume and issue you would like to purchase.
Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.
Unit 6: Qual vs Quant.
Qualitative methods in communication research.
In communication research, both quantitative and qualitative methods are essential for understanding different aspects of communication processes and effects. Here’s how qual methods can be applied:
Communication Research in Real Life Copyright © 2023 by Kate Magsamen-Conrad. All Rights Reserved.
An official website of the United States government
The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.
The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .
Introduction.
In an earlier paper, 1 we presented an introduction to using qualitative research methods in pharmacy practice. In this article, we review some principles of the collection, analysis, and management of qualitative data to help pharmacists interested in doing research in their practice to continue their learning in this area. Qualitative research can help researchers to access the thoughts and feelings of research participants, which can enable development of an understanding of the meaning that people ascribe to their experiences. Whereas quantitative research methods can be used to determine how many people undertake particular behaviours, qualitative methods can help researchers to understand how and why such behaviours take place. Within the context of pharmacy practice research, qualitative approaches have been used to examine a diverse array of topics, including the perceptions of key stakeholders regarding prescribing by pharmacists and the postgraduation employment experiences of young pharmacists (see “Further Reading” section at the end of this article).
In the previous paper, 1 we outlined 3 commonly used methodologies: ethnography 2 , grounded theory 3 , and phenomenology. 4 Briefly, ethnography involves researchers using direct observation to study participants in their “real life” environment, sometimes over extended periods. Grounded theory and its later modified versions (e.g., Strauss and Corbin 5 ) use face-to-face interviews and interactions such as focus groups to explore a particular research phenomenon and may help in clarifying a less-well-understood problem, situation, or context. Phenomenology shares some features with grounded theory (such as an exploration of participants’ behaviour) and uses similar techniques to collect data, but it focuses on understanding how human beings experience their world. It gives researchers the opportunity to put themselves in another person’s shoes and to understand the subjective experiences of participants. 6 Some researchers use qualitative methodologies but adopt a different standpoint, and an example of this appears in the work of Thurston and others, 7 discussed later in this paper.
Qualitative work requires reflection on the part of researchers, both before and during the research process, as a way of providing context and understanding for readers. When being reflexive, researchers should not try to simply ignore or avoid their own biases (as this would likely be impossible); instead, reflexivity requires researchers to reflect upon and clearly articulate their position and subjectivities (world view, perspectives, biases), so that readers can better understand the filters through which questions were asked, data were gathered and analyzed, and findings were reported. From this perspective, bias and subjectivity are not inherently negative but they are unavoidable; as a result, it is best that they be articulated up-front in a manner that is clear and coherent for readers.
What qualitative study seeks to convey is why people have thoughts and feelings that might affect the way they behave. Such study may occur in any number of contexts, but here, we focus on pharmacy practice and the way people behave with regard to medicines use (e.g., to understand patients’ reasons for nonadherence with medication therapy or to explore physicians’ resistance to pharmacists’ clinical suggestions). As we suggested in our earlier article, 1 an important point about qualitative research is that there is no attempt to generalize the findings to a wider population. Qualitative research is used to gain insights into people’s feelings and thoughts, which may provide the basis for a future stand-alone qualitative study or may help researchers to map out survey instruments for use in a quantitative study. It is also possible to use different types of research in the same study, an approach known as “mixed methods” research, and further reading on this topic may be found at the end of this paper.
The role of the researcher in qualitative research is to attempt to access the thoughts and feelings of study participants. This is not an easy task, as it involves asking people to talk about things that may be very personal to them. Sometimes the experiences being explored are fresh in the participant’s mind, whereas on other occasions reliving past experiences may be difficult. However the data are being collected, a primary responsibility of the researcher is to safeguard participants and their data. Mechanisms for such safeguarding must be clearly articulated to participants and must be approved by a relevant research ethics review board before the research begins. Researchers and practitioners new to qualitative research should seek advice from an experienced qualitative researcher before embarking on their project.
Whatever philosophical standpoint the researcher is taking and whatever the data collection method (e.g., focus group, one-to-one interviews), the process will involve the generation of large amounts of data. In addition to the variety of study methodologies available, there are also different ways of making a record of what is said and done during an interview or focus group, such as taking handwritten notes or video-recording. If the researcher is audio- or video-recording data collection, then the recordings must be transcribed verbatim before data analysis can begin. As a rough guide, it can take an experienced researcher/transcriber 8 hours to transcribe one 45-minute audio-recorded interview, a process than will generate 20–30 pages of written dialogue.
Many researchers will also maintain a folder of “field notes” to complement audio-taped interviews. Field notes allow the researcher to maintain and comment upon impressions, environmental contexts, behaviours, and nonverbal cues that may not be adequately captured through the audio-recording; they are typically handwritten in a small notebook at the same time the interview takes place. Field notes can provide important context to the interpretation of audio-taped data and can help remind the researcher of situational factors that may be important during data analysis. Such notes need not be formal, but they should be maintained and secured in a similar manner to audio tapes and transcripts, as they contain sensitive information and are relevant to the research. For more information about collecting qualitative data, please see the “Further Reading” section at the end of this paper.
If, as suggested earlier, doing qualitative research is about putting oneself in another person’s shoes and seeing the world from that person’s perspective, the most important part of data analysis and management is to be true to the participants. It is their voices that the researcher is trying to hear, so that they can be interpreted and reported on for others to read and learn from. To illustrate this point, consider the anonymized transcript excerpt presented in Appendix 1 , which is taken from a research interview conducted by one of the authors (J.S.). We refer to this excerpt throughout the remainder of this paper to illustrate how data can be managed, analyzed, and presented.
Interpretation of the data will depend on the theoretical standpoint taken by researchers. For example, the title of the research report by Thurston and others, 7 “Discordant indigenous and provider frames explain challenges in improving access to arthritis care: a qualitative study using constructivist grounded theory,” indicates at least 2 theoretical standpoints. The first is the culture of the indigenous population of Canada and the place of this population in society, and the second is the social constructivist theory used in the constructivist grounded theory method. With regard to the first standpoint, it can be surmised that, to have decided to conduct the research, the researchers must have felt that there was anecdotal evidence of differences in access to arthritis care for patients from indigenous and non-indigenous backgrounds. With regard to the second standpoint, it can be surmised that the researchers used social constructivist theory because it assumes that behaviour is socially constructed; in other words, people do things because of the expectations of those in their personal world or in the wider society in which they live. (Please see the “Further Reading” section for resources providing more information about social constructivist theory and reflexivity.) Thus, these 2 standpoints (and there may have been others relevant to the research of Thurston and others 7 ) will have affected the way in which these researchers interpreted the experiences of the indigenous population participants and those providing their care. Another standpoint is feminist standpoint theory which, among other things, focuses on marginalized groups in society. Such theories are helpful to researchers, as they enable us to think about things from a different perspective. Being aware of the standpoints you are taking in your own research is one of the foundations of qualitative work. Without such awareness, it is easy to slip into interpreting other people’s narratives from your own viewpoint, rather than that of the participants.
To analyze the example in Appendix 1 , we will adopt a phenomenological approach because we want to understand how the participant experienced the illness and we want to try to see the experience from that person’s perspective. It is important for the researcher to reflect upon and articulate his or her starting point for such analysis; for example, in the example, the coder could reflect upon her own experience as a female of a majority ethnocultural group who has lived within middle class and upper middle class settings. This personal history therefore forms the filter through which the data will be examined. This filter does not diminish the quality or significance of the analysis, since every researcher has his or her own filters; however, by explicitly stating and acknowledging what these filters are, the researcher makes it easer for readers to contextualize the work.
For the purposes of this paper it is assumed that interviews or focus groups have been audio-recorded. As mentioned above, transcribing is an arduous process, even for the most experienced transcribers, but it must be done to convert the spoken word to the written word to facilitate analysis. For anyone new to conducting qualitative research, it is beneficial to transcribe at least one interview and one focus group. It is only by doing this that researchers realize how difficult the task is, and this realization affects their expectations when asking others to transcribe. If the research project has sufficient funding, then a professional transcriber can be hired to do the work. If this is the case, then it is a good idea to sit down with the transcriber, if possible, and talk through the research and what the participants were talking about. This background knowledge for the transcriber is especially important in research in which people are using jargon or medical terms (as in pharmacy practice). Involving your transcriber in this way makes the work both easier and more rewarding, as he or she will feel part of the team. Transcription editing software is also available, but it is expensive. For example, ELAN (more formally known as EUDICO Linguistic Annotator, developed at the Technical University of Berlin) 8 is a tool that can help keep data organized by linking media and data files (particularly valuable if, for example, video-taping of interviews is complemented by transcriptions). It can also be helpful in searching complex data sets. Products such as ELAN do not actually automatically transcribe interviews or complete analyses, and they do require some time and effort to learn; nonetheless, for some research applications, it may be a valuable to consider such software tools.
All audio recordings should be transcribed verbatim, regardless of how intelligible the transcript may be when it is read back. Lines of text should be numbered. Once the transcription is complete, the researcher should read it while listening to the recording and do the following: correct any spelling or other errors; anonymize the transcript so that the participant cannot be identified from anything that is said (e.g., names, places, significant events); insert notations for pauses, laughter, looks of discomfort; insert any punctuation, such as commas and full stops (periods) (see Appendix 1 for examples of inserted punctuation), and include any other contextual information that might have affected the participant (e.g., temperature or comfort of the room).
Dealing with the transcription of a focus group is slightly more difficult, as multiple voices are involved. One way of transcribing such data is to “tag” each voice (e.g., Voice A, Voice B). In addition, the focus group will usually have 2 facilitators, whose respective roles will help in making sense of the data. While one facilitator guides participants through the topic, the other can make notes about context and group dynamics. More information about group dynamics and focus groups can be found in resources listed in the “Further Reading” section.
During the process outlined above, the researcher can begin to get a feel for the participant’s experience of the phenomenon in question and can start to think about things that could be pursued in subsequent interviews or focus groups (if appropriate). In this way, one participant’s narrative informs the next, and the researcher can continue to interview until nothing new is being heard or, as it says in the text books, “saturation is reached”. While continuing with the processes of coding and theming (described in the next 2 sections), it is important to consider not just what the person is saying but also what they are not saying. For example, is a lengthy pause an indication that the participant is finding the subject difficult, or is the person simply deciding what to say? The aim of the whole process from data collection to presentation is to tell the participants’ stories using exemplars from their own narratives, thus grounding the research findings in the participants’ lived experiences.
Smith 9 suggested a qualitative research method known as interpretative phenomenological analysis, which has 2 basic tenets: first, that it is rooted in phenomenology, attempting to understand the meaning that individuals ascribe to their lived experiences, and second, that the researcher must attempt to interpret this meaning in the context of the research. That the researcher has some knowledge and expertise in the subject of the research means that he or she can have considerable scope in interpreting the participant’s experiences. Larkin and others 10 discussed the importance of not just providing a description of what participants say. Rather, interpretative phenomenological analysis is about getting underneath what a person is saying to try to truly understand the world from his or her perspective.
Once all of the research interviews have been transcribed and checked, it is time to begin coding. Field notes compiled during an interview can be a useful complementary source of information to facilitate this process, as the gap in time between an interview, transcribing, and coding can result in memory bias regarding nonverbal or environmental context issues that may affect interpretation of data.
Coding refers to the identification of topics, issues, similarities, and differences that are revealed through the participants’ narratives and interpreted by the researcher. This process enables the researcher to begin to understand the world from each participant’s perspective. Coding can be done by hand on a hard copy of the transcript, by making notes in the margin or by highlighting and naming sections of text. More commonly, researchers use qualitative research software (e.g., NVivo, QSR International Pty Ltd; www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx ) to help manage their transcriptions. It is advised that researchers undertake a formal course in the use of such software or seek supervision from a researcher experienced in these tools.
Returning to Appendix 1 and reading from lines 8–11, a code for this section might be “diagnosis of mental health condition”, but this would just be a description of what the participant is talking about at that point. If we read a little more deeply, we can ask ourselves how the participant might have come to feel that the doctor assumed he or she was aware of the diagnosis or indeed that they had only just been told the diagnosis. There are a number of pauses in the narrative that might suggest the participant is finding it difficult to recall that experience. Later in the text, the participant says “nobody asked me any questions about my life” (line 19). This could be coded simply as “health care professionals’ consultation skills”, but that would not reflect how the participant must have felt never to be asked anything about his or her personal life, about the participant as a human being. At the end of this excerpt, the participant just trails off, recalling that no-one showed any interest, which makes for very moving reading. For practitioners in pharmacy, it might also be pertinent to explore the participant’s experience of akathisia and why this was left untreated for 20 years.
One of the questions that arises about qualitative research relates to the reliability of the interpretation and representation of the participants’ narratives. There are no statistical tests that can be used to check reliability and validity as there are in quantitative research. However, work by Lincoln and Guba 11 suggests that there are other ways to “establish confidence in the ‘truth’ of the findings” (p. 218). They call this confidence “trustworthiness” and suggest that there are 4 criteria of trustworthiness: credibility (confidence in the “truth” of the findings), transferability (showing that the findings have applicability in other contexts), dependability (showing that the findings are consistent and could be repeated), and confirmability (the extent to which the findings of a study are shaped by the respondents and not researcher bias, motivation, or interest).
One way of establishing the “credibility” of the coding is to ask another researcher to code the same transcript and then to discuss any similarities and differences in the 2 resulting sets of codes. This simple act can result in revisions to the codes and can help to clarify and confirm the research findings.
Theming refers to the drawing together of codes from one or more transcripts to present the findings of qualitative research in a coherent and meaningful way. For example, there may be examples across participants’ narratives of the way in which they were treated in hospital, such as “not being listened to” or “lack of interest in personal experiences” (see Appendix 1 ). These may be drawn together as a theme running through the narratives that could be named “the patient’s experience of hospital care”. The importance of going through this process is that at its conclusion, it will be possible to present the data from the interviews using quotations from the individual transcripts to illustrate the source of the researchers’ interpretations. Thus, when the findings are organized for presentation, each theme can become the heading of a section in the report or presentation. Underneath each theme will be the codes, examples from the transcripts, and the researcher’s own interpretation of what the themes mean. Implications for real life (e.g., the treatment of people with chronic mental health problems) should also be given.
In this final section of this paper, we describe some ways of drawing together or “synthesizing” research findings to represent, as faithfully as possible, the meaning that participants ascribe to their life experiences. This synthesis is the aim of the final stage of qualitative research. For most readers, the synthesis of data presented by the researcher is of crucial significance—this is usually where “the story” of the participants can be distilled, summarized, and told in a manner that is both respectful to those participants and meaningful to readers. There are a number of ways in which researchers can synthesize and present their findings, but any conclusions drawn by the researchers must be supported by direct quotations from the participants. In this way, it is made clear to the reader that the themes under discussion have emerged from the participants’ interviews and not the mind of the researcher. The work of Latif and others 12 gives an example of how qualitative research findings might be presented.
As has been suggested above, if researchers code and theme their material appropriately, they will naturally find the headings for sections of their report. Qualitative researchers tend to report “findings” rather than “results”, as the latter term typically implies that the data have come from a quantitative source. The final presentation of the research will usually be in the form of a report or a paper and so should follow accepted academic guidelines. In particular, the article should begin with an introduction, including a literature review and rationale for the research. There should be a section on the chosen methodology and a brief discussion about why qualitative methodology was most appropriate for the study question and why one particular methodology (e.g., interpretative phenomenological analysis rather than grounded theory) was selected to guide the research. The method itself should then be described, including ethics approval, choice of participants, mode of recruitment, and method of data collection (e.g., semistructured interviews or focus groups), followed by the research findings, which will be the main body of the report or paper. The findings should be written as if a story is being told; as such, it is not necessary to have a lengthy discussion section at the end. This is because much of the discussion will take place around the participants’ quotes, such that all that is needed to close the report or paper is a summary, limitations of the research, and the implications that the research has for practice. As stated earlier, it is not the intention of qualitative research to allow the findings to be generalized, and therefore this is not, in itself, a limitation.
Planning out the way that findings are to be presented is helpful. It is useful to insert the headings of the sections (the themes) and then make a note of the codes that exemplify the thoughts and feelings of your participants. It is generally advisable to put in the quotations that you want to use for each theme, using each quotation only once. After all this is done, the telling of the story can begin as you give your voice to the experiences of the participants, writing around their quotations. Do not be afraid to draw assumptions from the participants’ narratives, as this is necessary to give an in-depth account of the phenomena in question. Discuss these assumptions, drawing on your participants’ words to support you as you move from one code to another and from one theme to the next. Finally, as appropriate, it is possible to include examples from literature or policy documents that add support for your findings. As an exercise, you may wish to code and theme the sample excerpt in Appendix 1 and tell the participant’s story in your own way. Further reading about “doing” qualitative research can be found at the end of this paper.
Qualitative research can help researchers to access the thoughts and feelings of research participants, which can enable development of an understanding of the meaning that people ascribe to their experiences. It can be used in pharmacy practice research to explore how patients feel about their health and their treatment. Qualitative research has been used by pharmacists to explore a variety of questions and problems (see the “Further Reading” section for examples). An understanding of these issues can help pharmacists and other health care professionals to tailor health care to match the individual needs of patients and to develop a concordant relationship. Doing qualitative research is not easy and may require a complete rethink of how research is conducted, particularly for researchers who are more familiar with quantitative approaches. There are many ways of conducting qualitative research, and this paper has covered some of the practical issues regarding data collection, analysis, and management. Further reading around the subject will be essential to truly understand this method of accessing peoples’ thoughts and feelings to enable researchers to tell participants’ stories.
The participant (age late 50s) had suffered from a chronic mental health illness for 30 years. The participant had become a “revolving door patient,” someone who is frequently in and out of hospital. As the participant talked about past experiences, the researcher asked:
This article is the 10th in the CJHP Research Primer Series, an initiative of the CJHP Editorial Board and the CSHP Research Committee. The planned 2-year series is intended to appeal to relatively inexperienced researchers, with the goal of building research capacity among practising pharmacists. The articles, presenting simple but rigorous guidance to encourage and support novice researchers, are being solicited from authors with appropriate expertise.
Previous articles in this series:
Bond CM. The research jigsaw: how to get started. Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014;67(1):28–30.
Tully MP. Research: articulating questions, generating hypotheses, and choosing study designs. Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014;67(1):31–4.
Loewen P. Ethical issues in pharmacy practice research: an introductory guide. Can J Hosp Pharm. 2014;67(2):133–7.
Tsuyuki RT. Designing pharmacy practice research trials. Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014;67(3):226–9.
Bresee LC. An introduction to developing surveys for pharmacy practice research. Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014;67(4):286–91.
Gamble JM. An introduction to the fundamentals of cohort and case–control studies. Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014;67(5):366–72.
Austin Z, Sutton J. Qualitative research: getting started. C an J Hosp Pharm . 2014;67(6):436–40.
Houle S. An introduction to the fundamentals of randomized controlled trials in pharmacy research. Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014; 68(1):28–32.
Charrois TL. Systematic reviews: What do you need to know to get started? Can J Hosp Pharm . 2014;68(2):144–8.
Competing interests: None declared.
Examples of qualitative research in pharmacy practice.
You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.
All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .
Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.
Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.
Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.
Original Submission Date Received: .
Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.
Please let us know what you think of our products and services.
Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.
Investigating the effectiveness of endogenous and exogenous drivers of the sustainability (re)orientation of family smes in slovenia: qualitative content analysis approach.
2. literature review, 2.1. legal framework on sustainable corporate governance (with a focus on smes), 2.1.1. corporate sustainability reporting directive, 2.1.2. corporate sustainability due diligence directive, 2.1.3. scope of the csddd for smes, 2.2. drivers of the family businesses’ (re)orientation towards sustainability, 2.3. endogenous drivers, 2.3.1. the protection of sew, 2.3.2. ownership and management composition, 2.3.3. values, beliefs and attitudes of family owner-managers, 2.3.4. transgenerational continuity and long-term orientation, 2.3.5. knowledge of sustainability, 2.4. exogenous drivers, 2.4.1. stakeholders pressure, 2.4.2. the impact of institutional environment and local communities, 3. empirical research, 3.1. institutional context of slovenia, 3.2. research method, 3.3. sampling and data collection, 3.4. data analysis, 4.1. results of the final coding of the family businesses’ sustainability (re)orientation, 4.2. references to responsibility, preserving (natural) environment and sustainability/sustainable development in the analysed statements, 4.3. family businesses with a higher level of sustainability awareness and orientation, 5. discussion, 5.1. sustainability awareness and readiness of investigated family smes to comply with the new eu legal framework, 5.2. the effectiveness of endogenous and exogenous drivers of family businesses’ sustainability (re)orientation, 6. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
No. of Category | Category Name and Its Definition | No. of Subcat. | Subcategory |
---|---|---|---|
C1 | Vision Describe what a firm would like to become. | C1.1 | Reference to sustainability/sustainable development |
C1.2 | Reference to preserving (natural) environment | ||
C1.3 | Reference to a position in market(s) and/or industry | ||
C1.4 | Reference to the characteristics of products | ||
C1.5 | Miscellaneous | ||
C2 | Mission Defines the purpose and reason why a firm exists. | C2.1 | Reference to sustainability/sustainable development |
C2.2 | Reference to preserving (natural) environment | ||
C2.3 | Reference to the characteristics of products | ||
C2.4 | Reference to the customers’ needs | ||
C3 | Goals The result of planned activities, can be quantified or open-ended statement with no quantification. | C3.1 | Reference to sustainability/sustainable development |
C3.2 | Reference to a position in market(s) and/or industry | ||
C3.3 | Miscellaneous | ||
C4 | Values Consider what should be and what is desirable. | C4.1 | Reference to sustainability/sustainable development |
C4.2 | Reference to preserving (natural) environment | ||
C4.3 | Reference to responsibility | ||
C4.4 | Miscellaneous | ||
C5 | Strategies or strategic directions State how a company is going to achieve its vision, mission and goals. | C5.1 | Reference to sustainability/sustainable development |
C5.2 | Reference to preserving (natural) environment | ||
C5.3 | References to (expansion to) new markets | ||
C6 | Specific of functioning Activities, processes, behaviour. | C6.1 | Reference to sustainability/sustainable development |
C6.2 | Reference to preserving (natural) environment | ||
C6.3 | Reference to the characteristics of products | ||
C6.4 | Reference to competitive strengths | ||
C6.5 | Miscellaneous |
Unit of Analysis (A Family Business) | C1 Vision | C2 Mission | C3 Goals | C4 Values | C5 Strategies or Strategic Directions | C6 Specifics of Functioning |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
U1 | C1.1 | C2.1 | C3.2 | C5.1 | ||
U2 | C5.3 | C6.4 | ||||
U3 | C6.2 | |||||
U4 | C2.4 | C3.2 | ||||
U5 | C1.3 | C3.2 | C5.2 | |||
U6 | C1.3 | C2.4 | ||||
U7 | C3.2 | C6.3 | ||||
U8 | C1.1 | C4.3 | C6.1 | |||
U9 | C1.3 | C2.2 | C5.3 | C6.2 | ||
U10 | C1.4 | |||||
U11 | C3.2 | |||||
U12 | C3.2 | C4.2 | C6.2 | |||
U13 | C4.1 | C6.2 | ||||
U14 | C1.2 | C2.3 | C6.4 | |||
U15 | C1.4 | C2.3 | ||||
U16 | C1.1 | C6.1 | ||||
U17 | C6.4 | |||||
U18 | C1.5 | C4.2 | ||||
U19 | C1.2 | C3.3 | C6.2 | |||
U20 | C6.3 | |||||
U21 | C1.3 | C2.4 | C4.2 | |||
U22 | C1.3 | C4.2 | C6.2 | |||
U23 | C1.1 | C4.4 | C5.1 | C6.1 | ||
U24 | C1.3 | C4.3 | C6.4 | |||
U25 | C1.1 | C2.2 | C3.1 | C5.1 | C6.2 | |
U26 | C6.4 | |||||
Family businesses with published statement (number) | 16 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 17 |
Family businesses with reference to sustainability and protection of natural environment, responsibility (number) | 7 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 10 |
U1 | U8 | U23 | U25 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Family name in in the name of a company | no | no | no | no |
Ownership (generation, number of family owners, % of family ownership) | first and second generation (father, two sons), 100% | first generation (founder), 100% | first generation (husband and wife), 100% | first generation (founder), 100% |
Management (generation, number of family managers) | second generation (two sons) | first generation (founder’s wife) | first and second generation (husband, wife, and both children) | first and second generation (founder—father, daughter) |
Size | small | medium-sized | medium-sized | medium-sized |
Main activity and markets | wholesale and retail trade; market: Slovenia | manufacturing; markets: Slovenia, other countries | manufacturing; markets: Slovenia, other countries | manufacturing; markets: Slovenia, other countries |
The year of establishment | 1990 | 1989 | 1995 | 1992 |
Family Name in the Name of a Company | Ownership (Generation, % of Family Ownership) | Management (Generation) | Size | Main Activity | The Year of Establishment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
U2 | no | first and second, 100% | second | small | manufacturing | 1993 |
U4 | yes | third, 100% | third | small | manufacturing | 1992 |
U6 | no | second, 100% | second | small | manufacturing | 1995 |
U7 | yes | first, 100% | first | small | wholesale and retail trade | 1993 |
U10 | no | first, 100% | first | micro | service activities | 2009 |
U11 | no | third, 100% | third | small | wholesale and retail trade | 1960 |
U15 | no | first and second, 100% | first and second | small | agriculture | 1991 |
U17 | no | first, 100% | first and second | micro | agriculture | 2007 |
U20 | yes | first, 100% | first and second | small | manufacturing | 1982 |
U26 | yes | Second, 100% | second | medium-sized | wholesale and retail trade | 1988 |
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. |
Duh, M.; Primec, A. Investigating the Effectiveness of Endogenous and Exogenous Drivers of the Sustainability (Re)Orientation of Family SMEs in Slovenia: Qualitative Content Analysis Approach. Sustainability 2024 , 16 , 7285. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177285
Duh M, Primec A. Investigating the Effectiveness of Endogenous and Exogenous Drivers of the Sustainability (Re)Orientation of Family SMEs in Slovenia: Qualitative Content Analysis Approach. Sustainability . 2024; 16(17):7285. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177285
Duh, Mojca, and Andreja Primec. 2024. "Investigating the Effectiveness of Endogenous and Exogenous Drivers of the Sustainability (Re)Orientation of Family SMEs in Slovenia: Qualitative Content Analysis Approach" Sustainability 16, no. 17: 7285. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177285
Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.
Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals
IMAGES
COMMENTS
Qualitative Research. Qualitative Research is a peer-reviewed international journal that has been leading debates about qualitative methods for over 20 years. The journal provides a forum for the discussion and development of qualitative methods across disciplines, publishing high … | View full journal description.
This open access journal features papers that report methodological advances, innovations, and insights in qualitative or mixed methods studies. This is the off...
For students conducting their first qualitative research project, the choice of approach and subsequent alignment among problem, research questions, data collection, and data analysis can be particularly difficult. As faculty who regularly teach introductory qualitative research methods course, one of the most substantial hurdles we found is for the students to comprehend there are various ...
Qualitative Research Journal is an international journal dedicated to communicating the theory and practice of qualitative research in the human sciences. Interdisciplinary and eclectic, QRJ covers all methodologies that can be described as qualitative.
This review aims to synthesize a published set of evaluative criteria for good qualitative research. The aim is to shed light on existing standards for assessing the rigor of qualitative research encompassing a range of epistemological and ontological standpoints. Using a systematic search strategy, published journal articles that deliberate criteria for rigorous research were identified. Then ...
Read the latest articles of Qualitative Research Journal at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier's leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature.
Qualitative research is designed to explore the human elements of a given topic, while specific qualitative methods examine how individuals see and experience the world. Qualitative approaches are typically used to explore new phenomena and to capture individuals' thoughts, feelings, or interpretations of meaning and process. Such methods are central to research conducted in education, nursing ...
Subject: Research methods Qualitative research Subscribe to table of contents alerts RSS feed All issues EarlyCite Volume 24 Issue 4 2024 Issue 3 2024 Issue 2 2024 When intercultural communication meets translation studies: divergent experiences in qualitative inquiries Issue 1 2024 Methodological entanglements - public pedagogy research ...
International Journal of Qualitative Methods (IJQM) is a peer-reviewed open access journal which focuses on methodological advances, innovations, and insights in qualitative or mixed methods studies. Please see the Aims and Scope tab for further information.
Qualitative research methods refer to techniques of investigation that rely on nonstatistical and nonnumerical methods of data collection, analysis, and evidence production. Qualitative research techniques provide a lens for learning about nonquantifiable phenomena such as people's experiences, languages, histories, and cultures.
As social scientists who investigate psychosocial aspects of human reproduction, we use qualitative and quantitative methods, separately or together, depending on the research question. The crucial part is to know when to use what method. The peer-review process is a pillar of scientific publishing.
What is qualitative research? If we look for a precise definition of qualitative research, and specifically for one that addresses its distinctive feature of being "qualitative," the literature is meager. In this article we systematically ...
Qualitative Research was established in 2001 by Sara Delamont and Paul Atkinson. The journal was founded to offer a critical and reflective gaze on methodological approaches, understandings and engagements, and worked to counter tendencies that imagined qualitative research could become a taken for granted set of precepts and procedures. Qualitative Research encourages authors to take a ...
This guide explains the focus, rigor, and relevance of qualitative research, highlighting its role in dissecting complex social phenomena and providing in-depth, human-centered insights. The guide also examines the rationale for employing qualitative methods, underscoring their critical importance. An exploration of the methodology's ...
This paper aims to provide an overview of the use and assessment of qualitative research methods in the health sciences. Qualitative research can be defined as the study of the nature of phenomena and is especially appropriate for answering questions ...
The Qualitative Report Guide to Qualitative Research Journals is a unique resource for researchers, scholars, and students to explore the world of professional, scholarly, and academic journals publishing qualitative research. The number and variety of journals focusing primarily on qualitative approaches to research have steadily grown over ...
Qualitative methods of data analysis seek to describe, interpret, and gain an in-depth understanding of how research participants make sense of personal life events and experiences within specific sociocultural contexts.
Reconfiguring the use of video in qualitative research through practices of filmmaking: A post-qualitative cinematic analysis
The greatest strength of the qualitative research approach lies in the richness and depth of the healthcare exploration and description it makes. In health research, these methods are considered as the most humanistic and person-centered way of discovering and uncovering thoughts and actions of human beings. Table 1.
Methods of data collection included semistructured interviews (n = 50) and journaling (n = 2). Due to the infectious nature of COVID, most interviews were via telephone ( n = 15) and video link ( n = 17), with some face-to-face interviews, where infection control measures were noted ( n = 18), and journal entries ( n = 2).
Unit 5: Journal Articles. 17. What is a journal? ("social scientific research methodsly" speaking) 18. [secondary] Research through databases. 19. ... 28 Qualitative Methods in Communication Research Qualitative Methods in Communication Research. In communication research, both quantitative and qualitative methods are essential for ...
The Qualitative Report "Guide to Qualitative Research Journals". According to Dr. Ronald J. Chenail, Editor-in-Chief of the journal, The Qualitative Report, you can use this list to "explore the world of professional, scholarly, and academic journals publishing qualitative research. The number and variety of journals focusing primarily on ...
In this article, we review some principles of the collection, analysis, and management of qualitative data to help pharmacists interested in doing research in their practice to continue their learning in this area. Qualitative research can help researchers to access the thoughts and feelings of research participants, which can enable ...
This question is particularly relevant to researchers new to the field and practice of qualitative research and instructors and mentors who regularly introduce students to qualitative research practices. In this article, we seek to offer what we view as a useful starting point for learning how to do qualitative analysis.
Due to the exploratory nature of our research, we applied a qualitative case study research method where the qualitative content analysis was used in the process of analysing data. Content analysis is often applied in the research on environmental and sustainability reporting [ 10 , 29 ] and we find it as an adequate approach for addressing the ...
Using qualitative data analysis methods embedded within a Pacific-Indigenous research paradigm decolonises research. This article discusses the Pacific-Indigenous data analysis processes of talanoa and fa'afaletui employed within a study of Pacific elder care in Aotearoa New Zealand, conducted by scholars of Pacific/Moana heritage.