I might need to reconsider the negative things I have said (mostly in person so rarely in writing) about BioMedCentral journals. Fair publication of qualitative research The link is to an open access article (more of a letter, actually) from the International Journal in Equity and Health, and the authors address the value of qualitative research. The article was written in response to the British Medical Journal questioning the value of qualitative inquiry, and stating intention to focus on non-qualitative inquiry that is supposed to be more "definitive" and less "exploratory". In this letter published in the open access BMC J of Equity and Health, and signed by 170 researchers and other professionals, some excellent arguments are made for qualitative research specifically to address health inequality. My own responses are: if there was no need for exploratory research, why is it still a challenge for health researchers to address behavioral health problems? Seems like we should have solved most by now instead of relying on the loop of theory development and then a lot of testing (via surveys) with the odd RCT mixed in, with generally mixed results. Additionally, why is all health/health behavior research not mixed? Seems like we always need the whys and hows (and why nots) along with the whats. The photo above (because of the word 'eating' in the post title) is of Indian food at "Little India," Queen Street, Toronto, CA, during fall of 2015. I was there for the Qualitative Health Research Conference. The original BMJ editorial (actually a response to a letter) is here: Qualitative research and the BMJ And, it is important to note that the editors of BMJ expressed willingness to compromise although they resisted quotas (i.e., 1 qual article per month) as I think they should. But for me, even the suggestion that qual is of less value (and the defensive responses) are worrying. My concern is that this type of discussion about privileging one methodology over another encourages a lot more qual that wants to be quan - with large samples, subgroup analyses, surface level data analysis, blurred genres/blended criteria (saturation, line-by-line coding, member checking, and intercoder reliability prioritized over audit trails, reflexive thinking, analytic memos, and, yes, interpretation and transformation of the original data). And everything done in a QDAS but no one taking credit for any stages of data collection/processing ("interviews were conducted," "transcripts were typed," "data were analyzed," "themes emerged..." etc.)
I suggest that quality of research and methodology are not mutually inclusive or mutually exclusive.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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