Hi Roman,

What type of qualitative methodology are you adopting - or you mean that you are adopting a quantitative methodology? We tend not to talk about validity in qualitative research (apart from face validity) - but trustworthiness instead. In qualitative research, again, it isn't conventional to seek numerical information or data. The fact that you are seeking to ask experts and asking them to rank or rate codes - I'm wondering if perhaps you are not talking about adopting a Delphi technique here?

I am considering the Delphi method,but I haven’t found yet a methodology for it and I am not sure if my design is fitted for Delphi.

Thank you very much!

This doesn’t seem like qualitative research to me, Roman. At a push I would say it was a form of Delphi method, as Dean suggests.

Have you looked into Q methodology? This is the Scientific Study of Subjectivity. It is common to undertake Q sorts with experts to establish the extent to which there is consensus on a topic. This is a highly established (and rigorous) methodology and it would seem quite suited to what you have in mind.

Dear Roman

As both Roy and Dean note, the Delphi method is 'interpretative'; this is because it depends on the subjective interpretations of the 'experts' you use. In that sense it can claim reliability.

There is a reasonable account of the methods in this paper

Chorev, S. and Anderson, A.R., 2006. Success in Israeli high-tech start-ups; Critical factors and process. Technovation, 26(2), pp.162-174.

What I find interesting about the approach is how you deal with any non-agreement in the final rounds of the Delphi. Indeed this could be more interesting than the compromise of the concensus, especially !for ethics and behaviour

Alistair

Hi Roman, my understanding is that your study's first step consists in making an initial proposal from the culture and rationale that permeates the health system. My impression is that the focal groups' job would enlarge the spectrum of phenomena's perception which you intend to deepen with the other professionals' contribution and your code of ethics' initial proposal would be broader. In the sequence you could proceed the content and construct's validity and submitting this proposal to the 10 specialists.

My understanding is that your study's first step consists in making an initial proposal from the culture and rationale that permeates the health system. My impression is that the focal groups' job would enlarge the spectrum of phenomena's perception which you intend to deepen with the other professionals' contribution and your code of ethics' initial proposal would be broader. In the sequence you could proceed the content and construct's validation submitting this proposal to the 10 specialists.

I have been working with qualitative research in this perspective of collective construction with the researched ones. This makes a significant contribution to the results of the studies

Dear Roman,

If your broader study is qualitative in nature, I would add the importance of understanding your philosophical position (see reference list below). And, if, in your broader study, you are pursuing a more positivist approach to qualitative inquiry (consistent with the quantitative coding you mention above), then framing in terms of validity and reliability is appropriate (see, e.g., Yin’s 1994 Case Study Research, Miles & Huberman’s 1994 Qualitative Data Analysis). If not, other framing is/may be called for.

Chiles, T. H., Elias, S. R. S. T. A., & Li, Q. (2017). Entrepreneurship as process. In A. Langley & H. Tsoukas (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Process Organization Studies, pp. 432-450. Sage.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Philosophical assumptions and interpretive frameworks. In J. W. Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches, pp. 15-41. Sage.

Gephart, R. P. (2004). Qualitative research and the Academy of Management Journal. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4), 454-462.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 105-117. Sage.

If your study is both qualitative and quantitative, you may also benefit from the mixed-methods design typology presented in Jose Molina-Azorin’s 2012 Organizational Research Methods article titled Mixed Methods Research in Strategic Management: Impact and Applications.

Best of luck with your work,

Todd

Dear Roman Nadinne

I have some experience in educational research and recently we have designed and validated an instrument that explores the ethical dimension in medical students.

I offer you a couple of links where you can access two publications; one of them is related to a statement of ethical principles in medical education and the other the design and evaluation of an instrument that identifies the ethical perspective of teachers from the point of view of students:

regards Jose Luis

Article [Ethics and teaching medicine. A principles declaration]

Article [The perception of ethics from the point of view of medical students]

Qualitative research you can conduct by two ways i.e Focus group discussion and Interveiw .For both of them Ethical clerence required. And be careful when you dealing with vulnarebal questions.There is no fixed number of subjecs in this kind of research when you will start getting same answrs you suppose to stop the research and do the statitical analysis.

Regards

Dr. Kamath Madhusudhana

Other ways (beyond interviews and focus group discussion) in which qualitative research can be conducted include observation, participant observation, shadowing (McDonald & Simpson 2014 QROM) and spect-acting (Gill 2011 QROM). And, of course, interviewing itself has many variants including structured, unstructured, and group interviewing, among others (Fontana & Frey 2001 Sage). Semistructured interviews seem to dominate the field of organization studies. Other recognized interview types include long interviews (McCrackin 1988), ethnographic interviews (Spradley 1979), life history interviews (Shaw 1931), life story interviews (Atkinson 1998) and life study/creative interviews (Douglas), and oral history interviews (Thompson 1978). These examples are by no means exhaustive of the types of interviews mentioned in the literature.

Qualitative research can also be conducted by accessing secondary source material such as text in documents, documentary videos, etc.