What is Qualitative in Qualitative Research

Patrik Aspers1,2 & Ugo Corte3

Published online: 27 February 2019

Abstract What is qualitative research? If we look for a precise definition of qualitative research, and specifically for one that addresses its distinctive feature of being Bqualitative,^ the literature is meager. In this article we systematically search, identify and analyze a sample of 89 sources using or attempting to define the term Bqualitative.^ Then, drawing on ideas we find scattered across existing work, and based on Becker’s classic study of marijuana consumption, we formulate and illustrate a definition that tries to capture its core elements.We define qualitative research as an iterative process inwhich improved understanding to the scientific community is achieved bymaking new significant distinctions resulting from getting closer to the phenomenon studied. This formulation is developed as a tool to help improve research designs while stressing that a qualitative dimension is present in quantitative work as well. Additionally, it can facilitate teaching, communication between re- searchers, diminish the gap between qualitative and quantitative researchers, help to address critiques of qualitative methods, and be used as a standard of evaluation of qualitative research.

Keywords Qualitative research . Methods . Epistemology . Philosophy of science .

Phenomenology

If we assume that there is something called qualitative research, what exactly is this qualitative feature? And how could we evaluate qualitative research as good or not? Is it fundamentally different from quantitative research? In practice, most active qualitative researchers working with empirical material intuitively know what is involved in doing qualitative research, yet perhaps surprisingly, a clear definition addressing its key feature is still missing.

To address the question of what is qualitative we turn to the accounts of Bqualitative research^ in textbooks and also in empirical work. In his classic, explorative, interview study

Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-019-9413-7

* Patrik Aspers [email protected]

Ugo Corte [email protected]

1 Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden 2 Seminar for Sociology, Universität St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland 3 Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway

# The Author(s) 2019

of deviance Howard Becker (1963) asks ‘How does one become a marijuana user?’ In contrast to pre-dispositional and psychological-individualistic theories of deviant behavior, Becker’s inherently social explanation contends that becoming a user of this substance is the result of a three-phase sequential learning process. First, potential users need to learn how to smoke it properly to produce the Bcorrect^ effects. If not, they are likely to stop experimenting with it. Second, they need to discover the effects associated with it; in other words, to get Bhigh,^ individuals not only have to experience what the drug does, but also to become aware that those sensations are related to using it. Third, they require learning to savor the feelings related to its consumption – to develop an acquired taste. Becker, who playedmusic himself, gets close to the phenomenon by observing, taking part, and by talking to people consuming the drug: Bhalf of the fifty interviews were conducted with musicians, the other half covered a wide range of people, including laborers, machinists, and people in the professions^ (Becker 1963:56).

Another central aspect derived through the common-to-all-research interplay between induc- tion and deduction (Becker 2017), is that during the course of his research Becker adds scientifically meaningful new distinctions in the form of three phases—distinctions, or findings if you will, that strongly affect the course of his research: its focus, the material that he collects, and which eventually impact his findings. Each phase typically unfolds through social interaction, and often with input from experienced users in Ba sequence of social experiences duringwhich the person acquires a conception of the meaning of the behavior, and perceptions and judgments of objects and situations, all of which make the activity possible and desirable^ (Becker 1963:235). In this study the increased understanding of smoking dope is a result of a combination of the meaning of the actors, and the conceptual distinctions that Becker introduces based on the views expressed by his respondents. Understanding is the result of research and is due to an iterative process in which data, concepts and evidence are connected with one another (Becker 2017).

Indeed, there are many definitions of qualitative research, but if we look for a definition that addresses its distinctive feature of being Bqualitative,^ the literature across the broad field of social science is meager. The main reason behind this article lies in the paradox, which, to put it bluntly, is that researchers act as if they know what it is, but they cannot formulate a coherent definition. Sociologists and others will of course continue to conduct good studies that show the relevance and value of qualitative research addressing scientific and practical problems in society. However, our paper is grounded in the idea that providing a clear definition will help us improve the work that we do. Among researchers who practice qualitative research there is clearly much knowledge. We suggest that a definition makes this knowledge more explicit. If the first rationale for writing this paper refers to the Binternal^ aimof improving qualitative research, the second refers to the increased Bexternal^ pressure that especially many qualitative researchers feel; pressure that comes both from society as well as from other scientific approaches. There is a strong core in qualitative research, and leading researchers tend to agree on what it is and how it is done. Our critique is not directed at the practice of qualitative research, but we do claim that the type of systematic work we do has not yet been done, and that it is useful to improve the field and its status in relation to quantitative research.

The literature on the Binternal^ aim of improving, or at least clarifying qualitative research is large, and we do not claim to be the first to notice the vagueness of the term Bqualitative^ (Strauss and Corbin 1998). Also, others have noted that there is no single definition of it (Long and Godfrey 2004:182), that there are many different views on qualitative research (Denzin and Lincoln 2003:11; Jovanović 2011:3), and that more generally, we need to define its meaning (Best 2004:54). Strauss and Corbin (1998), for example, as well as Nelson et al. (1992:2 cited in Denzin and Lincoln 2003:11), and Flick (2007:ix–x), have recognized that the term is problematic: BActually, the term ‘qualitative research’ is confusing because it can mean different things to

140 Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160

different people^ (Strauss and Corbin 1998:10–11). Hammersley has discussed the possibility of addressing the problem, but states that Bthe task of providing an account of the distinctive features of qualitative research is far from straightforward^ (2013:2). This confusion, as he has recently further argued (Hammersley 2018), is also salient in relation to ethnography where different philosophical and methodological approaches lead to a lack of agreement about what it means.

Others (e.g. Hammersley 2018; Fine and Hancock 2017) have also identified the treat to qualitative research that comes from external forces, seen from the point of view of Bqualitative research.^ This threat can be further divided into that which comes from inside academia, such as the critique voiced by Bquantitative research^ and outside of academia, including, for example, New Public Management. Hammersley (2018), zooming in on one type of qualita- tive research, ethnography, has argued that it is under treat. Similarly to Fine (2003), and before him Gans (1999), he writes that ethnography’ has acquired a range of meanings, and comes in many different versions, these often reflecting sharply divergent epistemological orientations. And already more than twenty years ago while reviewing Denzin and Lincoln’ s Handbook of Qualitative Methods Fine argued:

While this increasing centrality [of qualitative research] might lead one to believe that consensual standards have developed, this belief would be misleading. As the method- ology becomes more widely accepted, querulous challengers have raised fundamental questions that collectively have undercut the traditional models of how qualitative research is to be fashioned and presented (1995:417).

According to Hammersley, there are today Bserious treats to the practice of ethnographic work, on almost any definition^ (2018:1). He lists five external treats: (1) that social research must be accountable and able to show its impact on society; (2) the current emphasis on Bbig data^ and the emphasis on quantitative data and evidence; (3) the labor market pressure in academia that leaves less time for fieldwork (see also Fine and Hancock 2017); (4) problems of access to fields; and (5) the increased ethical scrutiny of projects, to which ethnography is particularly exposed. Hammersley discusses some more or less insufficient existing definitions of ethnography.

The current situation, as Hammersley and others note—and in relation not only to ethnog- raphy but also qualitative research in general, and as our empirical study shows—is not just unsatisfactory, it may even be harmful for the entire field of qualitative research, and does not help social science at large. We suggest that the lack of clarity of qualitative research is a real problem that must be addressed.

Towards a Definition of Qualitative Research

Seen in an historical light, what is today called qualitative, or sometimes ethnographic, interpretative research – or a number of other terms – has more or less always existed. At the time the founders of sociology – Simmel, Weber, Durkheim and, before them, Marx –were writing, and during the era of the Methodenstreit (Bdispute about methods^) in which the German historical school emphasized scientific methods (cf. Swedberg 1990), we can at least speak of qualitative forerunners.

Perhaps the most extended discussion of what later became known as qualitative methods in a classic work is BronisławMalinowski’s (1922) Argonauts in the Western Pacific, although even this study does not explicitly address the meaning of Bqualitative.^ In Weber’s ([1921–-

Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160 141

22] 1978) work we find a tension between scientific explanations that are based on observation and quantification and interpretative research (see also Lazarsfeld and Barton 1982).

If we look through major sociology journals like the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, or Social Forces we will not find the term qualitative sociology before the 1970s. And certainly before then much of what we consider qualitative classics in sociology, like Becker’ study (1963), had already been produced. Indeed, the Chicago School often combined qualitative and quantitative data within the same study (Fine 1995). Our point being that before a disciplinary self-awareness the term quantitative preceded qualitative, and the articulation of the former was a political move to claim scientific status (Denzin and Lincoln 2005). In the US the World War II seem to have sparked a critique of sociological work, including Bqualitative work,^ that did not follow the scientific canon (Rawls 2018), which was underpinned by a scientifically oriented and value free philosophy of science. As a result the attempts and practice of integrating qualitative and quantitative sociology at Chicago lost ground to sociology that was more oriented to surveys and quantitative work at Columbia under Merton-Lazarsfeld. The quantitative tradition was also able to present textbooks (Lundberg 1951) that facilitated the use this approach and its Bmethods.^ The practices of the qualitative tradition, by and large, remained tacit or was part of the mentoring transferred from the renowned masters to their students.

This glimpse into history leads us back to the lack of a coherent account condensed in a definition of qualitative research. Many of the attempts to define the term do not meet the requirements of a proper definition: A definition should be clear, avoid tautology, demarcate its domain in relation to the environment, and ideally only use words in its definiens that themselves are not in need of definition (Hempel 1966). A definition can enhance precision and thus clarity by identifying the core of the phenomenon. Preferably, a definition should be short. The typical definition we have found, however, is an ostensive definition, which indicates what qualitative research is about without informing us about what it actually is:

Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials – case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts – that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives. (Denzin and Lincoln 2005:2)

Flick claims that the label Bqualitative research^ is indeed used as an umbrella for a number of approaches (2007:2–4; 2002:6), and it is not difficult to identify research fitting this designa- tion. Moreover, whatever it is, it has grown dramatically over the past five decades. In addition, courses have been developed, methods have flourished, arguments about its future have been advanced (for example, Denzin and Lincoln 1994) and criticized (for example, Snow and Morrill 1995), and dedicated journals and books have mushroomed. Most social scientists have a clear idea of research and how it differs from journalism, politics and other activities. But the question of what is qualitative in qualitative research is either eluded or eschewed.

We maintain that this lacuna hinders systematic knowledge production based on qualitative research. Paul Lazarsfeld noted the lack of Bcodification^ as early as 1955 when he reviewed 100 qualitative studies in order to offer a codification of the practices (Lazarsfeld and Barton 1982:239). Since then many texts on Bqualitative research^ and its methods have been published, including recent attempts (Goertz and Mahoney 2012) similar to Lazarsfeld’s.

142 Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160

These studies have tried to extract what is qualitative by looking at the large number of empirical Bqualitative^ studies. Our novel strategy complements these endeavors by taking another approach and looking at the attempts to codify these practices in the form of a definition, as well as to a minor extent take Becker’s study as an exemplar of what qualitative researchers actually do, and what the characteristic of being ‘qualitative’ denotes and implies. We claim that qualitative researchers, if there is such a thing as Bqualitative research,^ should be able to codify their practices in a condensed, yet general way expressed in language.

Lingering problems of Bgeneralizability^ and Bhow many cases do I need^ (Small 2009) are blocking advancement – in this line of work qualitative approaches are said to differ considerably from quantitative ones, while some of the former unsuccessfully mimic principles related to the latter (Small 2009). Additionally, quantitative researchers sometimes unfairly criticize the first based on their own quality criteria. Scholars like Goertz and Mahoney (2012) have successfully focused on the different norms and practices beyond what they argue are essentially two different cultures: those working with either qualitative or quantitative methods. Instead, similarly to Becker (2017) who has recently questioned the usefulness of the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research, we focus on similarities.

The current situation also impedes both students and researchers in focusing their studies and understanding each other’s work (Lazarsfeld and Barton 1982:239). A third consequence is providing an opening for critiques by scholars operating within different traditions (Valsiner 2000:101). A fourth issue is that the Bimplicit use of methods in qualitative research makes the field far less standardized than the quantitative paradigm^ (Goertz and Mahoney 2012:9). Relatedly, the National Science Foundation in the US organized two workshops in 2004 and 2005 to address the scientific foundations of qualitative research involving strategies to improve it and to develop standards of evaluation in qualitative research. However, a specific focus on its distinguishing feature of being Bqualitative^ while being implicitly acknowledged, was discussed only briefly (for example, Best 2004).

In 2014 a theme issue was published in this journal on BMethods, Materials, and Meanings: Designing Cultural Analysis,^ discussing central issues in (cultural) qualitative research (Berezin 2014; Biernacki 2014; Glaeser 2014; Lamont and Swidler 2014; Spillman 2014). We agree with many of the arguments put forward, such as the risk of methodological tribalism, and that we should not waste energy on debating methods separated from research questions. Nonetheless, a clarification of the relation to what is called Bquantitative research^ is of outmost importance to avoid misunderstandings and misguided debates between Bqualitative^ and Bquantitative^ re- searchers. Our strategy means that researchers, Bqualitative^ or Bquantitative^ they may be, in their actual practice may combine qualitative work and quantitative work.

In this article we accomplish three tasks. First, we systematically survey the literature for meanings of qualitative research by looking at how researchers have defined it. Drawing upon existing knowledge we find that the different meanings and ideas of qualitative research are not yet coherently integrated into one satisfactory definition. Next, we advance our contribution by offering a definition of qualitative research and illustrate its meaning and use partially by expanding on the brief example introduced earlier related to Becker’s work (1963). We offer a systematic analysis of central themes of what researchers consider to be the core of Bqualitative,^ regardless of style of work. These themes – which we summarize in terms of four keywords: distinction, process, closeness, improved understanding – constitute part of our literature review, in which each one appears, sometimes with others, but never all in the same definition. They serve as the foundation of our contribution. Our categories are overlapping. Their use is primarily to organize the large amount of definitions we have identified and

Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160 143

analyzed, and not necessarily to draw a clear distinction between them. Finally, we continue the elaboration discussed above on the advantages of a clear definition of qualitative research.

Methods

In a hermeneutic fashion we propose that there is something meaningful that deserves to be labelled Bqualitative research^ (Gadamer 1990). To approach the question BWhat is qualitative in qualitative research?^ we have surveyed the literature. In conducting our survey we first traced the word’s etymology in dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks of the social sciences and of methods and textbooks, mainly in English, which is common to methodology courses. It should be noted that we have zoomed in on sociology and its literature. This discipline has been the site of the largest debate and development of methods that can be called Bqualitative,^ which suggests that this field should be examined in great detail.

In an ideal situation we should expect that one good definition, or at least some common ideas, would have emerged over the years. This common core of qualitative research should be so accepted that it would appear in at least some textbooks. Since this is not what we found, we decided to pursue an inductive approach to capture maximal variation in the field of qualitative research; we searched in a selection of handbooks, textbooks, book chapters, and books, to which we added the analysis of journal articles. Our sample comprises a total of 89 references.

Sampling

In practice we focused on the discipline that has had a clear discussion of methods, namely sociology. We also conducted a broad search in the JSTOR database to identify scholarly sociology articles published between 1998 and 2017 in English with a focus on defining or explaining qualitative research. We specifically zoom in on this time frame because we would have expect that this more mature period would have produced clear discussions on the meaning of qualitative research. To find these articles we combined a number of keywords to search the content and/or the title: qualitative (which was always included), definition, empirical, research, methodology, studies, fieldwork, interview and observation.

As a second phase of our research we searched within nine major sociological journals (American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Theory, American Sociological Review, Contempo- rary Sociology, Sociological Forum, Sociological Theory, Qualitative Research, Qualitative Soci- ology andQualitative Sociology Review) for articles also published during the past 19 years (1998– 2017) that had the term Bqualitative^ in the title and attempted to define qualitative research.

Lastly we picked two additional journals, Qualitative Research and Qualitative Sociology, in which we could expect to find texts addressing the notion of Bqualitative.^ From Qualitative Research we chose Volume 14, Issue 6, December 2014, and from Qualitative Sociology we chose Volume 36, Issue 2, June 2017. Within each of these we selected the first article; then we picked the second article of three prior issues. Again we went back another three issues and investigated article number three. Finally we went back another three issues and perused article number four. This selection criteria was used to get a manageable sample for the analysis.

Coding

The coding process of the 89 references we gathered in our selected review began soon after the first round of material was gathered, and we reduced the complexity created by our

144 Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160

maximum variation sampling (Snow and Anderson 1993:22) to four different categories within which questions on the nature and properties of qualitative research were discussed. We call them: Qualitative and Quantitative Research, Qualitative Research, Fieldwork, and Grounded Theory. This – which may appear as an illogical grouping – merely reflects the Bcontext^ in which the matter of Bqualitative^ is discussed. If the selection process of the material – books and articles – was informed by pre-knowledge, we used an inductive strategy to code the material. When studying our material, we identified four central notions related to Bqualitative^ that appear in various combinations in the literature which indicate what is the core of qualitative research. We have labeled them: Bdistinctions^, Bprocess,^ Bcloseness,^ and Bimproved understanding.^During the research process the categories and notions were improved, refined, changed, and reordered. The coding ended when a sense of saturation in the material arose. In the presentation below all quotations and references come from our empirical material of texts on qualitative research.

Analysis – What is Qualitative Research?

In this section we describe the four categories we identified in the coding, how they differently discuss qualitative research, as well as their overall content. Some salient quotations are selected to represent the type of text sorted under each of the four categories. What we present are examples from the literature.

Qualitative and Quantitative

This analytic category comprises quotations comparing qualitative and quantitative research, a distinction that is frequently used (Brown 2010:231); in effect this is a conceptual pair that structures the discussion and that may be associated with opposing interests. While the general goal of quantitative and qualitative research is the same – to understand the world better – their methodologies and focus in certain respects differ substantially (Becker 1966:55). Quantity refers to that property of something that can be determined by measurement. In a dictionary of Statistics and Methodology we find that B(a) When referring to *variables, ‘qualitative’ is another term for *categorical or *nominal. (b)When speaking of kinds of research, ‘qualitative’ refers to studies of subjects that are hard to quantify, such as art history. Qualitative research tends to be a residual category for almost any kind of non-quantitative research^ (Stiles 1998:183). But it should be obvious that one could employ a quantitative approach when studying, for example, art history.

The same dictionary states that quantitative is Bsaid of variables or research that can be handled numerically, usually (too sharply) contrasted with *qualitative variables and research^ (Stiles 1998:184). From a qualitative perspective Bquantitative research^ is about numbers and counting, and from a quantitative perspective qualitative research is everything that is not about numbers. But this does not say much about what is Bqualitative.^ If we turn to encyclopedias we find that in the 1932 edition of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences there is no mention of Bqualitative.^ In the Encyclopedia from 1968 we can read:

Qualitative Analysis. For methods of obtaining, analyzing, and describing data, see [the various entries:] CONTENT ANALYSIS; COUNTED DATA; EVALUATION RE- SEARCH, FIELDWORK;GRAPHICPRESENTATION;HISTORIOGRAPHY, especially the article on THE RHETORIC OF HISTORY; INTERVIEWING; OBSERVATION;

Qualitative Sociology (2019) 42:139–160 145

PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT; PROJECTIVE METHODS; PSYCHOANALYSIS, article on EXPERIMENTAL METHODS; SURVEYANALYSIS, TABULAR PRESEN- TATION; TYPOLOGIES. (Vol. 13:225)

Some, like Alford, divide researchers into methodologists or, in his words, Bquantitative and qualitative specialists^ (Alford 1998:12). Qualitative research uses a variety of methods, such as intensive interviews or in-depth analysis of historical materials, and it is concerned with a comprehensive account of some event or unit (King et al. 1994:4). Like quantitative research it can be utilized to study a variety of issues, but it tends to focus on meanings and motivations that underlie cultural symbols, personal experiences, phenomena and detailed understanding of processes in the social world. In short, qualitative research centers on understanding processes, experiences, and the meanings people assign to things (Kalof et al. 2008:79).

Others simply say that qualitative methods are inherently unscientific (Jovanović 2011:19). Hood, for instance, argues that words are intrinsically less precise than numbers, and that they are therefore more prone to subjective analysis, leading to biased results (Hood 2006:219). Qualitative methodologies have raised concerns over the limitations of quantitative templates (Brady et al. 2004:4). Scholars such as King et al. (1994), for instance, argue that non- statistical research can produce more reliable results if researchers pay attention to the rules of scientific inference commonly stated in quantitative research. Also, researchers such as Becker (1966:59; 1970:42–43) have asserted that, if conducted properly, qualitative research and in particular ethnographic field methods, can lead to more accurate results than quantita- tive studies, in particular, survey research and laboratory experiments.

Some researchers, such as Kalof, Dan, and Dietz (2008:79) claim that the boundaries between the two approaches are becoming blurred, and Small (2009) argues that currentlymuch qualitative research (especially in North America) tries unsuccessfully and unnecessarily to emulate quan- titative standards. For others, qualitative research tends to be more humanistic and discursive (King et al. 1994:4). Ragin (1994), and similarly also Becker, (1996:53), Marchel and Owens (2007:303) think that themain distinction between the two styles is overstated and does not rest on the simple dichotomy of Bnumbers versus words^ (Ragin 1994:xii). Some claim that quantitative data can be utilized to discover associations, but in order to unveil cause and effect a complex research design involving the use of qualitative approaches needs to be devised (Gilbert 2009:35). Consequently, qualitative data are useful for understanding the nuances lying beyond those processes as they unfold (Gilbert 2009:35). Others contend that qualitative research is particularly well suited both to identify causality and to uncover fine descriptive distinctions (Fine and Hallett 2014; Lichterman and Isaac Reed 2014; Katz 2015).

There are other ways to separate these two traditions, including normative statements about what qualitative research should be (that is, better or worse than quantitative approaches, concerned wit

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