Research Design

Fifth Edition

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I dedicate this book to all of my mentees and former students over the years who have engaged in this fascinating
process of research and who have welcomed my suggestions for improving their scholarly works. I also welcome my son,
J. David Creswell, a noted psychologist and researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, as my coauthor.

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Research Design
Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches
Fifth Edition

John W. Creswell
Department of Family Medicine University of Michigan
J. David Creswell
Department of Psychology Carnegie Mellon University

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FOR INFORMATION:

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Creswell, John W., author. | Creswell, J. David, author.

Title: Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches / John W. Creswell, PhD, Department of Family Medicine,
University of Michigan, and J. David Creswell, PhD, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University.

Description: Fifth edition. | Los Angeles : SAGE, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

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The Characteristics of Qualitative Research
For many years, qualitative writers had to discuss the characteristics of qualitative research and convince
faculty and audiences as to their legitimacy. Now these discussions are less frequently found in the literature
and there is some consensus as to what constitutes qualitative inquiry. Thus, our suggestions about the
method section of a project or proposal are as follows:

Review the needs of potential audiences for the proposal or study. Decide whether audience members
are knowledgeable enough about the characteristics of qualitative research that this section is not
necessary. For example, although qualitative research is typically accepted and well-known in the social
sciences, it has emerged in the health sciences only in the last couple of decades. Thus, for health science
audiences, a review of the basic characteristics will be important.
If there is some question about the audience’s knowledge, present the basic characteristics of qualitative
research and consider discussing a recent qualitative research journal article (or study) to use as an
example to illustrate the characteristics.
If you present the basic characteristics, what ones should you mention? A number of authors of
introductory texts convey these characteristics, such as Creswell (2016), Hatch (2002), and Marshall and
Rossman (2016).
Natural setting: Qualitative researchers tend to collect data in the field at the site where
participants experience the issue or problem under study. Researchers do not bring individuals into
a lab (a contrived situation), nor do they typically send out instruments for individuals to
complete. This up-close information gathered by actually talking directly to people and seeing
them behave and act within their context is a major characteristic of qualitative research. In the
natural setting, the researchers have face-to-face interaction, often extending over a prolonged
period of time.
Researcher as key instrument: Qualitative researchers collect data themselves through examining
documents, observing behavior, or interviewing participants. They may use a protocol—an
instrument for recording data—but the researchers are the ones who actually gather the
information and interpret it. They do not tend to use or rely on questionnaires or instruments
developed by other researchers.
Multiple sources of data: Qualitative researchers typically gather multiple forms of data, such as
interviews, observations, documents, and audiovisual information rather than rely on a single data
source. These are all open-ended forms of data in which the participants share their ideas freely,
not constrained by predetermined scales or instruments. Then the researchers review all of the
data, make sense of it, and organize it into codes and themes that cut across all of the data sources.
Inductive and deductive data analysis: Qualitative researchers typically work inductively, building
patterns, categories, and themes from the bottom up by organizing the data into increasingly more
abstract units of information. This inductive process illustrates working back and forth between
the themes and the database until the researchers have established a comprehensive set of themes.

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Then deductively, the researchers look back at their data from the themes to determine if more
evidence can support each theme or whether they need to gather additional information. Thus,
while the process begins inductively, deductive thinking also plays an important role as the analysis
moves forward.
Participants’ meanings: In the entire qualitative research process, the researchers keep a focus on
learning the meaning that the participants hold about the problem or issue, not the meaning that
the researchers bring to the research or that writers express in the literature.
Emergent design: The research process for qualitative researchers is emergent. This means that the
initial plan for research cannot be tightly prescribed, and some or all phases of the process may
change or shift after the researcher enters the field and begins to collect data. For example, the
questions may change, the forms of data collection may shift, and the individuals studied and the
sites visited may be modified. These shifts signal that the researchers are delving deeper and
deeper into the topic or the phenomenon under study. The key idea behind qualitative research is
to learn about the problem or issue from participants and to address the research to obtain that
information.
Reflexivity: In qualitative research, inquirers reflect about how their role in the study and their
personal background, culture, and experiences hold potential for shaping their interpretations,
such as the themes they advance and the meaning they ascribe to the data. This aspect of the
methods is more than merely advancing biases and values in the study, but how the background of
the researchers actually may shape the direction of the study.
Holistic account: Qualitative researchers try to develop a complex picture of the problem or issue
under study. This involves reporting multiple perspectives, identifying the many factors involved
in a situation, and generally sketching the larger picture that emerges. This larger picture is not
necessarily a linear model of cause and effect but rather a model of multiple factors interacting in
different ways. This picture, qualitative researchers would say, mirrors real life and the ways that
events operate in the real world. A visual model of many facets of a process or a central
phenomenon aids in establishing this holistic picture (see, for example, Creswell & Brown, 1992).

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