Explosion or much ado about little?: a quantitative examination of qualitative publications from 1995-2017

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following a report of a 15-fold increase in published qualitative studies catalogued in PsycNET between 1995 and 2016, researchers engaged in a closer examination of changes in published qualitative research. Four questions are addressed: (1) Can the reported 15-fold increase of published qualitative studies indexed in a psychology database be replicated using a similar database? (2) If the increase in qualitative articles is adapted from the raw number to the relative number of qualitative publications compared to non-qualitative (e.g., quantitative, review articles) publications, does the 15-fold rate of change hold, increase, or decrease? (3) Are there specific domains that have contributed disproportionately to the increase in qualitative articles? and (4) As the proliferation of published qualitative research is examined, what portion of qualitative work is published in moderate- to high-impact journals compared to low-quality or non-indexed journals? Each of these questions are systematically addressed using PsycINFO. Results suggest that while the 15-fold increase in raw numbers is replicable, the relative increase of qualitative articles is a more modest sixfold increase. Further, much of the increase in qualitative articles appears to stem from journals related to healthcare. Finally, results suggest that the increase in quantity may be associated with a slight decline of the quality of research being published.