qualitative research historical

Qualitative study design: Historical

• Qualitative study design
• Phenomenology
• Grounded theory
• Ethnography
• Narrative inquiry
• Action research
• Case Studies
• Field research
• Focus groups
• Observation
• Surveys & questionnaires
• Study Designs Home

Looking at the past to inform the future.

Describing and examining past events to better understand the present and to anticipate potential effects on the future. To identify a need for knowledge that requires a historical investigation. Piecing together a history, particularly when there are no people living to tell their story.  

• Oral recordings

Can provide a fuller picture of the scope of the research as it covers a wider range of sources. As an example, documents such as diaries, oral histories and official records and newspaper reports were used to identify a scurvy and smallpox epidemic among Klondike gold rushers (Highet p3).

Unobtrusiveness of this research method.

Limitations

Issues with validity – can only use the historical information that is available today.

Primary sources are hard to locate.  

Hard to triangulate findings (find other resources to back up the information provided in the original resource). 

Example questions

• What caused an outbreak of polio in the past that may contribute to the outbreaks of today? 
• How has the attitude to LGBTQIA+ changed over the past 50 years?

Example studies

• Hallett, C. E., Madsen, W., Pateman, B., & Bradshaw, J. (2012). " Time enough! Or not enough time!" An oral history investigation of some British and Australian community nurses' responses to demands for "efficiency" in health care, 1960-2000 . Nursing History Review, 20, 136-161. 
• Navarro, J. A., Kohl, K. S., Cetron, M. S., & Markel, H. (2016). A tale of many cities: a contemporary historical study of the implementation of school closures during the 2009 pA(H1N1) influenza pandemic. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 41(3), 393-422. Retrieved from  http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=lhh&AN=20163261834&site=ehost-live&scope=site   

Edith Cowan University Library. (2019). Historical Research Method. Retrieved from  https://ecu.au.libguides.com/historical-research-method   

Godshall, M. (2016). Fast facts for evidence-based practice in nursing: Implementing EBP in a nutshell (2nd ed.). New York: Springer Publishing Company. 

Highet, M. J. (2010). "It Depends on Where You Look": The Unusual Presentation of Scurvy and  Smallpox Among Klondike Gold Rushers as Revealed Through Qualitative Data Sources. Past Imperfect, 16, 3-34. doi:10.21971/P7J59D 

Saks, M., & Allsop, J. (2012). Researching health: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods (2nd ed.). London: SAGE. 

Taylor, B. J., & Francis, K. (2013). Qualitative research in the health sciences: methodologies, methods and processes. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 

University of Missouri-St. Louis. Qualitative Research Designs. Retrieved from http://www.umsl.edu/~lindquists/qualdsgn.html   

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HISTORICAL RESEARCH: A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHOD

This paper is a write-up about one of many qualitative research method, namely historical research method.

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A Brief History of Qualitative Research

• First Online: 29 September 2022

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• Robert E. White   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8045-164X 3 &
• Karyn Cooper 4  

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As so often happens with matters of research, it is generally thought that quantitative research is the father of modern qualitative research. At face value, this may be true, but the reality is much more convoluted. In order to gain a perspective on the beginnings of qualitative research, we must return to Ancient Greece.

The question of understanding the other and understanding oneself by understanding the other, that is the goal of what is now called qualitative research. Stephen Kemmis, Charles Sturt University

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White, R.E., Cooper, K. (2022). A Brief History of Qualitative Research. In: Qualitative Research in the Post-Modern Era. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85124-8_1

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2 Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

Svend Brinkmann, Department of Communication & Psychology, University of Aalborg

Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University

Søren Kristiansen, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University

• Published: 02 September 2020
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Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories . The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

History writing is not only about charting the past but also about prospects for the future. There is no doubt that one’s way of depicting the past is greatly important for how the future will unfold. This holds for human history in general but is perhaps particularly true for a contested field such as qualitative research. For decades, especially in the years following the rise of positivist social science in the mid-20th century, qualitative research methods were considered of little value, and some researchers even deemed them unscientific. Fortunately, this situation has been changing in recent years, and while disciplines such as social anthropology and communication studies have always been open to qualitative inquiry (and have even been built around it in the case of ethnography), disciplines in the health sciences and psychology are now rediscovering their roots in qualitative studies of human lives and social phenomena. Most social sciences, such as sociology and political science, lie somewhere between an unproblematic acceptance of and mild hostility toward qualitative inquiry, with huge local differences concerning openness toward qualitative research.

In this chapter, we do not seek to articulate the history of qualitative research in the social sciences, because this could easily monopolize one interpretation of the past with unfortunate consequences for the future. Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, once-and-for-all, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research and inquire into its past in a way that is more congenial to a qualitative stance, we will present a variety of histories (in the plural) of qualitative research in the social sciences. Some of these histories are quite well known to insiders of the field, while others may be more surprising and perhaps even provocative. One thing to be avoided is writing the historical narratives as Whig history , presenting the development of qualitative research as necessarily progressing toward enlightenment and liberation. There is still a tendency among some qualitative researchers to present their methods of inquiry as inherently more humane and liberating than the “objectifying” measures of quantitative researchers. This, we find, is a myth—which sometimes goes by the name qualitative ethicism (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2005 )—but it is a myth that may be understandable as qualitative researchers here and there feel marginalized and have been looking for solid arguments to justify their practices. The marginalization of qualitative research, however, is possibly itself another myth that we will challenge in the multiperspectival histories to be unfolded in this chapter.

History writing in any field presupposes that it is possible to delineate and delimit the field whose history an individual is interested in recounting. This is a significant problem in qualitative research, so this gives us one further reason to approach the matter in terms of histories in the plural. We are aware that interesting accounts of the historical development of qualitative research exist, such as Denzin and Lincoln’s useful depiction of the so-called eight historical moments in the development of qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011 ). We believe, however, that there are too many separate qualitative histories in the social science disciplines and too little overall cumulative development for us to dare attempt a grand narrative of the history of qualitative research.

To repeat our basic point, history writing is not just about the past but also about the present and the future. When one knows how something came to be, one will often know what it currently is, and one will have a powerful voice in determining how it will develop in the future. In what follows, we will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

These histories represent our selection. They are not representative or exhaustive of all possible histories about qualitative research, and others would undoubtedly have cut the historical cake differently. Therefore, ironically, this chapter, with its preselected histories, might itself become a subject of qualitative scrutiny. As in all qualitative research, it remains a fundamental premise that different aspects of reality are salient for different researchers, but as always, this should be considered a virtue rather than a vice. It enables us to celebrate the richness of a past that allows us to reflect on it from so many angles, giving us so many interpretations. Not all histories, however, are given equal space in our account. With some of them, we tell a short story, perhaps offering a novel perspective, while with others, we recount a longer and more elaborated story. This goes, in particular, for the second internal history of qualitative research, concentrating in some detail on giants such as Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Blumer, Goffman, and Garfinkel. We have been guided in our selection by an ambition to understand the development of qualitative research as more than a pure history of ideas. We will argue against this form of idealism, which looks at theories and paradigms in abstraction from broader social, cultural, political, and technological forces; and we will try to show that it has often been exactly such forces that have been pushing qualitative research forward (or, perhaps in some cases, backward). This should not be thought of as rendering qualitative research invalid, because no form of research exists in a historical vacuum, but it should instead enable qualitative researchers now and in the future to understand the complexities of their practices better.

The Conceptual History of Qualitative Research

Our first history is a basic conceptual history of the term qualitative research . While the term itself is much younger than one would think, the adjective qualitative has a longer history. Medieval philosophers of scholasticism distinguished qualia (the qualities of things) from quanta (the quantities) hundreds of years ago, and, with modern philosophy from the 17th century onward, empiricist philosophers like John Locke argued that there are different kinds of qualities: On the one hand, primary qualities were thought to be independent of observers and include, for example, extension, number, and solidity. Secondary qualities, on the other hand, were thought to be produced as effects in observers, such as colors, tastes, and smells. Modern philosophers—those who worked in the postmedieval world (Descartes, Locke, Hume, etc.)—confined the secondary qualities to the subjective mind, since the new natural scientists (Galileo, Newton) had seemingly demonstrated that objective reality is nothing but matter in motion. The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics, Galileo said, implying a metaphysics of quantities as the primary reality. A new subjective/objective dichotomy thus arose, relegating human experience and all the sounds, sights, and smells that we live with to the realm of the subjective. In many ways, qualitative researchers in the 21 st century still struggle with this issue and are sometimes accused of being unscientific because of the significance of subjectivity in their endeavors, having inherited the problem of objectivity versus subjectivity in large part from 17th-century metaphysics.

Not all philosophers after Locke, or all scientists after Galileo and Newton, were satisfied with the division of the world into objective primary qualities (qualities that can be studied scientifically) and subjective secondary qualities. There is a great difference, Goethe argued in 1810 in his Theory of Colors , between studying colors in terms of Newtonian optics and in terms of human experience, and although the latter cannot reasonably be reduced to the former, it does not mean that it is any less important or amenable to systematic scientific studies. As an example of a field of human experience, Goethe argued that our understanding of colors has suffered greatly from being understood in terms of mechanical optics (see Robinson, 2002 , p. 10), and one can read his theory as an early qualitative study of the phenomenology of colors (see also Giorgi & Giorgi, 2008 , for a reading of Goethe as a phenomenologist avant la lettre ).

Moving from discussing the term qualitative to discussing qualitative research , we may note that it was only quite late in the 20th century that qualitative research became a self-defining field of inquiry, although researchers had been employing similar methodologies before. In his book on writing up qualitative research, Harry Wolcott ( 2009 ) reminded us that “prior to the past three or four decades, not much had been written about field methods” (p. 80); he continued,

As best I recall, the phrase “qualitative research” was rarely (never?) heard in the 1960s. Of what had been written earlier, outside their respective academic disciplines, the same few references and the same few illustrative studies were cited almost to the exclusion of all others. (p. 80)

He mentions Bronislaw Malinowski’s introduction to his 1922 classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific and William F. Whyte’s 1943 Street Corner Society , both of which were first and foremost ethnographies—and only secondarily methodologies treatises. Prior to around 1970, researchers in sociology and anthropology looked to such classics for inspiration rather than to specific methodological handbooks on “qualitative research.”

Wolcott’s memories seem to be corroborated by a search in contemporary scientific databases. A general search in all databases of the Web of Knowledge, Science Citation Index Expanded (which contains articles that date back to 1899 from all sciences), reveals that the term qualitative was widely used from 1900 but only in natural sciences such as chemistry. Even today, qualitative analysis remains an important subdiscipline in chemistry (working with the analysis and classification of chemical compounds) alongside the quantitative subdisciplines of this science. The first article that appears in a broad search is from 1900 and bears the title “On the Qualitative Separation of Nickel from Cobalt by the Action of Ammonium Hydroxide on the Ferricyanides” by Browning and Hartwell. If one excludes the natural and technical sciences, then the term qualitative appears in early psychological papers—for example, “A Qualitative Analysis of Tickling—Its Relation to Cutaneous and Organic Sensation,” published in 1908, and “Some Qualitative Aspects of Bitonal Complexes” from 1921, both appearing in the American Journal of Psychology . These texts belong to the psychology of perception and come quite close to physiology (or psychophysiology , as it was called). The term qualitative in the early 20th century was thus closely connected to natural science disciplines such as chemistry, physiology, and the psychology of perception and appeared much later in the social sciences as such. According to Karpatschof ( 2010 ), who studied the emergence of qualitative methods within the social sciences, the term was hardly used until 1970, which is a kind of historical take-off point, after which there was an exponential growth in the discourse of qualitative methods in the social sciences. This has continued to the present day, and we have recently witnessed a veritable boom of qualitative research in the human and social sciences, which is seen not only in the output of research publications that employ qualitative methods, but also especially in the numerous methodology books that are published every year. As an example, if one looks at most catalogs from academic publishing houses and scans the pages of new titles within disciplines such as sociology, the new qualitative research titles will often greatly outnumber the new titles within quantitative methodology.

The question then becomes, Why did a need arise around 1970 for qualitative research to define itself as such in the social sciences, often antagonistically in relation to what it is not (i.e., quantitative research)? Why at this particular point in time? After all, books employing interviewing and fieldwork had been published earlier in the 20th century but without invoking the qualitative–quantitative binary. And why do we find in recent decades a need to overcome this distinction again, witnessed, in particular, in the wave of so-called mixed methods? There are no simple answers to these questions, but it seems likely that the general growth in knowledge production in the latter half of the 20th century, with a new “knowledge economy” and increased significance of technoscientific knowledge, pushed researchers to identify with specific traditions of knowledge production. Karpatschof ( 2010 ) argued that social anthropologists have always used qualitative methods because they have, as a rule, studied “traditional societies,” whereas sociologists have more often used quantitative methods because they have studied modern or serialized societies with demographics that easily lend themselves to quantitative studies. We may speculate that qualitative research gained in importance after 1970 with the emergence of postmodernity, signaling a new dynamic, multiperspectival, and emergent social complexity that cannot easily be captured using quantitative methods (we will return to this idea when we address the social history of qualitative research). Also, with the disputes around positivism as a philosophy of science, which began in the middle of the century, a need arose to signal that one can work systematically and methodically without subscribing to the tenets of positivism, and here the term qualitative research came in handy. Another way of expressing this argument has been put forward by Jovanovic ( 2011 ), who argued that to fully understand the emergence and development of qualitative approaches, one must put the historical trajectory of the quantitative–qualitative divide under scrutiny. As Jovanovic pointed out, qualitative research is much more than just methods, procedures, and techniques. It is in fact an entire worldview. Qualitative research thus may entail an understanding of human beings and the world that is fundamentally different from quantitative research, and therefore a “plausible positioning of qualitative research in the history of social sciences and in its social context requires a historical reconstruction of the processes by which the quantitative–qualitative distinction has become an intellectual as well as a social tool” (Jovanovic, 2011 , p. 4). In conducting a reconstruction of the sociohistorical processes that laid the grounds for the emergence of modern science—a process that is labeled the quest for certainty —Jovanovic illuminated some of the very important processes in both the emergence of qualitative research and its reemergence in the late 1960s and 1970s. All in all, it was seemingly a mix of political and philosophical discussions that would drive the development of qualitative research forward, as we will see further reflected in the histories that follow.

The Internal History of Qualitative Research

There are many—at times conflicting—schools of thought, traditions, paradigms, and perspectives included under the heading of qualitative research (Brinkmann, 2018 ). Moreover, it seems as if the realm of what is defined as qualitative research is constantly expanding (Flick, 2002 ). Telling the internal history of qualitative research means articulating how the history looks to dedicated qualitative researchers from inside the field. We will unfold this history by emphasizing three philosophical foundations of qualitative research: (a) the German tradition of Verstehen (Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Gadamer) leading to different hermeneutic perspectives such as Geertz in anthropology, (b) the phenomenological tradition (Husserl) leading to different phenomenological research methods, and finally (c) the North American traditions of pragmatism, Chicago sociology, Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology that in different ways remain important to current concerns in the social sciences. We will also briefly address ethnographic fieldwork as an approach that cuts across most of the paradigmatic differences in qualitative inquiry.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is the art of interpretation and thus is fundamental to much, if not all, qualitative research. Originally, with Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), hermeneutics was developed as a methodology for interpreting texts, notably biblical texts (see Brinkmann, 2005 , 2018 ). There was at the time a pressing need to find a way to understand the scriptures correctly. With Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) in the late 19th century, hermeneutics was extended to human life itself, conceived as an ongoing process of interpretation. Dilthey developed a descriptive psychology, an approach to understanding human life that was fundamentally different from how the natural sciences work. We explain nature through scientific activity, Dilthey said, but we must understand human cultural and historical life. A life, as the hermeneutic philosopher Paul Ricoeur said a century after Dilthey, “is no more than a biological phenomenon as long as it has not been interpreted” (Ricoeur, 1991 , p. 28). And qualitative researchers are (or should be, according to the hermeneutic approach to human science) in the business of understanding the interpretations that already operate in people’s lives, individually and collectively, which is in effect to interpret a range of interpretations (as we touch on in the next section, sociologist Anthony Giddens once referred to this as one aspect of a double hermeneutics ; Giddens, 1976 ).

The dichotomization of Erklären and Verstehen has been very influential in separating quantitative from qualitative research, with the implication that explanation is about bringing individual observations under a general law (this is known as the covering law model of scientific work; see Hempel, 1942 ), while understanding is something more particularistic that rests on the specific qualitative features of the situation in which someone acts. There is a difference, for example, between explaining the movements of objects in space by invoking laws of nature as articulated in physics and understanding why someone decided to do something at a particular moment in that person’s life. In the latter case, Dilthey would say, we must understand the particularities of that person’s life, and putative universal laws of human behavior are of little use. The situations and episodes studied by qualitative researchers are, like historical events, most often unique in the sense that they only happen once. For that reason, it is not possible to bring them under universal laws.

Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) Being and Time from the early 20th century is often cited as the work that inaugurated a shift from Dilthey’s life hermeneutics to what Heidegger would call ontological hermeneutics (Heidegger, 1927 ). The question of Schleiermacher’s methodological hermeneutics had been, How can we correctly understand the meaning of texts? The epistemologically oriented hermeneutics from Dilthey had asked, How can we understand our lives and other people? But ontological hermeneutics—or fundamental ontology , as Heidegger also called it (p. 34)—prioritizes the question, What is the mode of being of the entity who understands? (Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999 , p. 207). Being and Time aims to answer this question and can thus be said to be an interpretation of interpreting, or a philosophical anthropology, which has been formative in relation to much qualitative research in the hermeneutic tradition.

Heidegger’s name for the entity that understands is Dasein , and the being of Dasein is unlike the being of other entities in the universe. Physical entities such as molecules, tables, and chairs are things that have categorical ontological characteristics, whereas human beings, or Dasein , are histories or events and have what Heidegger called existentials as their ontological characteristics (Polkinghorne, 2004 , pp. 73–74). These are affectedness ( Befindlichkeit ; we always find ourselves “thrown” into situations where things already matter and affect us), understanding ( Verstehen ; we can use the things and episodes we encounter in understanding the world), and articulation or telling ( Rede ; we can to some extent articulate the meanings things have) (Dreyfus, 1991 ). In short, humans are creatures that are affected by what happens, can understand their worlds, and communicate with others; together, these features can be said to comprise an interpretative qualitative stance in human and social science research.

For Heidegger and later hermeneuticists such as Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) and the contemporary philosopher Charles Taylor, understanding is not something we occasionally do, for example, by following certain procedures or rules. Rather, understanding is, from the hermeneutic perspective, the very condition of being human (Schwandt, 2000 , p. 194). We always see things as something, human behavior as meaningful acts, letters in a book as conveying some meaningful narrative. In a sense, this is something we do, and hermeneutic writers argue that all such understanding is to be thought of as interpretation, and it is exactly this process that interpretative social science aims to engage in. To study culture is, in Clifford Geertz’s words, to study “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (Geertz, 1973 , p. 89). When seeking to understand the cultural symbolic system, the qualitative researcher should engage in “thick description,” Geertz said, that captures the contextual features that render any individual action or event meaningful. The researcher interprets members of a culture, who already operate with more or less implicit self-interpretations of their own actions. This, however, should not be understood as implying that people normally make some sort of mental act in interpreting the world. Interpretation here is not like the mental act of interpreting a poem, for example. It is not usually an explicit, reflective process, but rather, in the Heideggerian tradition, is seen as something based on skilled, everyday modes of comportment (Packer, 2011 ; Polkinghorne, 2004 ). This also means that many hermeneutic qualitative researchers have been skeptic about “method” as the way to understanding other people (which is one goal of qualitative inquiry). Instead, they argue, we understand others by spending time with them and talking to them, and this cannot be put into strict methodological formulas.

The idea of reflexivity , which is central to much qualitative research, has also been articulated within hermeneutic philosophy. Interpretation depends on certain prejudices , as Gadamer famously argued, without which no understanding would be possible (Gadamer, 1960 ). Knowledge of what others are doing and of what our own activities mean “always depend[s] upon some background or context of other meanings, beliefs, values, practices, and so forth” (Schwandt, 2000 , p. 201). There are no fundamental “givens,” for all understanding depends on a larger horizon of nonthematized meanings. This horizon is what gives meaning to everyday life activities, and it is what we must engage with as we do qualitative inquiry—both as something that can break down and necessitate a process of inquiry and as something that we can reflexively try to make explicit in an attempt to attain a level of objectivity (in the sense of objectivity about subjectivity). The latter is often referred to by qualitative methodologists as making one’s preunderstandings or prejudices explicit. Gadamer said,

In fact history does not belong to us; we belong to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society, and state in which we live. The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self-awareness of the individual life is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being . (Gadamer, 1960 , pp. 276–277)

Gadamer argues that this makes the condition of human and social science quite different from the one we find in the natural sciences “where research penetrates more and more deeply into nature” (Gadamer, 1960 , p. 284). In the human and social sciences, there can be no “object in itself” to be known (p. 285), because interpretation is an ongoing and open-ended process that continuously reconstitutes its object. The interpretations of social life offered by researchers in the human and social sciences are an important addition to the repertoire of human self-interpretation, and influential fields of description offered by human science, such as psychoanalysis, can even affect the way whole cultures interpret themselves. This means that “social theories do not simply mirror a reality independent of them; they define and form that reality and therefore can transform it by leading agents to articulate their practices in different ways” (Richardson et al., 1999 , p. 227). Like the pragmatists would say (see the section “North American Traditions” later in this chapter), social theories are tools that may affect and transform those agents and practices that are theorized. Thus, Giddens ( 1993 , pp. 9–13) used the term double hermeneutics to describe the idea that social science implies researchers interpreting the knowledge (or interpretations) of research participants and that the findings of social scientists (i.e., concepts and theories) continuously reenter and reshape the social worlds that they describe. Others, such as Kenneth Gergen ( 2001 ), have conceptualized this as generative theory , thus connecting hermeneutic ideas with contemporary forms of social constructionism within qualitative inquiry.

In short, hermeneutics is one of the most important philosophical traditions to have informed qualitative inquiry. Denzin and Lincoln ( 2011 , p. 13) simply referred to the many qualitative paradigms, ranging from constructivism and feminism to cultural studies and queer theory, as interpretative paradigms, thus stressing this legacy from hermeneutics.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is, in one sense, a more specific philosophical tradition that informs qualitative inquiry, but, in another sense, it can be used to encompass almost all forms of qualitative research. Phenomenology in the general sense is the study of phenomena —in other words, of the world as it appears to experiencing and acting human beings. A phenomenological approach will insist on taking human experience seriously, in whichever form it appears. According to Amedeo Giorgi, a leading phenomenological psychologist who concentrates on phenomenology in the more specific sense, it is “the study of the structure, and the variations of structure, of the consciousness to which any thing, event, or person appears” (1975, p. 83).

As a philosophy, phenomenology was founded by Edmund Husserl around 1900; it was further developed as an existential philosophy by Martin Heidegger (who was also counted among the hermeneuticists discussed previously) and then in an existential and dialectical direction by Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The subject matter of phenomenology began with consciousness and experience and was expanded to include the human lifeworld and to take account of the body and human action in historical contexts by Merleau-Ponty and Sartre (see Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015 , on which the following is based). The goal in Husserlian phenomenology was to arrive at an investigation of essences or to describe the essential structures of human experience from a first-person perspective. Phenomenology was then a strict descriptive philosophy, employing the technique of reduction , which means to suspend one’s judgment as to the existence or nonexistence of the content of an experience. The reduction is today often pictured as a “bracketing,” an attempt to place the common sense and scientific foreknowledge about the phenomena within parentheses to arrive at an unprejudiced description of the essence of the phenomena (see Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015 ). So, a phenomenologist can study the experience of any human phenomenon (e.g., the experience of guilt) without taking a stand on the issue, whether the phenomenon is real, legitimate, or illusory (e.g., one can study guilt as an experienced phenomenon without discussing whether there is a reason to feel guilt in a given situation or whether it is correlated with this or that neurochemical process or physiological response). The subject’s experience is the important phenomenological reality.

The important concept of the lifeworld eventually became central to Husserl. He introduced the concept in 1936 in The Crisis of the European Sciences (Husserl, 1954 ) to refer to the intersubjective and meaningful world in which humans conduct their lives and experience significant phenomena. It is a prereflective and pretheorized world in which phenomena appear meaningful before they become subject to theoretical analysis. If the whole range of experienced phenomena did not appear in the lifeworld, there would be no reason to investigate them scientifically, because there would, in a sense, be nothing to investigate. For phenomenologists, there is thus a primacy of the lifeworld as experienced, since this is prior to the scientific theories we may formulate about it. This was well expressed by Merleau-Ponty:

All my knowledge of the world, even my scientific knowledge, is gained from my own particular point of view, or from some experience of the world without which the symbols of science would be meaningless. The whole universe of science is built upon the world as directly experienced, and if we want to subject science itself to rigorous scrutiny and arrive at a precise assessment of its meaning and scope, we must begin by re-awakening the basic experiences of the world of which science is the second order expression. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945 , p. ix)

Using a metaphor, we can say that the sciences may give us maps, but the lifeworld is the territory or the geography of our lives. Maps make sense only on the background of the territory, where human beings act and live, and should not be confused with it. Phenomenologists are not against scientific abstractions or maps, but they insist on the primacy of concrete qualitative descriptions of experience—of that which is prior to maps and analytic abstractions.

Today, phenomenological approaches have branched out and proliferated in many directions within qualitative inquiry. There are specialized phenomenological approaches within psychology (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2008 ) and anthropology (Jackson, 1996 ), for example, and in sociology, phenomenology was introduced primarily through the writings of Alfred Schütz and, later, his students, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, whose approach heavily influenced some of the North American traditions mentioned in the following section.

North American Traditions

Apart from the characteristically Continental European traditions, a number of traditions developed on the North American continent during the 20th century that in important ways supplemented, consolidated, and expanded the focus from hermeneutics and phenomenology. Many of these at the time novel, theoretical perspectives are still very much alive on the American continent and elsewhere. These qualitatively inspired traditions that saw the light of day, particularly in the United States during the 20th century, are often described as microsociology, social psychology , or the sociologies of everyday life (see Jacobsen, 2009 ).

One of the most influential, significant, and lasting internal stories of qualitative research has its roots in the pragmatic philosophy that developed on the North American continent in the latter part of the 19th century and later spread also to the European continent. Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that is concerned with the practical outcomes of human action and that is therefore also concerned with the use value of science and the practical evaluation of “truth.” Truth, for the pragmatists, is always something that finds its expression in practical circumstances (an instrumental view of truth) and thus is not a preestablished, fixed, substantial, or sedimented dimension of knowledge. Contrary to representationalist theories of science, pragmatism is distinctly nonrepresentative; the purpose of scientific practice is not to represent reality as it is, but rather to allow humans to understand and control the world they are part of through knowledge. The key protagonists of pragmatism in the early years were Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. Each contributed in his own way to the development of pragmatism, not as a coherent whole, but rather as a new perspective on science, democracy, and education. Specifically, pragmatism supports an empirical—as opposed to a theoretical or scholastic—perspective on science. It is in the practical utility of knowledge that science ultimately stands its test. As James ( 1907 ) once insisted,

A pragmatist turns his back resolutely and once and for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to professional philosophers. He turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power.… It means the open air and possibilities of nature, as against dogma, artificiality and the pretence of finality in truth. (pp. 30–31)

Early on, pragmatists were particularly critical of the prevalence of behaviorist science, according to which human beings were seen as mechanically responding to stimuli from the outside. Instead, pragmatists proposed that humans are meaning-seeking subjects who communicate through the use of language and constantly engage in reflective interaction with others. According to pragmatic philosophers, human beings are therefore concerned with the situational, the practical, and the problem-solving dimensions of their lives. This also goes for social scientific endeavors. In his book How We Think , John Dewey ( 1910 ) developed a five-step research strategy or investigation procedure—sometimes also referred to as abduction (according to Peirce as a supplement to the approaches of deduction and induction)—according to which the investigator follows five steps toward obtaining knowledge. First, there is the occurrence of an unresolved situational problem—practical or theoretical—that creates genuine doubt. Second is a specification of the problem in which the investigator might also either systematically or more loosely collect data about the problem at hand. Third, the investigator—now equipped with a specification of the problem—by way of his creative imagination introduces a hypothesis or a supposition about how to solve the problem. Fourth, the proposed hypothesis is elaborated and compared to other possible solutions to the problem, and the investigator, based on reasoning, carefully considers the possible consequences of the proposed hypothesis. Finally, the hypothesis is put into practice through an experimental or empirical testing by which the investigator checks whether the intended consequences occur according to expectations and whether the problem is solved (Dewey, 1910 ). This research strategy thus begins with genuine puzzlement and ends with problem solving.

In general, pragmatists therefore have been concerned with what they term practical reasoning ; they are thus preoccupied with knowledge that has some practical impact in and on the reality in which it is used. Knowledge is active, not passive. Without privileging any specific part of the methodological toolbox, with its emphasis on abductive procedures, pragmatism has proved very useful, particularly in explorative qualitative research as a framework for practice- and problem-oriented investigation, and pragmatism has, for instance, inspired researchers working within the so-called grounded theory perspective (Glaser & Strauss, 1967 )—in fact, one of the first self-denoted and systematically described qualitative methodologies—in which the purpose is to create workable scientific knowledge that can be applied to daily life situations. In recent years, sociologists, philosophers, and others have begun to take up pragmatism after several years of absence from the intellectual agenda. There is thus mentioning of a “revival of pragmatism” in the new millennium (Sandbothe, 2000 ) that, for example, is evident in the works of Richard Rorty and Richard Sennett, just as the French sociologist Luc Boltanski and his colleagues have heralded a pragmatic turn within French social theory, and within German sociology Hans Joas has been one of the key exponents of pragmatist-inspired social science.

Pragmatism heavily influenced the founding of the discipline of sociology on the North American continent. The official “date of birth” of sociology is often regarded as the opening of the first sociology department at the University of Chicago in 1892. The Chicago school of sociology during the first decades of the 20th century was instrumental in developing the discipline in general, and “members” such as Robert E. Park, Florian Znaniecki, and William I. Thomas were particularly prominent in advancing a specifically qualitative stance in sociology. As such, and because of their inspiration from pragmatism, the Chicago sociologists were not keen on theoretical refinement in itself, believing sociology should be an empirical science and not a scholastic endeavor. As Park said, “We don’t give a damn for logic here. We want to know what people do!” Knowing “what people do” thus became a trademark of the Chicago sociologists, and a range of empirical studies from the early 20th century illustrate the prevalence of qualitative approaches and methods such as document analysis, interviews, and participant observation. The Chicago sociologists were keen to get out and study social life directly, often using participant observation. The purpose was to create conceptual apparatuses and theoretical ideas based on empirical material. Inspired by pragmatist notions about the use value of science, Robert E. Park wanted sociology through empirical research to be part of public discussions, debates, and politics as a crucial part of modern democratic society. According to him, sociologists should leave the library and their offices and go out and “get the seat of their pants dirty in real research,” as he once told his students (Park, as cited in Lindner, 1996 , p. 81). Moreover, some of the early Chicago sociologists—Jane Addams, for example—also pioneered social work and action research and wanted to use sociology to promote social reform. By using the city of Chicago (a city with a population size that increased 10-fold in less than 100 years) as an empirical laboratory for all sorts of investigations, the sociologists explored—and still explore—city life as a concrete environment for understanding more encompassing social changes and transformations. In general, the Chicago school has throughout the years been characterized by a distinct qualitative and ethnographic orientation, focusing on studying people in their natural surroundings (the city), being critical of nonempirical research and theory, and being driven by a desire to uncover and understand patterns of human interaction. As Martin Bulmer pinpointed,

[All the Chicago sociologists were] in some ways empiricists, keen upon the use of hypotheses and experimental verification.… Axioms, postulates, rational deductions, ideas and ideals are all deemed valuable when they can be made to function in actual experience, in the course of which they meet with constant modification and improvement.… All display the attitude of enquirers rather than of expositors of absolute knowledge; their most confident affirmations are expressed in a tone that shows that they do not regard them as final. (Bulmer, 1984 , p. 32)

Despite their preference for qualitative methods, Chicago sociologists have used any kind of material available for studying social life. Thus, there are different strands within the Chicago school: the human ecology strand, the (dis)organization strand, the social psychology strand, and the action research strand used especially within social work. Each of these strands prioritized different methodological approaches, theoretical understandings, and outcomes of research, but common to all has been an intense interest in qualitative empirical work. Some of the most prominent classic and today still-often-quoted studies conducted by Chicago sociologists during the early years were Harvey W. Zorbaugh’s The Gold Coast and the Slum (1929), Clifford R. Shaw’s The Jack-Roller (1930), Paul G. Cressey’s The Taxi-Dance Hall (1932), and The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–1920) by William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki. Common to these otherwise methodologically different studies—using, respectively, participant observation, document analysis on letters and diaries, and interviewing and official statistics—were their interest in knowing what people do in particular situations and circumstances and uncovering the types of activities often taking place on the outskirts of society: deviance, crime, subcultures, and the like. In the first half of the 20th century, Chicago sociology thus functioned as a pioneer in promoting a distinctly qualitative mentality that was later superseded by other institutions (Harvard and Columbia) and other methodological preferences but today remains a vital force in American sociology.

Building on the insights from the early Chicago school of sociology (often referred to as the first generation of Chicago sociology ), several sociologists and social anthropologists—some of whom were themselves students of the early Chicagoans—during the 1940s and onward began to develop the idea of symbolic interactionism , sometimes more broadly described as interactionism . What began as a distinctly North American project later spread to the European continent. Some of the early proponents of symbolic interactionist social science with a strong emphasis on qualitative methods were Charles H. Cooley, Everett C. Hughes, Erving Goffman, Howard S. Becker, Herbert Blumer, and Norman K. Denzin—with Blumer responsible for originally coining the term symbolic interactionism , which he admitted was a “barbarous neologism” (Blumer, 1969 ). Symbolic interactionism often refers to the social philosophy of George Herbert Mead as the founding perspective, which was later developed, refined, and sociologized by others. Mead was a central force in the development of pragmatism. Symbolic interactionism is based on an understanding of social life in which human beings are seen as active, creative, and capable of communicating their definitions of situations and meanings to others. According to Blumer, there are three central tenets of symbolic interactionism: (a) humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them, (b) the meaning of such things is derived from or arises out of the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows, and (c) these meanings are handled in and modified through an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters (Blumer, 1969 , p. 2). Symbolic interactionists are concerned with how humans create meaning in their everyday lives and in how, as the term symbolic interaction indicates, this meaning is created and carved out through interaction with others and by use of various symbols to communicate meaning. As Blumer stated on the methodological stance of symbolic interactionism,

Symbolic interactionism is a down-to-earth approach to the scientific study of human group life and human conduct. Its empirical world is the natural world of such groups and conduct. It lodges its problems in this natural world, conducts its studies in it, and derives its interpretations from such naturalistic studies. If it wishes to study religious cult behavior it will go to actual religious cults and observe them carefully as they carry on their lives. If it wishes to study social movements it will trace carefully the career, the history, and the life experiences of actual movements. If it wishes to study drug use among adolescents it will go to the actual life of adolescents to observe and analyze such use. And similarly with respect to other matters that engage its attention. Its methodological stance, accordingly, is that of direct examination of the empirical social world. (Blumer, 1969 , p. 47)

Blumer argued for the development of sensitizing concepts —as opposed to definitive concepts —to capture social life theoretically; such concepts “[give] the user a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching empirical instances” (Blumer, 1954 , p. 7). Symbolic interactionism does, per definition, not privilege any specific methods or research procedures—anything capable of capturing human meaning making through symbolic interaction in everyday life and capable of providing sensitizing concepts will do. However, historically, because of its close association with Chicago sociology, symbolic interactionists have primarily worked with a variety of qualitative methods and used them to discover, represent, and analyze the meaning-making processes involved in human interaction in a variety of contexts. Although a branch of symbolic interactionism under the auspices of Manford Kuhn began to develop at the University of Iowa (the Iowa school, as opposed to the Chicago school of Blumer and others) that prioritized more positivistic aspirations and used quantitative methods and experimental research designs, symbolic interactionism is to a large degree associated specifically with qualitative research, privileging the careful observation (and particularly participant observation) of social life in concrete and often naturally occurring circumstances (Manis & Meltzer, 1978 ). Today, symbolic interactionism is still very much alive and kicking—through conferences, book series, and a journal devoted to studies in symbolic interaction—and is an active part of American sociology and elsewhere, although the originality and initially provocative ideas of the pioneering protagonists of symbolic interactionism have gradually waned throughout the years.

One of the main proponents of interactionism was Erving Goffman, who throughout his career, which began at the University of Chicago in the early 1950s, gradually developed a perspective to study the minutiae of social life that remains one of the most quoted and used within contemporary social research. Goffman in many ways personified qualitative social science in the mid-20th century because of his particular topics of interest as well as his specific means of investigating them. Goffman’s main preoccupation throughout his career was to tease out the many miniscule and often overlooked rituals, norms, and behavioral expectations of the social situations of face-to-face interaction between people in public and private places—something that at the time was often regarded with widespread skepticism by more rigorously oriented social researchers. This was indeed a time when the center of intellectual development and priority within the social sciences on the American continent had gradually shifted from the University of Chicago in the earlier parts of the 20th century to Harvard University and Columbia University at mid-century with a concomitant shift from qualitative and particularly ethnographic methods to much more experimental, quantitative, and statistical methods. Not surprisingly, Goffman is often described as a maverick with his impressionistic and to some extent obscure approach to research methodology and ways of reporting his findings. Like one of his main sources of inspiration, Georg Simmel, Goffman keenly used the essay as a privileged means of communicating research findings, just as other literary devices such as sarcasm, irony, and metaphors were part and parcel of his methodological toolbox. Goffman was particularly critical of the use of many of the methods prevalent and valorized in sociology at his time. For instance, against the preference for statistical variable analysis and the privilege of quantitative methodology, he once stated,

The variables that emerge tend to be creatures of research designs that have no substance outside the room in which the apparatus and subjects are located, except perhaps briefly when a replication or a continuity is performed under sympathetic auspices and a full moon. Concepts are designed on the run in order to get on with setting things up so that trials can be performed and the effects of controlled variation of some kind or another measured. The work begins with the sentence “we hypothesize that …,” goes on from there to a full discussion of the biases and limits of the proposed design, reasons why these aren’t nullifying, and culminates in an appreciable number of satisfyingly significant correlations tending to confirm some of the hypotheses. As though the uncovering of social life were that simple. Fields of naturalistic study have not been uncovered through these methods. Concepts have not emerged that re-ordered our view of social activity. Understanding of ordinary behavior has not accumulated; distance has. (Goffman, 1971 , pp. 20–21)

Instead, Goffman opted for an unmistakable and distinctive qualitative research strategy aimed at charting the contours and contents of the all too ordinary and ever-present but nevertheless scientifically neglected events of everyday life. His work was characterized by an apparent methodological looseness that consciously and stylistically downplayed the importance of his own findings, but covered over the fact that his work revealed heretofore empirically uncharted territory. Many of the titles of his books thus contained consciously diminutive subtitles such as “reports,” “essays,” or “microstudies” that gave the impression, however mistaken, that it should not be taken too seriously. Goffman willingly admitted the following about what others might have regarded as a dubious research strategy:

Obviously, many of these data are of doubtful worth, and my interpretations—especially some of them—may certainly be questionable, but I assume that a loose speculative approach to a fundamental area of conduct is better than a rigorous blindness to it. (Goffman 1963 , p. 4)

In his work, Goffman relied heavily on all sorts of empirical material. He conducted interviews with housewives; he explored an island community through in-depth ethnography; he investigated the trials and tribulations of patient life at a psychiatric institution by way of covert participant observation; he performed the role as a dealer in a Las Vegas casino to document and tease out the gambling dimensions of human interaction; he listened to, recorded, and analyzed radio programs; and he more or less freely used any kind of qualitative technique, official and unofficial, to access the bountiful richness of social life. Despite his reliance on a varied selection of empirical input (or what he termed “slices of social life”), throughout his career, Goffman gradually developed and refined a unique research methodology by way of various metaphors intended to capture and highlight specific features of everyday life interaction. Goffman’s perspective on qualitative research therefore is often referred to as dramaturgy because his main and most popular metaphor was the theatrical analogy in which he—in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life —in detail described social interaction as if it was a performance made by actors on a scene (Goffman, 1959 ).

However, Goffman’s metaphorical cornucopia was much more than mere dramaturgy. He also invented and refined other metaphorical schemas: the ritual metaphor (looking at social life as if it was one big ceremonial event), the game metaphor (investigating social life as if it was inhabited by conmen and spies), and the frame metaphor (concerned with showing how people always work toward defining and framing social situations to make them meaningful and understandable). All these different metaphors concentrated on the same subject matter—patterns of human interaction, or, put another way, social life at the micro level—and each metaphor spawned a spectacular number of analytical terms and sensitizing concepts, many of which today are household concepts in the social sciences (just think of stigma, impression management, labeling , or framing ). Moreover, they served as useful devices in which to embed the aforementioned varied empirical material, thereby giving it shape, meaning, and substance. Goffman’s perspective later inspired new generations of sociologists in particular and qualitative researchers in general who have used him and his original methodology and colorful concepts to study a variety of conventional as well as new empirical domains such as tourist photography, mobile phone communication, and advertising (see, e.g., Jacobsen, 2010 ).

Ethnomethodology is another important tradition in the internal history of qualitative research that simultaneously builds on and extends the perspective provided by pragmatism, interactionism, and the dramaturgical work of Goffman. Like Goffman, ethnomethodologists take an interest in studying and unveiling the most miniscule realm of human interaction, and they rely on the collection of empirical data from a variety of sources in the development of their situationally oriented sociology. Ethnomethodology was initially a project masterminded by the American sociologist Harold Garfinkel, who in Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) outlined the concern of ethnomethodology as the study of the “routine actions” and the often-unnoticed methods of meaning making used by people in everyday settings (hence the term ethnomethodology , meaning “folk methods”). These routine activities and the continuously sense-making endeavors were part and parcel of the quotidian domain of everyday life (described by Garfinkel, in the characteristically obscure ethnomethodological terminology, as the “immortal ordinary society”) that rest on common-sense knowledge and practical rationality. Inspired by the phenomenological sociology of Alfred Schütz as well as to some extent the functionalism of Talcott Parsons, Garfinkel concerned himself with a classic question in sociology: How is social order possible? But instead of proposing abstract or philosophical answers to this question or proposing “normative force” as the main arbiter between people, Garfinkel—as a kind of “phenomenological empiricism” (Heap, 1980 )—set out empirically to discover and document what people do when they encounter each other. True to the general pragmatist and interactionist perspective, ethnomethodologists rely on an image of human actors as knowledgeable individuals who, through such activities as indexicality , the etcetera principle , and accounts , in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s terminology, “know how to go on.” Social reality and social order are therefore not static or pregiven—rather, they are the active outcome or “accomplishment” of actors’ local meaning making amid sometimes bewildering, confusing, and chaotic situations. As Garfinkel stated on the purpose and procedures of ethnomethodology, phrased in typical tortuous ethnomethodological wording,

Ethnomethodological studies analyze everyday activities as members’ methods for making those same activities visibly-rational-and-reportable-for-all-practical-purposes, i.e. “accountable,” as organizations of commonplace everyday activities. The reflexivity of that phenomenon is a singular feature of practical actions, of practical circumstances, of common sense knowledge of social structures, and of practical sociological reasoning.… I use the term “ethnomethodology” to refer to the investigation of the rational properties of indexical expressions and other practical actions as contingent ongoing accomplishments of organized artful practices of everyday life. (Garfinkel, 1967 , pp. vii, 11)

According to ethnomethodologists, there are many methods available to tease out the situational and emerging order of social life that is based on members’ methods for making activities meaningful. Ethnomethodology is, however, predominantly a qualitative tradition that uses typical qualitative methods such as interviews and observation strategies for discovering and documenting what goes on when people encounter everyday life, but they also like to provoke our ingrained knowledge of what is going on. Thus, in classic Durkheimian-inspired fashion, one particularly opportune ethnomethodological way to find out what the norms and rules of social life really are and how they work is to break them. For example, Garfinkel invented the breaching experiments aimed at provoking a sense of disorder in the otherwise orderly everyday domain to see what people do to restore the lost sense of order. Of these breaching experiments or incongruence procedures —which Garfinkel asked his students to perform—he wrote,

Procedurally it is my preference to start with familiar scenes and ask what can be done to make trouble. The operations that one would have to perform in order to multiply the senseless features of perceived environments; to produce and sustain bewilderment, consternation and confusion; to produce the socially structured affects of anxiety, shame, guilt and indignation; and to produce disorganized interaction should tell us something about how the structures of everyday activities are ordinarily and routinely produced and maintained. (Garfinkel, 1967 , pp. 37–38)

Garfinkel, his colleagues, and students throughout the years performed a range of interesting studies—of courtroom interaction, jurors’ deliberations, doctors’ clinical practices, transsexuals’ attempts at “passing” in everyday life, piano players’ development of skills and style, medical staffs’ pronunciation of patients’ deaths, police officers’ craft of peace keeping, pilots’ conversation in the cockpit—aimed at finding out how everyday life (and particularly work situations) is “ordinarily and routinely produced and maintained” (Garfinkel, 1967 , p. 38) by using not only breaching experiments, but also less provocative methods. Later, ethnomethodology bifurcated into a conversation analysis strand on the one hand and what has been termed conventional ethnographical ethnomethodology on the other. Common to both strands has been a concern with uncovering the most meticulous aspects of human interaction—nonverbal and verbal. Just as Garfinkel studied the natural patterns of interaction in natural settings (the living room, the courtroom, the clinic, or elsewhere), so conversation analysts studied natural language (but also professional jargon) as used by people in ordinary circumstances. For instance, conversation analysts, such as Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff, intimately studied and analyzed the minutiae of turn-takings, categorizations, and sequences of verbal communication to see how people, through the use of language, create meaning and a coherent sense of what is going on. Characteristic of both strands of ethnomethodology is the strong reliance on qualitative research methods aimed at capturing and describing in detail the situational and emerging character of social order. In fact, ethnomethodologists strongly oppose positivistic research procedures aimed at producing universal “truths” or uncovering “general laws” about society and instead opt for a much more mundane approach to studying the locally produced orders and thoroughly episodic and situational character of social life (see, e.g., Cicourel, 1964 ). In a typical provocative respecification of Schütz’s classic dictum, Garfinkel thus suggested that we are all sociologists, because we constantly search for meaning. The means and methods of inquiry of professional sociologists are thus not all that different from the various ways ordinary people in everyday life observe, inquire, or talk to one another. This is a principle shared with the hermeneutic strand, which was addressed earlier.

Most of the North American traditions mentioned here can be covered by the label of creative sociologies (Morris, 1977 ), first, because they regard human beings as creative actors capable of and concerned with creating meaning in their lives, and second, because they emphasize creative qualitative approaches to capture and analyze those lives. As Monica B. Morris recapitulated on these creative sociologies,

The basic assumption underlying the “creative” approaches to sociology are: that human beings are not merely acted upon by social facts or social forces; that they are constantly shaping and “creating” their own social worlds in interaction with others; and that special methods are required for the study and understanding of these uniquely human processes. (Morris, 1977 , p. 8)

These “special methods” have predominantly been varieties of qualitative methods. Common to most of the North American creative sociologies is also a distinct microsociological orientation aimed at mapping out and analyzing the distinctly quotidian dimensions of social life and society. Besides the various traditions that we have chosen to delineate as part of the internal story of qualitative research, we can also mention the important insights from social semiotics, existentialism, critical everyday life sociology, cultural studies, sociology of emotions, interpretive interactionism, and more recently actor-network theory, which, however, will not be presented here.

A final tradition that can be mentioned, but that we will not analyze in detail, is the tradition originating with structuralism in the first half of the 20th century—the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the structural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, which eventually developed into poststructuralism in the latter half of the century in the hands of figures such as Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and historian of ideas, who is among the most referenced authors in the social sciences as a whole. Structuralism was based on the idea that language is a system of signs whose meaning is determined by the formal relations between the signs (and not with reference to “the world”), and poststructuralism pushed this idea further by arguing that the system is constantly moving and in flux, which is why, as Jacques Derrida (the leading exponent of deconstruction) would say, meaning is endlessly “deferred.” In relation to qualitative research, we should say that Foucault (and to a lesser extent Derrida) was a significant inspiration for many forms of discourse analysis, which today exist in many variants. One variant is heavily inspired by Foucault and an awareness of power relations in social worlds (e.g., Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine, 2008 ), while discursive psychology, as another variant, is not closely associated with Foucault or poststructuralism, but originates in the aforementioned ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (Sacks, Schlegoff), which was mentioned earlier (see Peräkylä & Ruusuvuori, 2011 ).

Ethnography

Before concluding this internal history, it is appropriate to note the early trade of anthropological and sociological ethnography, which cuts across the philosophical paradigms discussed previously. In anthropology, Bronislaw Malinowski, who held the first chair in social anthropology at the London School of Economics, is, together with Franz Boas, one of the founders of American cultural anthropology, considered a pioneer of ethnographic fieldwork. Contrary to the armchair anthropology and “anthropology of the verandah” conducted by earlier members of the discipline, and thus in a situation in which there was practically no professional discourse on fieldwork practice and experiences, Malinowski insisted on and practiced fieldwork methods of the kind that are performed by today’s ethnographers. Conducting his famous study of the culture of the Trobriand Islanders, he stayed and lived among the natives for a period of almost 3 years. Inspired partly by psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, Malinowski conceptualized culture as a kind of toolbox containing the specific tools and means that people use to satisfy their needs. This functionalistic understanding had certain methodological implications. To obtain an adequate understanding of the culture under scrutiny and the functional meaning of its various elements, Malinowski introduced at least three important principles that still appear among the most important requirements of anthropological fieldwork. First, the researcher should live in the community and among the people who are being studied; second, the researcher should learn the specific language of the community and not rely on interpreters, who might add a distance between researcher and community; third, researchers should participate and observe at the same time (participant observation) (Kristiansen & Krogstrup, 2012 ).

In contemporary textbooks on anthropological fieldwork methods, Malinowski’s study among the Trobriand Islanders is mentioned as a paradigm example, and generations of anthropological scholars have conducted fieldwork employing the principles laid out by Malinowski in the first decades of the 20th century. And, as indicated earlier in this chapter, anthropological fieldwork methods have been embraced by scholars from many other social science disciplines, especially sociology. The important point to be learned here is not necessarily the specific principles of ethnographic research per se, but the idea that ethnographic fieldwork should be considered among the important roots of qualitative research and thus that the development of ethnographic fieldwork by pioneers such as Malinowski and Boas in anthropology and Robert E. Park, Ernest Burgess, and Nels Anderson in (Chicago) sociology was triggered by a conception of the world as culturally pluralistic and diversified, which in turn called for the development and refinement of methods and procedures suited for grasping pluralities of the contemporary social world.

The Marginalizing History of Qualitative Research

Following this tour de force through the internal history of qualitative research focusing on intellectual forerunners, theoretical paradigms, and methodological developments, let us turn to another way of describing the rise of qualitative research. It is difficult to understand current discussions in qualitative journals and handbooks without taking into account a widespread experience of not only studying the marginalized (something qualitative researchers often take pride in doing), but also qualitative researchers themselves being marginalized as a research community. Several decades ago, Fritz Machlup ( 1956 ) insisted that the social sciences as a whole suffered from an inferiority complex because the knowledge they could provide lacked the accuracy, lawlike character, value freedom, and rigor of “real” science (such as natural science). Although this might be nothing less than a caricature of the social sciences in general and qualitative research in particular, perhaps qualitative sociologists, in this respect, may have suffered from an even more strongly felt inferiority complex than, for example, their colleagues working with statistics, surveys, or quantitative data analysis because qualitative sociology—almost per definition—has been seen by others and sometimes also by its own proponents as being opposed to the principles of “real science.” As Stephen Jay Gould once asked, “Why do we downgrade … integrative and qualitative ability, while we exalt analytical and quantitative achievement? Is one better, harder, more important than the other?” (Gould, as cited in Peshkin, 1993 , p. 23). There is little doubt that during the decades of the mid-20th century, qualitative research lived a rather shadowy and marginalized existence and was regarded with some suspicion (Mottier, 2005 ). These were the decades of the orthodox consensus (Giddens, 1976 ) within the social sciences, relying heavily on positivistic research methods, a behaviorist image of humans, and a general functionalist theoretical foundation. Only later did we witness a revival or renaissance of qualitative research (Gobo, 2005 ). However, there is also little doubt that some qualitative researchers—for example, Goffman—consciously sought out such a marginalized position vis-à-vis prevailing positivistic research methods that in many ways not only gradually helped change the game regarding the validity or applicability of certain research methods, but also made some qualitative researchers almost immune to critique from colleagues working within more quantitative or statistical traditions. As reported by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, “qualitative researchers are called journalists or soft scientists. Their work is termed unscientific or only exploratory or subjective. It is called criticism, and not theory, or it is interpreted politically, as a disguised version of Marxism or secular humanism” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011 , p. 7). While there is some truth to this, we believe that much of the marginalization history of qualitative research is based on a myth. For example, the classical positivists, as Michell ( 2003 ) demonstrated, were not against qualitative research, so when qualitative researchers distance themselves from positivism, they most often construct a straw man and rarely, if ever, go back and read what early positivists such as Comte, Schlick, or Carnap had to say about research and human experience.

Brinkmann and Kvale ( 2015 ) even asked if the time has come to rehabilitate the classical positivists, perhaps for qualitative researchers to counter the marginality myth. It is noteworthy that Auguste Comte (1798–1857) was responsible for founding both positivist philosophy and the science of sociology. His positivist philosophy reacted against religious dogma and metaphysical speculation and advocated a return to observable data. Émile Durkheim was another early sociologist who was influenced by positivist sociology and gave penetrating qualitative analyses of social phenomena. Positivism had in general a significant influence on culture and the arts of the 19th century, inspiring a move from mythological and aristocratic themes to a new realism, depicting in detail the lives of workers and the bourgeoisie (for some of this history, particularly in the British context, see Dale, 1989 ). In histories of music, Bizet’s opera Carmen , featuring the lives of cigarette smugglers and toreadors, has been depicted as inspired by positivism, and Flaubert’s realistic descriptions of the life of Madame Bovary can likewise be considered a positivist novel. Impressionist paintings sticking to the immediate sense impressions, in particular the sense data of pointillism, also drew inspiration from positivism. The founder of phenomenological philosophy, Husserl, was even led to state that if positivism means being faithful to the phenomena, then we, the phenomenologists, are the true positivists!

It is no doubt true that many qualitative researchers have felt marginalized because of what they feel is a threat from the positivist philosophy of science. But if one goes back to Comte, and even to 20th-century “logical positivists” like Carnap and Schlick, one finds a surprisingly great methodological tolerance instead of the oft-insinuated hostility toward qualitative methods (Michell, 2003 ). The threat to qualitative methods has come not from a philosophy of science, but from research bureaucracies and funding agencies, witnessed, for example, in the recent movement toward “evidence-based practice” in the professions, which impend on the possibilities of conducting qualitative studies. As we will argue in the next section with reference to Latour ( 2000 ), it seems clear that the natural sciences are full of qualitative studies, which is further indication that qualitative researchers have no reason to feel inferior or marginalized in relation to their peers, who employ methods normally associated with the natural sciences.

The Repressed History of Qualitative Research

As we have seen in the internal history of qualitative research, in some disciplines such as sociology, qualitative approaches have been “out in the open” for decades and remain so today. However, for other disciplines the situation has been quite different, and it is this that we wish to highlight by briefly telling what we call the repressed history of qualitative research. This analysis pertains to psychology in particular, but it may also be relevant for other disciplines. Psychology was born as a science, it is said, in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig. Wundt then began to conduct psychological experiments, but he also inaugurated the tradition of Völkerpsychologie , a cultural-historical approach of studying human life through customs, myths, and symbols, somewhat along the lines suggested by Dilthey in the hermeneutic tradition addressed previously. So Wundt initiated both a tradition of experimental psychology, which has since become the mainstream approach, using quantitative measures, and a long qualitative tradition in psychology. The qualitative tradition, however, has been forgotten by the official journals and handbooks of psychology to an extent that makes it resemble repression.

The case is that many “founding fathers” in psychology who today are not particularly associated with qualitative research in fact based their work on exactly that. It has likely been seen as embarrassing to textbook writers to include such figures as Freud and Piaget among qualitative researchers, since qualitative research has not figured among the respectable methods of the science of psychology. Psychology has been described by Sigmund Koch as unique among the sciences in having decided on its methods before defining its subject matter (see Robinson, 2001 ). Psychology has had, as its subject matter, something almost as elusive as the soul (i.e., the mind, which is an entity that psychologists have never been able to agree on). It has been defined as inner experience, outer behavior, information processing, brain functioning, a social construction, and many other things. But instead of agreeing on the subject matter of their discipline, the majority of psychologists have, since the mid-20th century, constructed their science as a science of numbers in an attempt to emulate the natural sciences. There is something like a “physics envy” running through the history of psychology and related disciplines, which has implied an exorcism of qualitative research. The reader can try for him- or herself to locate a standard textbook from psychology and check whether qualitative research is mentioned. The chance is very high that qualitative methods are not mentioned at all. Bruno Latour, an anthropologist who has entered into and observed research behavior in natural science laboratories, concludes laconically, “The imitation of the natural sciences by the social sciences has so far been a comedy of errors” (Latour, 2000 , p.14). It is a comedy of errors chiefly because the natural sciences do not look at all like it is imagined in psychology and the social sciences. The natural sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, and geology are built not around statistics, but often around careful qualitative descriptions of their subject matters. It can even be argued that such fields as paleontology rest on interpretative methods (Rorty, 1982 ). Anatomy and physiology are qualitative disciplines in large parts, describing the workings of the body, and it can—without stretching the concept too far—be argued that Darwin was a qualitative researcher, adept at observing and interpreting the natural world in its qualitative transformations.

If this analysis is valid, it means that qualitative research in psychology—as in most, if not all, human and social sciences—looks much more like natural science than is normally imagined and is much older than usually recognized. Here we can mention not just Wundt’s cultural psychology, but also William James’s study of religious experience, Freud’s investigations of dreams and his clinical method more broadly, Gestalt psychologists’ research on perception, Piaget’s interviews with children, Bartlett’s studies of remembering, and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body. These are routinely addressed in psychological textbooks—after all, they have all been formative of the discipline—but their qualitative research methods are almost always neglected or repressed. The history of interviewing as a qualitative research method is closely connected to the history of psychology (especially in its clinical and therapeutic variants), and some of this history is told in this book’s chapter on qualitative interviewing. Suffice it here to say that interviewing became a method in the human and social sciences with Freud’s psychoanalysis around 1900, and we refer the reader to the interview chapter for the details. Although Freud’s status as a theorist of the mind has been much debated in recent years, perhaps his main contribution—simultaneously using the conversation as a knowledge-producing instrument and a “talking cure”—remains as relevant as ever. This makes it even stranger that Freud and the other psychological pioneers have been repressed as qualitative psychologists from the mainstream of the discipline. It is hard to imagine that psychology and similar sciences could have achieved their relatively high impact on society had they not employed what we call qualitative methods to zoom in on significant aspects of human and social life.

The Social History of Qualitative Research

Like all forms of social science, qualitative research exists in social, economic, cultural, and historical contexts and must be understood in relation to these contexts. Taking this as a point of departure, it makes good sense that qualitative research experienced a renaissance from the late 1960s onward. On the basis of a somewhat Western-biased or ethnocentric worldview, the 1960s can be considered a starting point for some major changes in life forms, social institutions, and the whole social fabric of society. As Gordana Jovanovic ( 2011 ) argued, the legitimacy of some of the apparently solid social institutions such as the marriage and the family were questioned, and a more pluralistic and differentiated picture began to appear in terms of social groups, and new social movements making claims in favor of the environment, global peace, and women’s and student’s rights emerged. Together with the already existing critique of positivism and a universal rational method put forward by scholars such as Paul K. Feyerabend ( 1975 ), these changes, Jovanovic argued, spurred the belief that traditional natural science and causally oriented research models were inadequate in terms of studying and understanding these new forms of social life. Therefore, there was a need to develop approaches that could uncover the meanings and nature of the unexpected and apparently provocative, disturbing, and oppositional social phenomena:

In these altered social circumstances, in which views concerning both science and the position of science had changed, it became possible to pose different research questions, to shift the focus of research interests, to redefine the research situation and the role of its participants—in a word, conditions were created for what histories of qualitative methods usually describe as the “renaissance” of qualitative research. (Jovanovic, 2011 , p. 18)

In other words, changes in life forms, worldviews, and cultural practices were constituent of the reemergence of qualitative research on the scientific scene in the 1960s and 1970s. And as we have touched on earlier in this chapter (see the section “The Internal History of Qualitative Research”), to some extent this reemergence of qualitative research (at least among some of the early Chicagoans) has been associated with emancipation and with a practical use of social and human science knowledge in favor of underprivileged groups in society. Such history writing, however, unveils only one specific aspect of the interconnectedness of qualitative research on the one hand and the social fabric on the other.

The social history of qualitative research has not yet been written, but it should also approach its development in another way, namely, as deeply related to management and industrial organizations (cf. the famous Hawthorne study that involved interviews with thousands of workers with the aim of increasing productivity) and also advertisements and commercial research (focus groups, consumer interviews, etc.). From a Foucauldian perspective, qualitative research did not just spring from the countercultural and emancipatory movements of the 1960s and 1970s but may also have become part of the soft and hidden forms of power exertion in the confessional “interview society” (Atkinson & Silverman, 1997 ), and—contrary to its self-understanding—qualitative research may often function as a tool in the hands of the powerful (cf. the use of focus groups for marketing and political purposes).

As discussed by Brinkmann and Kvale ( 2005 ), the focus of the economies of Western societies has shifted from efficient production of goods to customers’ consumption of the goods produced. What is important is no longer to make products as stable and unfailing as possible, but rather to make markets by influencing buyers through marketing. Henry Ford is supposed to have said that customers could get the Model T in any color they wanted, as long as they preferred black, but in today’s post-Fordist economy, such standardization is clearly outdated. What is important today is not just the quality of the product, but also, especially, its style, the story behind it, the experiences it generates, and what it reveals about the owner’s self—in short, its hermeneutic qualities. Products are sold with inbuilt planned obsolescence, and advertisements work to change customers and construct their desires continually for new products to find new markets. Softer, more concealed forms of power gradually replace the bureaucratic structures of industrial society with its visible hierarchies and governance through reward and punishment.

To begin writing the recent social history of qualitative research, we may note how, in consumer society, soft qualitative research has been added to the repertoire of social science methodologies, often superseding the bureaucratic forms of data collection in standardized surveys and quantitative experiments. While a textbook on quantitative methodology may read like a manual for administrators and engineers, qualitative guidebooks read more like manuals for personnel counselors and advertisers, stressing emotions, empathy, and relationships. Although qualitative methods are often pictured as progressive and even emancipatory, we should not overlook the immersion of these methods in a consumer society, with its sensitivity toward experiences, images, feelings, and lifestyles of the consumers (Kvale, 2008 ). The qualitative interview, for example, provides important knowledge for manipulating consumers’ desires and behavior through psychologically sophisticated advertising. One of the most significant methods of marketing in consumer society is—not surprisingly—qualitative market research. Almost 2 decades ago, it already accounted for $2 billion to $3 billion worldwide (Imms & Ereaut, 2002 ), and according to one estimate, 5% of all British adults have taken part in market research focus groups. Although a major part of qualitative interviewing today takes place within market research, the extensive use of qualitative research interviews for consumer manipulation is hardly taken into account in the many discussions of qualitative research and its emancipatory nature.

Concluding the sketchy social history of qualitative research, we may return to the sociology department at the University of Chicago, which has been mentioned already as an important institution in terms of nurturing qualitative research in a variety of forms from the late 1920s. We have not, however, reflected on the sociohistorical conditions that might explain why the emergence of qualitative research approaches emerged exactly here at this specific time. In our view, there seem to be at least two answers to this admittedly complex question. First, the sociology department was initially uniquely crowded with intellectuals who were influenced by pragmatic and interactionist thought, by Continental (particularly German) thinking stressing description and understanding before causal explanation, and also by journalism, ecology models, and essayistic writing. At the same time, there was a strong spirit of wanting to link sociological research with engagement in social issues and social reform (Abbott, 1999 ; Bulmer, 1984 ). Second, the early Chicagoans’ initial interest in immigrants, patterns of urban development, crime, and the general social dynamics of city life stimulated scholars such as Thomas, Znaniecki, Park, and Burgess to develop and employ research strategies that were different from the quantitative ones (see Jørgensen & Smith, 2009 ). One might say that the study of the complexity of new city life craved methodological considerations and research strategies that made the qualitative perspective come in handy. Thus, to understand and grasp the cultural complexities of immigrant communities, the social worlds of marginalized people, and the segmentation of cities in distinctive zones, these researchers were somehow bound to employ and advance qualitative methods and techniques such as biographical research, fieldwork, and mapping.

The Technological History of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research indeed depends on human beings observing, interacting with, and talking to each other, but its history has also been driven by technological developments. It is difficult to imagine qualitative research as we know it today without the invention of the portable tape recorder, and later, digital recording devices, and also the whole range of software that enables computer-assisted analyses of qualitative materials. The development of these technologies has created new opportunities and possibilities for researchers in regard to collecting, managing, and analyzing qualitative data (Schwandt, 2001 , p. 27). However, not only have qualitative researchers adopted and made direct use of different technological devices in the research process, but also technological advances have spurred new qualitative approaches and methods. The technological history of qualitative research, we contend, is thus a history of researchers making use of technological artifacts not specifically or purposely developed for qualitative research, of revising their methods in response to technological innovation, and of the development of technologies specifically designed for research purposes. We briefly summarize this technological history by examining the ways that technological innovations have transformed and developed both the collection and the analysis of qualitative data.

Data Collection

Just as technological inventions have affected the general history of humanity in a variety of ways, technological innovations have triggered a number of major changes or shifts in the history of qualitative research and methodology. The first, and admittedly trivial, technologically driven shift was brought about by advances in transportation technology. In the very early days of anthropology (i.e., before Malinowski’s groundbreaking work in the Trobriand Islands), anthropologists typically relied on secondhand materials gathered by others, such as documents, travel logs, and reports written by colonial officials, missionaries, participants in scientific expeditions, or traveling salesmen. Unsurprisingly, this production of knowledge about cultures and social groups (later known as armchair research ) without ever meeting or interacting with them was later criticized for lacking authenticity and thus for drawing conclusions on the basis of insufficient or inadequate data (Markle, West, & Rich, 2011 ). However, as transportation technology improved and made long-distance traveling easier and affordable, anthropologists began to travel around the globe and to practice what has become known as fieldwork, thus immersing themselves in the lives of the people under study, interacting with them, and taking part in their practices and producing data onsite. In some cases, these traveling scholars brought with them new technologies, such as travel typewriters, and typed field notes while staying in the field. At this early stage of qualitative research, qualitative researchers invested massive energy in recording data. Researchers conducting interviews or doing observations often made handwritten summaries of interviews or conversations or wrote detailed field notes in their notebooks. At this point, a great deal of the researcher’s work consisted of making records of his or her experiences in the field or simply producing data and making them storable.

This situation was dramatically changed by the invention and use of audio recorders. The introduction of these devices in the practice of qualitative research also constitutes a substantial methodological advance since they made it possible for researchers to collect and record information from observations or from interviews simultaneously. Being able to record information as an integrated part of the data-gathering process enabled researchers to collect larger piles of data and to dedicate more efforts to the process of analysis. Furthermore, the fact that researchers could record conversations with participants, have them transcribed, and thus be able to return to them as they actually appeared constituted a major methodological progress. The process of making transcripts, and the following reading and rereading, enabled researchers to familiarize themselves with the data in a completely new way (Gibbs, Friese, & Mangabeira, 2002 ). The making of transcripts gradually has become conceived of as an integral part of the qualitative research process since the intense listening to recordings makes the researcher aware of subtle and taken-for-granted dimensions in the participant’s talk that researchers without recordings “would routinely fail to notice, fail to remember, or be unable to record in a sufficient detail by taking hand-written notes as it happened” (Rapley, 2007 , p. 50).

In a somewhat similar way, photographic technology has had an impact on qualitative research. The use of photography as an aspect of qualitative research goes back to the early works of Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead ( 1942 ) and their photographic ethnography of Balinese character. Bateson and Mead’s photographic report has achieved landmark status among anthropologists and, although their innovative work was greeted with some puzzlement (Jacknis, 1988 ), the use of photographs has become popular not only within a special branch of anthropology but also among a much broader community of qualitative researchers working within the field of visual methods (see Collier & Collier, 1986 ; Harper, 2012 ; Pink, 2007 ).

Still another shift was brought about by video recording and analysis (Gibbs et al., 2002 ). Digital technologies have opened up new ways of collecting, managing, and analyzing qualitative data. The use of video recordings has been employed within a broad field of qualitative studies, and since it allows the researcher to reobserve situations over and over again and thus discover new facets and aspects of their structure and processes, this technology appears among the standard data-collecting techniques in qualitative research. The most recent qualitative methodological innovations have been catalyzed by the development of the Internet. Not only has the Internet made it possible to collect data in new ways, but also it has created new forms of sociability, which in turn have catalyzed the development of existing qualitative methods.

The e-interview represents one such example of how modern information and communication technology have spurred innovative data-collecting processes. e-Interviewing may be found in a variety of forms, but basically entails a researcher and a research participant (or a group of participants) communicating through a sequence of emails involving questions and answers. As such, e-interviewing appears similar to conventional email communication and thus is quite different from face-to-face interviewing, where interviewer and interviewee interact directly in a real-time social encounter. Obviously (and to some extent similar to telephone interviewing, which is another technologically facilitated data-collection technique), such Internet-based data collection has some advantages: It is cost-effective since it eliminates travel and transcription expenses, it makes it possible to interview people who would not have agreed to participate in a face-to-face interview, and it may provide opportunities for accessing data that would have been difficult to obtain through direct face-to-face interaction (Bampton & Cowton, 2002 ). Thus, some qualitative researchers, such as Holge-Hazelton ( 2002 ), have found that, on the one hand, in researching sensitive and personal topics using e-interviews, there was a remarkable lack of inhibition among participants because rapport was quite easy to establish. On the other hand, because it is a distanced, asynchronous form of interaction, the e-interview provides no access to the nonverbal and tacit signs that are highly valuable in terms of managing the interview process and thus in improving the quality of data collecting (Bampton & Cowton, 2002 ).

Whereas technological innovations and new devices have been adapted by social scientists, thereby facilitating the use of well-established research strategies and methods, technological inventions do also lead to or mediate new forms of social life, which in turn may call for a rethinking of common textbook methods. One illustrating example is found within ethnography. Traditional ethnographic techniques cover a variety of procedures that may assist researchers in their face-to-face dealings with people, be it individual human beings or groups of people. However, as more and more social interactions unfold on the Internet or are otherwise mediated by information technologies, ethnographers and other qualitative researchers have been urged to adapt their strategies to the nature of these rapidly developing online social worlds.

Robert V. Kozinets is a pioneer in the field of adapting traditional ethnography procedures (of entrée, collecting data, making valid interpretations, doing ethical research, and providing possibilities for participant’s feedback). Extending the strengths of ethnographic methods to series of qualitative studies of online communities, he coined the term netnography to grasp the special trade of ethnographic study on online communities. In the words of Kozinets ( 2002 , p. 62), this approach “is a new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to study the cultures and communities that are emerging through computer-mediated communications.” Netnography, then, exemplifies how technology affects the nature of social life and how, in turn, qualitative researchers adapt to new and emerging forms of sociability by rethinking and extending well-established techniques and procedures. Netnographies have been conducted in a variety of online communities to grasp their specific meanings and symbolisms. One recent example is O’Leary and Carroll’s study ( 2012 ) of online poker subcultures in which netnography proved to be a useful and cost-effective method of providing insight into the social ecosystem of online poker gamblers and specific attitudes pertaining to this community.

Data Analysis

Not long ago, management and analysis of qualitative data typically involved (and often still does) an overwhelming amount of paperwork. Qualitative researchers buried themselves in their handwritten field notes, interview transcripts, or other documents. Trawling systematically through their material, researchers marked chunks of data and organized these bites of data in more or less complicated index systems, drew models of emerging analytical patterns, discovered data that challenged the emerging conceptual framework, and ended up, in most cases, with a final report, dissertation, or research paper. For today’s qualitative researchers, this caricature lacks an important dimension: the computer, and often also various types of data analysis software.

As pointed out by Raymond Lee and Nigel Fielding ( 2004 ), the launch of the first generations of word-processing programs was a great help to most qualitative researchers. These programs made it possible to store, edit, systematize, and modify collected materials in a far more effective and less time-consuming way. Qualitative researchers no longer had to make large piles of photocopies in which chunks of text were marked or cut out and placed in separate holders since the new word-processing packages provided very useful searching, copying, cutting, and pasting facilities. Similarly, conventional database programs (such as Microsoft Access) found their way into the realm of qualitative research, supporting the analysis of interviews and other qualitative materials (Meyer, Gruppe, & Franz, 2002 ).

In the early 1980s, the first generation of qualitative analysis programs was introduced (Weitzman, 2000 , p. 804). These types of programs, which have later been referred to as computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS, Lee & Fielding, 1995 ), facilitated direct coding of the data and subsequent searches in the coded material. Later versions of these first generations of CAQDAS allowed for quick assessments of overlapping or interrelating concepts and retrieval of data on specific themes from participants with assigned specific attribute values (Lee & Fielding, 2004 ). Such facilities support the more sophisticated and conceptual work of qualitative research since they enable the systematic investigation of emergent patterns and relationships in the data. These later generations of programs that assist more complex and interpretive analytic tasks have been termed theory builders since they contain tools and procedures that support the development of theoretical schemes and conceptual frameworks. Some of these programs also support collaborative qualitative research processes, allowing members of a research team to merge their analytic work in an integrated project and, similarly, to assess quality measures such as intercoder reliability. Furthermore, some packages support the integration of various kinds of digitized qualitative data such as photographs, video recordings, and rich text files, and some also contain tools for coding not only in textual data, but also directly in digitized speech and video recordings.

The introduction of computer technology in the processes of collecting, managing, and analyzing qualitative data has triggered important discussions in the research community on the nature of qualitative research and on the limitations and potentials offered by these new technologies. A core issue in these debates has been the possible (and perhaps nonreflected) ways that technology impacts the practice of qualitative research and analysis (Buston, 1997 ). On the one hand, in terms of data analysis software, technological skeptics have expressed concern that most software packages stimulate a specific (code-based) analytic strategy (Seidel, 1991 )—that the widespread use of CAQDAS eventually may result in an unhappy homogenization and convergence toward a certain type of analysis and even toward a new kind of data management orthodoxy (Barry, 1998 ; Coffey, Holbrook, & Atkinson, 1996 ; Welsh, 2002 ); that use of computers and software packages creates a distance between researcher and data and prevents the researcher from immersing him- or herself in the data (Roberts & Wilson, 2002 ); and finally that many software packages are somewhat incompatible with the ambiguous nature of qualitative data and thereby pose a threat to the holistic nature of qualitative research (Kelle, 1995 ; Mason, 2002 ; Weaver & Atkinson, 1994 ). On the other hand, technological optimists (e.g., Richards & Richards, 1998 ) do not neglect the potential pitfalls of nonreflexive use of CAQDAS, but emphasize how software packages enable management and analysis of large pools of qualitative data and that CAQDAS provides procedures for rigorous and transparent analytic work and thus potentially for enhancing the quality of qualitative research. Similarly, optimists also argue that, although the quantitative tools in analysis software may be used recklessly, sensible use may provide the researcher with a quick and thought-stimulating overview of characteristic patterns or indicate possible relations or hypotheses to be explored. The powerful search engines at the heart of most CAQDAS packages are also effective tools for improving the validity of analysis, which is also the case concerning the visualizing or model-building facilities with direct data access. Although this somewhat exaggerated polarization between technological skeptics and optimists is grounded in the nature and specific features of the available software packages, the different positions often also reflect more fundamental differences in terms of qualitative methodology approaches. Researchers within the phenomenological tradition who emphasize the subjective understanding and interpretation of behavior and verbalizations often tend to view CAQDAS more negatively than qualitative researchers working within the paradigm of grounded theory, content analysis, or other approaches that may profit from the coding and quantification tools available in many programs (Berg, 2003 , p. 266).

From this technological history, it appears that technological advances have transformed and advanced key elements in the practice of qualitative research (i.e., collecting, managing, and analyzing data). Technological developments (sometimes carried out by qualitative researchers themselves in collaboration with technicians and computer engineers) have broadened the methodological repertoire of qualitative researchers and have brought about new ways of gathering, managing, and analyzing data. Thus, technological innovations have changed and transformed the practical tasks of qualitative research as well as its scope and potentials. As a result of technological development, qualitative researchers today spend less time recording and producing data than they did a few decades ago, just as new ways of working with and looking at data became possible with the launch of analysis software and as audio and video recordings enabled the researcher to store and return to situations as they originally appeared. The technological history of qualitative research thus reminds us that qualitative researchers continually reflect on and adjust their methods not only to fit the actual phenomenon under study, but also to fit a broader milieu of cultural factors such as technological innovations (Markle et al., 2011 ).

Concluding Thoughts about the Future

It would be no exaggeration to conclude that, during the past decades, the broad church of qualitative research has reached a strong position within the human and social sciences. As our six histories have suggested, social, cultural, material, intellectual, and technological changes have spurred the emergence of new qualitative methods and innovations of well-known and celebrated approaches. Furthermore, strong efforts to describe and delineate qualitative procedures and research guidelines (in textbooks and qualitative curricula at universities) within the variety of approaches from grounded theory, content analysis, interaction process analysis, discourse analysis, and others have contributed to the relative success and widespread acceptance of qualitative research as “real science” in the research community as well as in the public sphere. As qualitative researchers, we welcome this situation. However, it might be fruitful to consider the possible, often neglected side effect of this “scientification” of qualitative research. Many years ago, Valerie Janesick warned qualitative researchers against the pitfall that cultivating and outlining procedures of qualitative methods could result in researchers losing sight of the subject matter and thus gradually undermining the potential of qualitative research. Like others, she referred to this tendency as methodolatry that she designated

a combination of method and idolatry, to describe a preoccupation with selecting and defending methods to the exclusion of the actual substance of the story being told. Methodolatry is the slavish attachment and devotion to method that so often overtakes the discourse in the education and human service fields. (Janesick, 1994 , p. 215)

Whether methodolatry in the qualitative research community is interpreted as an expression of some sort of physics envy among qualitative researchers or as an adjustment of qualitative research to the public demand for evidence-based knowledge (which often is confused with positivist and experimental studies), the consequences of such qualitative methodological fetishism might be detrimental for qualitative research. Psychologist Kerry Chamberlain has discussed how privileging questions of method over all other important questions pertaining to the research process deprives qualitative research of its distinctive characteristics as a creative, flexible, interpretive enterprise with a strong critical potential. If qualitative research is confused with categorizing and illustrating talk, instead of interpreting and theorizing the contents of it, and if qualitative researchers uncritically adopt conceptions of validity and reliability from positivism and fail to acknowledge the ideological base of the trade, we will compromise essential aspects of our historical legacy (Chamberlain, 2000 ) and perhaps even the raison d’ être of qualitative research.

We make no claim that methodolatry is standard among qualitative researchers. However, we have registered that discussions of such tendencies have emerged within several subfields of qualitative research. Some (e.g., Steiner 2002 ) have even concluded that the majority of qualitative research could be characterized as scientistic because of its concern with generalizability, objectivity, and rationality. Others have used George Ritzer’s ( 2008 ) McDonaldization thesis to argue that we are witnessing a McDonaldization of qualitative research. According to Ritzer, the cultural process of McDonaldization is characterized by efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control—all of which seem to favor standardized methodologies in qualitative research. Nancarrow and colleagues concluded the following about the impact of McDonaldization on qualitative research:

Just as McWorld creates “a common world taste around common logos, advertising slogans, stars, songs, brand names, jingles and trademarks” [ … ], the qualitative research world also seems to be moving towards a common world taste for an instantly recognisable and acceptable research method that can be deployed fast. (Nancarrow, Vir, & Barker, 2005 , p. 297)

With this risk in mind, we find it appropriate to remind ourselves of the core values and characteristics of qualitative research. Privileging method over the subject matter of research and developing rigid methodological straitjackets will not bring qualitative research closer to “the royal road of scientificity” (Lather, 2005 , p. 12), but rather the opposite. Only by reminding ourselves of our historical legacy and embracing the unpredictable, flexible, and messy nature of qualitative research can we practice, develop, and fertilize our trade.

Taking a look into the future of qualitative research necessarily involves a reflection on the possible lines of development within the field of computer-assisted qualitative research. Since technological advances keep a steady pace and since qualitative researchers continuously seek out the potential of newly available research technologies, innovations that strengthen the nature and widen the scope of qualitative research are to be expected. In the early 2000s, it was still considered an open question whether the development of voice-recognition software could lead to computer-supported interview transcription (Flick, 2002 , p. 17). At present, however, some voice-recognition software packages have transcription modes and speech-to-text modes that support the transformation of (certain kinds) of talk into text. Although the speech-to-text software still needs some improvement to free research assistants or secretaries from the work of transcription, reaching this goal is not at the forefront of the innovative efforts put forward by the proponents of computer-facilitated qualitative research. The cutting-edge developments of CAQDAS seem to point in new and interesting directions. One emerging and promising field is the integration of geographical information systems with the use of CAQDAS. Qualitative researchers such as Fielding and Cisneros ( 2009 ) and Verd and Porcel ( 2012 ) described how data from a geographical information system could be integrated in software packages supporting qualitative analysis. Thus, Verd and Porcel applied a form of qualitative geographical information system in a study of an urban transformation project in the city of Barcelona to investigate the social production of urban space. And in addition to opening a completely new strand of qualitative urban research (or perhaps, more correctly, revitalizing the urban sociology of the early Chicagoans by adding new data and technologies) that stimulates a new form of sensitivity toward the spatial dimensions of the social world, such creative synthesis of geographical information system technology and CAQDAS has added new concepts to the vocabulary of qualitative research, such as geocoding or georeferencing, or “the type of information processing that consists in the geographical localization and placing of qualitative material such as photographs, field notes, text fragments of documents and any other information” (Verd & Porcel, 2012 , para. 14). The CAQDAS trend in qualitative research can be seen as being aligned with the scientistic push for standardization, but it can also be looked at in a more balanced way. Although uncritical use of CAQDAS admittedly might fuel processes of methodolatry (stimulating the technical side over the interpretive side), there still seems to be strong potential in using CAQDAS to strengthen the qualitative investigation of some forms of audiovisual data (such as video data) or data sources (geographical and spatial) that until recently have been used primarily by quantitative social researchers. The fruitful mixing of qualitative analysis software with seemingly nonqualitative data rests on the creative and imaginative work of qualitative researchers that dare challenge traditional conceptions such as the sharp demarcations of qualitative and quantitative research. This might be an example of a more general development related to the whole mixed methods movement.

Other contemporary qualitative researchers argue that we must move in the opposite direction of methodolatry. The traditions that are prevalent in the different editions of The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research , edited by Denzin and Lincoln, favor a more political, even activist, attitude to qualitative research, which is based on ethical values of care and community (rather than validity and reliability) and employs aesthetic means (e.g., borrowed from literature and the arts) to favor social justice. Today, the tension between those on the one hand, who seek to use qualitative methods to do “normal science” (in a Kuhnian sense) and employ standardized formats to communicate their findings, and those on the other hand, who experiment with non- and even antimethodological approaches (e.g., drama, poetry, autoethnography), is central to the field of qualitative research. The time might have come to ask if there is anything that holds the many practices together that go by the name qualitative research—other than the name itself. Some scholars give a negative answer and go so far as to argue that we are—or should be—in a position of “post” qualitative research (St. Pierre, 2011 ), meaning that the term has lost its rhetorical force and simply freezes inquiry rather than setting our thinking free. Others (e.g., Hammersley, 2011 ) found that the current fragmentation and experimentation in qualitative research risks rendering qualitative research redundant in the eyes of society. A field with so much inner tension might not be taken seriously.

Our goal in this context is not to settle this discussion once and for all. As the historical contributions presented in this chapter demonstrate, qualitative research represents a range of rich and vibrant approaches to the study of human lives and social phenomena. As we have seen in this chapter, the term itself—qualitative research—is barely 100 years old, and we are confident that if the term is no longer useful, then researchers of the future will have to invent other concepts to designate the process of studying our social and personal worlds. That it is worthwhile and necessary to study ourselves as human beings, with all the qualitative characteristics of our experiences and actions, seems to be as true as ever. And the fact that the landscape of qualitative research is extremely variegated might not be too surprising given the complexities of the subject matter.

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Home » Historical Research – Types, Methods and Examples

Historical Research – Types, Methods and Examples

Table of Contents

Historical Research

Definition:

Historical research is the process of investigating and studying past events, people, and societies using a variety of sources and methods. This type of research aims to reconstruct and interpret the past based on the available evidence.

Types of Historical Research

There are several types of historical research, including:

Descriptive Research

This type of historical research focuses on describing events, people, or cultures in detail. It can involve examining artifacts, documents, or other sources of information to create a detailed account of what happened or existed.

Analytical Research

This type of historical research aims to explain why events, people, or cultures occurred in a certain way. It involves analyzing data to identify patterns, causes, and effects, and making interpretations based on this analysis.

Comparative Research

This type of historical research involves comparing two or more events, people, or cultures to identify similarities and differences. This can help researchers understand the unique characteristics of each and how they interacted with each other.

Interpretive Research

This type of historical research focuses on interpreting the meaning of past events, people, or cultures. It can involve analyzing cultural symbols, beliefs, and practices to understand their significance in a particular historical context.

Quantitative Research

This type of historical research involves using statistical methods to analyze historical data. It can involve examining demographic information, economic indicators, or other quantitative data to identify patterns and trends.

Qualitative Research

This type of historical research involves examining non-numerical data such as personal accounts, letters, or diaries. It can provide insights into the experiences and perspectives of individuals during a particular historical period.

Data Collection Methods

Data Collection Methods are as follows:

• Archival research : This involves analyzing documents and records that have been preserved over time, such as government records, diaries, letters, newspapers, and photographs. Archival research is often conducted in libraries, archives, and museums.
• Oral history : This involves conducting interviews with individuals who have lived through a particular historical period or event. Oral history can provide a unique perspective on past events and can help to fill gaps in the historical record.
• Artifact analysis: This involves examining physical objects from the past, such as tools, clothing, and artwork, to gain insights into past cultures and practices.
• Secondary sources: This involves analyzing published works, such as books, articles, and academic papers, that discuss past events and cultures. Secondary sources can provide context and insights into the historical period being studied.
• Statistical analysis : This involves analyzing numerical data from the past, such as census records or economic data, to identify patterns and trends.
• Fieldwork : This involves conducting on-site research in a particular location, such as visiting a historical site or conducting ethnographic research in a particular community. Fieldwork can provide a firsthand understanding of the culture and environment being studied.
• Content analysis: This involves analyzing the content of media from the past, such as films, television programs, and advertisements, to gain insights into cultural attitudes and beliefs.

Data Analysis Methods

• Content analysis : This involves analyzing the content of written or visual material, such as books, newspapers, or photographs, to identify patterns and themes. Content analysis can be used to identify changes in cultural values and beliefs over time.
• Textual analysis : This involves analyzing written texts, such as letters or diaries, to understand the experiences and perspectives of individuals during a particular historical period. Textual analysis can provide insights into how people lived and thought in the past.
• Discourse analysis : This involves analyzing how language is used to construct meaning and power relations in a particular historical period. Discourse analysis can help to identify how social and political ideologies were constructed and maintained over time.
• Statistical analysis: This involves using statistical methods to analyze numerical data, such as census records or economic data, to identify patterns and trends. Statistical analysis can help to identify changes in population demographics, economic conditions, and other factors over time.
• Comparative analysis : This involves comparing data from two or more historical periods or events to identify similarities and differences. Comparative analysis can help to identify patterns and trends that may not be apparent from analyzing data from a single historical period.
• Qualitative analysis: This involves analyzing non-numerical data, such as oral history interviews or ethnographic field notes, to identify themes and patterns. Qualitative analysis can provide a rich understanding of the experiences and perspectives of individuals in the past.

Historical Research Methodology

Here are the general steps involved in historical research methodology:

• Define the research question: Start by identifying a research question that you want to answer through your historical research. This question should be focused, specific, and relevant to your research goals.
• Review the literature: Conduct a review of the existing literature on the topic of your research question. This can involve reading books, articles, and academic papers to gain a thorough understanding of the existing research.
• Develop a research design : Develop a research design that outlines the methods you will use to collect and analyze data. This design should be based on the research question and should be feasible given the resources and time available.
• Collect data: Use the methods outlined in your research design to collect data on past events, people, and cultures. This can involve archival research, oral history interviews, artifact analysis, and other data collection methods.
• Analyze data : Analyze the data you have collected using the methods outlined in your research design. This can involve content analysis, textual analysis, statistical analysis, and other data analysis methods.
• Interpret findings : Use the results of your data analysis to draw meaningful insights and conclusions related to your research question. These insights should be grounded in the data and should be relevant to the research goals.
• Communicate results: Communicate your findings through a research report, academic paper, or other means. This should be done in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner, with appropriate citations and references to the literature.

Applications of Historical Research

Historical research has a wide range of applications in various fields, including:

• Education : Historical research can be used to develop curriculum materials that reflect a more accurate and inclusive representation of history. It can also be used to provide students with a deeper understanding of past events and cultures.
• Museums : Historical research is used to develop exhibits, programs, and other materials for museums. It can provide a more accurate and engaging presentation of historical events and artifacts.
• Public policy : Historical research is used to inform public policy decisions by providing insights into the historical context of current issues. It can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of past policies and programs.
• Business : Historical research can be used by businesses to understand the evolution of their industry and to identify trends that may affect their future success. It can also be used to develop marketing strategies that resonate with customers’ historical interests and values.
• Law : Historical research is used in legal proceedings to provide evidence and context for cases involving historical events or practices. It can also be used to inform the development of new laws and policies.
• Genealogy : Historical research can be used by individuals to trace their family history and to understand their ancestral roots.
• Cultural preservation : Historical research is used to preserve cultural heritage by documenting and interpreting past events, practices, and traditions. It can also be used to identify and preserve historical landmarks and artifacts.

Examples of Historical Research

Examples of Historical Research are as follows:

• Examining the history of race relations in the United States: Historical research could be used to explore the historical roots of racial inequality and injustice in the United States. This could help inform current efforts to address systemic racism and promote social justice.
• Tracing the evolution of political ideologies: Historical research could be used to study the development of political ideologies over time. This could help to contextualize current political debates and provide insights into the origins and evolution of political beliefs and values.
• Analyzing the impact of technology on society : Historical research could be used to explore the impact of technology on society over time. This could include examining the impact of previous technological revolutions (such as the industrial revolution) on society, as well as studying the current impact of emerging technologies on society and the environment.
• Documenting the history of marginalized communities : Historical research could be used to document the history of marginalized communities (such as LGBTQ+ communities or indigenous communities). This could help to preserve cultural heritage, promote social justice, and promote a more inclusive understanding of history.

Purpose of Historical Research

The purpose of historical research is to study the past in order to gain a better understanding of the present and to inform future decision-making. Some specific purposes of historical research include:

• To understand the origins of current events, practices, and institutions : Historical research can be used to explore the historical roots of current events, practices, and institutions. By understanding how things developed over time, we can gain a better understanding of the present.
• To develop a more accurate and inclusive understanding of history : Historical research can be used to correct inaccuracies and biases in historical narratives. By exploring different perspectives and sources of information, we can develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of history.
• To inform decision-making: Historical research can be used to inform decision-making in various fields, including education, public policy, business, and law. By understanding the historical context of current issues, we can make more informed decisions about how to address them.
• To preserve cultural heritage : Historical research can be used to document and preserve cultural heritage, including traditions, practices, and artifacts. By understanding the historical significance of these cultural elements, we can work to preserve them for future generations.
• To stimulate curiosity and critical thinking: Historical research can be used to stimulate curiosity and critical thinking about the past. By exploring different historical perspectives and interpretations, we can develop a more critical and reflective approach to understanding history and its relevance to the present.

When to use Historical Research

Historical research can be useful in a variety of contexts. Here are some examples of when historical research might be particularly appropriate:

• When examining the historical roots of current events: Historical research can be used to explore the historical roots of current events, practices, and institutions. By understanding how things developed over time, we can gain a better understanding of the present.
• When examining the historical context of a particular topic : Historical research can be used to explore the historical context of a particular topic, such as a social issue, political debate, or scientific development. By understanding the historical context, we can gain a more nuanced understanding of the topic and its significance.
• When exploring the evolution of a particular field or discipline : Historical research can be used to explore the evolution of a particular field or discipline, such as medicine, law, or art. By understanding the historical development of the field, we can gain a better understanding of its current state and future directions.
• When examining the impact of past events on current society : Historical research can be used to examine the impact of past events (such as wars, revolutions, or social movements) on current society. By understanding the historical context and impact of these events, we can gain insights into current social and political issues.
• When studying the cultural heritage of a particular community or group : Historical research can be used to document and preserve the cultural heritage of a particular community or group. By understanding the historical significance of cultural practices, traditions, and artifacts, we can work to preserve them for future generations.

Characteristics of Historical Research

The following are some characteristics of historical research:

• Focus on the past : Historical research focuses on events, people, and phenomena of the past. It seeks to understand how things developed over time and how they relate to current events.
• Reliance on primary sources: Historical research relies on primary sources such as letters, diaries, newspapers, government documents, and other artifacts from the period being studied. These sources provide firsthand accounts of events and can help researchers gain a more accurate understanding of the past.
• Interpretation of data : Historical research involves interpretation of data from primary sources. Researchers analyze and interpret data to draw conclusions about the past.
• Use of multiple sources: Historical research often involves using multiple sources of data to gain a more complete understanding of the past. By examining a range of sources, researchers can cross-reference information and validate their findings.
• Importance of context: Historical research emphasizes the importance of context. Researchers analyze the historical context in which events occurred and consider how that context influenced people’s actions and decisions.
• Subjectivity : Historical research is inherently subjective, as researchers interpret data and draw conclusions based on their own perspectives and biases. Researchers must be aware of their own biases and strive for objectivity in their analysis.
• Importance of historical significance: Historical research emphasizes the importance of historical significance. Researchers consider the historical significance of events, people, and phenomena and their impact on the present and future.
• Use of qualitative methods : Historical research often uses qualitative methods such as content analysis, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis to analyze data and draw conclusions about the past.

Advantages of Historical Research

There are several advantages to historical research:

• Provides a deeper understanding of the past : Historical research can provide a more comprehensive understanding of past events and how they have shaped current social, political, and economic conditions. This can help individuals and organizations make informed decisions about the future.
• Helps preserve cultural heritage: Historical research can be used to document and preserve cultural heritage. By studying the history of a particular culture, researchers can gain insights into the cultural practices and beliefs that have shaped that culture over time.
• Provides insights into long-term trends : Historical research can provide insights into long-term trends and patterns. By studying historical data over time, researchers can identify patterns and trends that may be difficult to discern from short-term data.
• Facilitates the development of hypotheses: Historical research can facilitate the development of hypotheses about how past events have influenced current conditions. These hypotheses can be tested using other research methods, such as experiments or surveys.
• Helps identify root causes of social problems : Historical research can help identify the root causes of social problems. By studying the historical context in which these problems developed, researchers can gain a better understanding of how they emerged and what factors may have contributed to their development.
• Provides a source of inspiration: Historical research can provide a source of inspiration for individuals and organizations seeking to address current social, political, and economic challenges. By studying the accomplishments and struggles of past generations, researchers can gain insights into how to address current challenges.

Limitations of Historical Research

Some Limitations of Historical Research are as follows:

• Reliance on incomplete or biased data: Historical research is often limited by the availability and quality of data. Many primary sources have been lost, destroyed, or are inaccessible, making it difficult to get a complete picture of historical events. Additionally, some primary sources may be biased or represent only one perspective on an event.
• Difficulty in generalizing findings: Historical research is often specific to a particular time and place and may not be easily generalized to other contexts. This makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions about human behavior or social phenomena.
• Lack of control over variables : Historical research often lacks control over variables. Researchers cannot manipulate or control historical events, making it difficult to establish cause-and-effect relationships.
• Subjectivity of interpretation : Historical research is often subjective because researchers must interpret data and draw conclusions based on their own biases and perspectives. Different researchers may interpret the same data differently, leading to different conclusions.
• Limited ability to test hypotheses: Historical research is often limited in its ability to test hypotheses. Because the events being studied have already occurred, researchers cannot manipulate variables or conduct experiments to test their hypotheses.
• Lack of objectivity: Historical research is often subjective, and researchers must be aware of their own biases and strive for objectivity in their analysis. However, it can be difficult to maintain objectivity when studying events that are emotionally charged or controversial.
• Limited generalizability: Historical research is often limited in its generalizability, as the events and conditions being studied may be specific to a particular time and place. This makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions that apply to other contexts or time periods.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Section 6.1: Qualitative and Historical Research

When we talk about research, we’re really talking about a way to answer questions. You’ve probably heard about experiments, surveys, and maybe even something called “quantitative research.” But there’s another type that’s super important, and it’s called “qualitative research.”

Table of Contents

What is Qualitative Research?

So, what’s the deal with qualitative research? It’s a way for researchers to explore and understand the meaning behind certain behaviors, emotions, and interactions. Unlike quantitative research, which focuses on numbers and statistics (like how many people prefer video games to sports), qualitative research is all about descriptions and experiences (like why people prefer video games to sports).

Some people might think that qualitative research is not as serious or tough as quantitative research, but that’s not true! It’s just as challenging and valuable—it’s just looking for different types of answers to different types of questions.

Why Some People Get Confused

You might wonder why there’s confusion about qualitative research. Well, it’s often because it’s not about counting or measuring things in a traditional way. Some researchers who love numbers might not see the full value of studying people’s stories or experiences. They might see it as a “catchall” category, which is a bit unfair.

How is Historical Research Different?

Historical research is like a cousin to qualitative research. It has been around for ages and has its own way of looking at the past to answer questions. Some might argue that it’s a special kind of qualitative research because it also looks at stories and not just numbers.

The Mindset of Researchers

Imagine a researcher as a detective. A quantitative researcher is like a detective who has a specific idea of who the culprit in a mystery might be. They’re trying to see if the clues match their guess. They start with a theory and then look at the real world to see if things add up.

On the other hand, a qualitative researcher is like a detective who comes to the scene with an open mind. They look around, gather information, and let the clues lead them to conclusions.

So, both types of research are like detectives working in different ways to solve mysteries—quantitative researchers test their guesses against the world, and qualitative researchers let the world reveal its own story.

Historical Research

Historical research isn’t just about memorizing dates and names. It’s like being a time detective, trying to really understand what happened in the past and why. Good historical research digs deep—it’s about figuring out how past societies worked and what made people tick.

Theories and Evidence in History

Historians are a bit like scientists. They have theories and hypotheses about the past. They use evidence, like letters, photos, and other records, to build their cases and test their ideas. It’s not all about storytelling; there’s a lot of careful thinking and analyzing that goes into it.

Why Historical Research Matters

Think about the issues we face today, like the relationships between communities and the police. By looking back at events like the Civil Rights Movement, we can learn lessons that help us understand and maybe even solve problems today. History isn’t just old news—it’s a guide to the present and the future.

Steps of the Historical Detective

The way historians work isn’t too different from other researchers. They start by pinpointing what they want to find out. Then they form a hypothesis—a smart guess about their question. After that, it’s all about gathering data, analyzing it, and seeing if their guess holds up. They’re not just repeating what’s already known; they’re uncovering new insights and truths.

The Challenge of Being Objective

Here’s a tricky part: Historians have to be really careful not to let their personal feelings color their work. They need to look at all the evidence, even if it goes against what they believe or feel. Their goal is to find the most truthful explanation of the past, not just to tell a compelling story.

The Limitations of Historical Data

Historians face a unique challenge—they can’t make new data. They’re stuck with whatever evidence has survived over time. This can make some questions hard, or even impossible, to answer. If a student is researching history, they need to be careful not to bite off more than they can chew and to make sure there’s enough evidence out there.

The Hunt for Information

Unlike other researchers, historians don’t just look at recent journal articles. They dive into all kinds of records—diaries, letters, old receipts, you name it. And sometimes, they have to go on real-life adventures, traveling to far-off places just to find that one piece of the puzzle.

The Power of Primary Sources

In historical research, firsthand accounts are like gold. These primary sources are the most direct peek into the past we can get. Secondary sources, like textbooks, are useful, but they’re a step removed from the action. Historians always aim for those primary sources first for the most accurate picture.

Verifying the Facts

Historians also have to be super detectives when it comes to figuring out if a document is legit. They ask: Was the author really there? How long after the event was this written? And, big one, was the author biased? All these questions help them determine if their sources are trustworthy.

Crafting the Story

Finally, historians have to take all this data and tell the story of the past in a way that’s true to what they’ve found. It’s not about creating a nice tale; it’s about making sense of the evidence and sharing those discoveries with others. They take all those facts and build a narrative that teaches us something new.

🔍 Reflect: Why do you think it’s crucial for historians to be objective in their research? How might their personal feelings or biases affect the way they interpret historical data?

Go to top      

Qualitative Research

Narrative data: the storytelling of science.

Qualitative research is the art of uncovering the rich, complex stories behind human behavior and social phenomena. Instead of crunching numbers, qualitative researchers listen to people’s stories and observe their behaviors in real life—right where they happen.

Natural Settings: The Real-World Laboratory

The world is the qualitative researcher’s lab. They dive into the natural environments where life’s drama unfolds, rather than observing from the artificial confines of a lab. This hands-on approach is why some people use terms like ‘field research’ or ‘naturalistic research’ interchangeably with qualitative research.

Culture Explorers: The Ethnographers

In their quest to understand cultures, qualitative researchers often wear the hat of ethnographers, immersing themselves in the day-to-day lives of the people they study. Depending on who’s doing the research, you might hear different names for this work, but they’re all about getting to the heart of human experiences.

Shifting Tides: From Numbers to Narratives

Once upon a time, social scientists wanted to be just like the “hard science” folks—measuring everything with numbers to keep it objective. But there’s been a revolution. More and more researchers argue that the rich tapestry of human life can’t be captured by numbers alone. These scholars are making a strong case for the power of words and observations to fill in the picture.

The Holistic Approach: Seeing the Big Picture

For qualitative researchers, it’s all about the big picture. They believe you can’t understand human behavior by looking at pieces in isolation. Instead, they see social events as part of larger systems—like a giant puzzle they’re trying to solve, piece by piece.

Building Theories: The Creative Side of Research

While numbers are great for testing theories, stories and observations are where new theories begin. Qualitative research is a breeding ground for new ideas about how societies work because it takes a deep dive into the complex ways people interact with each other and their environments.

Tools of the Trade: The Qualitative Toolkit

To get the full story, qualitative researchers have a whole toolbox of methods at their disposal. They might join the community they’re studying, watching and learning from the inside. They might have long, detailed chats with people to get their perspectives. And they often dig into letters, photos, and any other documents that can give them insights.

🔍 Reflect: Bold What are some challenges you think qualitative researchers might face when trying to maintain objectivity? How might their presence in the natural environment of their subjects influence the data they collect?

Deciphering the Logic of Qualitative Research

Deductive reasoning: the “top down” approach.

Quantitative research often follows a deductive path. This approach is like constructing a building from the blueprint down to the bricks. Researchers start with a broad theory and narrow it down to specific hypotheses, which they then test with data. It’s a logical staircase from the general principles down to specific instances.

Deductive Logic in Steps:

• Theory Specification : Select a theory as a starting point.
• Hypothesis Generation : Make predictions based on the theory.
• Data Collection : Gather evidence to test these predictions.
• Confirmation/Refutation : See if the real-world data matches the theory.

Inductive Reasoning: The “Bottom Up” Approach

Qualitative research flips the script, embracing an inductive strategy. Picture a sculptor carving a statue from a block of marble, finding the form as they go. Researchers immerse themselves in the details—specific behaviors or events—and from these observations, they extract broader patterns, categories, and ultimately theories. This method is more exploratory, more like a journey from the specific to the general .

Inductive Logic in Steps:

• Data Collection : Dive into the social world and gather observations.
• Pattern Identification : Look for recurring themes and categories.
• Theoretical Development : Formulate a general theory based on these patterns.
• Grounded Theory Formation : Develop a theory that’s rooted in observed data.

Descriptive and Theoretical Qualitative Research

While some qualitative research is content to simply paint a picture of the social landscape, other studies aim higher, seeking to construct new theories. These theories are termed grounded theory because they’re firmly planted in the reality observed by the researcher.

The Interplay of Questions and Logic

The specificity of questions a researcher asks is influenced by the research approach. Quantitative research often has very pointed, precise questions, while qualitative research deals with broader, more open-ended inquiries. The choice between these methods depends on the depth of understanding currently available about a subject.

Choosing the Path: Specificity vs. Exploration

If a research question is vast and the existing theory is like an unfinished map, qualitative research steps in to chart the unknown territories. Without enough detail for sharp hypotheses, qualitative researchers opt for a broad lens to capture more of the landscape.

🔍 Reflect: Bold Consider the research approach best suited to a study on the effects of social media on teenage communication skills. Would you start with a hypothesis based on existing theory (deductive), or would you observe and then form a theory (inductive)? How would your approach influence the depth and direction of your research?

Understanding the Synthesis of Data in Research

The quantitative data symphony.

In the realm of quantitative research, data synthesis is like a classical music score — precise, structured, and composed using the mathematical notes of descriptive statistics to organize data, and inferential statistics to confirm or reject hypotheses. The end product? A suite of neat, accessible tables summarizing a multitude of data points like a well-orchestrated symphony.

The Qualitative Data Mosaic

On the flip side, qualitative research resembles a vast mosaic. Each piece of data — or in this case, words — is like a unique tile. The researcher’s task? To arrange these tiles to form coherent patterns and themes. The process is intricate and sometimes overwhelming, leading to the inevitable question: “What do I do with all of these words?”

The Craft of Trends, Patterns, and Categories

The qualitative researcher’s strategy is akin to an artist searching for form within chaos. They meticulously look for trends (recurring themes), patterns (relationships and structures), and categories (classifications). These are the strokes that paint the bigger picture of the data narrative.

Literature Review vs. Qualitative Data Analysis

The process bears resemblance to conducting a literature review. Yet, there’s a crucial distinction — the synthesis focus . A literature review compiles scholarly writings, creating a foundation of what’s known. Qualitative data analysis, however, involves interpreting raw data to forge new understanding.

The Role of Technology

In modern qualitative research, computer software has become the researcher’s right hand. These digital tools assist in sorting, categorizing, and organizing narrative data, allowing for a more systematic approach to understanding the nuanced stories within the data.

🔍 Reflect: Imagine you’ve gathered a multitude of interviews on personal experiences during a historical event. How might software aid in finding commonalities or unique perspectives? Would the digital organization of narratives shape the insights you derive, and if so, how?

Understanding Qualitative Research

Qualitative research seeks to understand the ‘why’ behind human behaviors, experiences, and emotions, rather than focusing on ‘how many’ as seen in quantitative research. It’s a valuable, in-depth approach often misunderstood due to its descriptive nature, contrasting with the numerical focus of quantitative studies. Researchers in this field act like open-minded detectives, gathering narrative data and observing reality to develop new theories.

The Essence of Historical Research

Historical research delves into understanding past events to inform the present and future. Historians work like scientists, forming hypotheses and scrutinizing evidence like letters and photos to reveal new insights. Objectivity is crucial in historical research to avoid bias, and the reliance on surviving evidence poses unique challenges for historians who often seek out primary sources to reconstruct the past accurately.

Decoding Research Methodologies

The qualitative research methodology adopts an inductive approach, starting from specific observations and building up to general theories. This ‘bottom-up’ strategy contrasts with the ‘top-down’ deductive reasoning of quantitative research that begins with a general theory and narrows down to specific hypotheses.

The Interplay Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research

The comparison between qualitative and quantitative research highlights their distinct paths: the former is inductive, subjective, and holistic, while the latter is deductive, objective, and focused. The selection of a research method deeply influences the specificity and exploration depth of a study, with qualitative research favoring a broader lens for exploration.

Synthesizing Qualitative Data

Qualitative data analysis is likened to creating a mosaic, where each piece of narrative information is arranged to form a comprehensive pattern, revealing the overarching themes of the research. This artistic arrangement of data showcases the uniqueness of qualitative research, emphasizing context and tentative generalizations.

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• Open access
• Published: 02 May 2024

Use of the International IFOMPT Cervical Framework to inform clinical reasoning in postgraduate level physiotherapy students: a qualitative study using think aloud methodology

• Katie L. Kowalski 1 ,
• Heather Gillis 1 ,
• Katherine Henning 1 ,
• Paul Parikh 1 ,
• Jackie Sadi 1 &
• Alison Rushton 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  486 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Vascular pathologies of the head and neck are rare but can present as musculoskeletal problems. The International Federation of Orthopedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) Cervical Framework (Framework) aims to assist evidence-based clinical reasoning for safe assessment and management of the cervical spine considering potential for vascular pathology. Clinical reasoning is critical to physiotherapy, and developing high-level clinical reasoning is a priority for postgraduate (post-licensure) educational programs.

To explore the influence of the Framework on clinical reasoning processes in postgraduate physiotherapy students.

Qualitative case study design using think aloud methodology and interpretive description, informed by COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research. Participants were postgraduate musculoskeletal physiotherapy students who learned about the Framework through standardized delivery. Two cervical spine cases explored clinical reasoning processes. Coding and analysis of transcripts were guided by Elstein’s diagnostic reasoning components and the Postgraduate Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Practice model. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis (inductive and deductive) for individuals and then across participants, enabling analysis of key steps in clinical reasoning processes and use of the Framework. Trustworthiness was enhanced with multiple strategies (e.g., second researcher challenged codes).

For all participants ( n  = 8), the Framework supported clinical reasoning using primarily hypothetico-deductive processes. It informed vascular hypothesis generation in the patient history and testing the vascular hypothesis through patient history questions and selection of physical examination tests, to inform clarity and support for diagnosis and management. Most participant’s clinical reasoning processes were characterized by high-level features (e.g., prioritization), however there was a continuum of proficiency. Clinical reasoning processes were informed by deep knowledge of the Framework integrated with a breadth of wider knowledge and supported by a range of personal characteristics (e.g., reflection).

Conclusions

Findings support use of the Framework as an educational resource in postgraduate physiotherapy programs to inform clinical reasoning processes for safe and effective assessment and management of cervical spine presentations considering potential for vascular pathology. Individualized approaches may be required to support students, owing to a continuum of clinical reasoning proficiency. Future research is required to explore use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning processes in learners at different levels.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Musculoskeletal neck pain and headache are highly prevalent and among the most disabling conditions globally that require effective rehabilitation [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. A range of rehabilitation professionals, including physiotherapists, assess and manage musculoskeletal neck pain and headache. Assessment of the cervical spine can be a complex process. Patients can present to physiotherapy with vascular pathology masquerading as musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction, as neck pain and/or headache as a common first symptom [ 5 ]. While vascular pathologies of the head and neck are rare [ 6 ], they are important considerations within a cervical spine assessment to facilitate the best possible patient outcomes [ 7 ]. The International IFOMPT (International Federation of Orthopedic Manipulative Physical Therapists) Cervical Framework (Framework) provides guidance in the assessment and management of the cervical spine region, considering the potential for vascular pathologies of the neck and head [ 8 ]. Two separate, but related, risks are considered: risk of misdiagnosis of an existing vascular pathology and risk of serious adverse event following musculoskeletal interventions [ 8 ].

The Framework is a consensus document iteratively developed through rigorous methods and the best contemporary evidence [ 8 ], and is also published as a Position Statement [ 7 ]. Central to the Framework are clinical reasoning and evidence-based practice, providing guidance in the assessment of the cervical spine region, considering the potential for vascular pathologies in advance of planned interventions [ 7 , 8 ]. The Framework was developed and published to be a resource for practicing musculoskeletal clinicians and educators. It has been implemented widely within IFOMPT postgraduate (post-licensure) educational programs, influencing curricula by enabling a comprehensive and systemic approach when considering the potential for vascular pathology [ 9 ]. Frequently reported curricula changes include an emphasis on the patient history and incorporating Framework recommended physical examination tests to evaluate a vascular hypothesis [ 9 ]. The Framework aims to assist musculoskeletal clinicians in their clinical reasoning processes, however no study has investigated students’ use of the Framework to inform their clinical reasoning.

Clinical reasoning is a critical component to physiotherapy practice as it is fundamental to assessment and diagnosis, enabling physiotherapists to provide safe and effective patient-centered care [ 10 ]. This is particularly important for postgraduate physiotherapy educational programs, where developing a high level of clinical reasoning is a priority for educational curricula [ 11 ] and critical for achieving advanced practice physiotherapy competency [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. At this level of physiotherapy, diagnostic reasoning is emphasized as an important component of a high level of clinical reasoning, informed by advanced use of domain-specific knowledge (e.g., propositional, experiential) and supported by a range of personal characteristics (e.g., adaptability, reflective) [ 12 ]. Facilitating the development of clinical reasoning improves physiotherapist’s performance and patient outcomes [ 16 ], underscoring the importance of clinical reasoning to physiotherapy practice. Understanding students’ use of the Framework to inform their clinical reasoning can support optimal implementation of the Framework within educational programs to facilitate safe and effective assessment and management of the cervical spine for patients.

To explore the influence of the Framework on the clinical reasoning processes in postgraduate level physiotherapy students.

Using a qualitative case study design, think aloud case analyses enabled exploration of clinical reasoning processes in postgraduate physiotherapy students. Case study design allows evaluation of experiences in practice, providing knowledge and accounts of practical actions in a specific context [ 17 ]. Case studies offer opportunity to generate situationally dependent understandings of accounts of clinical practice, highlighting the action and interaction that underscore the complexity of clinical decision-making in practice [ 17 ]. This study was informed by an interpretive description methodological approach with thematic analysis [ 18 , 19 ]. Interpretive description is coherent with mixed methods research and pragmatic orientations [ 20 , 21 ], and enables generation of evidence-based disciplinary knowledge and clinical understanding to inform practice [ 18 , 19 , 22 ]. Interpretive description has evolved for use in educational research to generate knowledge of educational experiences and the complexities of health care education to support achievement of educational objectives and professional practice standards [ 23 ]. The COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research (COREQ) informed the design and reporting of this study [ 24 ].

Research team

All research team members hold physiotherapy qualifications, and most hold advanced qualifications specializing in musculoskeletal physiotherapy. The research team is based in Canada and has varying levels of academic credentials (ranging from Clinical Masters to PhD or equivalent) and occupations (ranging from PhD student to Director of Physical Therapy). The final author (AR) is also an author of the Framework, which represents international and multiprofessional consensus. Authors HG and JS are lecturers on one of the postgraduate programs which students were recruited from. The primary researcher and first author (KK) is a US-trained Physical Therapist and Postdoctoral Research Associate investigating spinal pain and clinical reasoning in the School of Physical Therapy at Western University. Authors KK, KH and PP had no prior relationship with the postgraduate educational programs, students, or the Framework.

Study setting

Western University in London, Ontario, Canada offers a one-year Advanced Health Care Practice (AHCP) postgraduate IFOMPT-approved Comprehensive Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy program (CMP) and a postgraduate Sport and Exercise Medicine (SEM) program. Think aloud case analyses interviews were conducted using Zoom, a viable option for qualitative data collection and audio-video recording of interviews that enables participation for students who live in geographically dispersed areas across Canada [ 25 ]. Interviews with individual participants were conducted by one researcher (KK or KH) in a calm and quiet environment to minimize disruption to the process of thinking aloud [ 26 ].

Participants

AHCP postgraduate musculoskeletal physiotherapy students ≥ 18 years of age in the CMP and SEM programs were recruited via email and an introduction to the research study during class by KK, using purposive sampling to ensure theoretical representation. The purposive sample ensured key characteristics of participants were included, specifically gender, ethnicity, and physiotherapy experience (years, type). AHCP students must have attended standardized teaching about the Framework to be eligible to participate. Exclusion criteria included inability to communicate fluently in English. As think-aloud methodology seeks rich, in-depth data from a small sample [ 27 ], this study sought to recruit 8–10 AHCP students. This range was informed by prior think aloud literature and anticipated to balance diversity of participant characteristics, similarities in musculoskeletal physiotherapy domain knowledge and rich data supporting individual clinical reasoning processes [ 27 , 28 ].

Learning about the IFOMPT Cervical Framework

CMP and SEM programs included standardized teaching of the Framework to inform AHCP students’ clinical reasoning in practice. Delivery included a presentation explaining the Framework, access to the full Framework document [ 8 ], and discussion of its role to inform practice, including a case analysis of a cervical spine clinical presentation, by research team members AR and JS. The full Framework document that is publicly available through IFOMPT [ 8 ] was provided to AHCP students as the Framework Position Statement [ 7 ] was not yet published. Discussion and case analysis was led by AHCP program leads in November 2021 (CMP, including research team member JS) and January 2022 (SEM).

Think aloud case analyses data collection

Using think aloud methodology, the analytical processes of how participants use the Framework to inform clinical reasoning were explored in an interview with one research team member not involved in AHCP educational programs (KK or KH). The think aloud method enables description and explanation of complex information paralleling the clinical reasoning process and has been used previously in musculoskeletal physiotherapy [ 29 , 30 ]. It facilitates the generation of rich verbal [ 27 ]as participants verbalize their clinical reasoning protocols [ 27 , 31 ]. Participants were aware of the aim of the research study and the research team’s clinical and research backgrounds, supporting an open environment for depth of data collection [ 32 ]. There was no prior relationship between participants and research team members conducting interviews.

Participants were instructed to think aloud their analysis of two clinical cases, presented in random order (Supplementary  1 ). Case information was provided in stages to reflect the chronology of assessment of patients in practice (patient history, planning the physical examination, physical examination, treatment). Use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning was discussed at each stage. The cases enabled participants to identify and discuss features of possible vascular pathology, treatment indications and contraindications/precautions, etc. Two research study team members (HG, PP) developed cases designed to facilitate and elicit clinical reasoning processes in neck and head pain presentations. Cases were tested against the research team to ensure face validity. Cases and think aloud prompts were piloted prior to use with three physiotherapists at varying levels of practice to ensure they were fit for purpose.

Data collection took place from March 30-August 15, 2022, during the final terms of the AHCP programs and an average of 5 months after standardized teaching about the Framework. During case analysis interviews, participants were instructed to constantly think aloud, and if a pause in verbalizations was sustained, they were reminded to “keep thinking aloud” [ 27 ]. As needed, prompts were given to elicit verbalization of participants’ reasoning processes, including use of the Framework to inform their clinical reasoning at each stage of case analysis (Supplementary  2 ). Aside from this, all interactions between participants and researchers minimized to not interfere with the participant’s thought processes [ 27 , 31 ]. When analysis of the first case was complete, the researcher provided the second case, each lasting 35–45 min. A break between cases was offered. During and after interviews, field notes were recorded about initial impressions of the data collection session and potential patterns appearing to emerge [ 33 ].

Data analysis

Data from think aloud interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis [ 30 , 34 ], facilitating identification and analysis of patterns in data and key steps in the clinical reasoning process, including use of the Framework to enable its characterization (Fig.  1 ). As established models of clinical reasoning exist, a hybrid approach to thematic analysis was employed, incorporating inductive and deductive processes [ 35 ], which proceeded according to 5 iterative steps: [ 34 ]

Data analysis steps

Familiarize with data: Audio-visual recordings were transcribed verbatim by a physiotherapist external to the research team. All transcripts were read and re-read several times by one researcher (KK), checking for accuracy by reviewing recordings as required. Field notes supported depth of familiarization with data.

Generate initial codes: Line-by-line coding of transcripts by one researcher (KK) supported generation of initial codes that represented components, patterns and meaning in clinical reasoning processes and use of the Framework. Established preliminary coding models were used as a guide. Elstein’s diagnostic reasoning model [ 36 ] guided generating initial codes of key steps in clinical reasoning processes (Table  1 a) [ 29 , 36 ]. Leveraging richness of data, further codes were generated guided by the Postgraduate Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Practice model, which describes masters level clinical practice (Table  1 b) [ 12 ]. Codes were refined as data analysis proceeded. All codes were collated within participants along with supporting data.

Generate initial themes within participants: Coded data was inductively grouped into initial themes within each participant, reflecting individual clinical reasoning processes and use of the Framework. This inductive stage enabled a systematic, flexible approach to describe each participant’s unique thinking path, offering insight into the complexities of their clinical reasoning processes. It also provided a comprehensive understanding of the Framework informing clinical reasoning and a rich characterization of its components, aiding the development of robust, nuanced insights [ 35 , 37 , 38 ]. Initial themes were repeatedly revised to ensure they were grounded in and reflected raw data.

Develop, review and refine themes across participants: Initial themes were synthesized across participants to develop themes that represented all participants. Themes were reviewed and refined, returning to initial themes and codes at the individual participant level as needed.

Organize themes into established models: Themes were deductively organized into established clinical reasoning models; first into Elstein’s diagnostic reasoning model, second into the Postgraduate Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Practice model to characterize themes within each diagnostic reasoning component [ 12 , 36 ].

Trustworthiness of findings

The research study was conducted according to an a priori protocol and additional steps were taken to establish trustworthiness of findings [ 39 ]. Field notes supported deep familiarization with data and served as a means of data source triangulation during analysis [ 40 ]. One researcher coded transcripts and a second researcher challenged codes, with codes and themes rigorously and iteratively reviewed and refined. Frequent debriefing sessions with the research team, reflexive discussions with other researchers and peer scrutiny of initial findings enabled wider perspectives and experiences to shape analysis and interpretation of findings. Several strategies were implemented to minimize the influence of prior relationships between participants and researchers, including author KK recruiting participants, KK and KH collecting/analyzing data, and AR, JS, HG and PP providing input on de-identified data at the stage of synthesis and interpretation.

Nine AHCP postgraduate level students were recruited and participated in data collection. One participant was withdrawn because of unfamiliarity with the standardized teaching session about use of the Framework (no recall of session), despite confirmation of attendance. Data from eight participants were used for analysis (CMP: n  = 6; SEM: n  = 2; Table  2 ), which achieved sample size requirements for think aloud methodology of rich and in-depth data [ 27 , 28 ].

Diagnostic reasoning components

Informed by the Framework, all components of Elstein’s diagnostic reasoning processes [ 36 ] were used by participants, including use of treatment with physiotherapy interventions to aid diagnostic reasoning. An illustrative example is presented in Supplement  3 . Clinical reasoning used primarily hypothetico-deductive processes reflecting a continuum of proficiency, was informed by deep Framework knowledge and breadth of prior knowledge (e.g., experiential), and supported by a range of personal characteristics (e.g., justification for decisions).

Cue acquisition

All participants sought to acquire additional cues early in the patient history, and for some this persisted into the medical history and physical examination. Cue acquisition enabled depth and breadth of understanding patient history information to generate hypotheses and factors contributing to the patient’s pain experience (Table  3 ). All participants asked further questions to understand details of the patients’ pain and their presentation, while some also explored the impact of pain on patient functioning and treatments received to date. There was a high degree of specificity to questions for most participants. Ongoing clinical reasoning processes through a thorough and complete assessment, even if the patient had previously received treatment for similar symptoms, was important for some participants. Cue acquisition was supported by personal characteristics including a patient-centered approach (e.g., understanding the patient’s beliefs about pain) and one participant reflected on their approach to acquiring patient history cues.

Hypothesis generation

Participants generated an average of 4.5 hypotheses per case (range: 2–8) and most hypotheses (77%) were generated rapidly early in the patient history. Knowledge from the Framework about patient history features of vascular pathology informed vascular hypothesis generation in the patient history for all participants in both cases (Table  4 ). Vascular hypotheses were also generated during the past medical history, where risk factors for vascular pathology were identified and interpreted by some participants who had high levels of suspicion for cervical articular involvement. Non-vascular hypotheses were generated during the physical examination by some participants to explain individual physical examination or patient history cues. Deep knowledge of the patient history section in the Framework supported high level of cue identification and interpretation for generating vascular hypotheses. Initial hypotheses were prioritized by some participants, however the level of specificity of hypotheses varied.

Cue evaluation

All participants evaluated cues throughout the patient history and physical examination in relationship to hypotheses generated, indicating use of hypothetico-deductive reasoning processes (Table  5 ). Framework knowledge of patient history features of vascular pathology was used to test vascular hypotheses and aid differential diagnosis. The patient history section supported high level of cue identification and interpretation of patient history features for all but one participant, and generation of further patient history questions for all participants. The level of specificity of these questions was high for all but one participant. Framework knowledge of recommended physical examination tests, including removal of positional testing, supported planning a focused and prioritized physical examination to further test vascular hypotheses for all participants. No participant indicated intention to use positional testing as part of their physical examination. Treatment with physiotherapy interventions served as a form of cue evaluation, and cues were evaluated to inform prognosis for some participants. At times during the physical examination, some participants demonstrated occasional errors or difficulty with cue evaluation by omitting key physical exam tests (e.g., no cranial nerve assessment despite concerns for trigeminal nerve involvement), selecting physical exam tests in advance of hypothesis generation (e.g., cervical spine instability testing), difficulty interpreting cues, or late selection of a physical examination test. Cue acquisition was supported by a range of personal characteristics. Most participants justified selection of physical examination tests, and some self-reflected on their ability to collect useful physical examination information to inform selection of tests. Precaution to the physical examination was identified by all participants but one, which contributed to an adaptable approach, prioritizing patient safety and comfort. Critical analysis of physical examination information aided interpretation within the context of the patient for most participants.

Hypothesis evaluation

All participants used the Framework to evaluate their hypotheses throughout the patient history and physical examination, continuously shifting their level of support for hypotheses (Table  6 , Supplement  4 ). This informed clarity in the overall level of suspicion for vascular pathology or musculoskeletal diagnoses, which were specific for most participants. Response to treatment with physiotherapy interventions served as a form of hypothesis evaluation for most participants who had low level suspicion for vascular pathology, highlighting ongoing reasoning processes. Hypotheses evaluated were prioritized by ranking according to level of suspicion by some participants. Difficulties weighing patient history and physical examination cues to inform judgement on overall level of suspicion for vascular pathology was demonstrated by some participants who reported that incomplete physical examination data and not being able to see the patient contributed to difficulties. Hypothesis evaluation was supported by the personal characteristic of reflection, where some students reflected on the Framework’s emphasis on the patient history to evaluate a vascular hypothesis.

The Framework supported all participants in clinical reasoning related to treatment (Table  7 ). Treatment decisions were always linked to the participant’s overall level of suspicion for vascular pathology or musculoskeletal diagnosis. Framework knowledge supported participants with high level of suspicion for vascular pathology to refer for further investigations. Participants with a musculoskeletal diagnosis kept the patient for physiotherapy interventions. The Framework patient history section supported patient education about symptoms of vascular pathology and safety netting for some participants. Framework knowledge influenced informed consent processes and risk-benefit analysis to support the selection of musculoskeletal physiotherapy interventions, which were specific and prioritized for some participants. Less Framework knowledge related to treatment was demonstrated by some students, generating unclear recommendations regarding the urgency of referral and use of the Framework to inform musculoskeletal physiotherapy interventions. Treatment was supported by a range of personal characteristics. An adaptable approach that prioritized patient safety and was supported by justification was demonstrated in all participants except one. Shared decision-making enabled the selection of physiotherapy interventions, which were patient-centered (individualized, considered whole person, identified future risk for vascular pathology). Communication with the patient’s family doctor facilitated collaborative patient-centered care for most participants.

This is the first study to explore the influence of the Framework on clinical reasoning processes in postgraduate physiotherapy students. The Framework supported clinical reasoning that used primarily hypothetico-deductive processes. The Framework informed vascular hypothesis generation in the patient history and testing the vascular hypothesis through patient history questions and selection of physical examination tests to inform clarity and support for diagnosis and management. Most postgraduate students’ clinical reasoning processes were characterized by high-level features (e.g. specificity, prioritization). However, some demonstrated occasional difficulties or errors, reflecting a continuum of clinical reasoning proficiency. Clinical reasoning processes were informed by deep knowledge of the Framework integrated with a breadth of wider knowledge and supported by a range of personal characteristics (e.g., justification for decisions, reflection).

Use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning processes

The Framework provided a structured and comprehensive approach to support postgraduate students’ clinical reasoning processes in assessment and management of the cervical spine region, considering the potential for vascular pathology. Patient history and physical examination information was evaluated to inform clarity and support the decision to refer for further vascular investigations or proceed with musculoskeletal physiotherapy diagnosis/interventions. The Framework is not intended to lead to a vascular pathology diagnosis [ 7 , 8 ], and following the Framework does not guarantee vascular pathologies will be identified [ 41 ]. Rather, it aims to support a process of clinical reasoning to elicit and interpret appropriate patient history and physical examination information to estimate the probability of vascular pathology and inform judgement about the need to refer for further investigations [ 7 , 8 , 42 ]. Results of this study suggest the Framework has achieved this aim for postgraduate physiotherapy students.

The Framework supported postgraduate students in using primarily hypothetico-deductive diagnostic reasoning processes. This is expected given the diversity of vascular pathology clinical presentations precluding a definite clinical pattern and inherent complexity as a potential masquerader of a musculoskeletal problem [ 7 ]. It is also consistent with prior research investigating clinical reasoning processes in musculoskeletal physiotherapy postgraduate students [ 12 ] and clinical experts [ 29 ] where hypothetico-deductive and pattern recognition diagnostic reasoning are employed according to the demands of the clinical situation [ 10 ]. Diagnostic reasoning of most postgraduate students in this study demonstrated features suggestive of high-level clinical reasoning in musculoskeletal physiotherapy [ 12 ], including ongoing reasoning with high-level cue identification and interpretation, specificity and prioritization during assessment and treatment, use of physiotherapy interventions to aid diagnostic reasoning, and prognosis determination [ 12 , 29 , 43 ]. Expert physiotherapy practice has been further described as using a dialectical model of clinical reasoning with seamless transitions between clinical reasoning strategies [ 44 ]. While diagnostic reasoning was a focus in this study, postgraduate students considered a breadth of information as important to their reasoning (e.g., patient’s perspectives of the reason for their pain). This suggests wider reasoning strategies (e.g., narrative, collaborative) were employed to enable shared decision-making within the context of patient-centered care.

Study findings also highlighted a continuum of proficiency in use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning processes. Not all students demonstrated all characteristics of high-level clinical reasoning and there are suggestions of incomplete reasoning processes, for example occasional errors in evaluating cues. Some students offered explanations such as incomplete case information as factors contributing to difficulties with clinical reasoning processes. However, the ability to critically evaluate incomplete and potentially conflicting clinical information is consistently identified as an advanced clinical practice competency [ 14 , 43 ]. A continuum of proficiency in clinical reasoning in musculoskeletal physiotherapy is supported by wider healthcare professions describing acquisition and application of clinical knowledge and skills as a developmental continuum of clinical competence progressing from novice to expert [ 45 , 46 ]. The range of years of clinical practice experience in this cohort of students (3–14 years) or prior completed postgraduate education may have contributed to the continuum of proficiency, as high-quality and diverse experiential learning is essential for the development of high-level clinical reasoning [ 14 , 47 ].

Deep knowledge of the Framework informs clinical reasoning processes

Postgraduate students demonstrated deep Framework knowledge to inform clinical reasoning processes. All students demonstrated knowledge of patient history features of vascular pathology, recommended physical examination tests to test a vascular hypothesis, and the need to refer if there is a high level of suspicion for vascular pathology. A key development in the recent Framework update is the removal of the recommendation to perform positional testing [ 8 ]. All students demonstrated knowledge of this development, and none wanted to test a vascular hypothesis with positional testing. Most also demonstrated Framework knowledge about considerations for planning treatment with physiotherapy interventions (e.g., risk-benefit analysis, informed consent), though not all, which underscores the continuum of proficiency in postgraduate students. Rich organization of multidimensional knowledge is a required component for high level clinical reasoning and is characteristic of expert physiotherapy practice [ 10 , 48 , 49 ]. Most postgraduate physiotherapy students displayed this expert practice characteristic through integration of deep Framework knowledge with a breadth of prior knowledge (e.g., experiential, propositional) to inform clinical reasoning processes. This highlights the utility of the Framework in postgraduate physiotherapy education to develop advanced level evidence-based knowledge informing clinical reasoning processes for safe assessment and management of the cervical spine, considering the potential for vascular pathology [ 9 , 8 , 50 , 51 , 52 ].

Framework supports personal characteristics to facilitate integration of knowledge and clinical reasoning

The Framework supported personal characteristics of postgraduate students, which are key drivers for the complex integration of advanced knowledge and high-level clinical reasoning [ 10 , 12 , 48 ]. For all students, the Framework supported justification for decisions and patient-centered care, emphasizing a whole-person approach and shared decision-making. Further demonstrating a continuum of proficiency, the Framework supported a wider breadth of personal characteristics for some students, including critical analysis, reflection, self-analysis, and adaptability. These personal characteristics illustrate the interwoven cognitive and metacognitive skills that influence and support a high level of clinical reasoning [ 10 , 12 ] and the development of clinical expertise [ 48 , 53 ]. For example [ 54 ], reflection is critical to developing high-level clinical reasoning and advanced level practice [ 12 , 55 ]. Postgraduate students reflected on prior knowledge, experiences, and action within the context of current Framework knowledge, emphasizing active engagement in cognitive processes to inform clinical reasoning processes. Reflection-in-action is highlighted by self-analysis and adaptability. These characteristics require continuous cognitive processing to consider personal strengths and limitations in the context of the patient and evidence-based practice, adapting the clinical encounter as required [ 53 , 55 ]. These findings highlight use of the Framework in postgraduate education to support development of personal characteristics that are indicative of an advanced level of clinical practice [ 12 ].

Synthesis of findings

Derived from synthesis of research study findings and informed by the Postgraduate Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Practice model [ 12 ], use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning processes in postgraduate students is illustrated in Fig.  2 . Overlapping clinical reasoning, knowledge and personal characteristic components emphasize the complex interaction of factors contributing to clinical reasoning processes. Personal characteristics of postgraduate students underpin clinical reasoning and knowledge, highlighting their role in facilitating the integration of these two components. Bolded subcomponents indicate convergence of results reflecting all postgraduate students and underscores the variability among postgraduate students contributing to a continuum of clinical reasoning proficiency. The relative weighting of the components is approximately equal to balance the breadth and convergence of subcomponents. Synthesis of findings align with the Postgraduate Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Practice model [ 12 ], though some differences exist. Limited personal characteristics were identified in this study with little convergence across students, which may be due to the objective of this study and the case analysis approach.

Use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning in postgraduate level musculoskeletal physiotherapy students. Adapted from the Postgraduate Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Practice model [ 12 ].

Strengths and limitations

Think aloud case analyses enabled situationally dependent understanding of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning processes in postgraduate level students [ 17 ], considering the rare potential for vascular pathology. A limitation of this approach was the standardized nature of case information provided to students, which may have influenced clinical reasoning processes. Future research studies may consider patient case simulation to address this limitation [ 30 ]. Interviews were conducted during the second half of the postgraduate educational program, and this timing could have influenced clinical reasoning processes compared to if interviews were conducted at the end of the program. Future research can explore use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning processes in established advanced practice physiotherapists. The sample size of this study aligns with recommendations for think aloud methodology [ 27 , 28 ], achieved rich data, and purposive sampling enabled wide representation of key characteristics (e.g., gender, ethnicity, country of training, physiotherapy experiences), which enhances transferability of findings. Students were aware of the study objective in advance of interviews which may have contributed to a heightened level of awareness of vascular pathology. The prior relationship between students and researchers may have also influenced results, however several strategies were implemented to minimize this influence.

Implications

The Framework is widely implemented within IFOMPT postgraduate educational programs and has led to important shifts in educational curricula [ 9 ]. Findings of this study support use of the Framework as an educational resource in postgraduate physiotherapy programs to inform clinical reasoning processes for safe and effective assessment and management of cervical spine presentations considering the potential for vascular pathology. Individualized approaches may be required to support each student, owing to a continuum of clinical reasoning proficiency. As the Framework was written for practicing musculoskeletal clinicians, future research is required to explore use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning in learners at different levels, for example entry-level physiotherapy students.

The Framework supported clinical reasoning that used primarily hypothetico-deductive processes in postgraduate physiotherapy students. It informed vascular hypothesis generation in the patient history and testing the vascular hypothesis through patient history questions and selection of physical examination tests, to inform clarity and support for diagnosis and management. Most postgraduate students clinical reasoning processes were characterized as high-level, informed by deep Framework knowledge integrated with a breadth of wider knowledge, and supported by a range of personal characteristics to facilitate the integration of advanced knowledge and high-level clinical reasoning. Future research is required to explore use of the Framework to inform clinical reasoning in learners at different levels.

Data availability

The dataset used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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The authors would like to acknowledge study participants and the transcriptionist for their time in completing and transcribing think aloud interviews.

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Katie Kowalski: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing– original draft, visualization, project administration. Heather Gillis: Validation, resources, writing– review & editing. Katherine Henning: Investigation, formal analysis, writing– review & editing. Paul Parikh: Validation, resources, writing– review & editing. Jackie Sadi: Validation, resources, writing– review & editing. Alison Rushton: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing– review & editing, supervision.

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Author AR is an author of the IFOMPT Cervical Framework. Authors JS and HG are lecturers on the AHCP CMP program. AR and JS led standardized teaching of the Framework. Measures to reduce the influence of potential competing interests on the conduct and results of this study included: the Framework representing international and multiprofessional consensus, recruitment of participants by author KK, data collection and analysis completed by KK with input from AR, JS and HG at the stage of data synthesis and interpretation, and wider peer scrutiny of initial findings. KK, KH and PP have no potential competing interests.

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Kowalski, K.L., Gillis, H., Henning, K. et al. Use of the International IFOMPT Cervical Framework to inform clinical reasoning in postgraduate level physiotherapy students: a qualitative study using think aloud methodology. BMC Med Educ 24 , 486 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05399-x

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