Documenting Qualitative Research Findings

The report does not respond to a single communication pattern. It must consider the participant, the research methods, and the intended audience. Each report addresses a hypothetical reader, and this varies according to who requests or requires the report. For example, a report communicating scientific aspects of an investigation differs from one for managers or policymakers, who need very synthetic results to make a decision.

The Problem of Documenting Qualitative Findings

Qualitative research reports often document findings from, or information difficult to verify by, third parties. In a quantitative report, it is relatively easy to check the results using percentages from the data or comparisons with other percentages. However, to test a qualitative report, one must remember that the results come from subjects expressing meanings in unique situations. For example, an interview with a migrant or participant observation conducted in a particular school.

The reader must place a high degree of confidence in the honesty and forthrightness of the researcher because there is often no way to verify the results directly. For example, in a study on school violence, the findings can be documented in different ways:

• Supporting findings with factual data, such as the number of serious injuries from attacks both inside and outside the classroom (quantitative).
• Supporting findings with conversations or interviews with students, parents, and teachers concerned about the events (qualitative).

Anthropology has been particularly sensitive to this problem, but it’s important to remember that its fieldwork primarily uses qualitative techniques, such as open interviews or participant observation.

The problem of documenting qualitative findings should avoid treating unique and unrepeatable data as subjective truthfulness and objective scientific research. The challenge is to understand the report as a text that oscillates between an intimate vision (more subjective), sometimes committed by the author, and a distant and realistic assessment of the investigation (more objective). The qualitative report sometimes appears more like a novel than a lab report, which is problematic.

It is important to include the contexts or circumstances in which the qualitative research was developed. The report should include how the study was developed, impacting issues to help, from a rhetorical point of view, to prosecute and assess the analytical findings presented. S.J. Taylor and R. Bogdan, in their book Introduction to Qualitative Methods, propose a series of questions that readers should be able to answer, such as:

• The methodology used.
• The time and extent of the study.
• The nature and number of scenarios and informants that have been used.
• The researcher’s mental framework.
• The relationship with informants.
• Data control.

This list can be expanded and strengthened to include not just the findings achieved, but also the circumstances and contexts surrounding the research. The more specifications introduced in the report regarding the circumstances under which research is carried out, especially during fieldwork, the more credible it will be, and readers will have a better chance to evaluate it.