02-Richards.

qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 25

2
The Integrity of
Qualitative Research

W
hen commencing a qualitative research project, it is essential
that the researcher understand the variety of methods avail-
able and the relationships among research questions, meth-
ods, and desired results. In this chapter, we try to show how a researcher
choosing a topic is led to a method, what is possible for the research to
achieve, what the researcher can ask and hope to have answered, and how
question, data, and analysis fit together. Once a researcher sees this fit,
the choice of a method for any particular study is never arbitrary.
Not all qualitative methods integrate all aspects of the project in the
same manner, and most contain considerable variety. In this overview, we
ignore those variations to stress the two principles of qualitative methods
that inform the rest of this book: methodological purposiveness and
methodological congruence.
First, we establish how particular research purposes and questions lead
the researcher to particular data sources and analysis strategies, sketch-
ing the links for three major methods. We then argue for the importance
of congruence—the way in which what the researcher asks, where he or
she asks it, and how he or she works toward an answer all fit together.

METHODOLOGICAL PURPOSIVENESS

There is almost always a best way to do any research project, a particular

method that is best suited to each particular problem. The choice of best
method always comes from the research purpose.

25
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 26

26
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

Of course, the choice is never entirely open. It is always constrained by

something—the researcher’s familiarity with methods, the researcher’s
resources, or sometimes the data themselves. At one extreme, researchers
starting from the availability of particularly interesting data will quite
normally have their methodological options predetermined. Although
this can be restricting, such researchers may well be envied by other
researchers for whom none of the elements in the equation are con-
trolled: a general topic area, many possibilities for making data, and no
methodological direction. Researchers in the latter group, in turn, may be
tempted to claim constraint (“I have to do a grounded theory study
because that’s the only sort of qualitative research accepted in my
school”). But that’s where the danger lies—in a topic shoehorned into a
particular method. Some seasoned researchers work the other way
around, through commitment to one method, which means they ask only
(even, it might appear, can ask only) certain sorts of questions. But they
start with questions, and they must always be open to the possibility that
a question requires a different method.
Especially when choice of method seems constrained, it is important
that the researcher understands the process by which he or she selects a
method, and that the researcher sees the selection as deliberate and as
reflecting research purpose. The purpose may be to learn about a specific
problem (e.g., “Why do residents not use the facilities?”) or to understand
a situation (“I wonder what the experience of . . . is”). Or the purpose
may be no more specific than to learn more about a particular topic or to
do justice to those interesting data that suddenly became available. In
such a project, exploring the literature and spending time in the setting
will help the researcher to focus on a clearer problem and frame a sharper
research question, and the data will direct further inquiry. In any project,
a decision about method does not just happen by default. A purpose,
however unspecific, guides the researcher to a more focused research
question and hence to a choice of method.
The researcher actively creates the link between purpose and method
through a process of reflecting on purpose, focusing on a researchable
question, and considering how to address it. That link is never, of course,
a simple one-way causal connection. Most projects commence with an
opening phase in which the researcher conducts an armchair walk-
through and considers several routes and several methodological vehicles.
The appropriate approach may not be a qualitative method. Sometimes
the research purpose opens out to several research questions, each requir-
ing a different qualitative method, or the interplay of qualitative and
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 27

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
27

quantitative methods. But, however it is arrived at, the link of purpose to

method is what gets a project going.

Why Are You Working Qualitatively?

Why did you select a qualitative method? Often, the researcher has a
very practical goal for beginning the project—it may be an unanticipated
problem area in the classroom or a particularly puzzling patient situation
that the experts seem unable to understand. It may be an area in which
patterns of behavior are statistically clear (changes in the birthrate, for
instance), but researchers can only guess at reasons for these patterns
without an understanding of people’s own accounts of their behavior. It
may be a policy area (such as urban planning) where the best-laid plans are
thwarted by apparently irrational choices (incredibly, the slum dwellers
didn’t want to be relocated!). In each of these cases, the researcher chose
to work qualitatively, with complex unstructured data from which new
understandings might be derived. Below, we summarize the major reasons
for working qualitatively—the research question requires it, and the data
demand it.

The Research Question Requires It

For many of us, the first really good moment in a project occurs when
we see how the research purpose can be pursued by one but not another
means. In retrospect, this may be blindingly obvious. For instance, you
need to understand what children mean to parents in this society before
you can predict fertility rates, so what you must do is listen to parents’
stories of parenthood rather than ask predetermined questions about
birth control. The only way of making sense of classroom problems is to
get an understanding of the latent processes of power—observe, listen to
what is said in the classroom and the staff room, and examine the words
and their meanings rather than simply distribute a questionnaire. What
if the apparently irrational behavior of slum dwellers makes sense to
them? The only way to find out is to hang around and observe their daily
life, rather than assume that the condition of their housing is their top
priority. Each of these purposes points toward one of the methods we
sketch in Chapter 3.
Researchers who are brought (sometimes kicking and screaming) to a
qualitative method driven by the topic often combine qualitative with
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 28

28
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

quantitative methods. They may recognize their need to understand and

to develop meaning prior to or subsequent to, rather than instead of, a
quantitative study. Perhaps they require a larger-scale inquiry or system-
atic testing of hypotheses. In such situations, a qualitative component
may precede a quantitative project and provide different types of findings
for richer and more complete results. (We discuss such combinations of
techniques when we address triangulated design in Chapter 4.)

The Data Demand It

It may be, however, that you have no such research purpose directing
you to working qualitatively. What, then, has led you to such methods?
A powerful push can come from data; some data can be obtained only
through the use of a particular strategy. For example, it is not possible to
interview some participants—very young children who cannot talk or
elderly persons with Alzheimer’s disease may not be able to provide coher-
ent responses. In these cases, the nature of the participants requires that
researchers use observational strategies, obtaining data in the form of field
notes or videotape. If your topic forces you in such a direction, it will be
the first of many times in the project when data seem to be driving the
study. Recognizing such imperatives will always take you forward, because
qualitative methods are properly responsive to discoveries in data.
Many quantitatively trained researchers first started working qualita-
tively because they recognized that the statistical analyses of particular
survey responses did not seem to fit what those in the situations of inter-
est said or what people wrote in their open-ended answers. In avoiding the
temptation to dismiss their participants’ open-ended responses or to use
them merely to illustrate the reports, perceptive researchers sought ways
to analyze them. Action researchers might be brought to qualitative meth-
ods by complex social or political situations in which it is essential to
understand all sides of a controversy but the available documents and dis-
cussions defy neat categorization. For a study to be useful, the researcher
must make sense of such a situation. Practitioners might observe and
record the complexities of clinical situations that seem to be denied by tidy
reports of patient compliance; in seeking an understanding of that com-
plexity, they find they need ways of doing justice to the data.
Coming to a qualitative method because your data require it provides
high motivation but often high stress, too. The survey must be reported,
the action group informed, the patients helped; it seems that you must
become an instant qualitative researcher. If this is your situation, we
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 29

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
29

recommend that you go carefully through the nine points we list in

Chapter 12 under the heading “How Do You Start?”

Should You Be Working Qualitatively?

The obvious first question is whether the research purpose is best

answered by qualitative methods. We hope we have made it clear that
we see nothing morally or methodologically superior about qualitative
approaches to research. Other things being equal, a quantitative project
will often be faster, easier for a researcher lacking qualitative training,
and arguably more acceptable in many research contexts. Moreover, the
research world is replete with questions that are properly and effectively
answered quantitatively, and that will be badly answered, or not answered
at all, if a qualitative method is imposed on them. Forcing such questions
into qualitative methods has the same effect on projects and researchers
as forcing the glass slipper onto their feet had for Cinderella’s ugly step-
sisters’ marriage prospects—it won’t work, it will hurt a lot, and the
result is a loss of credibility.
It is not our goal in this book to examine the philosophical origins of
qualitative methods or the approaches to evidence and “reality” behind
different methodologies, but it is important to note that we see no chasm
between qualitative and quantitative techniques. It is our experience that
many qualitative projects involve counting at some stage, and many
questions are best answered by quantification. But given that we aim here
to give those embarking on qualitative research an understanding of what
it will be like, we assume that you, the reader, are about to embark. Thus
the obvious first question is whether you should do so.
Qualitative methods are the best or only way of addressing some
research purposes and answering some sorts of questions, such as in the
following cases:

1. If the purpose is to understand an area where little is known or

where previously offered understanding appears inadequate (thin,
biased, partial), you need research methods that will help you see
the subject anew and will offer surprises. Put bluntly, if you don’t
know what you are likely to find, your project requires methods that
will allow you to learn what the question is from the data.
2. If the purpose is to make sense of complex situations, multicon-
text data, and changing and shifting phenomena, you need ways of
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 30

30
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

simplifying and managing data without destroying complexity and

context. Qualitative methods are highly appropriate for questions
where preemptive reduction of the data will prevent discovery.
3. If the purpose is to learn from the participants in a setting or a
process the way they experience it, the meanings they put on it, and
how they interpret what they experience, you need methods that
will allow you to discover and do justice to their perceptions and the
complexity of their interpretations. Qualitative methods have in
common the goal of generating new ways of seeing existing data.
4. If the purpose is to construct a theory or a theoretical framework
that reflects reality rather than your own perspective or prior
research results, you may need methods that assist the discovery of
theory in data.
5. If the purpose is to understand phenomena deeply and in detail, you
need methods for discovery of central themes and analysis of core
concerns.

Each of these suggestions has a flip side. If you know what is being
hypothesized and what you are likely to find, if you do not need to know
the complexity of others’ understandings, if you are testing prior theory
rather than constructing new frameworks, or if you are simply describ-
ing a situation rather than deeply analyzing it, it is possible that you
should not be working qualitatively. Perhaps the research question you
are tackling with in-depth interviews would be more properly addressed
with a survey. In such a case, our best advice is that you review your
general purpose and ask yourself if it can be addressed better that way.
Many purposes are perfectly served by survey data, and very many pur-
poses require surveys. Important examples are research questions seek-
ing to establish the associations among easily measured factors across
a group or setting. If your goal is to establish that women in the paid
workforce use neighborhood services less than do women who don’t
work outside the home, a survey will do it. But maybe what you really
need to ask is how women in the paid workforce perceive neighborhood
relations.
Or perhaps the research purpose can be addressed through the use
of more straightforward techniques, such as quantitative content analy-
sis. If you wish to know which words dominate discussions of medical
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 31

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
31

treatments, rather than the meanings the participants give those words,
a qualitative approach is likely to delay your answer. But maybe you want
to find out more—for example, maybe you want to discover whether
there are dominant discourses underlying those discussions.
On reflection, in either of the above cases there might be aspects of the
research topic that would be best addressed through a combination of
qualitative and quantitative data. As we will show in Chapter 4, such
combinations fit easily with many qualitative methods.
Qualitative research is a proper response to some, but not all, research
needs. We have both learned to be alert to risk in projects where the
researcher is working qualitatively for the wrong reasons. These include
reasons that are negative rather than positive (“I hate statistics” or “I
can’t use computers”) and assumptions that qualitative research is more
humanistic, moral/ethical, worthy, feminist, radical, or admirable. (The
techniques we describe in the chapters that follow are also the most inva-
sive, intrusive, and morally challenging; the only good reason a researcher
should consider using them is that the research problem requires them.)
Our point here is not just that you need a good reason for working qual-
itatively because of both practical and ethical considerations, but also
that you need to have thought your way to this method if you are to start
learning it. Good qualitative research requires purpose, skill, and con-
centration, and unless you recognize this and your purpose is clear and
committed, the task will quickly become onerous.

How Should You Be Working Qualitatively?

What we have described as a fit between research question and method

is never a simple cause-and-effect relationship. As you decide on the
focus and scope of your study, the firming research question will indicate
the best method for you to use, and your reading on methods will suggest
ways in which you can focus the study. We start in Table 2.1 by com-
paring just three of the qualitative methods commonly described in
textbooks. Usually (but not always), phenomenology best addresses a
question about meaning: “What is the experience of . . .?” Ethnography
offers researchers tools to answer questions such as “What is happening?”
Researchers are directed to grounded theory by questions of interaction
and process: “How does one become a . . .?” The link between question
and data is obvious when one contrasts these three “classic” methods.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 32

32
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

Table 2.1 The Fit of Question and Method

Method That Might

Type of Question Be Appropriate

Quesions about meaning (e.g., What is Phenomenology

the meaning of . . . ?) and about the core
or essence of phenomena or experiences

Observational questions (e.g., What are the Ethnography

behavioral patterns of . . . ?) and descriptive
questions about values, beliefs, and practices
of a cultural group (What is going on here?)

Process questions about changing experience Grounded theory

over time or its stages and phases (e.g., What is
the process of becoming . . . ?) or understanding
questions (e.g., What are the dimensions of
this experience . . . ?)

From Selecting a Method to Making Data

As the purpose points to the research question and the research ques-
tion informs the choice of method, so the method fits the type of data to
be collected. (See Table 2.2, which lists the types of data required by par-
ticular methods.) However, selecting a method and making data are not
discrete events in the research process; rather, they are aspects linked by
common ways of thinking. The distinction between a method and a way
of making data is not at all rigid. Many researchers would speak of focus
groups or participant observation as methods: They are ways of making
data, with goals that fit these ways of making data, and each has a meth-
ods literature. But we prefer to consider these strategies; in Chapter 3, we
discuss these as “incomplete” methods.
In the chapters to come, we discuss types of data, ways of handling data,
and analytic techniques that belong to no particular method and are used
in many. For now, our goal is to suggest the ways some data fit some meth-
ods. This does not mean that a way of making data is a method or implies
a method. The fact that you are interviewing people tells an observer noth-
ing about why, or about what you will do with those data. But the content
and form of interviews and what you see in them will be different for dif-
ferent methods. This is because how you think about the data differs from
method to method.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 33

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
33

Table 2.2 The Fit of Method and the Type of Data

Chosen Method Likely Data Sources

Phenomenology Primary: audiotaped, in-depth conversations;

phenomenological literature
Secondary: poetry; art; films

Ethnography Primary: participant observation; field notes; unstructured

or structured interviews (sometimes audio- or videotaped)
Secondary: documents, records; photographs; videotapes;
maps, genograms, sociograms; focus groups

Grounded theory Primary: interviews (usually audiotaped); participant and

nonparticipant observations; conversations recorded in
diaries and field notes
Secondary: comparative instances; personal experience

From Choosing Sources and Sorts

of Data to Managing and Analyzing Data

There is a further link in this methodological chain of research pur-

pose, research question, choice of method, and the type of data needed. It
is hardly surprising that the ways the researcher handles, manages,
explores, and analyzes data are all part of the same chain.
Once again, our simple tabulation of the three methods shows com-
monalities. It is possible to describe in similar terms the strategies, or
techniques of analysis, used within each of these different methods. The
difference is not in the technique per se but in the way the strategy is used.
Different ways of approaching the research will mean that the same tech-
niques are used in different ways and produce different results. For exam-
ple, researchers using very different methods may all code and, while
coding, use the same technique—selecting a portion of text and assigning
it to a category. But the similarity ends there. For each of them, the way
of approaching and thinking about the data means that codes are applied
in a particular way, and this results in a particular way of linking data to
categories. The differences show when we ask questions such as the fol-
lowing: What is a category? What data are coded there? Is the collection of
data for a category the end or the beginning of analysis? How do you think
about the category, and how do you use categories? The answers are very
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 34

34
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

Table 2.3 The Fit of Method, Data, and Analysis Techniques

Method Data Sources and Types Analysis Techniques

Phenomenology Audiotaped, in-depth Theme-ing, phenomenological

conversations; reflection
phenomenological Memoing and reflective
literature writing

Ethnography Primary: participant Thick description, rereading

observation; field notes; notes, storing information,
structured or and coding by topic; storying;
unstructured interviews case analysis
Secondary: documents; Coding, recording field notes,
focus groups and diagramming to show
patterns and processes

Grounded theory Primary: audiotaped Theoretical sensitivity,

interviews; developing concepts, coding
observations at categories, open coding
Secondary: for theory generation
comparative Focused memoing,
instances; diagramming, emphasis on
personal experience search for core concepts
and processes

different from method to method. Although different qualitative methods

may utilize similar strategies, how you think while using particular strate-
gies differs. We can expand Table 2.2, adding the mode of handling data
and the analysis that fits; the results are displayed in Table 2.3.

METHODOLOGICAL CONGRUENCE

In explaining the purposeful nature of qualitative inquiry, we arrive at

our second principle of qualitative methods. Tables 2.1–2.3 show the way
projects acquire methodological congruence—that is, fit between the
research problem and the question, fit between the research question and
the method, and, of course, fit among the method, the data, and the way
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 35

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
35

of handling data. All of these components of the research process mesh

to make the best possible end product. Thus each method is a distinctive
way of approaching the world and data.
The concept of methodological congruence does not mean that data
sources or analysis methods are predetermined for the researcher once he
or she has chosen a method. It isn’t that easy. Nor does it mean that a
researcher has no flexibility once he or she has embarked on a particular
path. Methodological congruence refers to the fact that projects entail con-
gruent ways of thinking. The researcher working with phenomenology
must learn to think phenomenologically if the fit of purpose, method, and
data is to work well. If you are working with grounded theory, it is impor-
tant that you learn how to think as a grounded theorist. The same sorts
of data (e.g., field notes) will be interpreted differently by researchers
using different methods, and similar data analysis techniques (e.g., coding)
employed by researchers using different methods will have quite different
analytic results, because each researcher is thinking a different way.
Qualitative research is not just a matter of performing techniques on
data; rather, each qualitative method is a specific way of thinking about
data and using techniques as tools to manipulate data to achieve a goal.
Each component of the research process is linked to the next, and the
chosen method dictates combinations of strategies to be used in particular
ways to ensure consistency throughout the research process. As we show in
Chapter 3, not all methods are as complete as the ones sketched in Tables
2.1–2.3. But all methods entail certain distinctive ways of thinking.

Seeing Congruence by Doing It

The webs of methodological congruence are most easily illustrated by

an exploration of the different ways a real research topic can be handled.
In what follows, we present a fictitious project concerning human attach-
ment. If you have data from a previous study or a growing sense of your
research interest, you might try applying what you read below to your
approaches to that topic.
What is “human attachment”? Which literature should we look to?
We have many choices—we could look at the literature on bonding
between mothers and infants, at the family studies literature on family
relationships, or even at the social support literature. We could extend
this to the relationship literature on interaction, the literature on mar-
riage, or the literature on mothering. We could choose a situation in
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 36

36
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

which we could observe the concept as well as obtain personal accounts

of attachment. From our broad topic and scan of the literature, let’s
choose to study public displays of attachment behavior at the arrivals
and departures gates at airports. There we could observe attachment (and
detachment) behaviors as passengers depart or as they greet family and
friends on arrival. We could interview individuals (the passengers them-
selves or their relatives and friends) about the experience of greeting and
leaving. Or we may consider interviewing “experts” who have observed
many passengers greeting or leaving each other (porters, staff at car rental
booths, security personnel waiting to check carry-on luggage, cleaning
staff, and so on).
Given this topic (human attachment) and having identified a research
context, our next step is to create a research question. Different questions
will lead to us to particular methods, and the method in turn will help us
to decide details of the research design, such as who the participants will
be, what the sample size should be, how data will be created and ana-
lyzed, and, most important, what type of results we will obtain.
Let us explore the topic by conducting an armchair walkthrough—that
is, by taking a mindful stroll through the topic and visualizing what it
might look like when we anticipate doing the study using each of the
three major methods sketched above. The first concern of all qualitative
researchers is locating the project. The setting for the research must be
one in which the phenomena of interest are likely to be seen—frequently,
and in an intense form. Those we choose to interview must be “expert
participants,” with much experience with the phenomena of interest. We
must deliberately and purposefully select a setting or context where we
will best see what we want to study. We do not usually choose a place or
a sample randomly, for we would then have to rely on luck to see what
we are interested in; we do not choose the “average” experience, as then
the characteristics of the phenomena are diluted and less evident.

THE ARMCHAIR WALKTHROUGH

How does one prepare to do a research study? Obviously, one may

approach a particular problem in several different ways, developing sev-
eral different questions, so that each one could be answered using a dif-
ferent method and could produce a slightly different result. Which one is
best, and how is that determined?
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 37

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
37

One way to reduce the uncertainty is by conducting an armchair

walkthrough—that is, by mentally going through the process. If I ask this
research question, then I will need to use this particular method, seek this
type of data and involve these participants, ask these interview questions,
handle and analyze data this particular way, and the results will be in this
form. On the other hand, if I do it using that method, then I will ask the
questions that way, use that method, and involve those participants; data
will look that way, and my results will be in that form.
By conducting an armchair walkthrough, we are trying to predict the
research process and the outcome rather than go into research blindly. In
this way, without losing flexibility or the ability to change some of our
choices, we can focus on the data rather than on decisions about the
administration of research. Although this type of conceptualizing will not
detect every problem that may be encountered, it lets us get some sense of
what we may learn by using each method. It allows for some level of
informed choice about which method has the potential to provide the most
suitable type of results, and it is helpful as we make preliminary prepara-
tion for writing the proposal. On the other hand, we need to be aware that
such decisions are not carved in stone, and we should always be prepared
to reevaluate and make changes if necessary. Table 2.4 displays the think-
ing that came out of the armchair walkthrough for our hypothetical project
“Arrivals and Departures: Patterns of Human Attachment.”

AND NOW—YOUR TOPIC?

“What are you studying?” is possibly the most common question asked
of the researcher, and it is also quite often the most troublesome one.
Interestingly, the issue of how to find a topic is not answered in any of
the textbooks on qualitative research. This is because when you select a
topic, you still have not started the research project. Selecting a topic
involves also seeing the purposiveness of the study and the congruence of
question, method, and what your project will be like.
Selecting the topic also involves selecting where you will go to do the
study—it is not the research question you ask when you get there, or the
method you use to answer it. If you find yourself telling inquirers, “I’m
doing classroom authority/nurses’ experiences of chosen childlessness/
inflicting pain . . . .” listen to the words you are using. The researcher
does not “do” a topic as the mindless tourist “does” Belgium, checking off
38
Table 2.4 Comparison of Three Methods to Conduct a Hypothetical Project, “Arrivals and Departures:
02-Richards.qxd

Patterns of Human Attachment”

Method Research Question Setting and Participants Strategies Types of Results

Phenomenology What is the meaning Interviews at In-depth audiotaped In-depth reflective

10/11/2006

of separation from or interviewees’ conversations. description of the

rejoining your spouse? convenience; person Reflection on the experience of
who has traveled phenomenological separating from or
recently. literature and rejoining your spouse.
9:40 PM

6–10 in each group. other sources.

Ethnography What are the patterns Unstructured, Description of the

of human attachment audiotaped interviews patterns of greeting
Page 38

displayed during and participant behaviors or styles of

arrivals and departures observation at the farewell.
at the airport? gate.
Field notes and other

Airport departure
and lounge arrival -
passengers, friends,
relatives, experts at
the scene (porters,
airport personnel).
Approximately
30–50 informants.
documents.

Grounded theory Interviews anywhere, Audiotaped interviews Theory about leaving

observations at and observations. and reunion; focus
the airport gate of New data as theory on the social
passengers, family directs research. psychological
members. processes.
Approximately 30–50

What is the
process of
greeting or
leaving your family?
participants.
Source: Reprinted with permission from Sage Publications, Inc.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 39

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
39

museums between France and Scandinavia. The topic of a research

project is where it is located, where you are going to place your study, not
what you will ask, how you will ask it, or how your research will provide
answers when you are there. (Incidentally, the term comes from Aristotle’s
Topics, which contains commonplace arguments, from the Greek topikos,
“of a place.”)
A topic may be any researchable area, subject, or experience (such as
an organization, living in a community, or a having a particular learning
disability), a concept (such as corporate structure, classroom learning,
social support, or coping), a setting (such as a boardroom, a school, a
village, a hospital ward), a group of persons (such as teachers, doctors, or
teenagers), some aspect of their everyday activities (such as teachers’ talk
in the lounge), or activities that are unusual (teaching students with
dyslexia). Those are all research locations or areas within which research
questions can be defined. A topic may combine perspectives, so a researcher
may be able to make an important argument for studying one of the
above topics in a particular group by asserting that the experience of that
group is sufficiently different from the experiences of other groups
reported in the literature.
You may have several topics burning to be researched. The challenge,
then, is to walk through each, asking how questions would be framed and
what sorts of research they would require. Or you may have no topic, but
instead a requirement that you get a project up and running. It seems
harder to start that way, because then research presents itself as the push
of duty, not the pull of interest in a topic. Wanted: a good topic!

How to Find a Topic

Any attempt to summarize reasons for selecting a topic runs the risk
of appearing to present the process as orderly. It usually is not. Insights
about suitable topics occur to researchers as they stand on high hills,
while they are in the shower, or when they are in the library; topics
demand attention when you are trying to do something else. A sort of
typology is possible, however. If you are stumped, try locating your
research in each of the five ways listed below. But remember to locate the
project to ask how your topic would be studied and what the outcome
project would be like.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 40

40
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

You Are Already There

Statistically, “already being there” is undoubtedly the most common

reason for topic selection. It is also the most exciting and the most dan-
gerous. Because you are there, you possibly have, or may be convinced that
you have, intimate knowledge of the topic as a participant. It seems you
can get going fast—the preparatory work has been done. You are familiar
with the setting and comfortable with the people there. But be careful: You
were there for reasons other than research (such as employment or group
membership or shared experience). These required a different type of
preparatory work for you to become a good participant or actor in the set-
ting. Being a researcher there may perhaps provide you with the opportu-
nity to contribute new knowledge to an area you care about. And so you
may, but you will have to ensure that your contribution represents valued
research results and not merely what you wanted to prove or get done as a
participant. If these ends are the same, you will have to be especially care-
ful to establish that they were the same and that your study is rigorous.

There Is a Gap in the Literature

Topics that are amenable to qualitative inquiry have often been rela-
tively ignored in the literature. Of course, this may be because they are
inaccessible to researchers or, worse, simply uninteresting. The fact that
nobody has studied a particular topic is not a good reason for taking it up.
On the other hand, such topics may be neglected because they are areas
in need of qualitative inquiry, areas where it is not easy to frame clear
questions, areas that are difficult to access, or areas that are obscured by
received interpretations.
Of course, this is a double-edged sword. If a topic has not been inves-
tigated, you will have an explorer’s challenge of discovering a new place,
mapping the area, displaying it to an admiring world, maybe even getting
your name on it. Classic qualitative research projects have opened up
whole areas of investigation in this way. With the second wave of
feminism, qualitative studies returned to topics in the hitherto taken-
for-granted social lives of women, opening up research areas addressing
motherhood, social support networks, and even housework.
However, as Columbus found, undiscovered places are hard to sell.
This is particularly important if you are a student applying for funding for
research expenses. Research into topics that are “fashionable”—that is,
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 41

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
41

topics that a number of other researchers are also investigating (or have
investigated)—is generally easier to get funded, but there is usually a con-
siderable amount of literature on those topics in the library already.

Another Way of Looking Is Needed

You might suspect that the literature may be poorly focused, or that
there is something wrong, invalid, or inaccurate about the presentation
and interpretation of the topic. Perhaps the received knowledge does not fit
with the evidence, or results of the studies reported in the literature have
been presented within the context of a theory that is invalid or inappro-
priate. It is time to take a fresh look at the phenomenon and reexamine the
theory from within, taking into consideration the perceptions of those
being studied. In recent decades, women’s studies and studies of health
and illness exemplify this approach, as qualitative studies challenged the
functionalist paradigm, reopening questions of power and conflict.

What’s Going On Here?

Qualitative methods are frequently used to discover the answers to

quite pragmatic questions, such as “What is going on here?” or “How are
we doing with this innovation?” Evaluation studies are of this type: The
researchers are trying to understand and describe efficiently the processes
or structures of particular phenomena. Much action research sets out to
find out “what is going on here”—the topic is “here,” this community,
this fight, this local government organization, and so on.

Supplementing Quantitative Inquiry

The topic may be an area where there is considerable knowledge of

events or patterns from quantitative research, or where quantitative work
needs prior backgrounding. The qualitative project may form the ground-
work for subsequent quantitative inquiry or be used to supplement
quantitative inquiry, or quantitative inquiry may be used to illustrate
qualitative inquiry. The end result of a qualitative project may be insight
into a problem, a rich description, a hypothesis, a theory to be tested fur-
ther in quantitative research, or a qualitatively derived theory that is
ready to use. You should consider the purpose of the qualitative project
before commencing the project and selecting the method.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 42

42
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

From Topic to Researchable Question:

Focusing Qualitative Inquiry

Deciding on a topic locates your research; this is where you are

researching. Framing a qualitative question is harder, because it requires
that you think about what needs to be asked in this research location as
well as what you can ask and reasonably expect have answered given your
resources and skills. A research question is a starting point only if it is
researchable.
One of the most difficult tasks for the beginning researcher is to think
qualitatively before the research begins. A researchable qualitative ques-
tion is not the most obvious outcome of reflecting on a topic. The big first
questions are as follows:

What needs to be asked?

How should it be asked? What data are required, and where will
the researcher have to go to find answers to these questions?
Can it be asked, and if so, what sort of a researcher or research
stance is needed?

Ethical as well as practical considerations must be explored (we discuss

these in detail in Chapters 10 and 11). If you are planning to do research
with vulnerable populations (such as groups in schools, prisons, hospi-
tals, or some cultural groups), you must obtain special permission at the
institutional level as well as at the guardian or parent, care provider, and
individual levels. Once you have obtained access, you must have in place
strategies to protect the identity of the participants. Consider who will
have access to the raw data. How will it be stored? How will identities of
participants or places be protected? Who will have access to the final
report? And who will need to review it or approve it prior to publication?

WHAT CAN YOU AIM FOR?

By now it should be clear that qualitative researchers are aiming for an

outcome that is more than a good story. It’s the fit of method, data, and
analysis that makes the difference between journalism and qualitative
research. Good journalism and good qualitative research share goals of
understanding people’s situations, thoroughly researching and vividly
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 43

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
43

illustrating what’s found. But all qualitative methods aim for abstraction
and analysis, not only description. (Robert Park, a founder of the Chicago
School of Sociology, and a journalist by training, called sociology “jour-
nalism with a theory.”)
And it will be a particular sort of analysis. In all the examples given
above, the outcome is something new, a discovery from the data. This
goal explains much in the techniques for handling data throughout this
book. Qualitative coding, for example, aims to retain the detail of the
data, so it can be explored and rethought. The researcher resists, or
delays, reducing that detail to numbers, since to do so would prevent
further discovery. Unlike much (though not all) quantitative research, the
qualitative project is unlikely to be testing existing theories. Much more
likely is that from the data will be created a new theory or a new expla-
nation of the phenomenon studied.
These are not unreachable goals. Discovered theories may be very
small and local. In Chapter 7, we discuss the task of abstraction and the
ways it is done. Meanwhile, as you work toward a topic, ask, what could
you aim for? What would be a good outcome of this study? What would
be good enough, and what would be excellent? (For discussion of possible
study outcomes, see Richards, 2005, pp. 125–145.)

SUMMARY

We see the principles we have discussed in this chapter—the purposive-

ness of qualitative inquiry and methodological congruence—as the hall-
marks of good qualitative research. They mean that a project’s goals and
its methods cannot be considered separately or severed from the strategies
of a research design. A research strategy is only a tool, and how one uses
a tool depends on the purpose of inquiry, the method used, and the type
of data. This is important: One may learn a strategy, but the way one uses
it depends on the method. In Chapter 3, we start to sketch this process.
In this chapter, we have emphasized the wholeness of methods—the
fit of question, data, and analysis. In Chapter 3, we address the flip side
of this wholeness: Although qualitative methods are congruent, they
are not always complete, and they do not always fully direct each stage of
the project. We compare the same three methods discussed above in
terms of completeness, showing how some convey full instructions for
the entire project whereas others leave the researcher to choose a method-
ological path.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 44

44
T H I N K I N G R E S E A RC H

RESOURCES

Read different types of qualitative research studies to get a feel for the differing results.

Morse, J. M. (Ed.). (1992b). Qualitative health research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
This book provides a brief overview of the main types of qualitative inquiry and includes
articles of each type as examples. It is useful for comparing and contrasting the types con-
cerning the results that might be expected from research using the different methods.

Richards, L. (2005). Handling qualitative data: A practical guide. London: Sage.

Chapters on each stage of tasks involved in doing the research, and on being able to see
the project as a whole. Chapter 7 has a sketch of possible outcomes.

Other Resources

Brizuela, D., Stewart, J. P., Carrillo, R. G., & Garbey, J. (2000). Acts of inquiry and qualita-
tive research. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.
Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and rsearch design: Choosing among five tradi-
tions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Eisner, E. W., & Peshkin, A. (Eds.). (1998). Qualitative inquiry in education: The continu-
ing debate. New York: Teachers College Press.
Riessman, C. K. (Ed.). (1994). Qualitative studies in social work research. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Van Maanen, J., Dabbs, J. M., & Faulkner, R. R. (1982). Varieties of qualitative research.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Qualitative Research by Discipline

We provide here a recent text in each of a range of disciplines, as a starting point for your
reading in the relevant literature.

Daymon, C., Holloway, I., & Daymon, C. (2002). Qualitative research methods and public
relations & marketing communications. London: Routledge.
Gilgun, J. F., Daly, K., & Handel, G. (Eds.). (1992). Qualitative methods in family research.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Golding, C. (2002). Grounded theory: A practical guide for management, business, & mar-
ket researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Holloway, I. (2005). Qualitative research in health care. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science.
Latimer, J. (Ed.). (2003). Advanced qualitative research for nursing. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Merriman, N.B. (1997). Qualitative research and case study applications in education.
Toronto: John Wiley & Sons.
Munhall, P.L. (2001). Nursing research: A qualitative perspective. (3rd ed.). Boston: Jones &
Bartlett.
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 45

The Integrity of Qualitative Research
45

Nariampolski, H. (2001). Qualitative market research: A comprehensive guide. Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods. (3rd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Shaw, I. S., & Gould, N. (2001). Qualitative research and social work. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Ulin, P. R., Robinson, E. T., & Tolley, E. E. (2005). Qualitative methods in public health:
A field guide for applied research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Journals

Ethnography
Field Methods
Forum: Qualitative Social Research (http: //qualitative-research.net/ fqs/fqs-eng.html)
International Journal of Qualitative Methods (http: //www.ualberta.ca/~ijqm)
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health & Well-Being
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
Qualitative Health Research
Qualitative Inquiry
Qualitative Report (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/qr/index.html)
Qualitative Research (http=//www.sagepub.com/journalsProdDesc.nav?prodId=Journal
201501)
Qualitative Research Journal (http//www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr/)
02-Richards.qxd 10/11/2006 9:40 PM Page 46