Understanding and critiquing qualitative research papers

The first article in this series on understanding research (Lee, 2006a) examined the basic terminology used by researchers and identified that qualitative research produced non-numerical (qualitative) data. This type of research aims to report a situation as it actually is in a natural rather than a laboratory setting.

Qualitative researchers justify this approach by suggesting that it is not possible to separate the context or setting in which the phenomenon occurs from the phenomenon itself (Morse and Field, 1996).

VOL: 102, ISSUE: 29, PAGE NO: 30

Polly Lee, MSc, BA, RSCN, RGN, RM, DipN, ILTM, is lecturer in child health nursing, City University, London

Understanding qualitative research

Some of the terminology that relates to qualitative and quantitative research and how these relate to different worldviews (paradigms) was introduced in the first article in this series. The notion of qualitative (non-numerical) and quantitative (numerical) data was also introduced. Readers of qualitative research need a sound understanding of the terminology specific to this type of research to make full sense of the report.....

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