Qualitative Research Design

This book gives researchers and students a user-friendly step-by-step guide to planning qualitative research. Based on a course that the author taught for 7 years at the Harvard Graduate School of Education it is written in an informal jargon-free style and incorporates many examples and hands-on exercises. Rather than the rigid linear approach to design usually found in research methods textbooks which is particularly unsuited to qualitative research the book presents a flexible systemic model of design. This model not only better fits what experienced qualitative researchers actually do but provides a clear framework for designing a study and developing a research proposal. This edition includes new or substantially expanded discussions of research paradigms defining a research problem site and participant selection relationships with research participants data analysis and validity as well as more examples and exercises.