Why Qualitative Research Needs More and Better Systematic Review

Metasynthetic Madness

“…Interest in shifting from more conventional literature reviews toward those that are styled as systematic, integrative, or scoping reviews (and therefore presumably publishable as discrete pieces of scholarship) has led to a plethora of guides for conducting a comprehensive search of the available literature and for displaying the findings of such reviews in a tabular extracted form (Armstrong, Hall, Doyle, & Waters, 2011; Booth et al, 2016; Dixon-Woods et al, 2006; Grant & Booth, 2009; Webb & Roe, 2008; Whittemore & Knafl, 2005). We have entered an era in which increasing numbers of scholars, including newer researchers entering the field, are being encouraged to conduct some form of systematic or integrative review as a stand-alone study or as an adjunct to a larger program of research (Clark, 2016). It is argued that users of reviews may well be interested in answers to the kinds of questions that only qualitative studies can provide, but “are not able to handle the deluge of data that would result if they tried to locate, read and interpret all the relevant research themselves” (Thomas & Harden, 2008, p. 2).…”

Breast cancer survivors’ perceptions of participating in a supervised exercise intervention: An exploratory review of the literature

“…It is important, however, to know if this is a generalized effect in older people or specific to breast cancer survivors. As stated by Clark (2016), to increase our knowledge through qualitative research, reviews need to be less generic and focus on particular populations, phenomena or factors of importance. As a result of breast cancer treatment, physical limitations and changed appearances were a frequently reported issue amongst the breast cancer survivors in the exercise interventions.…”

Self-Report is Indispensable to Assess Students’ Learning

“…Qualitative self-report methodology using open-ended answers is especially important when exploring new research questions, but also when wanting to understand unexpected or paradoxical findings that can be explored with in-depth interviews. How to best structure questions, analyze answers, and aggregate qualitative self-report findings across studies currently is a field of intense methodological debate (see, e.g., Clark, 2016;Snelson, 2016). Mainstream quantitative research on self-report should attend to these developments, and research is needed on how to better integrate different self-report methods and the resulting evidence (e.g., in terms of convergent parallel, exploratory sequential, or explanatory sequential mixed-method study designs; Creswell, 2014;Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011).…”