David L. Rennie

Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields.

We present a set of evolving guidelines for reviewing qualitative research, to serve four functions: to contribute to the process of legitimizing qualitative research; to ensure more appropriate and valid scientific reviews of qualitative manuscripts, theses, and dissertations; to encourage better quality control in qualitative research through better self- and other-monitoring; and to encourage further developments in approach and method. Building on a review of existing principles of good practice in qualitative research, we used an iterative process of revision and feedback from colleagues who engage in qualitative research, resulting in a set of seven guidelines common to both qualitative and quantitative research and seven guidelines especially pertinent to qualitative investigations in psychology and related social sciences. The Evolving Guidelines are subject to continuing revision and should not be used in a rigid manner, in order to avoid stifling creativity in this rapidly evolving, rich research tradition.

Grounded Theory Methodology: The Pressing Need for a Coherent Logic of Justification

The originators of the grounded theory approach to qualitative research now disagree on certain procedural aspects of the methodology, while agreeing on others, and dispute its epistemological implications. In this article it is argued that the rift can be traced to a conflict over the logic of justification of the approach. Strauss and Corbin endorse Deweys instrumentalism, including its prizing of the experimental method, and introduce a form of hypothetico-deductivism into the grounded theory method. Alternatively, although subscribing tacitly to the experimental method, Glaser does not tie it in with instrumentalism, and insists that grounded theory properly involves only the inductive phase of inquiry. It is argued that both instrumentalism and induction are inadequate as rationales for the grounded theory method. A new logic of justification, termed methodological hermeneutics and derived from Margoliss reconciliation of realism and relativism, has been developed by the author. When applied to the two positions, it leads to the conclusion that Glasers procedures are the most consistent with the objectives of the method.

Grounded Theory Methodology as Methodical Hermeneutics Reconciling Realism and Relativism

In this article it is argued that the realism-relativism duality addressed by the grounded theory approach to qualitative research is best accounted for when the method is understood to be an inductive approach to hermeneutics. Phenomenology, C.S. Peirces theory of inference, philosophical hermeneutics, pragmatism and the new rhetoric are drawn upon in support of this argument. It is also held that this formulation of the grounded theory method opens the possibility that the method improves on earlier approaches to methodical hermeneutics. As an outcome of this formulation, the debate on the validity and reliability of returns from the grounded theory approach is cast in a new light. The new methodical hermeneutics is discussed in terms of prior attempts to relate hermeneutics to method.

Qualitative Research as Methodical Hermeneutics

The proportion of publications of qualitative research in mainstream psychology journals is small. Thus, in terms of this important criterion, despite its recent rapid growth, qualitative research is marginalized in psychology. The author suggests that contributing to this situation is the lack of a coherent and unifying methodology of qualitative research methods that elucidates their credibility. He groups the many qualitative research methods into 3 main kinds, then applies to them 4 propositions offered as such a methodology: (1) Qualitative research is hermeneutical, entailing application of the method of the hermeneutic circle to text about experience and/or action. (2) Implicit in the use of the hermeneutic circle method is the activity of educing and articulating the meaning of text, an activity that modifies and interacts with C. S. Peirces (1965, 1966) logical operations of abduction, theorematic deduction, and induction. (3) The cycling of these 4 moments enables demonstration, achieved rhetorically, of the validity of the understandings resulting from the exegesis of the text under study. (4) This demonstrative rhetoric is enhanced when researchers disclose reflexively those aspects of their perspectives they judge to have most relevant bearing on their understandings. The author compares abduction as formulated here with other recent uptakes of it. As an installment on the generality of the methodology, he explores its fit with the descriptive phenomenological psychological method, conversation analysis, and thematic analysis.

Embodied Categorizing in the Grounded Theory Method Methodical Hermeneutics in Action

In this article it is argued that attention to embodied experiencing enhances the quality of categorizing in the grounded theory method of qualitative research. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s model of experiential cognition is applied to the structural features of embodied categorizing, while Eugene Gendlin’s philosophy of experiential phenomenology is extended to use of embodied experiencing in the process of creating and evaluating categories. This use is demonstrated. The method’s procedure of categorizing is connected more tightly with its methodology, seen by the authors as methodical hermeneutics, and with its epistemology, seen as an accommodation of realism and relativism. The article concludes with practical implications for the practice of categorizing in the grounded theory method.

Reflexivity and Personcentered Counseling

This article is organized around the claim that reflexivity, defined asself-awareness and agency within that self-awareness, isfundamental to being a self. Carl Rogers’s concept of the person is examined inthe light of this claim. It is argued that his notion of the person hasmore to do with ethics than ontology and that his lack of distinctionbetween self and self-concept obscures agency, his tacit recognitionof it in his practice of counseling notwithstanding. HarryFrankfurt’s and Charles Taylor’s writings are drawn on to support this. Itis suggested that the humanistic prizing of the dignity of the client,making up the ethic of person-centered counseling, is both protectedand enhanced once the approach is revised in the light of reflexivity.Implications of this revision for the durability of person-centeredcounseling in a climate of increasing endorsement of manualized,technical approaches to counseling and psychotherapy arediscussed.

Human science and counselling psychology: Closing the gap between research and practice

Abstract In this article, the case is made that human science-or ‘qualitative research’ as it is now popularly known–promises to be a better way of closing the gap between research and practice in counselling psychology than has been provided by the natural science approach to the discipline as instantiated in the Boulder model of the scientist-practitioner. Like the practice of counselling psychology, human science focuses on subjectivity and stresses the achievement of an understanding as opposed to the demonstration of truth; it stresses collaboration with participants rather than a subject-object dualism; and it emphasizes holism in contrast with fragmentation. Some practicalities entailed in the conduct of human science in counselling psychology are discussed.

Methodical Hermeneutics and Humanistic Psychology

Abstract In this article, it is argued that the engagement of hermeneutics is common to both the creation of theory in humanistic psychology and the conduct of qualitative research. Development of their theories by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers serve as examples of the tacit use of methodical hermeneutics.With respect to qualitative research, the phenomenological psychological and grounded theory methods are connected with the concept of a human science approach to the social and health sciences, and are examined critically to expose the hermeneutic involvement in them. A call is put out for a meta-methodology of qualitative research based on the methodical type of hermeneutics. Benefits of such a methodology are suggested, especially enhanced integration of the theory and research in humanistic psychology. 1Division 32 (Humanistic) Presidential Address under the title, Hermeneutics and Humanistic Psychology, given at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, August 2006.

Anglo-North American qualitative counseling and psychotherapy research

Qualitative counseling and psychotherapy research produced in the United Kingdom and in Canada and the United States is examined. It is shown that the methods and methodologies in the British research have been influenced by postmodern epistemology more than in North American work, which reflects a greater effect of positivism. Correspondingly, it is shown that a higher value has been placed on methods in the latter region compared with the former. The differences are discussed in terms of the way the field of counseling has developed in the United Kingdom compared with the United States and Canada. Also discussed are the tensions between realism and relativism and, correspondingly, between positive valuing of method and skepticism. The article concludes with thoughts about the implications of qualitative research for the field of counseling and psychotherapy as a whole.

Fifteen years of doing qualitative research on psychotherapy

Abstract The conduct of qualitative research in psychology goes against the grain of customary praxis and thus raises many challenges. The author summarises the experience of having spent a large part of his academic career using the grounded theory form of qualitative research. In the account, he indicates how he became interested in this methodology and describes his experience of using, publishing and teaching it. These considerations are contextualised in the sociology of research praxis in psychology. The appraised is made that a movement toward acceptance of qualitative research is currenuy under way in the counselling and psychotherapy research community, albeit cautiously in some quarters. Some implications of this development are addressed.