Quality control in qualitative research

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Abstract

Qualitative investigations of human experience typically report linguistic rather than exclusively numeric results, use empathy with participants as an observation strategy, interpret observations contextually and polydimensionally, accommodate nonlinear (technically chaotic) causal processes, and may seek to empower participants. Their interpretations are often tentative rather than lawlike statements, amenable to expression in narrative and hermeneutic forms rather than exclusively in didactic discourse. By revealing rather than avoiding the investigator's orientation and personal involvement in the research and by evaluating interpretations according to their impact on readers, investigators, and participants, qualitative research shifts the goal of quality control from the objective truth of statements to understanding by people.

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    This article is based on a series of Visiting Fellowship Lectures I gave at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand in July 1990. Portions of it were presented at the Society for Psychotherapy Research meeting in Lyon, France, July 1991, at the North American Society for Psychotherapy Research meeting in Panama City, Florida, November 1991, at the Society for Psychotherapy Research meeting, Berkeley, California, June 1992, and at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, DC, August 1992.

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