Creswell (2013) proposed five approaches to qualitative research: narrative, phenomenological, case study, grounded theory, and ethnographic. However, among qualitative methodologists, that text is quite controversial. Qualitative research is rapidly evolving and emerging. There are literally hundreds of methodological approaches to doing qualitative research, and undoubtedly those five are too narrow. It is a post-positivist take on a method of inquiry that increasingly rejects post-positivism as too rigid.

In this chapter, we will consider general qualitative research (i.e., that which uses qualitative methods but does not follow an over-arching methodology), Creswell’s major qualitative traditions, and other qualitative methodologies. It is important to note here that this chapter only superficially touches on each, leaving out an incredible amount. That is, however, content better suited for Tier 2 qualitative coursework and texts.

One common question across qualitative research is, “how many participants do I need?” I have heard very committed views by self-proclaimed qualitative “experts” expressing that a minimum of 500 participants is needed all the way down to only needing 1. Those from a more quantitative and positivist/post-positivist backgrounds tend to expect larger numbers. However, there can be a huge difference between what a journal editor or dissertation chair expects and what is “right” (though, I prefer the term “appropriate” over “right”). It is incumbent upon the researcher to decide whether to rely on methodological texts to determine an appropriate number of participants or cede to a journal editor/dissertation chair who has different opinions. In the methodologies representing major qualitative traditions below, I will touch on generally recognized, appropriate expectations for participants; however, one overarching concept is that of saturation, which Saldaña and Omasta (2018) defined as “an intuitive feeling that nothing new about the site and its participants is being learned after an extended observation or analytic period” (p. 419). This is something only the researcher(s) can determine, but it is a good thing to articulate how, when, and why that determination was made.

General Qualitative Research

General qualitative research occurs when a researcher uses qualitative methods but without a methodology. That might mean they conducted focus groups of 4th Grade teachers in a school district, and then they looked for qualitative themes in the data; however, it was not a phenomenological or case study. It was just a collection of data from focus groups. A qualitative study lacking a methodology is often seen as inferior or weaker, but yet it may actually be the most published type of qualitative research. Sometimes it is referred to as just “descriptive,” since it lacks the methodology for greater application or connection to broader themes. Ellis and Hart (2023), however, argued for the value of this approach, especially for exploratory uses (where the results of the study then are the springboard for further studies). General qualitative research allows researchers to do whatever needs to be done qualitatively to investigate a research question, even when existing methodologies do not align well with the question.

Qualitative description (QD) is, in some ways, its own methodology, but taxonomically, it most appropriately falls underneath general qualitative research. It is somewhat more highly regarded as being coherent and purposeful, though it has fallen in status with the increasingly theory-driven world of academic social research. Sandelowski (2000) described QD as “a comprehensive summary of an event in the everyday terms of those events. Researchers conducting such studies seek descriptive validity, or an accurate accounting of events that most people (including researchers and participants) observing the same event would agree is accurate, and interpretive validity, or an accurate accounting of the meanings participants attributed to those events that those participants would agree is accurate” (p. 336). Ocean and Hicks (2021) added that, “QD researchers document what is occurring, instead of what we assume is happening, using the voices of those directly impacted by a phenomenon” (p. 701). It does include qualitative data analysis—it is not just copying/pasting transcripts; however, the purpose is for that analysis to most directly reflect the participants’ content and meaning, rather than any researcher or theory.

Because of the undefined nature of this approach, the methods of data collection and analysis, as well as the number of participants, are undefined. It is even more incumbent upon the researcher to defend their decisions on these matters.

Example General Qualitative Study

Bravo-Moreno, A. (2019). Choice mums and children’s education. Does feminism matter? A qualitative study. The Qualitative Report, 24(4), 921-947. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2019.3865

Example Qualitative Description Study

Ocean, M., & Hicks, K. T. (2021). A qualitative description investigation of U.S. higher education quantitative datasets. The Qualitative Report, 26(3), 696-713. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4397

Major Qualitative Traditions

Narrative Inquiry

As a qualitative researcher, I often describe myself as a “professional non-fiction storyteller.” Narrative inquiry has a variety of synonymous terms—narrative research, narrative study, etc.—but they are all used to describe qualitative studies that are focused on telling a non-fiction story. Clandinin (2016) described the methodology as “almost anything that uses, for example, stories as data, narrative or story as representational form, narrative as content analysis, narrative as structure, and so forth” (p. 11).

Hearkening back to the illustration introduced in the previous chapter, narrative inquiry is also probably the most “depth”-focused qualitative methodology. It is ideal for digging into the details of an experience, often from the perspective of one person, to really shine a light on what something is like over time.

Chronology is important to narrative inquiry. It is not best suited to a single event or experience (which, respectively, would likely be a case study or phenomenology); rather, that single event might be the climax (or, “narrative turn”) of the story, but it should be situated within the events that preceded and followed the event. Thus, a narrative study will normally present findings chronologically as a story (which is actually a report of re-storied qualitative data by the researcher) with a special focus placed on the key point that is the narrative turn.

Note that it is increasingly common to see narrative inquiry conducted wherein the author is also the participant. There are various combined qualitative methodologies (a topic discussed at the end of the chapter) that now feature this, such as the autoethnography (see, Ellis et al., 2011). However, when that is done as specifically a storied, chronological narrative, Clandinin (2011) described that as autobiographical narrative inquiry. Note that most autobiographical writing is not autobiographical narrative inquiry.

The number of participants in a narrative study will vary somewhat based on the specific research questions or sub-type of narrative research. However, it is very common and appropriate for narrative studies to have just one participant. Data is normally connected through a series of interviews with the participant, but it commonly also will include elicitation of memories using artifacts (ex., a picture of that person from a key event in their life), interviews with people closely associated with the participant (such as family members), and document analysis.

Example Narrative Inquiry

Chang, O., Hong J., & Jeon, B. (2024). A narrative inquiry into the life of a mother for a child with developmental disabilities. The Qualitative Report, 29(5), 1496-1512. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.6445

Example Autoethnography

Olt, P. A. (2018). Through Army-colored glasses: A layered account of one veteran’s experiences in higher education. The Qualitative Report, 23(10), 2403-2421. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3354

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is an applied approach to philosophy, and it is perhaps the most involved and complex qualitative methodology. van Manen (2016) described how, “doing phenomenology means developing a pathos for the great texts, and, simultaneously, reflecting in a phenomenological manner on the living meanings of everyday experiences, phenomena, and events” (p. 23). It is typically focused on ontological and epistemological questions about the human experience, usually by asking research questions such as, “What is _______ like?” For example, in a previous phenomenological study I published, I asked the following phenomenological research question: “What is the academic experience like for freshmen doing their first year of college through synchronous online education in classes blended with face-to-face students” (Olt, 2018, p. 382)?

However, phenomenology is also often confused for general qualitative research and a variety of other qualitative methodologies. A phenomenon is really any thing, whether something of physical substance or not (ex., a romantic relationship). So, while in a loose sense, all social research is phenomenological, it is definitely not the case methodologically.

So, what should a phenomenological study look like? Generally, a phenomenological study should:

• Ask an open, phenomenological research question about a human experience
• Be rooted in one of the philosophical traditions and appropriate phenomenological methodological literature (ex., Heidegger, 1927/2008 and van Manen, 2016)
• Be solely focused on the phenomenon not the participants
• Utilize participants who have experienced/are experiencing the phenomenon
• Gather pre-reflective accounts by interviewing those participants (i.e., just descriptive accounts, not with their evaluations or value judgments); such interviews are usually unstructured or very loosely semi-structured
• Engage deeply with the philosophical implications of the study and its findings
• Minimize the influence of the researcher(s) by engaging in “bracketing” or “bridling” (Vagle, 2016)

That last bullet has historically been controversial. Bracketing is where the researcher removes themself from the design, data collection, and analysis. They make it as if they had no role in that and produce a pure exposition of what a phenomenon is like (a process sometimes called “phenomenological reduction”). Borrowing from pop culture, think of Data (an android robot) from the Star Trek shows and films attempting to conduct qualitative research. While that might seem like a laudable goal toward objectivity, is that even possible? Increasingly, qualitative methodologists agree that it is not, and so we should stop pretending that it is. Vagle’s (2016) post-intentional phenomenology embraces bridling as an alternative, with it being the “reflective, open stance” of the researcher to their topic, wherein they do not pretend they are removed but do attempt to account for and lay bare their influence in the work.

Phenomenological studies vary significantly by sub-type and their parent philosophical tradition. However, common and appropriate numbers of participants range from 1-20. Data collection is almost always done just by interviews.

Example Phenomenology

Modesto, O. P. (2018). A hermeneutic phenomenological study of teen mothers who graduated from an alternative school. The Qualitative Report, 23(12), 2923-2935. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.2765

Case Study

The concept of a case study emerged from the fields of medicine and law. In both, the unit of work tends to be a single case, and so there is a great deal of attention given by researchers to key cases that illuminate something new and/or important. In medicine, that might be a unique set of comorbidities which were treated successfully, while in law that might be a careful consideration of how a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling sets precedent.

Within the social sciences then, a case study “investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the ‘case’) in its real-world context” (Yin, 2014, p. 2) to “catch the complexity of a single case” (Stake, 1995, p. xi). Another way of describing the methodology is that a case study is a comprehensive qualitative investigation of a key case to illuminate some facet important to further research, theory, and/or practice. The “case” being studied can range from a single individual/event to an entire organization. Perhaps the most key element of a case study is that it is tightly “bounded,” which means that it is precisely defined as to what is and what is not inside the case being considered. Typically, case studies ask “how” or “why” research questions (Yin, 2014).

Consider the example below:

• Topic: Rural high school teachers in a department of one
• Research Question: How do rural high school teachers manage the curricula of their discipline when working as the only teacher of that discipline in their school?
• Bounded Case: The four core disciplinary teachers (math, science, English language arts, social studies) at Pseudonym High School in a rural Great Plains state

Should one wish to engage in a case study, Stake (1995) and Yin (2014) are the most commonly discussed methodological sources. However, Baxter and Jack (2008) provide an outstanding overview of the methodology with a compare/contrast approach and laying out the sub-types of a case study.

The number of participants and methods of data collection for any given case study will be dictated by the bounded case itself. While this concept is somewhat true across all qualitative research, it is especially so in a case study. If the case is bounded such that there are only four in the population, then the number of participants could not exceed four. It is an expectation of the case study methodology that there will be a variety of data sources, and of the qualitative methodologies, the case study is the most likely to include some quantitative data, as the goal of data collection is to collect all the relevant data within the case.

Example Case Study

Olt, P. A., & Tao, B. (2020). International students’ transition to a rural, state comprehensive university. Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University, 9, Art. 4. http://doi.org/10.58809/CBSX6080

Grounded Theory

Coming out of the sociology field, Glaser and Strauss (1967)—the godfathers of grounded theory—described the methodology as “the discovery of theory from data” (p. 1). However, that was not a new idea, as theory generation had been the bedrock of social sciences for decades at that point. What was revolutionary was that the “data” being talked about were not quantitative but rather qualitative. They saw exploratory qualitative research subjected to constant comparative analysis as an ideal pathway for the formulation (though not verification) of social theories. The theory being generated was to be grounded in data (i.e., a descriptive theory rather than a normative theory), or, as they put it: “theory based on data” (p. 4). Glaser and Strauss approached qualitative research generally and grounded theory specifically from a post-positivist bent. However, Charmaz (2014) deviated from that post-positivism into constructivism “to acknowledge subjectivity and the researcher’s involvement in the construction and interpretation of data” (p. 14).

In practice, grounded theorists typically ask “how” research questions focused on explaining human/social processes or relationships. It is the most prescriptive of all qualitative methodologies in how data are collected and analyzed. First, researchers develop tentative theoretical categories from an initial sample that is selected purposely for developing the theory. They then utilize theoretical sampling for their qualitative study until the point of saturation that the theory is fully developed and no longer needs further participants/data. Theoretical sampling, then, is when:

the researcher aims to develop the properties of his or her developing categories or theory, not to sample randomly selected populations or to sample representative distributions of a particular population. To engage in theoretical sampling, the researcher must have already developed a tentative theoretical category from the data. When engaging in theoretical sampling, the researcher seeks people, events, or information to illuminate and define the properties, boundaries, and relevance of this category or set of categories. (p. 345)

Constant comparative analysis is done throughout and after data collection, by going back and forth between data and analysis with memoing done by the researcher. The coding progression in a grounded theory study is first in vivo (the participants’ own key words), then axial (relationships around categories, such as who, what, when, etc.), and finally theoretical (causes, contexts, contingencies, consequences, covariances, and conditions). The theory is often presented visually, such as in the form of a flowchart, to emphasize the process of how the phenomenon being studied happens.

Grounded theory studies probably average the highest number of participants, with expectations commonly ranging from 20-75. This likely happens because grounded theory does attempt at qualitative generalization. Data collection centers on interviews, focus groups, observations, and artifacts, but it can include other sources.

Example Grounded Theory

Karraa, W., & McCaslin, M. (2015). Published: A grounded theory of successful publication for midcareer scholars. The Qualitative Report, 20(8), 1332-1358. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2266

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative methodology focused on the study of culture and/or culture-sharing groups. It is typically conducted by an outside researcher who spends a significant amount of time embedded within the culture/culture-sharing group (ex., living in particular collegiate fraternity for 4-24 months to study that chapter’s culture). This methodology arose out of anthropology, wherein (typically) a Western anthropologist traveled to some hidden village in a jungle to learn about a tribe previously unknown to Western civilization. In recent years, that has made ethnography quite controversial (ex., Wolf, 1992), as it is often cast as colonialistic, Western-centric, exploitative, tokenizing, objectifying, and oppressive in the tradition of the era in which those early anthropological ethnographies were conducted. It is also relevant to note here that primate researchers, such as the famous Dr. Jane Goodall, conducted ethnographies of those primate group cultures. Wolcott (2005) is perhaps the most important methodological source book for modern ethnographers.

In an ethnography, the outside perspective brought by that researcher is referred to as “etic,” whereas the insider perspective of those from within the culture/culture-sharing group is referred to as “emic.” The goal of the researcher, then, is to get past the etic to communicate the culture from an emic perspective.

Similar to the case study, the number of participants in an ethnography will vary according to the number of people in the culture sharing group. However, the number of participants is less relevant in ethnographies, as the unit of focus is one (i.e., the group itself, not the individuals). Ethnographic data collection often centers around observations and informal interactions during an extended immersion of the researcher in the culture-sharing group’s setting. Because of this, studying in multiple iterations of the group can become impractical and actually represent different sub-cultures (ex., a study on a particular fraternity across multiple chapters might be best suited to studying the sub-culture of a single chapter).

Example Ethnography

Hunter, J. E. (2015). Intersubjective sensibilities: Memory, experience, and meaning in natural history interpretation. The Qualitative Report, 20(7), 1046-1061. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2199

Other Qualitative Methodologies

There is not space in this text to expound upon all the options that could be presented on the topic of this chapter. The “major” methodological traditions may be more commonly used, but that does not make them superior to any of these “others.” Each fits its own niche for what is being investigated, how it is investigated, what questions can be answered, and how findings are presented. While some of the more common “others” seen are highlighted in this section, readers are encouraged to dig deeper into qualitative methodological literature if they want to know more or find other options.

Arts-Based

Arts-based qualitative research is likely the most varied type of qualitative research, in terms of both methods and representation of the research. For example, an ethnodrama is an amalgamation of qualitative data from, say, interviews that have been re-storied into a dramatic production for the theater. Qualitative poetry, which can be autoethnographic, poetically conveys an experience, and that poetry could span just a single page without any engagement with the literature (ex., Teman, 2016) or be a poem situated as the “Findings” in a traditionally-formatted research article. However, all arts-based qualitative research includes creative, artistic acts as central to the data collection and/or generation, as well as the final representation of research. See Smithbell (2010) for an overview of arts-based qualitative research in the education field.

Example Arts-Based Studies

Cousik, R. (2014). Research in special education: Using a research poem as a guide for relationship building. The Qualitative Report, 19(26), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1210

O’Connell, N. P., & Lynch, T. (2020). Translating deaf culture: An ethnodrama. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(3-4), 411-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419843945

Teman, E. D. (2016). Laramie 2.0: The journey of a queer professor. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(3), 225-227. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800416640013

Content Analysis

Content analysis is a qualitative methodology wherein the researcher “systematically examines print and media materials’ words and images for their topics, themes, concepts, and ideas” (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018, p. 153). Content analysis can blur the lines between quantitative and qualitative, such as counting frequencies of key words that are determined by qualitative themes.

Content analysis can stand alone as its own study, but it can also be used as an analytic approach nested inside of another methodology. For example, a case study of an organization might generate a significant amount of documents as qualitative data, which then could be subjected to content analysis.

Example Content Analysis Study

Gupta, R., & Pradhan, S. (2017). Evaluating financial planning advertisements for retirement in India: A content analysis. The Qualitative Report, 22(7), 1792-1808. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2017.2219

Photovoice

Versey (2024) described photovoice research as “a visual method for interrogating subjective perspectives” (p. 594). In short, photovoice research allows participants to utilize visual media (i.e., photographs they take) to represent their perspectives, which they may then supplement by discussing them. Traditionally, this was done with the researcher and participant co-located and collaborating, but it can be done remotely and virtually (Call-Cummings & Hauber-Özer, 2021).

Example Photovoice Study

Tønnessen, S. H., Ness, O., & Klevan, T. G. (2023). Co-exploring meaning in everyday life for people in mental health recovery: A photovoice study. The Qualitative Report, 28(4), 1070-1095. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2023.5782

Combined Methodology

Why have a combined qualitative methodology rather than a “pure” one? Simply put, sometimes the existing boxes are too restrictive to conform to while doing the needed research. To illustrate, phenomenological polyethnography (Olt & Teman, 2019) is a combined qualitative methodology, which blends phenomenology with duoethnography (polyethnography just meaning more than two). Duoethnography itself is a combination of narrative inquiry and ethnography, as “a collaborative research methodology in which two or more researchers of difference juxtapose their life histories to provide multiple understandings of the world. Rather than uncovering the meanings that people give to their lived experiences, duoethnography embraces the belief that meanings can be and often are transformed through the research act” (Norris & Sawyer, 2012, p. 9). In cases where the expert authors also happen to be those who experienced the phenomenon, phenomenology is not possible, as duo/polyethnography puts the focus on the authors and their transformations, not the phenomenon itself. Thus, the combined phenomenological polyethnography adapts the parent methodologies to focus on a phenomenon through dialogue of a shared experience by the authors.

Example Combined Methodology Studies

Olt, P. A. & Teman, E. D. (2018). A duoethnographic exploration of persistent technological failures in synchronous online education. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 19(3), Art. 3039. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-19.3.3039

Rice, C., Bessey, M., Roosen, K., & Kirkham, A. (2023). Transgressing professional boundaries through fat and disabled embodiments. Canadian Woman Studies Les Cahiers De La Femme, 35(1,2), 51-61. https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/view/37866