Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

John W. Creswell, PhD, is a Professor of Family Medicine and Senior Research Scientist of the Michigan Mixed Methods Program. He has authored numerous articles and 34 books on mixed methods research, qualitative research, and research design. While at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, he held the Clifton Endowed Professor Chair, served as Director of the Mixed Methods Research Office, co-founded SAGE’s Journal of Mixed Methods Research, and was an Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan and a consultant to the Veterans Administration Health Services Research Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar to South Africa in 2008 and to Thailand in 2012. In 2011, he co-led a National Institutes of Health working group on the “best practices of mixed methods research in the health sciences,” served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. In 2014, he was the founding President of the Mixed Methods International Research Association. In 2015, he joined the staff of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan to Co-Direct the Michigan Mixed Methods Program. In 2017, he coauthored the American Psychological Association “standards” on qualitative and mixed methods research. The fourth edition of this book on Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design won the 2018 McGuffey Longevity Award from the U.S. Textbook & Academic Authors Association. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he gave virtual keynote presentations to many countries from his office in Osaka, Japan. Updates on his work can be found on his website at johnwcreswell.com. Cheryl N. Poth, PhD, is a Professor in the Faculty of Education and faculty member of the research-intensive Centre for Research and Applied Measurement and Evaluation at the University of Alberta. In this role, she has developed and taught graduate-level research methods and program evaluation courses in addition to supervising and mentoring students, faculty, and local as well as global community members in qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research. She is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, three books as well as numerous book chapters. Her work has been recognized by the American Educational Research Association with the Division D Significant Contributions to Research Methodology Award in 2023 (with Peggy Shannon-Baker) and by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association with the Most Promising New Textbook Award in 2020 and the McGuffey Longevity Award for Qualitative Research book in 2018 (with John Creswell). She served as Editor of the SAGE Handbook of Mixed Methods Research (2023) and as Guest Coeditor of several journal special issues, including the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. In addition to more than 40 invited talks and 150 conference presentations, she has led research methods workshops with diverse audiences on four continents. She served as an Advisory Board Member of the International Institute of Qualitative Methodology (2014–2020); the President of the Mixed Methods International Research Association (2017–2018); a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa (2018–2020); a Helen Glass Scholar in the College of Nursing within the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba (2022); and as a MERIT Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University (2023–2025). In 2009, she cofounded the interdisciplinary Alberta Clinical and Community-Based Evaluation Research Team to advance innovative community–university research partnership supports for program planning and impact assessments of service delivery for individuals with complex needs. She serves as the Methodologist on several cross-disciplinary research teams and has led federally, provincially, and locally funded research projects. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research and is an editorial board member of several journals. Updates on her work can be found on her website at https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/cheryl-poth/.

1 • Introduction to Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design
2 • Philosophical Assumptions and Interpretive Frameworks
3 • Designing a Qualitative Study
4 • Five Qualitative Approaches to Inquiry
5 • Five Different Qualitative Studies
6 • Introducing and Focusing the Study
7 • Data Collection
8 • Data Analysis and Representation
9 • Writing a Qualitative Study
10 • Standards of Validation and Evaluation
11 • “Turning the Story” and Conclusion to Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design