Qualitative research sample size determination has always been a contentious and confusing issue. Studies are often vague when explaining the processes and justifications that have been used to determine sample size and strategy. Some provide no mention of sampling at all, whilst others rely too heavily on the concept of saturation for determining…

This methodological guidance paper discusses the craft of reviewing qualitative research for a systematic review. Qualitative research is an expansive and wide-ranging domain that includes research from different disciplines, for different purposes, following different methodological traditions, and employing a variety of data collection and…

Methodologist. Methodologist. Methodologist. Methodologist. Saying a word enough times in rapid-fire succession can make it lose its meaning. Your focus shifts from understanding of the word and its multiple signifiers, to the sounds you make when you say it, the movement of your lips and the shape of your mouth, the touch of your tongue on your…

The short time frame associated with rapid reviews can be challenging for researchers conducting qualitative evidence synthesis. In these circumstances a Best-Fit Framework Synthesis, drawing upon existing theory and/or research, may be conducted to rapidly make sense of qualitative evidence. This article discusses a "Rapid Best-Fit"…

The importance of the critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) to review quantitative and qualitative research, and to critically develop new theory, is increasingly recognized and evidenced by the increase in published CIS reviews. However, the flexibility embedded in the method hampers its implementation and exacerbates concerns about…

Thematic analysis is a methodology with wide use in content analysis and field work through interviews, observations, and focus groups. Despite popularity with researchers, there are several questions and problems with the methodology. There was an absence in exploration and explanation of the methods and hidden steps in thematic analysis. Using a…

Reflexive commitments tend to be lacking, particularly from the perspective of early career scholars. This is particularly true in relation to published research, but evident in doctoral studies exploring teachers work. Using principles of phenomenological reflexivity, this methodological paper explores the critical incidents that have come to…

Researcher positionality is widely accepted as a phenomenon to be understood and used to strengthen the qualitative research process. However, consideration of white researchers' positionality has largely centered on situations in which they are "outsider" researchers in spaces that do not reflect their own racial identities. To build…

Assessing student knowledge based on their writing using traditional qualitative methods is time-consuming. To improve speed and consistency of text analysis, we present our mixed methods development of a machine learning predictive model to analyze student writing. Our approach involves two stages: first an exploratory sequential design, and…

We analysed the full text of all journal articles returned to the education subpanel of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF2021). Using a latent Dirichlet allocation topic model, we identified 35 topics that collectively summarise the journal articles that research units, typically schools of education, selected for submission. We found…

Managing and analysing large qualitative datasets pose a particular challenge for researchers seeking a consistent and rigorous approach to qualitative data analysis. This paper describes and demonstrates the development and adoption of a matrix tool to guide the qualitative data analysis of a large sample (N = 122) of interview data. The paper…

Using a content analysis methodology, we examined 15 peer-reviewed articles published between 2009 and 2019 that used qualitative and mixed methods approaches to explore how college and university students experience food insecurity. Concerningly, there was limited variety in the methods employed across these articles and more discussion of…

Although encompassing a variety of research approaches, qualitative research in music education shares the assumption that reality is socially constructed; it takes this construction to be based on the specific perspective of the individual human; and it considers epistemology and ontology to be different fields of study. The posthuman theory of…

Purpose: This research aims to investigate the use of conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) in academic practice through the lens of activity theory, which emphasises the mediation of human actions by tools within a social context. Additionally, it seeks to determine if and how the results of qualitative analysis differ when using…

Education research for practice is in need of textbook studies, especially those having well-defined theoretical framework. This paper is an attempt to apply phenomenography in textbook research. It begins with a review of four existing types of textbook studies found in the literature. Next, the main features of phenomenography (qualitative…