Qualitative Research in Behavioral Sciences

Qualitative Research in Behavioral Sciences

Introduction and Review of the Book "Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners

Letter to Editor

Author
Assistant Professor, Institute for Research and Development in the Humanities, Organization for the Researching and Composing University Textbooks (SAMT), Iran
Abstract
Among the numerous resources available to researchers in this field, Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners is a book written by Virginia Brown and Victoria Clarke for students as well as researchers with limited experience in qualitative methodology (Clarke & Braun, 2013). As the title suggests, Brown and Clarke's goal in writing this textbook is to ensure that beginning researchers truly understand qualitative research and, therefore, know how to actually conduct their own qualitative research projects. They seem to have achieved their goal well. Even people who have implemented several research projects will learn new points from the text of the book. Therefore, a more appropriate title for this book would be "A Practical Guide to Successful Qualitative Research" (Craver, 2014). The smooth translation of this important work into Persian language by Shiva Granmayehpour and Amir Ali Mazandarani removes the linguistic boundaries and allows the audience to get to know the concepts of this book in a deeper way.
In this book, the authors put a special emphasis on conducting "qualitative research with a large Q", which are researches that, beyond the use of qualitative methods, have a "qualitative philosophical paradigm" (Pilcher & Cortazzi, 2024). In other words, they believe that the foundation of real qualitative research is the tradition of interpretation/constructionism, and the research and analysis methods introduced in this work as examples and models have this epistemological approach. However, at times, they also refer to qualitative research based on the positivist tradition or "small-q qualitative research" to contrast their desired theoretical perspective with empiricist approaches.
Subjects

Bailey, J. (2008). First steps in qualitative data analysis: transcribing. Family Practice, 25(2), 127-131. https://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmn003
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. SAGE.
Craver, G. A. (2014). Not just for beginners-A review of successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. The Qualitative Report, 19(48), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1206
Frankel, R. M., & Devers, K. J. (2000). Study design in qualitative research 1: Developing questions and assessing resource needs. Education for Health, 13(2), 251-261.
Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey, A. (2020). Qualitative Research Methods. SAGE.
Pilcher, N., & Cortazzi, M. (2024). Qualitative and quantitative methods and approaches across subject fields: Implications for research values, assumptions, and practices. Quality & Quantity, 58(3), 2357-2387. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-023-01734-4
Sandelowski, M., & Barroso, J. (2003). Writing the proposal for a qualitative research methodology project. Qualitative Health Research, 13(6), 781-820. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732303013006003
Twining, P., Heller, R. S., Nussbaum, M., & Tsai, C. C. (2017). Some guidance on conducting and reporting qualitative studies. Computers & Education, 106, A1-A9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.002
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Serial Number 4
September 2023
Pages 73-78

  • Receive Date 18 July 2023
  • Revise Date 25 December 2023
  • Accept Date 06 March 2024