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Key research themes
1. How can qualitative research ensure quality, credibility, and rigor across diverse methodological orientations?
This theme focuses on the challenges and strategies for enhancing the validity, credibility, and methodological rigor of qualitative research amid a wide plurality of philosophical and theoretical paradigms. Given that qualitative inquiry spans diverse approaches—phenomenology, ethnomethodology, critical theory, feminist inquiry, grounded theory, and more—questions about what constitutes quality or trustworthy knowledge become necessarily multifaceted. Research in this area investigates systematic methods for data collection, analysis, and reporting that respect the particular epistemological commitments of different qualitative traditions while addressing concerns of reliability, validity, and transparency. This theme is pivotal for researchers keen to achieve rigorous, credible qualitative findings that can withstand scrutiny and foster genuine understanding.
Key finding: Patton highlights that credibility in qualitative inquiry depends on rigorous data collection and analysis techniques, researcher credibility, and philosophical commitment to qualitative paradigms. Specifically, he delineates... Read more
Key finding: This review identifies that trustworthiness in qualitative research entails credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability as parallel constructs to quantitative validity and reliability. It underlines... Read more
Key finding: The authors clarify the intertwined but distinct roles of epistemology, methodology, and method in qualitative research. They argue that quality depends on reflexive internal consistency across these facets: epistemology... Read more
Key finding: This work situates qualitative research within sociology emphasizing interpretivist epistemologies and constructionist ontologies that foreground understanding social meaning from participant perspectives. It recounts the... Read more
Key finding: This paper traces the evolution of qualitative methods from ethnography through grounded theory and emergent participatory and digital approaches. It identifies forces driving methodological shifts including technological... Read more
2. What approaches integrate critical theory and social justice commitments within qualitative research methodologies?
This theme explores the integration of critical epistemologies, social justice aims, and reflexivity in qualitative methods. It includes methodologies that actively interrogate and challenge power structures, inequalities, and dominant knowledge paradigms through transformative and emancipatory research designs. Research under this theme advances methodological innovations and analytic frameworks that center marginalized voices and critically engage with historical and contemporary systemic oppressions. It spotlights qualitative practices that merge rigorous inquiry with ethical-political commitments for social change.
Key finding: This dialogical piece articulates challenges and strategies in enacting critical qualitative methodologies centered on justice, difference, ethics, and equity. The authors emphasize reflexivity about researcher positionality... Read more
Key finding: The authors propose an enhanced critical thematic analysis (CTA) method that incorporates closed coding to foreground ideologies, power relations, and hierarchies within qualitative interview data. The method extends... Read more
Key finding: This study reviews educational research employing testimonio as a methodology rooted in critical race feminista epistemologies. Testimonio is described as a narrative praxis that combines storytelling traditions with... Read more
Key finding: This hermeneutic analysis traces the genealogy of alterity and its philosophical role in shaping Otherness, White supremacy, and systemic exclusion. The author argues that critical qualitative researchers should use alterity... Read more
3. How are digital technologies and analytic tools transforming qualitative research methodologies and collaboration?
This theme examines how technological innovations, including Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS), digital platforms, and AI-powered tools, are reshaping qualitative methodology, data management, analysis, and collaborative practices. Research in this area investigates how digital tools enhance rigor, efficiency, and scalability without compromising qualitative depth. Furthermore, it explores new possibilities for real-time collaboration transcending geographic and cultural boundaries. This theme is critical for contemporary qualitative researchers leveraging technology to augment traditional methods and foster multidisciplinary, global research networks.
Key finding: This article details how digital technologies and CAQDAS platforms (e.g., NVivo, Atlas.ti) enable nuanced qualitative data coding, organization, and visualization, contributing to enhanced analytic rigor and credibility. It... Read more