Best Practices

Is It Good Research? Quality Design in Qualitative Research: Quality Approaches That Embrace Diversity & Inclusion

Is It Good Research?Research Design Review currently consists of nearly 300 articles, has more than 950 subscribers and well over one million views. Although all of the articles in RDR pertain to some aspect of a quality approach to research design, five articles that appeared in 2022 highlight the relevance of quality approaches in qualitative methods to fostering diversity, inclusiveness, and giving participants a “fair voice.” These approaches are fundamental to achieving useful outcomes.

“Is It Good Research? Quality Design in Qualitative Research: Quality Approaches That Embrace Diversity & Inclusion” is a compilation of these five articles. These articles are a reminder that rigorous research strategies pertaining to sampling, data collection, and analysis transcend the paradigm, positivist-non-positivist debates. And in fact, prioritize inclusion and fairness while exploring the complexity of human realities.

As stated in the introduction to this document, many other compilations of RDR articles are available. In addition to those mentioned, year-end collections of RDR articles are typically available, with the first of these posted in January 2012, “Questions & Answers: Selected Articles from Research Design Review.”

 

Is It Good Research?

To see this and other slide decks on best practices in research methods and design, go to https://www.slideshare.net/MargaretRoller.

 

Research Integrity & a Total Quality Framework Approach to Qualitative Data Sharing

The September 2021 issue of Monitor on Psychology from the American Psychological Association includes an article “Leading the Charge to Address Research Misconduct” by Stephanie Pappas. The article discusses the various Qualitative data sharingcircumstances or “pressures” that may lead researchers towards weak research practices that result in anything from “honest” mistakes or errors (e.g., due to insufficient training or oversight) to deliberate “outright misconduct” (e.g., falsifying data, dropping outliers from the analysis and reporting). The article goes on to talk about what psychologists are doing to tackle the problem.

One of those psychologists is James DuBois, DSc, PhD at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. DuBois and his colleague Alison Antes PhD direct the P.I. (professionalism and integrity in research) Program at Washington University. This program offers one-on-one coaching to researchers who are challenged by the demands of balancing scientific and compliance requirements, as well as researchers who have (or have staff who have) been investigated for noncompliance or misconduct. The P.I. Program also conducts an On the Road Workshop which is an onsite session for researchers “doing empirical research in funded research environments” covering such areas as decision-making strategies, effective communication, and professional growth goals.

Another approach to the problem of misconduct and the goal of research integrity is transparency by way of sharing data (and other elements of design), allowing other researchers the opportunity to examine research practices and substantiate the reported results. Dr. DuBois and his co-authors discuss this and other advantages to sharing qualitative data in their 2018 article “Is It Time to Share Qualitative Research Data?” The authors assert that allowing other researchers to assess supporting evidence and “comprehensiveness by examining our data may improve the quality of research by enabling correction and increasing attention to detail” (p. 384).

In response to DuBois et al., Roller and Lavrakas (2018) published a commentary expressing Read Full Text