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Improving Standards of Qualitative Research
These are three tools for policymakers to help ensure that the
qualitative research they commission meets an acceptable standard.
i) Assessing the Quality of Qualitative Research
Best practice in the use of evidence in policymaking recognises
that not all published, or unpublished, research meets the standards
of validity, reliability and relevance needed for policymaking.
The Cabinet Office Strategy Unit in conjunction with the National
Centre for Social Research has developed a framework for assessing
quality of research evidence. The framework provides a useful and
useable guide for assessing the credibility, rigour and relevance
of individual research studies. There are four central principles,
which advise that research should be:
- Contributory in advancing wider knowledge or understanding about
policy, practice, theory or a particular substantive field
- Defensible in design by providing a research strategy that can
address the evaluative questions posed
- Rigorous in conduct through the systematic and transparent collection,
analysis and interpretation of qualitative data
- Credible in claim through offering well founded and plausible
arguments about the significance of the evidence generated
The guiding principles have been used to identify 18 appraisal
questions to aid an assessment. Between them, they cover all of
the key features and processes involved in qualitative enquiry.
They begin with assessment of the findings, move through different
stages of the research process (design, sampling, data collection,
analysis and reporting) and end with some general features of research
conduct (reflexivity and neutrality, ethics and auditability).
Source and more information
ii) Researching social policy: the uses of qualitative
methods
This is an
article by Sue Duncan [external website],
Director of Policy Studies, Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office and Alan
Hedges, independent research consultant and spokesperson for the
Association for Qualitative Research. It examines the social policy
role of qualitative research, based mainly on group discussion techniques,
which is becoming a valuable tool to help local authorities and
public bodies undertake public consultation and develop their policies
iii) Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Research Methods Programme
This programme [external
website] forms part of the ESRC's strategy to improve standards
of research methods across the UK social science community. Funding
seeks to:
- Support substantively focused research that poses interesting/novel
methodological issues.
- Foster work that directly enhances methodological knowledge
or improves and advances quantitative and qualitative methods.
- Encourage and support the dissemination of good practice, including
the enhancement of training programmes and training materials
for the research community.
- Establish fellowships linked to research funded through the
programme, or linked to existing centres of methodological excellence.
- Promote cross-national initiatives involving substantively focused
and methodologically innovative research.
Source
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