Qualitative Research E-Book

Elizabeth J. Tisdell

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 756

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The essential guide to understanding, designing, conducting, and presenting a qualitative research study

Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation, 5th Edition is filled with practical advice and proven guidance for designing and implementing qualitative research studies, and for communicating findings clearly and effectively. Readers will develop a strong foundation in qualitative research theory and application, including an understanding of data sources, data analysis tools, and the types of qualitative research. This revised Fifth Edition offers an expanded interdisciplinary focus, covering qualitative research in the medical and health professions, the social sciences, education, and the humanities. It also covers new tools and technologies—including discussion of AI in qualitative research—that facilitate the process of conducting, analyzing, and presenting research. Written in reader-friendly terms, Qualitative Research is accessible to both novice and experienced researchers.

• Discover the theories, techniques, and analysis methods that make for rigorous qualitative studies
• Consider issues related to online data collection, interpretation of results, and qualitative research ethics
• Learn to develop a strong theoretical framework to guide qualitative studies
• Discover how qualitative research is used in many fields, including healthcare

Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation is an indispensable reference for students and researchers looking to grow their knowledge of qualitative research methodologies across disciplines.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

PREFACE

OVERVIEW OF THE CONTENTS

FOREWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE: THE DESIGN OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

THE NATURE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

WHERE DOES QUALITATIVE RESEARCH COME FROM?

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES

DEFINITION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

SUMMARY

CHAPTER TWO: SIX COMMON QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

DESCRIPTIVE APPROACHES

PHENOMENOLOGY

ETHNOGRAPHY

GROUNDED THEORY

NARRATIVE INQUIRY

QUALITATIVE CASE STUDIES

WHEN THE TYPES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH OVERLAP

SUMMARY

CHAPTER THREE: EXPANDING THE QUALITATIVE PARADIGM

CRITICAL RESEARCH

ACTION AND CBPR

SUMMARY

CHAPTER FOUR: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN MIXED METHODS AND ARTS-BASED APPROACHES

BRIEF HISTORY OF MIXED METHODS RESEARCH

CONVERGENT PARALLEL DESIGN

EXPLANATORY SEQUENTIAL DESIGNS

EXPLORATORY SEQUENTIAL MIXED METHODS DESIGNS

ARTS-BASED RESEARCH

SUMMARY

CHAPTER FIVE: DESIGNING YOUR STUDY AND SELECTING A SAMPLE

SELECTING A TOPIC

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

WHAT IS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK?

IDENTIFYING YOUR THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

REVIEWING THE LITERATURE

WHY REVIEW THE LITERATURE?

CONDUCTING AND WRITING UP A LITERATURE REVIEW

SAMPLE SELECTION

TYPES OF PURPOSEFUL SAMPLING

“TWO-TIER” SAMPLING

HOW MANY IN THE SAMPLE?

SUMMARY

PART TWO: COLLECTING QUALITATIVE DATA

CHAPTER SIX: CONDUCTING EFFECTIVE INTERVIEWS

INTERVIEW DATA

TYPES OF INTERVIEWS

ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS

BEGINNING THE INTERVIEW

INTERVIEWER AND RESPONDENT INTERACTION

RECORDING AND TRANSCRIBING INTERVIEW DATA

SUMMARY

CHAPTER SEVEN: BEING A CAREFUL OBSERVER

OBSERVATION IN RESEARCH

WHAT TO OBSERVE

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OBSERVER AND OBSERVED

RECORDING OBSERVATIONS

ONLINE OBSERVATION

SUMMARY

CHAPTER EIGHT: MINING DATA FROM DOCUMENTS AND ARTIFACTS

TYPES OF DOCUMENTS AND ARTIFACTS

USING DOCUMENTS AND ARTIFACTS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

LIMITATIONS AND STRENGTHS OF DOCUMENTS AND ARTIFACTS

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DEALING WITH ONLINE DATA SOURCES

SUMMARY

PART THREE: ANALYZING AND REPORTING QUALITATIVE DATA

CHAPTER NINE: QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

BEGINNING ANALYSIS DURING DATA COLLECTION

MANAGING YOUR DATA

HOW TO ANALYZE QUALITATIVE DATA

THE USE OF QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE PROGRAMS

DATA ANALYSIS AND TYPES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

SUMMARY

CHAPTER TEN: VALIDITY, RELIABILITY, AND ETHICS

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

VALIDITY AS CREDIBILITY

RELIABILITY OR CONSISTENCY

VALIDITY AS TRANSFERABILITY

HOW ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS RELATE TO THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

SUMMARY

CHAPTER ELEVEN: WRITING UP QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

PREPARING TO WRITE

CONTENTS OF A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REPORT

CHAPTER SUMMARY

BOOK CONCLUSION

APPENDIX: THE METHODOLOGY SECTION OF A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH STUDY

METHODS

DESIGN OF THE STUDY (CHAPTERS ONE, TWO, THREE, AND FOUR)

SAMPLE SELECTION (CHAPTER FIVE)

DATA COLLECTION (CHAPTERS SIX, SEVEN, AND EIGHT)

DATA ANALYSIS (CHAPTER NINE)

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY (CHAPTER TEN)

RESEARCHER BIAS, ASSUMPTIONS, AND REFLEXIVITY (CHAPTER TEN)

REFERENCES

NAME INDEX

SUBJECT INDEX

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

List of Tables

Chapter 1

TABLE 1.1. EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES.

TABLE 1.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH.

Chapter 4

TABLE 4.1. WAYS AUTHORS DISCUSS MIXED METHODS RESEARCH.

Chapter 6

TABLE 6.1. INTERVIEW STRUCTURE CONTINUUM.

TABLE 6.2. FOUR TYPES OF QUESTIONS WITH EXAMPLES FROM A JTPA TRAINING PROGRAM...

TABLE 6.3. QUESTIONS TO AVOID.

Chapter 10

TABLE 10.1. MEMBER CHECK COMMENTS.

TABLE 10.2. STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTING VALIDATION.

List of Illustrations

Chapter 2

FIGURE 2.1. TYPES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH.

Chapter 4

FIGURE 4.1. CONVERGENT PARALLEL DESIGN.

FIGURE 4.2. EXPLANATORY SEQUENTIAL MIXED METHODS DESIGN.

FIGURE 4.3. EXPLORATORY MIXED METHODS DESIGN.

FIGURE 4.4. MY BROTHER'S KEEPER MOSAIC.

Chapter 5

FIGURE 5.1. THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.

Chapter 7

FIGURE 7.1. KOREAN SENIOR CENTER CLASSROOM LAYOUT.

Chapter 9

FIGURE 9.1. DERIVING CATEGORIES FROM DATA.

FIGURE 9.2. THE LOGIC OF DATA ANALYSIS.

FIGURE 9.3. MODEL TO EXPLAIN ENTRY AND PERSISTENCE IN NURSING EDUCATION.

FIGURE 9.4. CORE DIMENSION: CRITICALITY OF AUTHENTIC CONNECTION.

FIGURE 9.5. CORE DIMENSION DETAIL.

Chapter 11

FIGURE 11.1. THE PROCESS OF SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING.

FIGURE 11.2. BRAZILIAN RAINTREE BONSAI.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

Foreword

About the Authors

Acknowledgments

Begin Reading

Appendix: The Methodology Section of a Qualitative Research Study

Name Index

Subject Index

End User License Agreement

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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

A Guide to Design and Implementation

Fifth Edition

Elizabeth J. Tisdell

Sharan B. Merriam

Heather L. Stuckey-Peyrot

Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tisdell, Elizabeth J., 1955- author.

Title: Qualitative research : a guide to design and implementation / Elizabeth J. Tisdell.

Description: Fifth edition. | Hoboken, New Jersey : Jossey-Bass, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024047356 (print) | LCCN 2024047357 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394266449 (paperback) | ISBN 9781394266463 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394266456 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Education—Research—Methodology. | Education—Research—Case studies. | CASE method. | Qualitative research.

Classification: LCC LB1028 .M396 2025 (print) | LCC LB1028 (ebook) | DDC 370.72/1—dc23/eng/20241106

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024047356

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024047357

Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Dimitris66/Getty Images

PREFACE

Qualitative research is a mature field of study with its own literature base, research journals, special interest groups, and regularly scheduled conferences. Just as a tree has multiple roots and branches, so does the field of qualitative research. Its earliest influences are from anthropology, sociology, and the social sciences. Philosophically it is informed by constructivism and phenomenology, and researchers who are interested in social justice research are informed by critical, feminist, critical race theory, queer theory, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. Academic disciplines also inform current discussions of qualitative research: since the last edition of this book in 2016, there has been rising publications in the medical and health profession fields. Newer scholars who contribute to the wide research and discussion of qualitative inquiry build on earlier roots and branches of qualitative research history when discussing methodological issues; they also put their own spin and experience on the work as they contribute to the further development of qualitative research. In that sense, qualitative research also has a legacy.

This book itself also has a history and a legacy. Amidst all the branches of qualitative research, one thing that has remained constant is the need for a practical guide for ways to conduct a qualitative research study—how to design and implement it. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation is our attempt to do so, while acknowledging the growth and development of the field. It represents our effort to explain qualitative research in an easy-to-follow narrative accessible to both novice and experienced researchers. In essence, it is a practical guide without being just a “cookbook” for conducting qualitative research; readers also come to understand the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of this research paradigm.

In thinking about the notion of legacy in qualitative research, the three of us as co-authors represent three different inter-generations of qualitative researchers. Sharan Merriam was Elizabeth (Libby) Tisdell's dissertation chair at the University of Georgia in 1992, which was a critical feminist study of power relations based on gender, race, and class in higher education classes. Fifteen years later, Libby was Heather Stuckey's dissertation chair at Penn State University–Harrisburg in 2007. Heather's was a study of the role of creative expression in the learning of women with Type 1 diabetes, which made use of narrative and arts-based expression. Given our inter-generations, Libby and Heather have been strongly influenced by Sharan and those who influenced her. At the same time, the three of us have each been influenced by the studies we've done, the fields of study where we work or have worked, and the scholars we've read and know. We've also been influenced by our students and by the qualitative dissertations and theses we have supervised. We were delighted to come together to work on this book to further this work, not only for the constantly developing field of qualitative research, but as part of the work of our ongoing legacy.

This fifth edition of Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation represents the latest iteration in thinking about and understanding qualitative research. The first edition, published in 1988, centered on qualitative case study research; the 1998 second edition featured qualitative research, with case study as a secondary focus. The 2009 third edition saw a further reduction in the attention to qualitative case studies, and a wider look at other approaches to qualitative research. Sharan Merriam was the sole author of the first three editions. By 2014, when it was time to begin thinking of a new edition, Libby had been teaching graduate classes in Qualitative Research for 20 years while doing her own research and used earlier editions of the book in her classes. Hence, Sharan invited Libby to join her in writing the fourth edition of the book in 2016, since Sharan had retired from teaching but was still doing research. That edition focused largely on interpretive/constructivist qualitative research, but also included a chapter on mixed methods, critical, action, and arts-based research (ABR). In addition, it included attention to online communities, online ethnography, and the tools of technology now available for qualitative analysis.

In preparing to write this fifth edition last year, we knew we wanted to address a general audience as well as those from the health and medical professions. Two of the three of us (Libby and Heather) have for many years been working with medical and health professions education faculty and medical students who have been in their classes and programs. Penn State's Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Program, where Libby was a professor (until June 2024 when she retired) has a medical and health professions option in their MEd program; medical students can also complete a joint MD/MEd at Penn State and participate in those classes and learn about qualitative research. Heather is both Professor at Penn State's College of Medicine and the Co-Director of the Qualitative and Mixed Method Core there; hence, she was and is a perfect addition to our writing team for this edition.

The fifth edition of this text retains some of the features of the fourth edition, published in 2016, including a discussion of the most common types of qualitative research. These include descriptive studies, ethnography (including autoethnography), grounded theory, case study, phenomenological research, and narrative inquiry. These types of qualitative studies are generally studying people's perspectives on a phenomenon, or how a process or culture unfolds in a class, organization, and/or community. We have retained and updated this discussion of most common “types” of qualitative research because from our experiences in teaching and conducting workshops, there is little clarity about the differences among these approaches for researchers new to qualitative research. We hope to bring more distinctions, as well as include more detail about critical research, the goal of which is to effect social change by challenging existing societal structures and power dynamics. We include more on action and community-based participatory (CBPR) studies, where researchers and community members or participants engage as equal partners in all aspects of the research process to effect social change. We have also updated and provided a more nuanced discussion of mixed methods research and arts-based approaches.

Another defining characteristic of this book is its how-to, practical focus, wherein the mechanics of conducting a qualitative study are presented in a straightforward manner. Designing a qualitative study, collecting and analyzing data, and writing the research report and/or publication are topics logically presented and liberally illustrated to assist the new researcher desiring some guidance in the process. The revisions in these chapters have greatly benefited from our having access to nearly a decade of additional resources published since the fourth edition; our own further research; our supervision of dozens of qualitative dissertations or master's projects; and continued thinking about and working with other qualitative and mixed methods researchers.

There are two substantive changes to this fifth edition of Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. First, we have added many examples related to the medical and health professions, and the issues that researchers often run into in these disciplines that are still heavily influenced by a quantitative paradigm of (post) positivism. (Readers might be sure to look at Dr. Paul Haidet's Foreword and discussion of his own journey with this as a physician and as a Director of Medical Education Research in a College of Medicine.)

The second substantive change that is different from earlier editions is related to the first, and it comes from the interest in qualitative research from those in the medical and health professions—that is, the potential influence yet again of (post) positivism on qualitative research. This is not necessarily new, but it is manifested in slightly different ways. We discuss the benefits, liabilities, and manifestations of this influence. One manifestation is that some journals want to be assured of the “rigor” of a study by providing a checklist offering a specific way to write up qualitative studies, such as following the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) guidelines (Tong, Sainsbury, & Craig, 2007). Indeed, grant funders and peer-reviewed journals often do the same thing, which is understandable to make sure that the study is rigorous and has attended to appropriate verification issues. There are benefits and liabilities to this. On the one hand, journals (or grant funders) who operate this way are clear on what is expected for submission, which is helpful if one wants to increase the chances of being published in that journal or receiving that grant. On the other hand, these standards and concerns about intercoder agreement and other “quantification” of codes seem unnecessary to some qualitative researchers; further such checklists fly in the face of some critical and poststructural approaches. In any case, in this edition of the book, we offer a nuanced discussion of such issues. In addition, we add to the discussion on how technology is affecting the qualitative research arena, with the proliferation of online data sources, qualitative data analysis software packages, as well as in the online research opportunities in the (post) COVID-19 era. Finally, while we acknowledge that artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to influence all areas of academia, including the qualitative research field, the discussions relative to AI in qualitative research are still in their infancy stage, so will be an area of further exploration in the future.

The fifth edition of this book continues to be positioned in applied fields of practice. Participants in our workshops and courses have come from nursing, social work, management, the health and medical professions, public health, administration, counseling, ministry, hospital chaplaincy, business gerontology, and human resource development, among others, as well as every subfield of education. Although our main overall field of practice is lifelong learning and adult education from the standpoint of the discipline of our terminal degree, we each have special areas of qualitative research. Heather's expertise, as a Professor of Medicine, is specifically in medical and health research and education especially related to diabetes. She has participated in many international qualitative studies and has garnered numerous grants using mixed methods and qualitative research in diabetes; and has contributed to the field of behavioral change and transformative learning as a person with Type 1 diabetes since childhood. Libby's expertise is in the intersecting world of spirituality and culture, informed by her prior work in ministry and her current work as a part-time hospital chaplain, along with the related areas of spiritual pilgrimage and transformative learning; in wellness, meditation, and mindfulness (which is also ultimately related to health) and lifelong learning; and medical and health professions education research. Sharan's experience in facilitating qualitative research methods all over the world in South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea, along with her years of supervising and doing qualitative research in various aspects of adult learning gives her an international perspective and long-term view of developments in the field and what learners typically find confusing. From these hands-on workshops across the world have come techniques, resources, and strategies for assisting learners in understanding and conducting qualitative research. Thus, for this fifth edition, we draw upon recent literature in the field as well as our own experiences with qualitative research. The intended audiences for this book, then, are practitioners and graduate students in applied fields of practice who are interested in a basic understanding of how to design and conduct a qualitative study.

OVERVIEW OF THE CONTENTS

The organization of this text reflects the process of conducting a qualitative research investigation and is especially appropriate for those who want to learn to do it from start to finish and to be aware of some of the major theoretical influences and issues in the field. Part One contains five chapters that present the foundations of qualitative research and its most common types. Next, it examines critical and action/community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches that make use of qualitative methods as a major part of the methodology to facilitate community or social change. It goes on to discuss mixed methods research and arts-based approaches to research. Finally, it explains the procedure for designing a qualitative study, from identifying a gap in the knowledge base, to forming a problem statement framed by the relevant literature, to selecting the particular qualitative design most appropriate for your research question, to selecting a sample for data collection.

Part Two consists of three chapters that detail data collection techniques: interviews, observations, and documents and/or artifacts. The three chapters in Part Three deal with analyzing the data collected; handling concerns about reliability, validity, and ethics; and writing the final report and/or publication. In an appendix, we have also included a qualitative methodology template created for graduate students who are designing a qualitative thesis or dissertation. Throughout, we provide numerous examples from the medical and health professions education and adult learning literature.

Chapter One positions qualitative research within research in general, discusses the roots of qualitative research in sociology and anthropology, and briefly describes early contributions in the development of qualitative research as a field itself. Next, the chapter reviews the philosophical/epistemological underpinnings of qualitative research as it contrasts with positivist (or quantitative), critical, and postmodern research traditions. Drawing from its philosophical foundations, the chapter defines and then presents the characteristics of qualitative research. It closes with a discussion of the investigator characteristics and skills needed to conduct a qualitative study.

Writers have organized a variety of types of qualitative studies into various traditions or approaches. Chapter Two reviews six of the more common types of qualitative studies found across applied fields of practice. The first type discussed is what we call a descriptive qualitative research study. This is by far the most common type of qualitative study found in education and, most likely, in other fields of practice. Other types of qualitative research share all the characteristics of a descriptive qualitative study but have an additional dimension. Discussed in this chapter are phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography (and autoethnography), narrative analysis, and qualitative case study research.

Chapter Three presents several more recent and increasingly more common types of research that have a major qualitative methods component, and have contributed to expanding the qualitative paradigm in the past decade. These include critical forms of research that center largely on social justice concerns informed by critical, feminist, critical race theory, queer theory, or poststructural/postmodern/or postcolonial theories. This also includes action and community-based participatory research (CBPR), involving action with the participants.

Chapter Four includes discussion of mixed method designs and arts-based approaches (ABR). Mixed methods make use of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods. Arts-based approaches incorporate one or more multiple forms of art into the data collection and analysis process. There can be some overlap in these types of studies; for example, arts-based approaches can be incorporated into critical research, action research/CBPR, or other types of studies.

Knowledge of previous research and theory can help a researcher focus on the problem of interest and select the unit of analysis most relevant to the problem. Chapter Five explains what a theoretical framework is and shows how reviewing relevant literature contributes not only to identifying the study's theoretical framework, but also to shaping the problem statement (research question). The problem statement lays out the logic and purpose of the study and is critical to making informed decisions regarding sample selection (also covered in this chapter), data collection, and data analysis.

Data collection techniques are covered in the three chapters in Part Two. Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight examine the three primary means of collecting data in qualitative research. Interviews, discussed in Chapter Six, can range in structure from a list of predetermined questions that is followed in order to a totally free-ranging interview in which little is set ahead of time. The success of an interview depends on the nature of the interaction between interviewer and participant and on the interviewer's skill in asking good questions. Chapter Six also covers how to record and evaluate interview data.

Observations differ from interviews in that the researcher obtains a first-hand account of the phenomenon of interest rather than relying on someone else's interpretation. Chapter Seven discusses what to observe, the interdependent relationship between observer and observed, and how to record observations in the form of field notes, both in person and in online observations. Chapter Eight presents the third primary source of qualitative data: documents and artifacts. The term document is broadly defined to cover an assortment of written records, physical traces, and visual images. Although some documents might be developed at the investigator's request, most are produced independently of the research study and thus offer a valuable resource for confirming insights gained through interviews and observations. Chapter Eight covers various types of documents, their use in qualitative research, and their strengths and limitations as sources of data.

Part Three examines issues related to data analysis and writing the study. Many general texts on qualitative research devote more space to theoretical discussions of methodology and data collection than to the actual management and analysis of data once they have been collected. However, we have discovered in our many years of experience teaching and conducting qualitative research that the most difficult part of the entire process is analyzing qualitative data. We have also come to firmly believe that to learn how to conduct qualitative analysis, there is no substitute for actually engaging in analysis, preferably with one's own data. Nevertheless, in Chapter Nine we have tried to present as clear a discussion as possible on how to analyze qualitative data. The importance of analyzing data while they are being collected is underscored; some suggestions for analysis early in the study during data collection are also included. Management of the voluminous data typical of a qualitative study is another topic addressed in this chapter. The heart of the chapter presents an inductive analysis strategy for constructing themes that become the findings of the study. The chapter also includes a discussion of the role of computer software programs in qualitative data analysis. The final section of this chapter reviews data analysis strategies particular to the types of qualitative research discussed in Chapter Two (such as phenomenology and narrative inquiry).

All researchers are concerned with producing valid and reliable findings. Chapter Ten explores the issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research and discusses the contested nature of these terms, as they originally arose in a quantitative paradigm; to some, they are an uneasy fit for qualitative research. Nevertheless we do discuss strategies of handling validation, intercoder agreement, and reliability. We highlight the importance of the researcher(s) inclusion of how they have been reflexive in conducting the study, and offer several examples, both from the medical and health professions and adult learning. Also of concern to researchers is how to conduct an investigation in an ethical manner, which in turn impacts the trustworthiness of the study. Chapter Ten closes with a section on ethics, paying particular attention to ethical dilemmas likely to arise in qualitative research, as well as how to potentially deal with unexpected ethical dilemmas that may arise.

Many an educator has been able to design a study, collect relevant data, and even analyze the data, but then has failed to carry through in the important last step—writing the results. This is the focus of Chapter Eleven. Without this step, the research has little chance of advancing the knowledge base of the field or having an impact on practice. In particular, this final chapter is designed to help qualitative researchers complete the research process by writing a report and/or publication of their investigation. The first half of the chapter offers suggestions for organizing the writing process—determining the audience for the report, settling on the main message (the storyline), and outlining the overall report. Most of the rest of the chapter focuses on the content of the report—its components and where to place them, how to achieve a good balance between description and analysis, and how to disseminate the study's findings. Given that this is the last chapter of the book, it ends with a concluding section making use of the metaphor of how a tree's constant growth and development of roots and branches mirrors what has gone in the historical developments of qualitative research. We invite current and future scholars to engage in the dialogue about qualitative research and to continue to honor the types of knowledge that it attends to, examines, and creates: Be another branch on the tree of influence, and continue the legacy of qualitative research!

We also provide one appendix in the text. It presents a template created for graduate students and others who would like some guidance in what goes into a methodology chapter or proposal of a qualitative research study. This template is an outline of the component parts of a methodology chapter, explaining what needs to be included under each section. A modification of this outline could also be used for the methodology section of a qualitative research grant proposal.

FOREWORD

Paul Haidet, MD, MPH

Why another book about qualitative research methods? This one is certainly practical, easy to understand, and grounded in many examples from medical and health professions education, interrelated fields where qualitative research has exploded in recent decades. This book provides concrete suggestions for how to “do” qualitative research at every turn—from developing the purpose, choosing a sampling method, collecting and analyzing data, considering reflexivity and validation, and writing up results for publication. But here, in an era of fast decisions, big data, powerful algorithms, and increasing corporatization, is qualitative research even relevant anymore?

In the last decades of the twentieth century, a debate raged within the field of medical research that pitted qualitative and quantitative methods against each other. At the time, quantitative research reigned supreme, and if a study or proposal didn't have large and representative samples, wasn't generalizable, and didn't use meticulous design and statistical methods to minimize bias and control for confounders, it had little chance of being published or funded. Since then, through the pioneering efforts of a cadre of dedicated sociologists, medical anthropologists, and others, qualitative research in medicine has become viewed as a valuable (and in the case of many funders, required) part of most projects. I began my career as both a physician and researcher during this period, and some of the most impactful lessons for me have arisen in the setting of my experiences with qualitative research.

I was once part of a team creating an all-encompassing one-day course on qualitative research methods. Our idea was to conduct a hands-on workshop where participants (many of whom had never done qualitative research) would be able, as a community and with the guidance of the instructors, to perform a mock qualitative study from start to finish within a day. They would plan an approach to data collection, write an interview guide, prep an expert moderator who would conduct a focus group with participants looking on, and analyze previously collected data that looked similar to the conversations of the mock focus group. We chose a timely topic that was dominating news cycles at the time and conducted some prior interviews ourselves, to provide the transcripts for participants to analyze during the afternoon. In order to demonstrate different approaches to data, two of us were tasked to analyze the transcripts, using different approaches. One performed a grounded theory-informed analysis, mobilizing her research team and using NUDIST™, a precursor to today's NVivo™ software. Her analysis produced highly detailed code trees generated from over 35 discrete codes and many more coding units.

I analyzed the same transcript using a narrative approach. I had six codes that organized the data according to elements including major characters, setting, and plot of the overarching story that was being told by interviewees. I could not afford software at the time, so I used colored highlighters and scissors to apply and organize codes using a paper transcript. By design, neither my colleague nor I communicated before the day of the workshop. When the time came to present our findings and compare with the findings of the participants, my colleague presented first. My jaw dropped. Her major themes and conclusions were nearly identical to mine! When I presented my findings, the audience was incredulous. They thought that we HAD to have been communicating with each other … the findings were that close. It was in that moment that I became a believer. Having been educated in a fairly positivist, numbers-based paradigm, I had, to that point, approached qualitative research cautiously. This experience, though, demonstrated to me that a carefully done analysis that is thoughtful and considered, immersed in the data, and reflexive, can find and present meanings that will be useful and that can be reproduced by others, even if wildly different approaches have been used.

Another time, while I was working on my master's degree in public health, I had the opportunity to design and conduct a qualitative study about how primary care docs counseled patients whose patterns of sexual activity carried unknown (at that time) risk of contracting HIV. My team was interested in ways these seasoned practitioners would approach risk counseling, a bread-and-butter activity for any primary care doc, when the actual evidence for risk estimates was lacking.

The findings shocked us. Overwhelmingly, these highly rated docs used a peculiar heuristic in their counseling, which we termed “all or nothing.” If a doc perceived any risk, no matter how small, they prescribed maximum measures to reduce it, at all costs. This led to fairly unrealistic and far-fetched recommendations, which most patients probably would not follow. In the paper, I wrote a scathing discussion section, railing on the docs for not being more nuanced, not considering the preferences of patients, and generally being “non-patient centered.” That discussion came back to haunt me some 20 years later. In the deepest lockdown days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself counseling patients during the 2020 holidays using the-all-or-nothing heuristic. “No, you can't meet with family; it's too dangerous.” “No, you shouldn't; not even if you eat Thanksgiving dinner outside on the lawn. It's too dangerous.” The fact is, in the fall of 2020, we knew precious little about the actual risk of COVID-19 transmission, and I was prescribing maximum measures, no matter how high or low the perceived risk. Over the ensuing year, I reflected often upon my previous paper. I realized that the all or nothing heuristic is at times part of most physicians' thinking, including my own, and I had to come to terms with that. All those years later, I realized that while qualitative research may not provide us with universally applicable truths, it does provide us with lessons of value and wisdom that reach across situations, people, and time.

The twenty-first century world in which we live is increasingly driven by numbers. On social media, we determine one's value by how many followers they have. When purchasing online, we choose among competing products based on the numbers of customer reviews and the percentages of five-star ratings. We gravitate toward YouTube videos, Instagram posts, Tweets, and other social media materials based on how many “likes” they have accrued. In health care, physicians are judged by how many “relative value units” they generate and receive star ratings based on quantitative patient satisfaction surveys. Everywhere we turn, we are presented with dashboards that use quantitative data to reduce complex phenomena into easy-to-digest bytes of information. Such dashboards are increasingly used to make policy decisions, allocate resources, amplify messages, and create the systems that shape our behaviors and our lives. Artificial intelligence will make the construction of such dashboards even faster and more seductive. It seems that, even as qualitative research has become accepted in many scientific circles, qualitative data has been lost from the process through which we make everyday decisions.

Does this feel dystopian? Well, the viewpoint I just painted is incomplete, as far as qualitative data are concerned. Stories do exist today, and they exert a more powerful influence than ever. As a physician in the midst of the pandemic, I encountered so many powerful stories about vaccines—that they were vehicles for nano tracking devices that the government was using to spy on its citizens, that the evil pharmaceutical companies had engineered the pandemic to sell products and further enrich themselves, or, on the contrary, that science was the savior of the world and Anthony Fauci was its Golden Knight. These stories led to a level of divisiveness in terms of medical decision-making that I and many of my colleagues were unprepared to manage. A scientific approach, with reasoned consideration of qualitative and quantitative data alike, seemed no longer relevant. The problem today's world faces in political, medical, community, and many other spheres is not necessarily stories themselves, but rather that the premises of stories are taken at face value, without careful consideration or critical analysis, qualitative analysis. Today's world needs qualitative research more than ever, not only as an approach to collecting, appraising, analyzing, drawing conclusions from, and acting upon thick, rich, meaningful swaths of data, but also as a way of making meaning in an increasingly complicated world. People need to dig themselves into the stories of others and explore those stories fully if we as a society are to promote understanding, meaning, and relationship. Without such activities, we are doomed to devolve further into a series of warring tribes, intent on our own singular interpretation of narrative becoming the “winner.” Qualitative research should be taught in our schools, fostered in our businesses, and used in our governments as a way of helping our citizenry engage with ALL kinds of data in a thoughtful, considered, and reverent way.

The book you are presently reading introduces all facets of qualitative research in plain language, and in a way that most readers should understand. Don't be fooled, though … many of us were trained in a reductionist hypothetico-deductive mindset, and if that is the way you think, this book will challenge many of your ideas about how the world works and how research should be done. If you are willing to temporarily hold those ideas at arm's length and sit with the cognitive dissonance, you might find the information herein not only rewarding, but possibly life altering. Like the all-or-nothing heuristic for me, the meanings you find might just keep looping back and informing you for the rest of your life.

PAUL HAIDET, MD, MPH

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF MEDICINEAT THE PENN STATE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE ANDTHE DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL EDUCATION RESEARCH

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Elizabeth J. Tisdell is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Lifelong Learning and Adult Education (retired in June 2024) at Penn State University–Harrisburg. She was the Professor-in-Charge of the Lifelong Learning and Adult Education program, the co-founding director of the Joint MD/MEd program, and developed the medical and health professions option in the MEd program in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education. Her teaching responsibilities included graduate courses in adult education (and its connection to medical and health professions education), spirituality and culture in health and education, and qualitative research methods. She also supervised graduate student research, including as chair of more than 50 doctoral dissertations and several master's projects. She has also worked as a part-time Chaplain at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center since 2020, and continues to do so.

Tisdell received her BA in Mathematics from the University of Maine in 1977, an MA in Religion from Fordham University in 1979, and an EdD in Adult Education from the University of Georgia in 1992. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, she was an associate professor of adult and continuing education at National Louis University in Chicago and served on the faculty at Antioch University, Seattle. She worked as a campus minister for the Catholic Church from 1979 to 1989 at both Central Michigan University and Loyola University New Orleans.

Tisdell's main research and writing activities have focused on spirituality and culture in adult and higher education, diversity issues in adult education and medical education, qualitative research methods, transformative pilgrimage learning, and in meditation, mindfulness, and adult learning. She is the author of Exploring Spirituality and Culture in Adult and Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2003). Her other scholarly works have appeared in numerous journals and edited books. Tisdell has served on steering committees for the annual North American Adult Education Research Conference, was the chair of the Commission of Professors of Adult Education from 2012 to 2014, and was coeditor of Adult Education Quarterly from 2006 to 2011. She was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame in 2015. Tisdell enjoys exploring what is to be learned from spiritual pilgrimage, embodied in practices relating to yoga, music, and art, and from exploring both the wisdom of nature as well as the nature of wisdom.

Sharan B. Merriam is Professor Emerita of adult and continuing education at the University of Georgia in Athens, where her responsibilities included teaching graduate courses in adult education and qualitative research methods and supervising graduate student research. She received her BA (1965) in English literature from Drew University, her MEd (1971) in English education from Ohio University, and her EdD (1978) in Adult Education from Rutgers University. Before coming to the University of Georgia, she served on the faculties of Northern Illinois University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Merriam's main research and writing focused on adult education, adult development and learning, and qualitative research methods. She served on steering committees for the annual North American Adult Education Research Conference, the Qualitative Research in Education Conference at the University of Georgia, and the Commission of Professors of Adult Education. For five years she was coeditor of Adult Education Quarterly, the major research and theory journal in the field of adult education. She was also coeditor of the book series Professional Practices in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning. She has won the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education for four different books. Various of her books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and French. Her most recent book publication is Learning in Adulthood, fourth edition (with Lisa Baumgartner, 2020). Other texts include A Guide to Research for Educators and Trainers of Adults (with Patricia Cranton, 2015), Adult Learning (with Laura Bierema, 2014), Non-Western Perspectives on Learning and Knowing (2007), and Third Update on Adult Learning Theory (2008).

Based on her widespread contributions to the field of adult education, Merriam has been inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame and was the first to receive the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education's Career Achievement Award. She has regularly conducted workshops and seminars on adult learning and qualitative research throughout North America and overseas, including Brazil and countries in southern Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. She has been a senior Fulbright scholar to Malaysia, and a distinguished visiting scholar to universities in South Korea and South Africa. She is now happily retired and living in Florida.

Heather L. Stuckey-Peyrot is Professor of Medicine, Humanities and Public Health Sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She is the Lead Consultant for the Qualitative and Mixed Methods Consultation Service for Penn State and has worked with over 100 faculty and students in helping them design their qualitative and mixed methods studies.

Stuckey-Peyrot received her BA in General Humanities and the Arts from Penn State in 1997 and MA in Adult Education and Systems Dynamics from Temple University, Philadelphia, in 2002, both while working full-time at Hershey Entertainment and Resort Company in Organizational Development. She received her DEd in Adult Education from Penn State in 2007, followed by a post-doc in Graduate Research and, later, Endocrinology in 2008. She is Co-Director of the Group of Women in Medicine and Science, and served as Director of Research for the Foundation for Art & Healing, Boston, for over 10 years. She co-developed the Transformative Learning Survey with Drs. Ed Taylor and Patricia Cranton.

Stuckey-Peyrot has extensive experience in qualitative research, including several grants from the NIH and Breakthrough T1D, and contracts with pharmaceutical companies. Her grants are based on understanding the meaning and behaviors of diabetes through qualitative research, and she has nearly 100 publications. Dr. Stuckey received awards and recognition in academic medicine, including the Leadership Academy for Excellence in 2023; the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Mid-Career Faculty Award in 2022; Excellence in Teaching, College of Medicine in 2020; Fellow, National Institutes of Health, Summer Institute of Randomized Control Trials; and Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health.

She was the Lead Qualitative Researcher for the completed Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs (DAWN2) international study involving 17 countries, where she established procedures for coding more than 100 000 words of qualitative data regarding the successes, wishes, and barriers to those with diabetes. This included supervising qualitative coders to achieve inter-rater reliability and negotiating the meaning of cultural and political climates in the text. Stuckey-Peyrot was also recently the Lead Qualitative Researcher for international mixed methods studies in overcoming barriers to insulin initiation; understanding cognitive decline in older adults with diabetes; and improving hypoglycemia awareness in diabetes. Her teaching includes courses in Qualitative Research for graduate students, and she was previous Course Director for Critical Thinking for first-year medical students.

Her career has focused on diabetes care and improvement in the lives of people with diabetes, as she also has had Type 1 diabetes since 1982. She has a son, Landon, age 28, and late husband and colleague, Dr. Mark Peyrot, Sociologist at Loyola University, Maryland, who passed on in 2022. Heather enjoys traveling, creative writing, being physically active, and spending as much time as possible outside in nature enjoying the Susquehanna River.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We want to acknowledge those who have contributed in various ways to this fifth edition. First, the students in our classes, and our colleagues and students in the medical and health professions who have made use of the book offered some suggestions about what the book needs. Second, we want to thank participants in workshops on qualitative research in different parts of the world who raised wonderful questions and struggled with activities related to conducting small pilot studies—all of which enabled us to sharpen our thinking and instruction. Third, we want to give special thanks to our doctoral and master's students, who, although they may have taken courses in qualitative research, challenged us to improve our mentoring and advising as they worked through the process of conducting a study. We have, in fact, drawn examples from several of their dissertations or publications to illustrate aspects of the process. Fourth, we want to thank Dr. Paul Haidet, MD, MPH, Director of Medical Education Research at the Penn State College of Medicine for writing the Foreword to this book, and for sharing the entertaining and illustrative story of his own journey with qualitative research. Finally, a very special thanks goes to Ruhi Banerjee, a doctoral student in the Penn State Lifelong Learning and Adult Education program, for her assistance with a wide range of research, technical, and organizational tasks related to getting the manuscript ready for publication.

ELIZABETH J. TISDELLHARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

SHARAN B. MERRIAMATLANTIC BEACH, FLORIDA

HEATHER L. STUCKEY-PEYROTHERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA

PART ONETHE DESIGN OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Education, health, social work, administration, and other arenas of social activity are considered applied social sciences or fields of practice precisely because practitioners in these fields deal with the everyday concerns of people's lives. Having an interest in knowing more about one's practice, and indeed in improving one's practice, leads to asking researchable questions, some of which are best approached through a qualitative research design. In fact, we believe that research focused on discovery, insight, and understanding from the perspectives of those being studied offers the greatest promise of making a difference in people's lives.

Engaging in systematic inquiry about your practice—doing research—involves choosing a study design that corresponds with your question; you should also consider whether the design is a comfortable match with your worldview, personality, and skills. It is thus important to understand the philosophical foundations underlying different types of research so that you can make informed decisions as to the choices available to you in designing and implementing a research study. The five chapters in Part One of this book provide the conceptual foundation for doing qualitative research and lay out some of the choices and decisions you will need to make in conducting a qualitative study.

The qualitative, interpretive, or naturalistic research paradigm defines the methods and techniques most suitable for collecting and analyzing data. Qualitative inquiry, which focuses on meaning in context, requires a data collection instrument that is sensitive to underlying meaning when gathering and interpreting data. Humans are best suited for this task, especially because interviewing, observing, and analyzing are activities central to qualitative research. Chapter One explores the foundations of qualitative research, defines this mode of inquiry, and identifies its essential characteristics.

Although all of qualitative research holds a number of assumptions and characteristics in common, there are variations in the disciplinary base that a qualitative study might draw from, in how a qualitative study might be designed, and in what the intent of the study might be. Thus a qualitative ethnographic study that focuses on culture could be differentiated from a narrative life history study or from a study designed to build a substantive theory. Chapter Two differentiates among six major types of qualitative studies commonly found in applied fields of study.

As the field of qualitative research continues to develop and expand, we thought it useful to include a chapter specifically on critical, action, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). Chapter Three reviews these methods that are ideologically based forms of research that are more or less designed to bring about social change either as the result of the study (in the case of critical qualitative research) or while the study is going on in the case of action research or CBPR.

Chapter Four focuses on expanded qualitative research designs wherein qualitative methods are combined with other orientations. It reviews mixed methods research and arts-based approaches to research (ABR). ABR can also be included as data collection or presentation strategies in the designs discussed in Chapters Two and Three as well.

Other considerations have to do with identifying the theoretical framework that forms the scaffolding or underlying structure of your study. Reviewing previous thinking and research found in the literature can help illuminate your framework, as well as shape the actual problem statement and purpose of the study. Further, how you select your sample is directly linked to the questions you ask and to how you have constructed the problem of your study. These considerations are discussed in detail, with illustrative examples, in Chapter Five.

The five chapters that make up Part One of this book are thus designed to orient you to the nature of qualitative research and common types of qualitative research, as well as how to frame your question or interest, state your research problem, and select a sample. Part One paves the way for subsequent chapters that focus on data collection and data analysis.

CHAPTER ONEWHAT IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

This book is about qualitative research—what it is, and how to do it. But before we get into qualitative research, and how to do it, whether one is a social scientist, a medical educator, or a public health practitioner, it's important to define what we mean by research itself. There are many definitions of research, but what they all have in common is the notion of inquiring into, or investigating something in a systematic manner. In everyday life we talk about “doing research” to inform our decisions and to decide on a particular course of action. For example, when it comes time to buy a new car, you might do some “research” by consulting Consumer Reports and a number of Internet sites that rate cars on quality, customer satisfaction, safety, and so on. All of this “research,” in addition to test-driving several cars, will enable you to make your decision.

You as a reader probably found your way to this text because you have a more formal interest in research. Research is typically divided into the categories of basic and applied. Basic research is motivated by intellectual interest in a phenomenon and has as its goal the extension of knowledge. Although basic research may eventually inform practice, its primary purpose is to know more about a phenomenon. Al Gore, in his award-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth, shares quite a bit of basic research (such as the rate at which the polar ice caps have been melting) as evidence of global warming. This basic research, of course, has implications for what people might do to stem global warming.

Applied research is undertaken to improve the quality of practice of a particular discipline. Applied social science researchers, medical professionals, and public health researchers generally are interested in speaking to an audience different from that of basic researchers. They hope their work will be used by administrators and policymakers to improve the way things are done. For example, a public health researcher might undertake a study to find out how healthier school lunch programs are affecting childhood obesity. The findings of this study would then inform legislators revising the policy, as well as school dieticians and administrators whose responsibility it is to implement the policy.

There are many forms of applied research. Evaluation studies constitute one form of applied research common to many in fields of social practice, education, or health care. The difference between evaluation and research, which are both forms of systematic inquiry, lies in the questions asked, not in the methods used, for the methods in each are essentially the same. Evaluation research, including quality improvement projects in health care, collects data or evidence on the worth or value of a program, process, intervention, or technique. Its main purpose is to establish a basis for decision-making, “to make judgments about the program, improve program effectiveness, and/or inform decisions about future programming” (Patton, 2015, p. 18). Other common forms of applied research are action research (sometimes called participatory research), and appreciative inquiry. The focus on these forms of research is on facilitating change; the goal of action or participatory research approaches is to address a specific problem in a practice-based setting, such as a classroom, a workplace, a program, an organization, or health care setting (Herr & Anderson, 2015