The Qualitative Design Checklist
Ten items across two slides, adapted from an evaluation project that is never named. It is the longest instructional structure in the week, and three of its items instruct you to consult a taxonomy the source does not supply.
Where the checklist comes from
The source is explicit that the checklist has been repurposed, and equally explicit about nothing else concerning its origin.
The three stated purposes
The purposes are stated in one sentence, and that sentence numbers them. It is the only numbered structure on the two slides.
- Select the approach
- Collect credible data
- Analyse and report
The ten items, reproduced in full
Three items sit on the first slide and seven on the second. The source gives no numbers and no bullets, and states no count; ten is the count of the items as printed, and the split across the slide boundary is the only structure supplied.
Factors to consider in qualitative research
- "Determine the extent to which qualitative methods are appropriate given the project's purposes and intended uses."
- "Determine which general strategic themes of qualitative inquiry will guide the project."
- "Determine qualitative design strategies, data collection options, and analysis approaches based on the project's purpose."
- "Determine which qualitative applications are especially appropriate given the project's purpose and priorities."
- "Make major design decisions so that the design answers important questions for intended users. Consider design options and choose those most appropriate for the project's purposes."
- "Where fieldwork is part of the project, determine how to approach the fieldwork."
- "Where open-ended interviewing is part of the project, determine how to approach the interviews."
- "Design the project with careful attention to ethical issues."
- "Anticipate analysis - design the data collection to facilitate analysis."
- "Analyse the data so that the qualitative findings are clear, credible, and address the relevant and priority project questions and issues. Focus the report."
The four items you cannot execute from the supplied material
Four of the ten instruct you to make a selection from a set the source never supplies, or to determine an approach it never describes. That is not a criticism of the checklist's structure; it is a statement of what happens if you sit down and try to run it.
ITEMS THAT REFER OUT TO SOMETHING THE MATERIAL DOES NOT CONTAIN
| Item | What it asks you to select or determine | What the source supplies |
|---|---|---|
| Item 2 | Which "general strategic themes of qualitative inquiry" will guide the project | No theme is ever listed, named or defined |
| Item 4 | Which "qualitative applications" are especially appropriate | No application is ever enumerated |
| Item 6 | How to approach the fieldwork | The instruction to decide, and nothing on how |
| Item 7 | How to approach the interviews | The instruction to decide, and nothing on how |
Items 6 and 7 are purely deferring: the reader is told to determine how, and the how is never stated. Item 7 is the closest the week comes to instrument design, and it is a placeholder.
Item 8: the ethics item with nothing standing behind it
Item 8 reads, in full: "Design the project with careful attention to ethical issues." It names ethics and supplies no principle, no framework, no approval process and no example.
The checklist requires anticipation; the rest of the week requires emergence
This is the conflict that will bite hardest if you try to run the checklist as written. Three of the ten items require the design to be settled before fieldwork. Five separate statements elsewhere in the same week say it cannot be.
What the checklist requires
- Item 3: determine design strategies, data collection options and analysis approaches up front
- Item 5: make major design decisions, considering and choosing between design options
- Item 9: "Anticipate analysis - design the data collection to facilitate analysis"
What the rest of the week says
- "Design differs - qualitative design emerges"
- Qualitative measures "are created in an ad hoc manner"
- "Questions will emerge and change as familiarity with the context develops"
- Collection and analysis "usually proceed simultaneously"
- "ongoing findings affect what types of data are collected and how they are collected"
Item 10 and the credibility problem
Item 10 requires you to analyse the data so that the findings are "clear, credible, and address the relevant and priority project questions". The word credible is doing more work than it looks.
Running the checklist as a design gate
The checklist is still worth running, provided you know which items are live and which are placeholders. The gate below re-sequences the ten items into an order you can work through; the sequence and the routing are this handbook's, and the item wording is the source's.
A workable order for the ten
Settle appropriateness first (items 1 and 4)
Decide whether qualitative methods suit the project's purposes and intended uses at all. Item 4's instruction to choose among qualitative applications cannot be followed from this material; the method-selection questions in the research design week are the nearest usable substitute — see Selecting a Research Method.
Skip item 2 and record that you skipped it
No strategic themes of qualitative inquiry are listed anywhere in the material. Note the gap in your design chapter rather than inventing a theme and attributing it here.
Make the design decisions you can make (items 3 and 5)
Design strategies, data collection options and analysis approaches, and the major design choices behind them. Expect to revisit these; the week's emergence statements say you will.
Answer items 6 and 7 from outside this material
Fieldwork approach and interview approach. The checklist defers both. Take the answers from a methods text and attribute them there.
Take item 8 to the ethics stream
Careful attention to ethical issues is the instruction; the principles, the consent requirements and the approval process are in this library's ethics pages, not in this week's slides.
Decide the anticipation question explicitly (item 9)
How much of the analysis is designed before collection starts. Write the decision down, because the material will support either answer and you will be asked which one you took.
Finish on item 10, and define credible yourself
Clear, credible findings that address the priority questions, and a focused report. Since the deck's own definition makes credibility the participants' to confer, say which sense of the word you are using.
What to carry forward
- Ten items, three stated purposes, and no mapping between them. Any mapping you use is yours.
- Four items refer out to taxonomies or procedures the material does not contain; run the other six and record the four as gaps.
- The checklist is unattributed, adapted from an unnamed evaluation project, and absent from the week's reference list — so it cannot be cited or followed up.
- Item 9 requires analysis to be anticipated; five statements elsewhere in the week require the design to emerge. Declare which you are doing.
- Item 8 names ethics and supplies no framework. Take the framework from this library's ethics stream and attribute it there.
Frequently asked questions
Is this checklist an authored instrument I can cite?
No. The source states only that it relates to an evaluation project and has been adapted for general qualitative research. No author, publication, year or project is named, and it does not appear in the week's reference list. Reproduce it as unattributed material from the supplied teaching source.
What are the general strategic themes of qualitative inquiry that item 2 refers to?
The material never says. No theme is listed, named or defined anywhere in the week, so item 2 cannot be executed from what is supplied. Record it as a gap rather than substituting a set of themes from elsewhere and attributing them here.
Should I fix my analysis plan before I start collecting data?
The week requires both answers. Item 9 tells you to anticipate analysis and design the collection to facilitate it; five other statements say the design emerges, the measures are ad hoc, the questions change and collection and analysis proceed simultaneously. State which discipline you followed and cite the part you relied on.
How many items are in the checklist?
Ten as printed — three on the first slide and seven on the second. The source states no count and the items are unnumbered and unbulleted, so ten is a count of the material rather than a figure the source asserts.
Does item 8 tell me what ethical issues to attend to?
No. Item 8 is a single sentence naming ethics with no principle, framework, approval process or example behind it. Together with one method-selection question in the research design week, it is the complete ethics content of both weeks.
References and source attribution
- Supplied teaching source, Week 9: The nature of qualitative research — slide deck, slides 16-17 (the checklist and its three stated purposes), slides 18-20 (credibility), slides 5, 8 and 11 (the emergence statements).
- Supplied teaching source, Week 9 study notes — the statement that collection and analysis usually proceed simultaneously and that ongoing findings affect what data is collected.
- Supplied teaching source, Week 7: Research Design — slide 12, the method-selection question naming ethics.
- Patton, M. 2002, Qualitative research and evaluation methods, 3rd ed., Sage. Listed in the Week 9 references of the supplied source; the checklist itself carries no attribution and cannot be traced to any listed work.
- Maxwell 2009 — cited in the Week 9 study notes for the five components of a qualitative research design, the material's other account of what a design contains. No title or publisher is given.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Turn the ten checklist items into a design chapter outline for my project.
- Which checklist items can I actually complete from this material?
- How do I handle the conflict between anticipated analysis and emergent design?
- Where does the library's ethics framework sit relative to checklist item 8?
- What does the checklist mean by intended users?