It sounds like you're using Creswell's version of how to think about qualitative research, but that is itself only one "approach." I see qualitative research as using qualitative methods to answer appropriate questions. So, if you used open-ended interviews and thematic analysis, that could indeed be a reasonable qualitative study that applied rather generic methods, rather than any specific approach.

I think of Creswell's "approaches" as pre-determined packages that describe specific ways of collecting and analyzing data. If your goals fit with one of those approaches, then that will specific how to use your methods. But you don't have to fit into a pre-determined approach. Instead, you just need to have a good question and an appropriate way to pursue it.

When you do research, you always have some beliefs and assumptions about the world that are anchored in one approach or another. I think Colin Hay once put it as "You do ontology" when doing empirical research. You therefore cannot say you do not have any approach, but instead should be aware of what approach you do follow in practice.

It sounds like you're using Creswell's version of how to think about qualitative research, but that is itself only one "approach." I see qualitative research as using qualitative methods to answer appropriate questions. So, if you used open-ended interviews and thematic analysis, that could indeed be a reasonable qualitative study that applied rather generic methods, rather than any specific approach.

I think of Creswell's "approaches" as pre-determined packages that describe specific ways of collecting and analyzing data. If your goals fit with one of those approaches, then that will specific how to use your methods. But you don't have to fit into a pre-determined approach. Instead, you just need to have a good question and an appropriate way to pursue it.

You surely do not have to have a strict adherence do one or the other option of qualitative research, but you need to be aware of the works which have shaped your approach. To be convincing it is important to be explicit about your approach and about the sources to which you refer.

Hi Pasand,

I explored this question for my own doctoral studies and presented my thoughts at the Academy of Human Resource Development conference in 2011.

Jackson, P. (2011) 'Stormy seas and rocky outcrops: In search of a paradigm for researching practice disciplines'. In: Sustaining Growth Through Human Resource Development, Proceedings of a conference, Cheltenham, May 2011. Cheltenham: Academy of Human Resource Development.

If it's helpful, the conference paper is on ResearchGate:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282859908_Stormy_seas_and_rocky_outcrops_In_search_of_a_paradigm_for_investigating_practice_disciplines

Conference Paper Stormy seas and rocky outcrops: In search of a paradigm for ...

If you do empirical research, you select and adapt methods for collecting data and analysing them. This means that you make assumptions about the fit of these methods to your research question, theory, and empirical object. These elements of an 'approach' are unavoidable and need to be made explicit. Everything else is baggage you don't need to take. However, the essentials tend to be tricky ...

As mentioned before from other colleagues in this thread, Grounded Theory, Phenomenology, Narrative analysis, Ethnography etc are both, i.e. methods and techniques to obtain and analyse qualitative data and "approaches" embedded in different ontologies. I assume that your question foremost relate to methods and techniques (design). Therefore this answer.

When designing a study, the focus is on how to obtain appropriate data / information that gives a reliable and valid answer to your research question. This information can be collected in many ways. You decide whether to choose an ethnographic approach or a discursive approach or any other approach to gain your qualitative data. Nevertheless, your have to justify your decision (design) when presenting your answer to the research question. 

In line with other contributors above, especially Morgan and Kirchhoff, many methods/approaches to qualitative research exist. It is rare -- but not impossible -- to find yourself in situations where you find none of them useful. So you can go ahead to innovate. However, the research community, your peers, are waiting for you to convince them that the approach you eventually used is really an innovation. 

I think that qualitative studies transcend the techniques of qualitative research. The first (much larger) are based on a comprehensive approach to social phenomena that can and, according to Habermas, must also contain a critical view of such phenomena. Qualitative studies focus only on method at the expense of a deeper reflection on the data correspond to what Theodor Adorno called "fetish of method" referring to only descriptive quantitative studies that accumulate data without significant questions and analises.

Hello Pasand: Very interesting question. The question itself comes from a certain ontological and epistemological stance, or at least helps myself entertain a few while pondering it!  I would say one cannot not have a ontological or epistemological stance toward inquiry and would thus say I question any "generic qualitative" method. I know Patton, a methodologist I respect greatly, briefly describes a generic qualitative approach in his methods text. If I were to ask a quantitative researcher, "is there a generic quantitative research approach?, One where I simply want to count things? I doubt they would support this, as its parallel to what Maria says above.  Coding for themes as the end goal is akin to merely counting things for me. What data transformation has taken place? Toward what end? Ultimately, what are you seeking to understand, and what's the purpose of such understanding?

If (and only if) you look for a new method, your question wants a complex answer (not here).

If in the Social sciences the “unexceptionable law” doesn't exist (certainly you know well), it means that every method that works is a valid method, up to when an absolute method will exist.

You can try an interview, which runs on a continuum from "a free talk" to the "a Socratic maieutica" (C-M … more phases, every step more deep … with "probe capability" of the researcher), and where (in-or-after the maieutic phase) the subject defines the meaning of the terms he uses (if He says: Glory, or Son, Land, Honor, Labor, Love, Family etc. … what mean for he?).

As well as in the "Grounded Theory", data could be everywhere.

Ultimately what you and we seek is "something" that is near "the truth" of the answers. Although this is impossible.

Unfortunately I don't speak Malaysian language and you don't speak Italian language, so we must use the third medium (English) to understand us. Like the Latin language for the ancients, the same it's not good for moderns (people).

Best regards

"Not following a specific approach" is an approach by itself that should be justified in a qualitative research.

If you think of an 'approach' to research as comprising specific methods of collecting data, methods of presenting the data and methods of analyzing the data that are governed by specific philosophical (epistemology and ontology) principles you can then see why people like Creswell argue as they do. The epistemological and ontological assumptions of say, phenomenology and narrative analysis are different. It follows that the two qualitative methodologies do not necessarily employ the same methods of collecting, presenting and analyzing your data. Similarly, they do not necessarily use the same methods to accord your research validity and reliability. Therefore, I argue that for clarity and what is more important, precision in terms of your analysis, you need to adopt the appropriate approach or combination of approaches that best answer to your key research question. That way it will be easier to explain and justify each step you are taking in your research.

Yes.  'Qualitative' itself is a fudge term that conflates ontology, epistemology, theoretical framework and method.  If you separate these out and are clear about your epistemology and theoretical framework, you can use any method you like.  Remember these 'approaches' began with some person who decided that what was already around wasn't what they wanted, and invented some ten-syllable term to name the (often common-sense) approach they wanted to use. 

this is a controversial view, of course: some people think that a particular method implicates a particular epistemology.  So you can't be a social constructionist and use quantitative methods.  I think that's crap.

I personally like the term "approaches" because it captures the situation in qualitative research where we need to describe things that fall between methods for collecting and analyzing data (e.g. interviews, thematic analysis, etc.) and the broader field of methodology, which concentrates on the study of how and why we do research the way we do.

From this perspective, approaches are statements about ways to package sets of methods for different purposes. Thus, Grounded Theory would endorse interviewing as a method for collecting data, but not the use of thematic analysis. And so on...

Of course, the division of qualitative research into different approaches will vary from author to author. And not every use of a set of methods will fall into some distinct per-packaged approach. 

If you have a sound research question, appropriate method for data collection, appropriate method for analysis and then you are able to present your findings in a way that answers your original research question, then you already have a 'research approach'. However, it is unlikely that you wouldn't be using one of the established approaches; however you may also be able to find a novel approach.

by doing a qualitative research its not necessary that you follow a particular paradigm. in my opinion once you have a narrative data you can do a qualitative research. especially the type of method for data collection (open ended interviews, case studies, archival research, or written narratives) can be sufficient to qualify for a qualitative research.

There is much in the above to assist you but also to confuse a novice researcher.

The rule is simple: understand what you want to research (i.e., what is your research question) and then think what is the best way to pursue that. There is much that is common to several methods (e.g., being grounded in the text, reflexivity, etc.) that you may adhere to without being committed to a specific approach. Indeed, if your research is focused on experience, then phenomenology (and IPA), dgrounded theory, and narrative research of many sorts all have what to offer. In the end result you need the specific approach for two main reasons:

1. For guidance. Having a specific (suitable) approach helps you pursue your goal more effectively (though it may also constrain you in places where you might wish to have more flexibility - usually not the case with novice researchers).

2. Having a limited (to some extent) literature to draw on and cite as you go along.

As a novice, I would recommend that you understand what kind of question you are asking and finding the one method to follow. Once you become more profficient you may want to begin bluring the methodical boundaries.

Good luck.

I think this is an excellent question and one I am writing a paper on as we speak loosely titled as 'A dynamic approach to qualitative research in lower-middle income countries (LMIC)'. The rationale behind it was a belief that methods should be adapted to fit the research context as well as the question.

For example, were grounded theory was pioneered by Glaser and Strauss in the relatively closed environment of a hospital ward. If you are researching sport and ethnicity in LMICs (personally) you should maybe adapt the usage of grounded theory keeping some key aspects - its data led framework, constant comparative method, co-production of meaning to decolonize the researchers position. But you can ignore others by conducting an extensive literature review and even forming broad research questions to site the research in broad and complex contexts, for example.

The same can be said for tools of data gathering in such multifarious contexts in combining the manufactured (interviews) with the natural (observation, policy analysis etc...) to create a three dimensional impression of a given reality.

I think that as our societies become more post-modern, amorphous and boarderless then so must our approaches to research.

I have looked at Cresswell's approach, and this correlates loosely with some others, but there doesn't seem to be a great deal on this out there, if anyone knows of any I am all ears.

Regarding any qualitative research, the researcher should adopt both a research approach (or a combination of approaches that fit each other) and a set of research tools / procedures (e.g., focus group, anthropological fieldwork observation, in-depth interview, etc.). Tools / procedures should perfectly fit the research approach and methodology. The approach, methodology as well as tools / procedures have to be explicitly defined. However, in order to define the approach and the tools / procedures a pilot can be carried out without pre-set frameworks.

In my opinion, the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research cannot be outlined from a theoretical point of view neither from an epistemological point of view. There are positivists both in the quallitative and quantitative filed. There are rational choice theorists or phenomenologists among quantitative and qualitative scholars. The distinction between qualitative and quantitative research may be better recognized from the methodological point of view. Qualitative research - again in my opinion - is a way to doing social research with which the methodological procedures have to be harmonized to the features of context or of the participants studied. On the contrary, quantitative research is based on a standardized way to observe (or measure) the objects of study, based on the tool of operational definition. If you are interested in the lived experience of people and if you decide to disclose the profile of the participants you are involving in your study, adapting your way of questioning, doing observation and so on, to the profile of the participants, you are doing qualitative research. Obviously you have to defend the suitability of your context sensitive methodological choice, to give rigor to your results, and in this defence, theory of argumentation works better that the (quantitative) theory of probability.

There are a number of things that need to be taken cognisance of when we talk about methodology: as is evident from the discussion so far, most areas of methodology are riven by controversy and problems of the extent of applicability. Hence, anybody who assumes that one methodology can exhaust everything about a particular subject reaches a regrettable position; no single methodology can be absolute. Each methodology has strengths and weakness. So, more often than not there is need to adopt a number of methodologies  that complement one another. To keep focused we may need to think of a methodology as a systematic way of employing a combination of research tools/methods to produce and analyse data so that the findings of the study may not be dismissed as guesswork or simply as common sense that has been mystified. The combination of these methodologies must go beyond the written words in that it should assist the researcher to uncover also the general philosophies and cultural presuppositions upon which the pieces of data are based.

I will try to summarize and, most of all, simplify what is being said by answering your question: “Can a new researcher do qualitative research without using any of the qualitative approaches?” No. Since you are doing qualitative research I assume that you already have gone through a rigorous thought process regarding what you are interested in researching and concluded that the phenomenon is, or the phenomena are, best studied by means of qualitative research; hence qualitative approach(es). Instead, you can choose your approach(es): data, data collection method(s), data analysis method(s), and apply them in order to answer your research question(s) as long as your decisions are A) in line with your theoretical framework, and B) you can convince your fellow researchers of your decisions, analysis, presentation, interpretations, and conclusions (that also need to be in line with your theoretical framework).

YES, post-structuralism is about style of doing research rather than being stuck with 'an approach' or 'methods'. I suggest  two points: first read 'After method' by John Law in order to be able defend your aversion to conventional approach and method. Second: read Julia Kristeva. She suggests a manner of reading narrative which gives a lot of room to creativity. Start with kristeva reader and look at her semiotic then continue with her 'Severed head'

Hey friends, we must distinguish between not having a research approach and having an (anthropological) approach that support the "jumping into the pool without knowing how to swim" kind of research.

I think that always we have an approach for qualitative research and for analyse the qualitative dates ,even when it is not explicit. But I would say that the most important is to understand the philosofical and anthorpological bases of this kind of study, because the method cannot be a "prision" or a burocratic aplication of thecniques. Nevertheless,  as we are not "genious" I think that we need to have a method to prepare our researches - as Malinowski and others anthropologists said -  and to choose a kind or various "comprehensive approaches" we want work with. It is very important thar the method support the devolopment of the main question in investigation. Personally, I use various approaches or thecniques to study one theme or object (when they are productive and compatible), But I put my intensive attention at the fundamental sense of the dates in context and in dialogical position with the literature.