Acceptance Of Qualitative Research Research Articles

Uncovering Epistemologies and Values of Our Qualitative Engineering Education Research Community: Listening for Voices

<strong>Background:</strong> In engineering education research, we have made great strides in both our advanced qualitative research methodologies and the acceptance of qualitative research within the broader field. This shift in our community likely marks a shift in our epistemologies and a shift in our values, but we are still feeling a pull towards positivist epistemologies from funding agencies, journals, editorial boards, reviewers, and readers, which may be limiting our potential to conduct more critical and postmodern research and learn more about communities who are marginalized in engineering. <strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this research project is to develop an understanding of qualitative researchers’ epistemological perspectives and values. The research question guiding this study is: Through an analysis of qualitative engineering education manuscripts published in 2019, what voices of researchers and participants appear in our work and what do they reveal about our EER community’s epistemologies and values? <strong>Method:</strong> The databases Engineering Village and Google Scholar were employed to identify journal articles that are qualitative, engineering education–focused, and published in 2019. This search resulted in 27 journal articles from eleven journals that served as the data for this project. The analysis was derived from discourse analysis and The Listening Guide and involved multiple readings. During these readings, we considered how the epistemologies present in qualitative engineering education research were reflected through a discursive examination of voices that emerged in the papers. <strong>Conclusions: </strong>Researcher and participant voices emerged in the analysis, including some that are more aligned with positivist epistemologies (e.g., apologetic, generalizable, and abstracted voices) and others that are aligned with more postmodern epistemologies (e.g., alongside, vulnerable, and storied voices). These voices provide some insight into epistemological and paradigmatic tensions within our qualitative engineering education research community.

Review of Surgical Education Research Trends in North America

The purpose of this study was to synthesize surgical education research literature over the last decade and to address the following questions: (1) What are the most common subjects studied? (2) What research designs and data-gathering strategies are commonly employed? (3) Where are these papers being published? (4) What subject and research design trends have emerged in the last decade? A literature review was conducted on surgical education publications from January 2008 to July 2018, using the search terms, "Graduate Medical Education," and "General Surgery." Inclusion criteria included articles published in the United States and Canada specific to general surgery and graduate medical education. A total of 1043 articles met inclusion criteria and were categorized according to year published, journal type, journal of publication, subject of research, research design, and data collection method. The following observations were noted: (1) curriculum/teaching remains the most common subject of surgical education research, with growing emphasis on program evaluation, well-being, duty hours, and case exposure. (2) Descriptive research is the most common, although qualitative and mixed methods research is becoming more common. (3) Online surveys are the most common data collection method as they are the quickest way to gather data but there is an increasing use of interviews as support for qualitative research grows. and (4) Surgical education papers are largely published in journals specifically designed for education, and have slowly grown in popularity in generalized surgical journals. As surgical education continues to develop as a field, we anticipate further acceptance of qualitative research in major peer-reviewed surgical journals, increased emphasis on resident well-being, and more effective use of interviews and mixed methods including online resources for data collection.

Rethinking validity in qualitative sport and exercise psychology research: a realist perspective

Over the last two decades, the relativist approach has significantly shaped debates about the quality and rigour of qualitative research in sport and exercise psychology (SEP). In the absence of any published critiques of relativism in SEP, this paper problematises its central claims with a focus on the most recent contribution offered by Smith and McGannon (2018. Developing rigor in qualitative research: problems and opportunities within sport and exercise psychology. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 11, 101–121). Despite making valuable contributions to the advancement and acceptance of qualitative research, we argue that the relativist approach encounters numerous problems when attempting to reject the “anything goes” problem due to its fundamental ontological commitment to internal, multiple, mind-dependent realities. This paper then makes a constructive contribution to the field by offering an alternative position grounded in a realist understanding of validity. We first suggest that principles such as ontological plausibility, empirical adequacy and practical utility can re-orient both critical thinking and the use of practical techniques which can reduce threats to validity. Second, we suggest that Maxwell’s (1992. Understanding and validity in qualitative research. Harvard Educational Review, 62, 279–301) descriptive, interpretive and theoretical validity could be welcome concepts for qualitative researchers in SEP. The significance of this realist approach for researchers, reviewers and editors is discussed.

Knowing the child consumer: historical and conceptual insights on qualitative children's consumer research

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer a selective and necessarily truncated history of the place and use of qualitative approaches in the study of children's consumption in order to provide some depth of understanding regarding differences between and commonalities of approaches employed by academic market researchers, social science researchers and, to a lesser extent, market practitioners.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines key research statements about children's consumption beginning in the 1930s to ascertain the underlying conception of the child informing the work.FindingsIt is argued that there has been a displacement of psychologically oriented, developmental conceptions of the child with sociological and anthropological conceptions resulting in an acceptance of the child as a more or less knowing, competent consumer. This shift has become manifest in a rise and acceptance of qualitative research on children's consumer behaviour by social science and marketing academics as well as by market practitioners such as market researchers.Research limitations/implicationsMethods – here qualitative methods – must be seen as enactments of theories about conceptions of the person, rather than simply as neutral tools that uncover extant truths.Practical implicationsAttending to how one “constructs” the child may usefully inform debates about the harmfulness or usefulness of goods and messages directed to children.Originality/valueThis paper helps in understanding the long history of children as consumers, how they have been understood and approached by market and academic researchers interested in consumption and various ways conceptions of ‘the child’ can be used.

Using Ethnography in Applied Sport Psychology

The acceptance of qualitative research in applied sport psychology is growing steadily, yet there are continued calls for greater methodological diversity in this research. To this end, we offer ethnography to extend and enhance our understanding of applied sport psychology. Ethnography is aimed toward understanding the culture of a particular group from the perspective of the group members. The group culture, then, will lend insight into the behaviors, values, emotions, and mental states of group members. Ethnographers employ multiple methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of the social environment and perceptions of the members of the social group. In this paper, we discuss the epistemological and methodological foundations of ethnography. Then, using research examples related to applied sport psychology, we describe processes involved ethnographic research. Finally, we explore the issues of representation and legitimacy in ethnography.

The Tourism Researcher's Gaze: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Concerning Qualitative Research

ABSTRACT This empirical study examines how the methodological training, attitudes and perceptions of tourism researchers are shaping the form and content of the “Knowledge-Based Platform” in tourism studies. Data was gathered electronically with the help of e-mail and an on-line web survey. The trends observed point out a number of institutional and structural barriers to the acceptance of qualitative research as a legitimate mode of inquiry. These relate to tenure, journal article publication, agency funding and obtaining academic positions based on qualitative dissertations. Additionally, the study indicates two graduate program-related conditions that inhibit effective social inquiry: (1) insufficient training to produce good qualitative researchers, and (2) inadequate program support for training students to recognize the philosophical/methodological issues that shape their own research approaches and analyses. Overall, results suggest that tourism research still aspires to being primarily (post)positivistic, seeking epistemological certainty through quantitative methods and institutional legitimacy through emulating natural science methods. The tourism researcher's gaze must change, we argue, to one that is methodologically more reflexive and theoretically more sophisticated.

The role of qualitative research in psychological journals.

The acceptance of qualitative research in 15 journals published and distributed by the American Psychological Association (APA) was investigated. This investigation included a PsycINFO search using the keyword qualitative, an analysis of 15 APA journals for frequency of qualitative publication, a content analysis of the journal descriptions, and the results of qualitative interviews with 10 of the chief editors of those journals. The results indicate that there exists a substantial amount of interest in the potential contribution of qualitative methods in major psychological journals, although this interest is not ubiquitous, well defined, or communicated. These findings highlight the need for APA to state its position regarding the applicability of qualitative methods in the study of psychology.

Piths, Pearls, and Provocation

Although qualitative research has considerable strengths both in assessing the effectiveness of organizational models of health care provision and in contributing to their development, its impact on local and national decision making in the United Kingdom appears to be negligible. This article examines three obstacles to the acceptance of qualitative research, illustrating some ways around them drawn from recent research at the Centre for Mental Health Services Development. However, our illustrations throw into relief the potential for tensions between the pragmatic world of health care management and the quality and integrity of qualitative research. The authors, therefore, examine these tensions with reference to recent work on the development of quality criteria and discuss some of the solutions they have attempted.

Fifteen years of doing qualitative research on psychotherapy

Abstract The conduct of qualitative research in psychology goes against the grain of customary praxis and thus raises many challenges. The author summarises the experience of having spent a large part of his academic career using the grounded theory form of qualitative research. In the account, he indicates how he became interested in this methodology and describes his experience of using, publishing and teaching it. These considerations are contextualised in the sociology of research praxis in psychology. The appraised is made that a movement toward acceptance of qualitative research is currenuy under way in the counselling and psychotherapy research community, albeit cautiously in some quarters. Some implications of this development are addressed.

Fifteen years of doing qualitative research on psychotherapy

Abstract The conduct of qualitative research in psychology goes against the grain of customary praxis and thus raises many challenges. The author summarises the experience of having spent a large part of his academic career using the grounded theory form of qualitative research. In the account, he indicates how he became interested in this methodology and describes his experience of using, publishing and teaching it. These considerations are contextualised in the sociology of research praxis in psychology. The appraised is made that a movement toward acceptance of qualitative research is currenuy under way in the counselling and psychotherapy research community, albeit cautiously in some quarters. Some implications of this development are addressed.