Qualitative Social Research Designs

APPLYING QUALITATIVE SOCIAL RESEARCH

Applying Qualitative Social Research Designs

I am writing this post to respond to one of the course material substances, an article written by Patrick Walsh called “Applying Qualitative Social Research Designs and Methodologies to Improve the Rigor of Strategic Intelligence Analytical Practice.” The article talks about three major areas that should be emphasized for gaining reliability and value for qualitative research, and for that, the author stresses that strategic intelligence is significant.

Validity and reliability are the two key concepts that the researcher of a qualitative study should earnestly focus on for gaining authentic results (Golafshani, 2003). Trustworthiness of the sources is crucial for making the research reliable since the traditionally discussed ideas and concepts in the previous literature and evidence-based practices hold value in their relevant areas. To instill validity, the subjectivity and reflexive ability of the selected method should be carefully contemplated. Only then would confidence in findings and analysis of the results be obtained as the trustworthiness ratio would be elevated.

Since qualitative methodologies and suitability for searching about a phenomenon is dependable on various factors, each step of the qualitative research should be validated, beginning from the formulation of research hypothesis, sampling, study design, and data collection and analysis (Leung, 2015). It is embedded within the qualitative research to be f high quality if clarification and justification, procedural rigor, representativeness of the sample, explanatory rigor, generalizability, and reflexive rigor meet the expected standards (Leung, 2015).

To address the gaps in the qualitative research, strategic intelligence has to be kept in line with an intelligent knowledge of the social world so that judgments and subjectivity do not affect the results and remain authentic. Reliability and validity have to be kept intact until the end only if each step is taken with astute care and careful strategy, even in a study that uses a mix of methodologies.