Good qualitative research
By Hossein Nassaji. 2020
146 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This issue of Language Teaching Research (LTR) includes six articles, each examining a particular aspect of second language teaching and learning, ranging from the use of classroom resources to different kinds of instructional approaches to the development of different language skills. Three of the studies have used a quantitative approach while the other three have used a qualitative one. This suggests that the number of qualitative studies is increasing in second language (L2) research and that LTR welcomes publishing them. Given that half of the studies are qualitative, I would like to take the opportunity to discuss some of the characteristics of qualitative research and also the criteria and principles that could be used to assess their quality. Qualitative research can be broadly defined as a kind of inquiry that is naturalistic and deals with non-numerical data. It seeks to understand and explore rather than to explain and manipulate variables. It is contextualized and interpretive, emphasizing the process or patterns of development rather than the product or outcome of the research. In L2 research, qualitative methods can be used to explore an array of questions for which a quantitative method may not be suitable. In qualitative research, data are collected through qualitative data collection tools such as interviews, field notes, diaries, observations, etc. In pure qualitative research, data are both collected and analysed qualitatively. However, qualitative data can also be analysed quantitatively through assigning numerical values to the whole or sections of the data, which can then help to identify general patterns or, in some cases, to evaluate specific predictions. Two of the qualitative studies in this issue of LTR have also used quantification in their analysis. Good qualitative research is robust, well informed, and thoroughly documented. Although naturalistic and interpretive, similar to quantitative research, qualitative research is also systematic, involving a careful process of identifying the problem, collecting, analysing, explaining, evaluating, and interpreting the data. Thus, when doing qualitative research, it is essential to ensure its rigor and quality.
Subfields: Education, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/646dd8f483c3fdc9a52ebe350680ab4a37c0e6f7
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Citations in the corpus
- Criteria for Good Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Review (2021, background): “Nassaji (2020) argues that good qualitative research should be robust, well informed, and thoroughly documented.”