Read – Chapters, Journal Articles, and Research Blogs: Find top research articles to cite and enrich your reading with your ready-made bibliography of qualitative research from SAGE books, journals, and other credible sources. Use the discussion questions online to practice thinking critically about research.

2.1 What is qualitative research?

For an extensive list of blogs on qualitative research, go to Editor’s Pick: Top Qualitative Research Blogs.

Q. Which blog or blogs seem most relevant to your research project?

2.2 Integrating qualitative & quantitative methods

For a series of articles on mixed methods, go to Vol. 2 No. 1 (2001): Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Conjunctions and Divergences.

Q. Which of these articles did you find most helpful and why? Based on what you’ve read, how would you approach combining qualitative and quantitative research?

2.3 Mixed methods

What reasons are there for combining qualitative and quantitative methods and what happens when we do combine them? Bryman’s paper reviews over 200 social science articles to see what happens in practice.

Q. Based on this article, how would you describe the main benefits and challenges of mixed methods research? If you are planning to use mixed methods in your own research, how would you justify your rationale?

2.4 Actor-network theory

Here is a brief explanation of Actor-Network Theory.

Q. What keywords would you use to describe Actor-Network theory?

Q. How do you think it could apply to qualitative research methods?

2.5 What counts as qualitative research?

See this online paper where I expand upon the ideas in this chapter.

Q. Do you agree with this analysis of the weaknesses in the practice of qualitative research?

Q. How do you think interview data can be used most effectively in qualitative research?