qualitative research methods in social science

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Introduction to qualitative research methods – Part I

Shagufta bhangu, fabien provost, carlo caduff.

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Address for correspondence: Prof. Carlo Caduf, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]

Received 2022 Nov 28; Accepted 2022 Nov 29; Issue date 2023 Jan-Mar.

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Qualitative research methods are widely used in the social sciences and the humanities, but they can also complement quantitative approaches used in clinical research. In this article, we discuss the key features and contributions of qualitative research methods.

Keywords: Qualitative research, social sciences, sociology

INTRODUCTION

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. In this article, we describe the strengths and role of qualitative research methods and how these can be employed in clinical research.

Although frequently employed in the social sciences and humanities, qualitative research methods can complement clinical research. These techniques can contribute to a better understanding of the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of health and illness. Social scientists and scholars in the humanities rely on a wide range of methods, including interviews, surveys, participant observation, focus groups, oral history, and archival research to examine both structural conditions and lived experience [ Figure 1 ]. Such research can not only provide robust and reliable data but can also humanize and add richness to our understanding of the ways in which people in different parts of the world perceive and experience illness and how they interact with medical institutions, systems, and therapeutics.

Examples of qualitative research techniques

Qualitative research methods should not be seen as tools that can be applied independently of theory. It is important for these tools to be based on more than just method. In their research, social scientists and scholars in the humanities emphasize social theory. Departing from a reductionist psychological model of individual behavior that often blames people for their illness, social theory focuses on relations – disease happens not simply in people but between people. This type of theoretically informed and empirically grounded research thus examines not just patients but interactions between a wide range of actors (e.g., patients, family members, friends, neighbors, local politicians, medical practitioners at all levels, and from many systems of medicine, researchers, policymakers) to give voice to the lived experiences, motivations, and constraints of all those who are touched by disease.

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

In identifying the factors that contribute to the occurrence and persistence of a phenomenon, it is paramount that we begin by asking the question: what do we know about this reality? How have we come to know this reality? These two processes, which we can refer to as the “what” question and the “how” question, are the two that all scientists (natural and social) grapple with in their research. We refer to these as the ontological and epistemological questions a research study must address. Together, they help us create a suitable methodology for any research study[ 1 ] [ Figure 2 ]. Therefore, as with quantitative methods, there must be a justifiable and logical method for understanding the world even for qualitative methods. By engaging with these two dimensions, the ontological and the epistemological, we open a path for learning that moves away from commonsensical understandings of the world, and the perpetuation of stereotypes and toward robust scientific knowledge production.

Developing a research methodology

Every discipline has a distinct research philosophy and way of viewing the world and conducting research. Philosophers and historians of science have extensively studied how these divisions and specializations have emerged over centuries.[ 1 , 2 , 3 ] The most important distinction between quantitative and qualitative research techniques lies in the nature of the data they study and analyze. While the former focus on statistical, numerical, and quantitative aspects of phenomena and employ the same in data collection and analysis, qualitative techniques focus on humanistic, descriptive, and qualitative aspects of phenomena.[ 4 ]

For the findings of any research study to be reliable, they must employ the appropriate research techniques that are uniquely tailored to the phenomena under investigation. To do so, researchers must choose techniques based on their specific research questions and understand the strengths and limitations of the different tools available to them. Since clinical work lies at the intersection of both natural and social phenomena, it means that it must study both: biological and physiological phenomena (natural, quantitative, and objective phenomena) and behavioral and cultural phenomena (social, qualitative, and subjective phenomena). Therefore, clinical researchers can gain from both sets of techniques in their efforts to produce medical knowledge and bring forth scientifically informed change.

KEY FEATURES AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

In this section, we discuss the key features and contributions of qualitative research methods [ Figure 3 ]. We describe the specific strengths and limitations of these techniques and discuss how they can be deployed in scientific investigations.

Key features of qualitative research methods

One of the most important contributions of qualitative research methods is that they provide rigorous, theoretically sound, and rational techniques for the analysis of subjective, nebulous, and difficult-to-pin-down phenomena. We are aware, for example, of the role that social factors play in health care but find it hard to qualify and quantify these in our research studies. Often, we find researchers basing their arguments on “common sense,” developing research studies based on assumptions about the people that are studied. Such commonsensical assumptions are perhaps among the greatest impediments to knowledge production. For example, in trying to understand stigma, surveys often make assumptions about its reasons and frequently associate it with vague and general common sense notions of “fear” and “lack of information.” While these may be at work, to make such assumptions based on commonsensical understandings, and without conducting research inhibit us from exploring the multiple social factors that are at work under the guise of stigma.

In unpacking commonsensical understandings and researching experiences, relationships, and other phenomena, qualitative researchers are assisted by their methodological commitment to open-ended research. By open-ended research, we mean that these techniques take on an unbiased and exploratory approach in which learnings from the field and from research participants, are recorded and analyzed to learn about the world.[ 5 ] This orientation is made possible by qualitative research techniques that are particularly effective in learning about specific social, cultural, economic, and political milieus.

Second, qualitative research methods equip us in studying complex phenomena. Qualitative research methods provide scientific tools for exploring and identifying the numerous contributing factors to an occurrence. Rather than establishing one or the other factor as more important, qualitative methods are open-ended, inductive (ground-up), and empirical. They allow us to understand the object of our analysis from multiple vantage points and in its dispersion and caution against predetermined notions of the object of inquiry. They encourage researchers instead to discover a reality that is not yet given, fixed, and predetermined by the methods that are used and the hypotheses that underlie the study.

Once the multiple factors at work in a phenomenon have been identified, we can employ quantitative techniques and embark on processes of measurement, establish patterns and regularities, and analyze the causal and correlated factors at work through statistical techniques. For example, a doctor may observe that there is a high patient drop-out in treatment. Before carrying out a study which relies on quantitative techniques, qualitative research methods such as conversation analysis, interviews, surveys, or even focus group discussions may prove more effective in learning about all the factors that are contributing to patient default. After identifying the multiple, intersecting factors, quantitative techniques can be deployed to measure each of these factors through techniques such as correlational or regression analyses. Here, the use of quantitative techniques without identifying the diverse factors influencing patient decisions would be premature. Qualitative techniques thus have a key role to play in investigations of complex realities and in conducting rich exploratory studies while embracing rigorous and philosophically grounded methodologies.

Third, apart from subjective, nebulous, and complex phenomena, qualitative research techniques are also effective in making sense of irrational, illogical, and emotional phenomena. These play an important role in understanding logics at work among patients, their families, and societies. Qualitative research techniques are aided by their ability to shift focus away from the individual as a unit of analysis to the larger social, cultural, political, economic, and structural forces at work in health. As health-care practitioners and researchers focused on biological, physiological, disease and therapeutic processes, sociocultural, political, and economic conditions are often peripheral or ignored in day-to-day clinical work. However, it is within these latter processes that both health-care practices and patient lives are entrenched. Qualitative researchers are particularly adept at identifying the structural conditions such as the social, cultural, political, local, and economic conditions which contribute to health care and experiences of disease and illness.

For example, the decision to delay treatment by a patient may be understood as an irrational choice impacting his/her chances of survival, but the same may be a result of the patient treating their child's education as a financial priority over his/her own health. While this appears as an “emotional” choice, qualitative researchers try to understand the social and cultural factors that structure, inform, and justify such choices. Rather than assuming that it is an irrational choice, qualitative researchers try to understand the norms and logical grounds on which the patient is making this decision. By foregrounding such logics, stories, fears, and desires, qualitative research expands our analytic precision in learning about complex social worlds, recognizing reasons for medical successes and failures, and interrogating our assumptions about human behavior. These in turn can prove useful in arriving at conclusive, actionable findings which can inform institutional and public health policies and have a very important role to play in any change and transformation we may wish to bring to the societies in which we work.

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An Overview of Qualitative Research Methods

Direct Observation, Interviews, Participation, Immersion, Focus Groups

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Qualitative research is a type of social science research that collects and works with non-numerical data and that seeks to interpret meaning from these data that help understand social life through the study of targeted populations or places.

People often frame it in opposition to quantitative research , which uses numerical data to identify large-scale trends and employs statistical operations to determine causal and correlative relationships between variables.

Within sociology, qualitative research is typically focused on the micro-level of social interaction that composes everyday life, whereas quantitative research typically focuses on macro-level trends and phenomena.

Key Takeaways

Methods of qualitative research include:

• observation and immersion
• open-ended surveys
• focus groups
• content analysis of visual and textual materials
• oral history

Qualitative research has a long history in sociology and has been used within it for as long as the field has existed.

This type of research has long appealed to social scientists because it allows the researchers to investigate the meanings people attribute to their behavior, actions, and interactions with others.

While quantitative research is useful for identifying relationships between variables, like, for example, the connection between poverty and racial hate, it is qualitative research that can illuminate why this connection exists by going directly to the source—the people themselves.

Qualitative research is designed to reveal the meaning that informs the action or outcomes that are typically measured by quantitative research. So qualitative researchers investigate meanings, interpretations, symbols, and the processes and relations of social life.

What this type of research produces is descriptive data that the researcher must then interpret using rigorous and systematic methods of transcribing, coding, and analysis of trends and themes.

Because its focus is everyday life and people's experiences, qualitative research lends itself well to creating new theories using the inductive method , which can then be tested with further research.

Qualitative researchers use their own eyes, ears, and intelligence to collect in-depth perceptions and descriptions of targeted populations, places, and events.

Their findings are collected through a variety of methods, and often a researcher will use at least two or several of the following while conducting a qualitative study:

• Direct observation : With direct observation, a researcher studies people as they go about their daily lives without participating or interfering. This type of research is often unknown to those under study, and as such, must be conducted in public settings where people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, a researcher might observe the ways in which strangers interact in public as they gather to watch a street performer.
• Open-ended surveys : While many surveys are designed to generate quantitative data, many are also designed with open-ended questions that allow for the generation and analysis of qualitative data. For example, a survey might be used to investigate not just which political candidates voters chose, but why they chose them, in their own words.
• Focus group : In a focus group, a researcher engages a small group of participants in a conversation designed to generate data relevant to the research question. Focus groups can contain anywhere from 5 to 15 participants. Social scientists often use them in studies that examine an event or trend that occurs within a specific community. They are common in market research, too.
• In-depth interviews : Researchers conduct in-depth interviews by speaking with participants in a one-on-one setting. Sometimes a researcher approaches the interview with a predetermined list of questions or topics for discussion but allows the conversation to evolve based on how the participant responds. Other times, the researcher has identified certain topics of interest but does not have a formal guide for the conversation, but allows the participant to guide it.
• Oral history : The oral history method is used to create a historical account of an event, group, or community, and typically involves a series of in-depth interviews conducted with one or multiple participants over an extended period.
• Participant observation : This method is similar to observation, however with this one, the researcher also participates in the action or events to not only observe others but to gain the first-hand experience in the setting.
• Ethnographic observation : Ethnographic observation is the most intensive and in-depth observational method. Originating in anthropology, with this method, a researcher fully immerses themselves into the research setting and lives among the participants as one of them for anywhere from months to years. By doing this, the researcher attempts to experience day-to-day existence from the viewpoints of those studied to develop in-depth and long-term accounts of the community, events, or trends under observation.
• Content analysis : This method is used by sociologists to analyze social life by interpreting words and images from documents, film, art, music, and other cultural products and media. The researchers look at how the words and images are used, and the context in which they are used to draw inferences about the underlying culture. Content analysis of digital material, especially that generated by social media users, has become a popular technique within the social sciences.

While much of the data generated by qualitative research is coded and analyzed using just the researcher's eyes and brain, the use of computer software to do these processes is increasingly popular within the social sciences.

Such software analysis works well when the data is too large for humans to handle, though the lack of a human interpreter is a common criticism of the use of computer software.

Pros and Cons

Qualitative research has both benefits and drawbacks.

On the plus side, it creates an in-depth understanding of the attitudes, behaviors, interactions, events, and social processes that comprise everyday life. In doing so, it helps social scientists understand how everyday life is influenced by society-wide things like social structure , social order , and all kinds of social forces.

This set of methods also has the benefit of being flexible and easily adaptable to changes in the research environment and can be conducted with minimal cost in many cases.

Among the downsides of qualitative research is that its scope is fairly limited so its findings are not always widely able to be generalized.

Researchers also have to use caution with these methods to ensure that they do not influence the data in ways that significantly change it and that they do not bring undue personal bias to their interpretation of the findings.

Fortunately, qualitative researchers receive rigorous training designed to eliminate or reduce these types of research bias.

• How to Conduct a Sociology Research Interview
• What Is Participant Observation Research?
• Immersion Definition: Cultural, Language, and Virtual
• Definition and Overview of Grounded Theory
• The Differences Between Indexes and Scales
• Pros and Cons of Secondary Data Analysis
• Social Surveys: Questionnaires, Interviews, and Telephone Polls
• The Different Types of Sampling Designs in Sociology
• Principal Components and Factor Analysis
• Sociology Explains Why Some People Cheat on Their Spouses
• Deductive Versus Inductive Reasoning
• How to Construct an Index for Research
• Data Sources For Sociological Research
• A Review of Software Tools for Quantitative Data Analysis
• Constructing a Deductive Theory
• Scales Used in Social Science Research

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1 Introduction

Patricia Leavy Independent Scholar Kennebunk, ME, USA

• Published: 01 July 2014
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This chapter serves as the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research . The first half of the chapter responds to two questions. First, the chapter addresses the question: What is qualitative research? In answering the question, the chapter reviews the major elements of research: paradigm, ontology, epistemology (which together form the philosophical basis of research), genre, methods, theory, methodology (which operate at the level of praxis), ethics, values, and reflexivity (which merge the philosophical and praxis dimensions of research). Second, the chapter addresses the question: Who are qualitative researchers? Leavy explains qualitative research as a form of bricolage and qualitative researchers as bricoleurs. The remainder of the chapter reviews the contents of the handbook, providing a chapter by chapter summary.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. – T. S. Eliot

I open the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research with the preceding quote for two reasons. First, it captures the essence of qualitative inquiry as a way of understanding, describing, explaining, unraveling, illuminating, chronicling, and documenting social life—which includes attention to the everyday, to the mundane and ordinary, as much as the extraordinary. Qualitative research can involve the study of others, but also the self and the complex relationships between, within, and among people and groups, including our own entanglements. The second reason I have begun with this quote is because it opens Laurel Richardson’s book Fields of Play: Constructing an Academic Life (1997) . This is one of my favorite books, and, in it, Richardson expands the way we think of ourselves as researchers, writers, and knowers. What I intend to do by way of sharing this is to locate myself within the field and within this text—this is something that many qualitative researchers aim to do, in various ways. In qualitative research, we are not outside of our projects, but located and shifting within them. Qualitative research is an engaged way of building knowledge about the social world and human experience, and qualitative researchers are enmeshed in their projects.

What Is Qualitative Research?

Science is a conversation between rigor and imagination. ( Abbott, 2004 , p. 3)

Qualitative research is a way of learning about social reality. Qualitative approaches to research can be used across the disciplines to study a wide array of topics. In the social and behavioral sciences, these approaches to research are often used to explore, describe, or explain social phenomenon; unpack the meanings people ascribe to activities, situations, events, or artefacts; build a depth of understanding about some aspect of social life; build “thick descriptions” (see Clifford Geertz, 1973 ) of people in naturalistic settings; explore new or underresearched areas; or make micro–macro links (illuminate connections between individuals–groups and institutional and/or cultural contexts).

Qualitative research itself is an umbrella term for a rich array of research practices and products. Qualitative research is an expansive and continually evolving methodological field that encompasses a wide range of approaches to research, as well as multiple perspectives on the nature of research itself. It has been argued that qualitative research developed in an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, or counterdisciplinary field ( Denzin & Lincoln, 1998 ; Jovanic, 2011 ; Lorenz, 2010 ). This approach to inquiry is unique, in part because of its philosophical and methodological diversity, as well as because of the value system guiding research practice.

The diversity of the qualitative landscape, as well as the gestalt of qualitative practice, is also partly attributable to the context in which qualitative research developed. Chapter 2 in this handbook looks much more fully at the historical development of qualitative research, but I would like to briefly note the period of growth in the 1960s and 1970s because it bears directly on the richness of contemporary qualitative practice. 2

Although there were many pivotal works published prior to the 1960s, the social justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s—the civil rights, women’s, gay rights, and peace movements—culminated in major changes in the academic landscape, including the asking of new research questions and the reframing of many previously asked research questions and corresponding approaches to research. These movements in essence became sites for new ways of thinking and led to the critique of dominant methods of scientific practice, many of which relied on positivism ( Jovanic, 2011 ). There was a drive to include people historically excluded from social research or included in ways that reinforced stereotypes and justified relations of oppression, and researchers became more cognizant of power within the research process ( Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011 ). A couple of decades later, interdisciplinary area studies that developed in the context of critique—women’s studies, African-American studies, Chicana/Chicano studies—began emerging across academic institutions.

Because of the sociohistorical conditions in which it developed, the qualitative tradition can be characterized by its multiplicity of approaches to research as well as by its focus on the uses to which that research might be put . In this vein, there is a social justice undercurrent to qualitative practice, one that may be implicit or explicit depending on the positioning and goals of the practitioner and the project at hand.

Many qualitative researchers define qualitative research by comparing it to quantitative research. I myself have done this. However, instead of describing what something is by explaining what it isn’t, I focus on a discussion of the qualitative tradition as understood on its own merits. 3 One way of understanding qualitative research is by considering the key dimensions of any research practice and discussing them in terms of qualitative practice.

The Elements of Research

The main dimensions of research can be categorized under three general categories: philosophical, praxis, and ethics. The philosophical substructure of research consists of three elements: paradigm, ontology, and epistemology. At the level of praxis there are four key elements of research: genre, methods, theory, and methodology. The ethical compass (which combines philosophical and praxis dimensions) includes three main elements: ethics, values, and reflexivity (see Table 1.1 ).

The Philosophical Substructure of Qualitative Research

A range of beliefs guide research practice—beliefs about how research should proceed, what can be known, who can be a knower, and how we come to know. Together, these beliefs form the philosophical substructure of research and inform all aspects of the research from topic selection to research design to the final representation and dissemination of the research findings and all phases in between.

A paradigm is a worldview through which knowledge is filtered ( Kuhn, 1962 ). In other words, it is an overarching perspective that guides the research process. I think of paradigms as sunglasses, with different color lenses. When you put a pair on, it influences everything you see. Qualitative research is multiparadigmatic, with researchers working from different worldviews (such as post-positivism, interpretivism, and critical orientations), which makes it a highly diverse field of inquiry.

An ontology is a philosophical belief system about the nature of social reality, including what we can learn about this reality and how we can do so. In their classic definition, Egon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln explained the ontological question as: “What is the form and nature of reality and, therefore, what is there that can be known about it?” (1998, p. 201). Qualitative researchers adopt a perspective that suggests knowledge building is viewed as generative and process-oriented. The truth is not absolute and ready to be “discovered” by “objective” researchers, but rather it is contingent, contextual, and multiple ( Saldaña, 2011 ). Subjectivity is acknowledged and valued. Objectivity may be redefined and achieved through the owning and disclosing of one’s values system, not disavowing it ( Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011 ).

If the ontological question is “What can be known?” then the epistemological question is “Who can be a knower?” An epistemology is a philosophical belief system about how research proceeds as an embodied activity, how one embodies the role of researcher, and the relationship between the researcher and research participants ( Guba & Lincoln, 1998 ; Harding, 1987 ; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2004 ; 2011 ). Qualitative researchers work from many different epistemological positions. Researchers may work individually or as a part of a team with their participants in the co-creation of knowledge. From this perspective, researchers are not considered neutral or objective in the traditional sense. Rather, researchers acknowledge how their personal, professional, and political commitments influence all aspects of their research. Researchers are considered instruments in qualitative research ( Bresler, 2005 ; Saldaña, 2011 ). Research participants are valued and positioned as knowledge bearers and co-creators. This position rejects a hierarchical structure between the researcher and research participants or the idea that the researcher is the sole authority.

Together, the ontological and epistemological belief systems guiding the research practice serves as the philosophical basis or substructure of any research practice ( Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011 ). Although a researcher’s ontological and epistemological positions can vary across qualitative projects and may be influenced by a range of other factors, including theoretical and personal commitments, generally, qualitative researchers seek to build partial and contextualized truths in collaboration with their research participants or through reflexive engagement with their research texts.

Praxis: Approaches, Methods, and Theories in Action

Praxis is the doing of research—the practice of research. Approaches, methods, and theories come into being during praxis, as researchers build projects and execute on them, often making adjustments along the way.

Genres of research are overarching categories for different ways of approaching research ( Saldaña, 2011 ). Each genre lends itself to studying particular kinds of topics and includes a range of commonly used methods of data collection, analysis, and representation. Frequently used research genres include but are not limited to field research, interview, grounded theory, unobtrusive approaches, participatory research, community-based research, arts-based research, internet research, and multimethod and mixed-method approaches. This is not an exhaustive list. The genre within which a researcher works is motivated by a combination of factors, including the research topic, the research question(s), his or her methodological preferences and experiences, and the intended audience(s) for the research, as well as by a range of pragmatic considerations such as funding, time, and the researcher’s previous experience, skills, and personal preferences.

Research methods are tools for data collection. Research methods commonly used in qualitative practice include but are not limited to ethnography, autoethnography, duoethnography, narrative inquiry, in-depth interview, semistructured interview, focus group interview, oral history, document analysis, content analysis, historical-comparative methods, poetic inquiry, audiovisual methods, visual methods, photo-voice, case study, multiple case study, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, daily diary research, program evaluation, ethnodrama, ethnotheatre, ethnocinema, play building, and fiction-based research. As you can see, qualitative researchers use a range of tools for data collection. Research methods are selected because they are the best tools to gather the data sought for a particular study. The selection of research methods should be made in conjunction with the research question(s) and purpose or objective. In other words, depending on the research topic and how the research questions are framed, as well as more pragmatic issues such as access to participants or textual/preexisting data sources, time, and practical skills, researchers are guided to particular methods.

Each genre discussed earlier lends itself to the use of particular methods. For example, the genre of arts-based research lends itself to the use of ethnodrama, ethnotheatre, ethnocinema, play building, fiction-based research, poetic inquiry, audiovisual methods, photo-voice, or visual methods. The genre of interview research lends itself to the use of in-depth interview, semistructured interview, focus group interview, or oral history. Of course, these genres are all more complicated in practice. For example, discourse analysis is a method that may be employed in an interview study, document analysis, or narrative inquiry. Furthermore, depending on the context in which one employs a method, such as narrative inquiry, one might view it as an arts-based approach, interview approach, way of doing autoethnography, or a method of analysis. The intent is not to confuse matters but, given how large and diffuse the field of qualitative research is and the variety of ways that methods can be creatively employed, it is important to understand that you may come across these terms conceptualized in various ways in the literature. One of the reasons that methods can be conceptualized and employed in many different ways is because qualitative researchers also draw on multiple theories.

A theory is an account of social reality that is grounded in empirical data but extends beyond that data. Numerous theoretical perspectives may guide the research process, including but not limited to post-positivism, interpretive, symbolic interactionism, dramaturgy, phenomenology, ethnomethodology, social constructionism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, feminism, intersectionality theory, queer theory, and critical race theory. This is also not an exhaustive list and in most instances each of these theoretical perspectives are general categories for a range of more specific theories. A qualitative research study may also yield the development of a new theory. In these instances, theory develops inductively out of the research process. In other words, the study generates data out of which a theory is built—that theory is grounded in the empirical data from that study but extends beyond that data and can be applied to other situations.

A methodology is plan for how research will proceed—combining methods and theory. The methodology is what the researcher actually does once he or she has combined the different elements of research. The methodology is informed by the philosophical beliefs guiding the research, the selection of research methods, and the use of theory. One’s attention to ethics and their corresponding values system also influences how a study is designed and how methods are employed. Although two studies may use the same research method—for instance, a focus group interview—the researchers’ methodologies may be completely different. In other words, how they proceed with the research, based not only on their data collection tool but also on how they conceive of the use of that tool and thus structure the study, determines their methodology. The level of moderation and/or control a researcher exhibits during focus group interviews can vary greatly. Methodologies are not standardized nor are they typically etched in stone. Not only will methodological approaches to research vary across projects, but, even within a particular project, methodologies are often viewed as flexible and malleable. A qualitative researcher might adjust his or her methodology over the course of a project to facilitate new learning or new insights or to adapt to unanticipated challenges, obstacles, or opportunities. The malleability of qualitative methodologies is a strength of this approach to knowledge generation.

It is important to note that although I have reviewed methods for data collection as a part of methodology, there are also methods or strategies for qualitative data analysis, interpretation, representation, and dissemination of research findings. Similar to data collection tools and theories, these too are diverse, making the methodological possibilities rich.

Ethics: Beliefs and Practices

Ethics is an area that bridges the philosophical and praxis aspects of research. Ethics play a central role in any research practice. Typically, when we think about ethics in social research, particularly when working with human subjects, we are referring to issues such as preventing harm to the people or settings involved in the study, avoiding exploitation of research participants (with added attention in the case of vulnerable populations), disclosure of the nature of the study and how the findings will be used, the voluntary nature of participation, and confidentiality. Additionally, qualitative researchers have an ethical obligation to carefully consider how research participants are portrayed and to act sensitively.

Additional ethical issues are linked to a researcher’s ontological, epistemological, and practical imperatives, which together form a researcher’s values system. For instance, the real-world value or public usefulness of the research, the inclusion of underrepresented populations, the treatment of anomalous or contradictory data, and the way that the research findings are distributed to relevant stakeholders—these issues are also connected to ethical practice.

Reflexivity is also a core concept in the qualitative community and refers to one’s attention to how power and bias come to bear during all phases of the research. As D. Soyini Madison suggests, reflexivity is about “the politics of positionality” and acknowledging our power, privileges, and biases throughout the research process (2005, p. 6). The social justice imperative of many qualitative projects is a driver of reflexivity, as are critical and power-sensitive theoretical traditions. I suggest reflexivity is both a philosophical perspective and a way of doing or acting within the context of research, from start to finish (see Table 1.2 ).

Given the wide range of approaches, tools, and values that guide qualitative research, it is a rich and evolving tradition with innumerable possibilities for knowledge building and knowledge sharing. Researchers can build, craft, or construct many different kinds of projects to study a nearly limitless range of topics. For these reasons, many consider qualitative research a craft or form of bricolage.

Who Are Qualitative Researchers?

We are all interpretive bricoleurs stuck in the present working against the past as we move into a politically charged and challenging future. ( Norman K. Denzin, 2010 , p. 15)

The qualitative researcher can be thought of as a bricoleur—someone who comfortably draws on multiple bodies of scholarship, methods, and theories to do her or his work. The term bricoleur is attributed to Levi-Strauss (1966) ; however, Denzin and Lincoln popularized applying the term to the work of qualitative researchers. Thomas A. Schwandt (2001) writes:

As a bricoleur , the qualitative inquirer is capable of donning multiple identities—researcher, scientist, artist, critic, and performer—and engaging in different kinds of bricolage that consist of particular configurations of (or ways of relating) various fragments of inherited methodologies, methods, empirical materials, perspectives, understandings, ways of presentation, situated responsiveness, and so on into a coherent, reasoned approach to a research situation and problem. The bricolage appears to vary depending on one’s allegiance to different notions of interpretation, understanding, representation, and so on drawn from various intellectual and practice traditions. (p. 20) Table 1.2 Open in new tab Summary of key elements of research Element .  Philosophical or Praxis .  Definition .  Paradigm Philosophical Guiding worldview Ontology Philosophical The nature of social reality and what can be known about it Epistemology Philosophical The role of the researcher and researcher/participant relationship Genres Praxis Categories of ways of approaching research Methods Praxis Tools for data collection Theory Praxis Account of social reality that extends beyond data Methodology Praxis A plan for how research will proceed (combining methods, theory, and ethics) Ethics Philosophical and Praxis How one engages with, informs, and protects participants Values System Philosophical and Praxis Usefulness and distribution to the public, inclusion of underrepresented groups Reflexivity Philosophical and Praxis Attention to power, bias, and researcher positionality Element .  Philosophical or Praxis .  Definition .  Paradigm Philosophical Guiding worldview Ontology Philosophical The nature of social reality and what can be known about it Epistemology Philosophical The role of the researcher and researcher/participant relationship Genres Praxis Categories of ways of approaching research Methods Praxis Tools for data collection Theory Praxis Account of social reality that extends beyond data Methodology Praxis A plan for how research will proceed (combining methods, theory, and ethics) Ethics Philosophical and Praxis How one engages with, informs, and protects participants Values System Philosophical and Praxis Usefulness and distribution to the public, inclusion of underrepresented groups Reflexivity Philosophical and Praxis Attention to power, bias, and researcher positionality

Qualitative researchers may draw on scientific, humanistic, artistic, and other disciplinary forms. In this regard, qualitative research can be viewed as a scholarly, practical, and creative pursuit. Researchers need to be able to think analytically, symbolically, imaginatively, and metaphorically ( Saldaña, 2011 ). Moreover, projects often demand innovation, creativity, intuition, flexibility, and responsiveness (adapting to new learning or practical problems). This is a rigorous and often labor-intensive process. Qualitative research commonly requires working with others over an expanse of time and producing large amounts of data for analysis while also demanding sustained attention to ethics and values. It is also a creative process—allowing researchers to experiment, play, adapt, learn, and grow along the way.

Of course, pragmatic considerations come into play when designing a project: funding, time, access to needed participants or textual/preexisting data sources, and the researcher’s previous experience, skills, and personal preferences. Unfortunately, qualitative researchers are more often limited by practical issues than by their imaginative capabilities.

Despite these challenges, qualitative research is also a deeply rewarding process that may result in new learning about topics of import, increased self-awareness, the forging of meaningful relationships between co-creators of knowledge, the production of public scholarship, and the impetus for social change.

The Contents of This Handbook

As noted in the preface, no handbook can be all things to all people. It’s impossible to cover the entire field, and so I have approached the content with practicality in mind: what one learning about and/or embarking on qualitative research most needs to know, peppered with advanced material and prospective reviews intended to be of value to even the most experienced researchers.

Part 1 of this handbook, “The Qualitative Tradition,” offers a historical review of the field. Specifically, Part 1 presents an overview of the history of qualitative research in the social sciences and the ethical substructure of qualitative research practice.

In Chapter 2 , “Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences,” Svend Brinkmann, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, and Søren Kristiansen provide a detailed history of qualitative research in the social sciences. As they note, this history is a complicated task because there is no agreed-upon version but rather a variety of perspectives. Accordingly, these authors present six histories of qualitative research: the conceptual history, the internal history, the marginalizing history, the repressed history, the social history, and the technological history. They also suggest that writing about history is necessarily tied up with writing about the future and thus conclude their contribution with a vision of the field. In Chapter 3 , “The History of Historical-Comparative Methods in Sociology,” Chares Demetriou and Victor Roudometof present an overview of the historical trajectory of comparative-historical sociology while considering the development of specific methodological approaches. Next is Anna Traianou’s chapter, “The Centrality of Ethics in Qualitative Research.” Attention to the ethical substructure of research is central to any qualitative practice and thus is given priority as the closing chapter in Part 1 . Traianou details the main ethical issues in qualitative practice, bearing in mind the changing sociohistorical climate in which research is carried out.

Part 2 of this handbook, “Approaches to Qualitative Research,” presents an array of philosophical approaches to qualitative research (all of which have implications for research praxis). Because qualitative research is a diverse tradition, it is impossible to adequately cover all of the approaches researchers may adopt. Nevertheless, Part 2 provides both an overview of the key approaches to qualitative research and detailed reviews of several commonly used approaches.

Part 2 opens with Renée Spencer, Julia M. Pryce, and Jill Walsh’s chapter, “Philosophical Approaches to Qualitative Research,” which provides a general view of the philosophical approaches that typically guide qualitative practice. They review post-positivism, constructivism, critical theory, feminism, and queer theory and offer a brief history of these approaches, considering the ontological, epistemological, and axiological assumptions on which they rest, and they detail some of their distinguishing features. They also identify three overarching, interrelated, and contested issues with which the field is being confronted: retaining the rich diversity that has defined the field, the articulation of recognizable standards for qualitative research, and the commensurability of differing approaches.

After the overview in Chapter 5 , we turn to in-depth treatments of specific approaches to qualitative research. In Chapter 6 , “Applied Interpretive Approaches,” Sally E. Thorne turns to the applied world of qualitative practice. Thorne considers how many applied scholars have been departing from established method to articulate approaches better suited to the questions of the applied world. This chapter considers the evolving relationship between the methods and their disciplinary origins and current trends in the direction of the applied interpretive qualitative project. Interpretive description is used as a methodological case in point to illustrate the kinds of departures that applied approaches are taking from their theoretical roots as they begin to advance knowledge development within applied contexts.

Chapter 7 , “The Grounded Theory Method” by Antony Bryant, reviews grounded theory, which, as Bryant notes, is itself a somewhat misleading term because it actually refers to a method that facilitates the development of new theoretical insights. Bryant’s suggestion about the complexity of the term itself is duly noted because this chapter could easily have been placed in Part 3 of this handbook. However, because grounded theory can be used in conjunction with more than one method of data collection, I have placed it in Part 2 as an approach to research. This chapter provides background information about the development of grounded theory as well as its main features, procedures outputs, and evaluation criteria.

The final three chapters in Part 2 tackle power-sensitive or social justice approaches to qualitative research that have emerged in the context of activist and scholarly work. In Chapter 8 , “Feminist Qualitative Research: Toward Transformation of Science and Society,” Maureen C. McHugh offers an in-depth treatment of feminist qualitative research, described in terms of its purposes of addressing women’s lives, advocacy for women, analysis of gender oppression, and transformation of society. The chapter covers topics including the feminist critiques of social science research, the transformation of science from empiricism to post-modernism (including intersectionality and double consciousness), reflexivity, collaboration, power analysis, advocacy, validity, and voice. Several qualitative approaches to research are described in relation to feminist research goals, with illustrations of feminist research. In Chapter 9 , “Critical Approaches to Qualitative Research,” Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Peter Chua, and Dana Collins reflect on critical strategies in qualitative research and examine the meanings and debates associated with the term “critical.” The authors contrast liberal and dialectical notions and practices in relations to social analysis and qualitative research. The chapter also explores how critical social research may be synonymous with critical ethnography in relation to issues of power, positionality, representation, and the production of situated knowledges. It uses Bhavnani’s (1993) framework to draw on Dana Collin’s research as a specific case to suggest how the notion of the “critical” relates to ethnographic research practices: ensuring feminist and queer accountability, resisting reinscription, and integrating lived experience. In Chapter 10 , “Decolonizing Research Practice: Indigenous Methodologies, Aboriginal Methods, and Knowledge/Knowing,” Mike Evans, Adrian Miller, Peter Hutchinson, and Carlene Dingwall review Indigenous approaches to research that are fundamentally rooted in the traditions and knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples themselves. The authors suggest Indigenous methodologies and methods have become both systems for generating knowledge and ways of responding to the processes of colonization. They describe two approaches drawn from the work of two Indigenous scholars with their communities in Australia and Canada. They hope this work leads not only to better, more pertinent research that is well disseminated but also to improvement in the situations of Indigenous communities and peoples.

The third section of this handbook, “Narrative Inquiry, Field Research, and Interview Methods,” provides chapters on a range of methods for collecting data directly from people (groups or individuals) or by systematically observing people engaged in activities in natural settings.

Part 3 begins with Chapter 11 , “Practicing Narrative Inquiry,” by Arthur P. Bochner and Nicholas A. Riggs. Arguably, this is a chapter that could have appeared just as easily in Part 2 because narrative is as much an approach to research as a method, or in Part 4 because narrative inquiry can be employed in the context of text- or arts-based research, or even in Part 6 as an approach to analysis. This chapter focuses on the development of the turn toward narrative in the human sciences. The authors trace the rise of narrative inquiry as it evolved in the aftermath of the crisis of representation in the social sciences, locating the explosion of interest in stories and storytelling in changing population demographics and the debunking of venerable notions about scientific knowledge. They show how narrative inquiry offered an opportunity to humanize the human sciences, placing people, meaning, and personal identity at the center of inquiry; inviting the development of reflexive, relational, dialogic, and interpretive methodologies; and drawing attention to the need to focus not only on the actual but also on the possible and the good. The chapter attempts to synthesize the changing methodological orientations of qualitative researchers associated with narrative inquiry, as well as their ethical commitments. In the second half of the chapter, the focus shifts to the divergent standpoints of small-story and big-story researchers; the differences between narrative analysis and narratives-under-analysis; and various narrative practices that seek to help people form better relationships, overcome oppressive canonical identities, amplify or reclaim moral agency, and cope better with contingencies and difficulties experienced over the course of life.

Chapter 12 , “Ethnography,” by Anthony Kwame Harrison, presents a new take on a classic method of qualitative research. Embracing the trope of ethnography-as-narrative, this chapter uses the mythic story of Bronislaw Malinowski’s—the reputed “founding father” of the ethnographic approach—early career and fieldwork as a vehicle through which to explore key aspects of ethnography’s history and development into a distinct form of qualitative research. Through a series of intervallic steps—in and out of Malinowski’s path from Poland to the “Cambridge School” and eventually to the western Pacific—Harrison traces the legacy of ethnography to its current position as a critical, historically informed, and unfailingly evolving research endeavor. Harrison suggests that, as a method continually reflected on and revised, ethnography is boundless.

In Chapter 13 , “The Purposes, Practices, and Principles of Autoethnographic Research,” Carolyn Ellis and Tony E. Adams define autoethnography according to their practice of the method, and they describe its history and emergence within qualitative social research and within psychology. They propose general guiding principles for those seeking to do autoethnography, such as using personal experience, acknowledging existing research, understanding and critiquing cultural experience, using insider knowledge, breaking silence, and maneuvering through pain, confusion, anger, and uncertainty. They present autoethnography as a process and as a product, one that can take a variety of representational forms. After offering ways to evaluate and critique autoethnography, they conclude with a discussion of autoethnography as an orientation to the living of life and an approach that has the potential of making life better—for the writer, reader, participant, and larger culture.

Switching gears from generating data from one’s own experiences to interviewing others, the next three chapters detail different methods of interview. Chapter 14 , “Unstructured and Semistructured Interviewing,” by Svend Brinkmann, provides an introduction to qualitative interviewing as a social practice with a cultural history. Issues addressed include different levels of structure, numbers of participants, media of interviewing, and also interviewer styles. A more detailed exposition of semistructured life world interviewing is offered, as Brinkmann suggests this is arguably the standard form of qualitative interviewing today. The next chapter is “Oral History Interviewing: Issues and Possibilities” by Valerie J. Janesick. As she explains, oral history resides in storytelling and involves the collection of stories, statements, and reminiscences of a person or persons who have firsthand knowledge of any number of experiences. Oral history offers qualitative researchers a way to capture the lived experiences of participants. The techniques of oral history may include interviews, document analysis, photographs, and video. Three major issues that emerge are those of social justice, arts-based approaches to oral history, and transdisciplinarity. Janesick notes that, in the current climate, there are endless possibilities in terms of using digital techniques for data presentation, data analysis, and dissemination. In Chapter 16 , “Focus Group Research: Retrospect and Prospect,” by George Kamberelis and Greg Dimitriadis, we turn to a method of group interviewing. First, the authors highlight the historical origins, tensions, and continuities/discontinuities of focus group research. Second, they suggest that focus group research embodies three primary, related functions: an inquiry function, a pedagogical function, and a political function. Third, they explore issues including mitigating the researcher’s authority; disclosing the constitutive power of discourse; approximating the natural; filling in knowledge gaps and saturating understanding; drawing out complexity, nuance, and contradiction; disclosing eclipsed connections; and creating opportunities for political activism. Fourth, they discuss contemporary threats to focus group work, and they conclude with what they see as new research frontiers for focus group research, especially in relation to new information technologies.

Part 3 concludes with Erica Tucker’s chapter “Museum Studies” which, as an entire area of study, arguably could have been placed in other sections of the handbook (such as the next section on multimethod research). However, given that museum studies often involve ethnographic observations in natural settings, I conclude Part 3 with this chapter. Tucker reviews the major research methods used to study museums, including gallery analyses and interviews with museum visitors, professionals, and stakeholders, as well as ethnographic fieldwork. Drawing from a range of case studies conducted by museum practitioners, anthropologists, historians, and other museum studies scholars, the author explores how these qualitative methods can be adapted to the study of exhibits, programs, and museums as knowledge-generating institutions. Approaches to research design, data analyses, and representation are also examined.

The next section of the handbook, “Text, Arts-Based, and Internet Methods,” considers how qualitative researchers work with nonliving data or through mediated forms. Although these methods are at times considered unobtrusive (because the data exist independent of the research; e.g., in the case of content analyzing newspapers), there are also many participatory approaches that are considered (such as participatory arts-based research).

Chapter 18 , “Content Analysis,” by Lindsay Prior, focuses on the ways in which content analysis can be used to investigate and describe interview and textual data. The author considers the method in both qualitative and quantitative social research. Examples of four different kinds of data are subjected to content analysis. Using a distinctive style of content analysis that calls on the notion of semantic networks, Prior shows how the method can be used either independently or in conjunction with other forms of inquiry (including various styles of discourse analysis) to analyze data and also how it can be used to verify and underpin claims that arise out of analysis. The chapter ends with an overview of the different ways in which the study of “content”—especially the study of document content—can be positioned in social scientific research projects.

Chapter 19 , “Photography as a Research Method,” by Gunilla Holm, reviews the development of photography as a research method in social sciences. Holm describes the different types of photographs used, such as archival photographs, photographs taken by the researcher, and photographs taken by participants. The uses of different approaches to obtain photographs and issues of interest concerning each approach are presented. The most common approaches to analyze photographs, such as content analysis, discourse analysis, and ethnographic analysis, are described. Questions surrounding interpretation and ethical practice are also considered.

Chapter 20 , “Arts-Based Research Practice: Merging Social Research and the Creative Arts,” by Gioia Chilton and Patricia Leavy, offers an overview of the emerging genre of arts-based research (ABR). ABR adapts the tenets of the creative arts in social research in order to approach research questions in new ways, ask new questions, and make research findings publicly accessible, evocative, and engaged. The authors provide a retrospective and prospective overview of the field, including a review of the some of the pioneers of ABR, methodological principles, robust examples of ABR within different artistic genres, assessment criteria, and the future of the field.

The final chapter in this section of the handbook is “Qualitative Approaches in Internet-Mediated Research: Opportunities, Issues, Possibilities” by Claire Hewson. Internet-mediated research (IMR) has grown expansively over the past decade, in both its scope and range of methodological possibilities and in its breadth of penetration across disciplines and research domains. However, the use of IMR approaches to support qualitative research has lagged behind its application in supporting quantitative methods. This chapter discusses the possibilities and scope for using IMR methods in qualitative research and considers some of the issues and debates that have led some qualitative researchers to be reluctant to consider this approach as a viable alternative to traditional offline methods. Hewson adopts an optimistic stance on the potential for qualitative IMR and outlines a range of possible methods and strategies, punctuated with examples of successful (as well as less successful) studies. The chapter also covers practical issues and offers a commentary on the possible future of IMR.

Part 5 of the handbook, “Multimethod, Mixed Method, and Participatory Designs,” focuses on approaches to research that typically rely on the use of more than one method of data collection and/or the participation of nonacademic stakeholders. Several of the chapters in this section could easily have been placed in Part 2 of the handbook because they can be viewed as “approaches” to research. Again, this illustrates how fluid the field of qualitative research is, with its overlaps in definitions and practice. Notwithstanding the suggestion that some of these chapters cover broad approaches to research, I have placed them in this section of the handbook because they generally involve the use of more than one method.

Chapter 22 , “Case Study Research: In-Depth Understanding in Context,” by Helen R. Simons, explores case study as a major approach to research and evaluation. After first noting various contexts in which case studies are commonly used, the chapter focuses on case study research directly. Strengths and potential problematic issues are outlined, as are key phases of the process. The chapter emphasizes how important it is to design the case, to collect and interpret data in ways that highlight the qualitative, to have an ethical practice that values multiple perspectives and political interests, and to report creatively to facilitate use in policy making and practice. Finally, the chapter explores how to generalize from the singular case. Concluding questions center on the need to think more imaginatively about design and the range of methods and forms of reporting available to persuade audiences to value qualitative ways of knowing in case study research.

In Chapter 23 , “Program Evaluation,” Paul R. Brandon and Anna L. Ah Sam offer a detailed overview of program evaluation situated in the historical context in which this practice has developed. The chapter includes discussion regarding the choice of methods, some of which are used primarily within evaluation approaches to conducting evaluation; the aspects of programs that evaluators typically address; the concept of value; the differences between evaluation and social science research; research on evaluation topics; and the major evaluation issues and concerns that have dominated discussion in the literature.

The following two chapters cover approaches to research that involve community participation. Chapter 24 “Community-Based Research: Understanding the Principles, Practices, Challenges, and Rationale,” by Margaret R. Boyd, reviews the inclusion of community members in research practice. This chapter is an introduction to the historical roots and subdivisions within community-based research (CBR) and discusses the core principles and skills useful when designing and working with community members in a collaborative, innovative, and transformative research partnership. The rationale for working within this research paradigm is discussed as are the challenges researchers and practitioners face when conducting CBR. Boyd suggests CBR challenges the traditional research paradigm by recognizing that complex social problems must involve multiple stakeholders in the research process—not as subjects but as co-investigators and co-authors. It is an “orientation to inquiry” rather than a methodology and reflects a transdisciplinary paradigm by including academics from many different disciplines, community members, activists, and often students in all stages of the research process. As the scholarship and practice of this form of research has increased dramatically over the past twenty years, this chapter looks at both new and emerging issues, as well as at founding questions that continue to draw debate in the contemporary discourse. In Chapter 25 , “Lineages: A Past, Present, and Future of Participatory Action Research,” Sarah Zeller-Berkman provides a historical overview of participatory action research (PAR). Like CBR, this is a social justice–oriented approach to research that transcends method but relies on a variety of qualitative methods. Zeller-Berkman writes that PAR in the twenty-first century asserts a democratization of who has the right to create knowledge, research social conditions, engage in participatory processes, and take action. People using PAR generally believe that knowledge has and will continue to be a source of power. Participatory research is an attempt to shift the balance of power back in favor of people who have historically been denied representational power.

The next chapter in the handbook covers the methodological work being done in the content area of disaster research. 4 In “Qualitative Disaster Research,” Brenda D. Phillips provides an overview of the history of qualitative disaster research since the 1920s. Challenges associated with conducting disaster research, particularly field-based studies, are presented. The chapter also discusses ethical challenges related to homeland security and the emotional impacts of disaster research on humans. Sections then lay out issues specific to the life cycle of disasters (preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery), data gathering techniques commonly used (interviews, documents, observations, visual data), and strategies for data analysis. A final section links efforts to strengthen the trustworthiness and credibility of qualitative research to disaster studies.

The final chapter in this section of the handbook covers mixed-methods research. In Chapter 27 , “Conducting Mixed-Methods Research: Using Dialectical Pluralism and Social Psychological Strategies,” R. Burke Johnson, Tony Onwuegbuzie, Susan Tucker, and Marjorie L. Icenogle first summarize the philosophy of dialectical pluralism (DP). Ontologically, DP views reality as plural and changing. Epistemologically, DP follows a dialectical, dialogical, hermeneutical approach to listening, interacting, and learning from “the other.” Theoretically, DP integrates concepts especially from Rawls (e.g., procedural justice, reasonable pluralism, overlapping consensus, realistic utopia), Dewey (e.g., deliberative democracy, community, inquiry, growth), and Habermas (e.g., communicative rationality, deliberative democracy, discourse ethics, knowledge, public sphere). From empirical research, the authors draw on concepts and findings from social psychological literatures such as conflict management, negotiation, small-group psychology, group counseling, group dynamics, political diplomacy, deliberative democracy, and workplace justice. Dialectal pluralism requires purposeful construction of teams that include multiple/different values and perspectives and stakeholders from the most disadvantaged affected groups. The group process operates from the position of equal power, the use of social psychological strategies, and the working toward win-win solutions.

Part 6 of the handbook, “Analysis, Interpretation, Representation, and Evaluation,” covers a range of topics, including the analysis and interpretation of qualitative data, writing up qualitative research, and issues pertaining to evaluation.

The first two chapters in this section review qualitative data analysis. Chapter 28 , “Coding and Analysis Strategies,” by Johnny Saldaña, provides an overview of selected qualitative data analytic strategies, with a particular focus on codes and coding. Preparatory strategies for a qualitative research study and data management are first outlined. Six coding methods are then profiled using comparable interview data: process coding, in vivo coding, descriptive coding, values coding, dramaturgical coding, and versus coding. Strategies for constructing themes and assertions from the data then follow. Analytic memo writing is woven throughout the preceding as a method for generating additional analytic insight. Next, display- and arts-based strategies are provided, followed by recommended qualitative data analytic software programs and a discussion on verifying the researcher’s analytic findings. Chapter 29 , “Computer-Assisted Analysis of Qualitative Research,” by Christina Silver and Ann F. Lewins, picks up on the discussion of qualitative data analytic software programs (although it should be noted that this chapter also considers how technology can be used in data collection). Silver and Lewins focus on the current state of technological support for qualitative research practice. The chapter focuses on technology and how it assists three main aspects of qualitative research: data collection, preparation, and/or transcription; bibliographic management and systematic literature reviews; and data management and analysis. The main body of the chapter discusses the functionality, role, and implications of Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS (CAQDAS) tools. Three recent trends in computer assistance are emphasized: support for visual analysis, support for mixed-methods approaches, and online solutions.

Moving from data analysis to interpretation, Chapter 30 , “Interpretation Strategies: Appropriate Concepts,” by Allen Trent and Jeasik Cho, presents a wide range of concepts related to interpretation in qualitative research. The chapter examines the meaning and importance of interpretation in qualitative inquiry and explores the ways methodology, data, and the self/researcher as instrument interact and impact interpretive processes. Additionally, the chapter presents a series of strategies for qualitative researchers engaged in the process of interpretation. The chapter closes by presenting a framework for qualitative researchers designed to inform their interpretations. The framework includes attention to the key qualitative research concepts transparency, reflexivity, analysis, validity, evidence, and literature. Four questions frame the chapter: What is interpretation and why are interpretive strategies important in qualitative research? How do methodology, data, and the researcher/self impact interpretation in qualitative research? How do qualitative researchers engage in the process of interpretation? And, in what ways can a framework for interpretation strategies support qualitative researchers across multiple methodologies and paradigms?

Chapter 31 , “Writing Up Qualitative Research,” by Jane Gilgun, provides guidelines for writing journal articles based on qualitative approaches. The guidelines are a part of the tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology and the author’s experience as an author and reviewer. The guidelines include understanding experiences in context, immersion, interpretations grounded in accounts of informants’ lived experiences, and conceiving of research as action-oriented. Gilgun suggests excellent write-ups have “grab”; that is, accounts that jump off the page and convey a sense of lived experiences. Although most of the chapter addresses the writing of conventional research reports, there is some coverage of writing articles that report findings resulting from ethnographies, autoethnographies, performances, poetry, and photography and other media.

The final chapter in this section of the handbook, “Evaluating Qualitative Research,” by Jeasik Cho and Allen Trent, addresses a wide range of theories and practices related to the evaluation of qualitative research (EQR). The authors present six categories of EQR: (1) a positivist category; (2) Lincoln and Guba’s alternative category; (3) a “subtle-realist” category developed by Hammersley, Atkinson, and Seale; (4) a general EQR category; (5) a category of post-criteriology; and (6) a post-validity category. The authors offer several evaluation strategies for EQR by providing a variety of examples. They also discuss a path forward for EQR. They conclude with a holistic view of EQR needed to collectively construct/confront inner and outer challenges to qualitative paradigms in the twenty-first century.

The final section of the handbook, “Conclusion: Politics and The Public,” offers some final thoughts about the politics of qualitative research, the importance of public scholarship, and the future of qualitative research in a transdisciplinary context.

In Chapter 33 , “The Politics of Research,” Michael D. Giardina and Joshua I. Newman critically interrogate the politics of research currently dominating US higher education, a politics that is shaped as much by theoretical and methodological questions and debates as it is by prevailing social, cultural, political, and economic forces. The authors’ arguments are guided by four primary questions: How and to what do the cultural and political priorities of the free-marketized, corporate university impact, direct, or confound the conduct of research? How and to what extent does politics situate methodologies? How and to what extent is the research act impinged on by such particularities as institutional review boards, national funding councils, scholarly journals, and the promotion and tenure process? And, how and where do we as academics fit into this new research climate? Giardina and Newman also provide a series of practical recommendations for professors and students alike who seek to actively confront and challenge the academic–industrial complex.

The closing chapter, “A Brief Statement on the Public and the Future of Qualitative Research,” offers some final comments about the future of qualitative research. I suggest that there is a widespread move from a disciplinary to a transdisciplinary research structure in which problems of importance are at the center of research practices (see Leavy, 2011 ). Within this context, qualitative researchers are well positioned to advance because of their ability to develop responsive and flexible research designs and present their work in multiple formats. Furthermore, I note how the broader move toward public scholarship is propelling both the practice of qualitative research and the teaching of qualitative methods.

Thank you to Dr. Tony Adams for providing his thoughtful and most helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter.

There is qualitative work that can be pointed to in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, it was the use of ethnography and related methods in the 1920s by researchers at the University of Chicago who were primarily studying urbanization (popularly deemed “The Chicago School of Sociology”) that prompted the use of qualitative methods in sociology departments around the United States. In the 1960s, the qualitative tradition fully emerged.

Chapter 2 of this handbook, “Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences,” by Brinkmann, Jacobsen, and Kristiansen, provides a rich discussion of the history of qualitative research in relation to quantitative research.

There has been little documentation of the methodological work done in this field and therefore this chapter represents a significant contribution to the literature on both qualitative research and disaster studies.

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