The Total Quality Framework (TQF) is rooted in the idea that a quality approach to qualitative research requires “quality thinking” at each stage of the research process. It is an idea derived from the logic that it is not good enough to think carefully about data collection without also thinking as carefully about the analysis and reporting phases while keeping a discerning eye on the ultimate goal of gaining useful research results. This fundamental concept underlies the TQF and serves to define its four components – Credibility (pertaining to the data collection phase), Analyzability (analysis), and Transparency (reporting), and Usefulness (being able to do something of value with the outcomes).

By considering quality standards at each step in the research design, qualitative researchers maintain the integrity of their data through the entire study thereby producing something of value to the users of their research. For instance, a concerted quality approach to data collection – an approach that mitigates researcher bias and gathers valid data – but a disregard for the quality process in the analysis phase – e.g., by way of the deconstruction of participants’ lived experiences, the inaccuracy and misuse of transcripts, coding based solely on manifest rather than latent content, and the absence of data verification – weakens the entire study. Likewise, a deliberate quality approach to data collection and analysis but a failure to write a transparent final document that reveals the details of the study’s scope, data gathering, analysis process and verification, effectively masks the integrity of the research and undermines its critical value to users.

A holistic quality-centric approach to qualitative research design essentially means that a weakness in any one link in the quality chain – the chain from data collection to analysis to reporting – erodes the purpose of conducting qualitative research (regardless of method) which is to offer useful information by way of new hypotheses, next steps, and/or applications to other contexts.

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