What is Good Qualitative Research?: A First Step towards a Comprehensive Approach to Judging Rigour/Quality
Open accessAbstract
Qualitative research has an enormous amount to contribute to the fields of health, medicine and public health but readers and reviewers from these fields have little understanding of how to judge its quality. Work to date accurately reflects the complexity of the theoretical debate required but may not meet the needs of practitioners attempting to apply qualitative work in reviews of evidence. This article describes a simple, practitioner-focused framework for assessing the rigour of qualitative research that attempts to be inclusive of a range of epistemological and ontological standpoints. An extensive review of the literature, contributions from expert groups and practitioners themselves lead to the generation of two core principles of quality: transparency and systematicity, elaborated to summarize the range of techniques commonly used, mirroring the flow of the research process. The complexities discovered are only summarized here. Finally, outstanding issues such as 'how much transparency is enough?', are flagged up.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Evidence shows that researchers can influence their participants and that good qualitative research happens when the researcher is reflexive and truly understands their impact on the study and analysis.
“Evidence shows that researchers can influence their participants and that good qualitative research happens when the researcher is reflexive and truly understands their impact on the study and analysis [64–66].”
From Barriers to voluntary participation in sport for children: a systematic review (2018) · cites this paper as [65]
The study followed a framework for applied research focusing on core principles of quality: transparency and systematicity.
“In order to ensure the rigour of the study, a framework for applied research focusing on core principles of quality: transparency and systematicity was followed [37], along with the procedures of triangulation and reflexivity.”
From Barefoot therapists: barriers and facilitators to delivering maternal mental health care through peer volunteers in Pakistan: a qualitative study (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
Transparency and systematization are considered hallmarks of good qualitative research.
“Transparency and systematization, however, are considered hallmarks of good qualitative research [5].”
From PRO development: rigorous qualitative research as the crucial foundation (2010) · cites this paper as [5]
Cites
Handbook of Qualitative Research
Crozier, G., Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (1994) · British Journal of Educational Studies · doi:10.2307/3121684 · Cited by 26,636 · see citing works
Qualitative research: standards, challenges, and guidelines
Malterud, K. (2001) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(01)05627-6 · Cited by 5,014 · see citing works
Checklists for improving rigour in qualitative research: a case of the tail wagging the dog?
Barbour, R. S. (2001) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7294.1115 · Cited by 2,613 · see citing works
Qualitative research methods in health technology assessment: a review of the literature.
Murphy, Dingwall, Greatbatch, Parker, & Watson (1998) · Health Technology Assessment · doi:10.3310/hta2160 · Cited by 1,107 · see citing works
Ten Criteria for Evaluating Qualitative Research Proposals
Cobb, A. K., & Hagemaster, J. N. (1987) · Journal of Nursing Education · doi:10.3928/0148-4834-19870401-04 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research: A Synthesis of Recommendations
O’Brien, B. C., Harris, I. B., Beckman, T. J., Reed, D. A., & Cook, D. A. (2014) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/acm.0000000000000388 · Cited by 12,211 · see citing works
O’Reilly, M., & Parker, N. (2013) · Qualitative Research · doi:10.1177/1468794112446106 · Cited by 1,943 · see citing works
Validity, reliability, and generalizability in qualitative research
Leung, L. (2015) · Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care · doi:10.4103/2249-4863.161306 · Cited by 1,404 · see citing works
Keating, A., Lee, A., & Holland, A. E. (2011) · Chronic Respiratory Disease · doi:10.1177/1479972310393756 · Cited by 583 · see citing works
PRO development: rigorous qualitative research as the crucial foundation
Lasch, K. E., Marquis, P., Vigneux, M., Abetz, L., Arnould, B., Bayliss, M., Crawford, B., & Rosa, K. (2010) · Quality of Life Research · doi:10.1007/s11136-010-9677-6 · Cited by 461 · see citing works
“Transparency and systematization, however, are considered hallmarks of good qualitative research [ 5 ].”
BackgroundToward an agenda for evaluation of qualitative research
Stige, B., Malterud, K., & Midtgarden, T. (2009) · Qualitative Health Research · doi:10.1177/1049732309348501 · Cited by 327 · see citing works
Barriers to voluntary participation in sport for children: a systematic review
Somerset, S., & Hoare, D. J. (2018) · BMC Pediatrics · doi:10.1186/s12887-018-1014-1 · Cited by 231 · see citing works
Atif, N., Lovell, K., Husain, N., Sikander, S., Patel, V., & Rahman, A. (2016) · International Journal of Mental Health Systems · doi:10.1186/s13033-016-0055-9 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Oswald, A. E., Wiseman, J., Bell, M. J., & Snell, L. (2011) · Medical Teacher · doi:10.3109/0142159x.2011.557412 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Quality of life of Sudanese patients attending a fertility clinic: a mixed methods study
Bayoumi, R. R., Koert, E., Boivin, J., Viswanath, K., & McConnell, M. (2021) · Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine · doi:10.1080/21642850.2021.2007773 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Meyrick, J.
- Affiliations
- Public Health Specialist and Research Consultant, UK,
- Corresponding author
- Meyrick, Jane
- ORCID
- Meyrick, Jane
- Venue
- Journal of Health Psychology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2006-09
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 799-808
- ISSN
- 1359-1053 (ISSN-L)
- 1461-7277
- OpenAlex
- W2113286220
- Cited by
- 402
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 45.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Health Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UWE Research Repository (UWE Bristol) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Qualitative Research Methods and Applications
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Keywords
- qualitative research quality, transparency, systematicity, evidence review, practitioner perspectives, epistemology, ontology
- MeSH terms
- Behavioral Medicine, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Quality Control, Reproducibility of Results, Qualitative Research
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
