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Qualitative Research

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Qualitative Research  publishes papers with a clear methodological focus. We invite scholarship that has multi-disciplinary appeal, that debates and enlivens qualitative methods, and that pushes at the boundaries of established ways of doing qualitative research. We are interested in papers that are attentive to a wide audience, that are alive to new and diverse ways of thinking about qualitative methods, and that contribute to discussions within the pages of this journal. These discussions can be brought to life through empirical studies and research encounters, but we do not accept papers that focus on reporting the findings from qualitative research studies.

We see our journal as contributing to the community of academics across different fields who use qualitative methods as a way of making sense of the world. We understand methods and methodology as a practice and as a perspective, and welcome contributions that reflect on and critically engage with both aspects.  Qualitative Research is a space where ideas and understandings are used to open up methodological issues for reflection and debate, and we work hard to provide a supportive environment to foster this ethos.

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We choose : Adolescent girls and young women’s choice for an HIV prevention product in a cross-over randomized clinical trial conducted in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe"> We choose : Adolescent girls and young women’s choice for an HIV prevention product in a cross-over randomized clinical trial conducted in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe

Millicent Atujuna, Kristin Williams,  [ ... ], Ariane van der Straten

Impact of bariatric surgery on premenopausal women’s womanliness: A qualitative systematic review and meta-synthesis

Rebecca Paul, Ellen Andersson,  [ ... ], Carina Berterö

“This is you teaching you:” Exploring providers’ perspectives on experiential learning and enhancing patient safety and outcomes in ketamine-assisted therapy

Elena Argento, Tashia Petker,  [ ... ], Zach Walsh

Perception and coping mechanisms of patients with diabetes mellitus during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ibadan, Nigeria

Olajumoke Ololade Tunji-Adepoju, Obasanjo Afolabi Bolarinwa, Richard Gyan Aboagye, Williams O. Balogun

Treating the disease and meeting the person with the illness-patient perspectives of needs during infective endocarditis, a qualitative study

Helena Lindberg, Johan Vaktnäs, Magnus Rasmussen, Ingrid Larsson

Dietary practice and associated factors among elderly people in Northwest Ethiopia, 2022: Community based mixed design

Mulat Tirfie Bayih, Adane Ambaye Kassa, Yeshalem Mulugeta Demilew

A qualitative study of stressors faced by older stroke patients in a convalescent rehabilitation hospital

Yuta Asada, Kaori Nishio, Kohei Iitsuka, Jun Yaeda

From many voices, one question: Community co-design of a population-based qualitative cancer research study

Susannah K. Ayre, Elizabeth A. Johnston,  [ ... ], Belinda C. Goodwin

Using residents and experts to evaluate the validity of areal wombling for detecting social boundaries: A small-scale feasibility study

Meng Le Zhang, Aneta Piekut,  [ ... ], Gwilym Pryce

Delphi studies in social and health sciences—Recommendations for an interdisciplinary standardized reporting (DELPHISTAR). Results of a Delphi study

Marlen Niederberger, Julia Schifano,  [ ... ], the DEWISS network

A qualitative exploration of migraine in students attending Irish Universities

Orla Flynn, Catherine Blake, Brona M. Fullen

A protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of Balika Bodhu: A combined empowerment and social norm based sexual and reproductive health and rights intervention for married adolescent girls in rural Bangladesh

Mahfuz Al Mamun, Sultan Mahmud,  [ ... ], Ruchira Tabassum Naved

Digital transformation in college libraries: The effect of digital reading on reader service satisfaction

Yixin Lu, Shengguang Lin

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Qualitative Research Journal

Issue(s) available: 61 – From Volume: 6 Issue: 1 , to Volume: 24 Issue: 4

• Issue 4 2024
• Issue 3 2024
• Issue 2 2024 When intercultural communication meets translation studies: divergent experiences in qualitative inquiries
• Issue 1 2024 Methodological entanglements – public pedagogy research
• Issue 5 2023
• Issue 4 2023
• Issue 3 2023
• Issue 2 2023
• Issue 1 2023
• Issue 4 2022
• Issue 3 2022
• Issue 2 2022
• Issue 1 2022 Critically Exploring Co-production
• Issue 4 2021
• Issue 3 2021
• Issue 2 2021
• Issue 1 2021
• Issue 4 2020 Research and Methodology in times of Crisis and Emergency
• Issue 3 2020 The Practice of Qualitative Research in Migration Studies: Ethical Issues as a Methodological Challenge
• Issue 2 2020
• Issue 1 2020
• Issue 4 2019 Creative approaches to researching further, higher and adult education
• Issue 3 2019
• Issue 2 2019
• Issue 1 2019 Journeys in and through sound
• Issue 4 2018
• Issue 3 2018
• Issue 2 2018 Revisiting ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’: 30 years later
• Issue 1 2018
• Issue 4 2017
• Issue 3 2017 Bordering, exclusions and necropolitics
• Issue 2 2017
• Issue 1 2017
• Issue 4 2016
• Issue 3 2016 Auto-, duo- and collaborative- ethnographies:
• Issue 2 2016
• Issue 1 2016
• Issue 4 2015 Art practice as methodological innovation
• Issue 3 2015
• Issue 2 2015 Sub-prime scholarship
• Issue 1 2015
• Issue 3 2014
• Issue 2 2014
• Issue 1 2014 Approaches to Researching Masculinities
• Issue 3 2013
• Issue 2 2013 Selected papers from the 2012 Association of Qualitative ResearchDiscourse, Power and Resistance Conference
• Issue 1 2013
• Issue 2 2012
• Issue 1 2012
• Issue 2 2011
• Issue 1 2011
• Issue 2 2010
• Issue 1 2010
• Issue 2 2009
• Issue 1 2009
• Issue 2 2008
• Issue 1 2008
• Issue 2 2007
• Issue 1 2007
• Issue 2 2006
• Issue 1 2006

Relationships with horses and humans: Smith’s legacy

The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions of Smiths legacy in Indigenous methodologies and to show how her interventions encourage and facilitate meaningful…

Can we really teach the Generation Z? Opportunities and challenges at secondary level

The objective of this study is to explore Generation Z’s interpretation of educational practices at the secondary education level. By examining the expectations of Generation Z…

Finding “the center point”: decolonial and indigenous methodologies in education historical research

This paper centers a decolonial and Indigenous methodological approaches to educational history research. This research offers how Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and…

The impact of decolonizing methodologies: reflections of Indigenous researchers

To share the narratives of six Indigenous Researchers representing the diverse thinking of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The narratives describe the impact Decolonizing…

Mele as methodology: crafting (k)new tools for Indigenous research

In Decolonizing Methodologies (1999), Linda Tuhiwai Smith asserted that “the master’s tools of colonization will not work to decolonize what the master built.” Smith challenged…

Becoming an academic in Spanish higher education: an in-depth narrative study

This article focuses on understanding the evolution of the academic identity of a university academic within the contemporary university context, highlighting the significant…

Unveiling creativity in artisanal beer through cultural and collective intelligence: a study of market in Mexico

The principal objective of the study is to analyze the influence of ethnicity, culture and collective intelligence in entrepreneurial creativity, innovation and marketing of…

“Let’s catch up at Shivaji Park”: emotively conversing on connecting and un/belonging through a public space

This paper is based on the personal connections of the four authors to Shivaji Park, the largest public space in Mumbai. Three of the authors are childhood friends and were once…

Language, disciplinarity and identity: an autoethnography of an international interdisciplinary doctoral student

While higher education has been encouraging interdisciplinary research, few studies have been conducted to understand how interdisciplinarity shapes the identity construction of…

Reflexivity in co-constructed meanings: the impact of gender specific perspectives in the qualitative research context

This paper examines the impact of lived experiences and attitudinal blueprints on researchers within the context of masculinities research. It explores the negotiation of gendered…

So, you think you are a leader? A qualitative study to understand patterns of presentation and symmetry among dimensions of leader identity

This study aims to explore individual leader identity development across four key dimensions: strength, integration, meaning and inclusiveness.

Echoes of silence: an embossed poetic inquiry

Silences in qualitative social science research present a unique and sometimes ambiguous challenge for researchers. When working with transcription artefacts, considering not only…

“Oh my phone, I can't live without you”: a phenomenological study of nomophobia among college students

Previous studies have identified concerns and anxiety in individuals who are without their mobile phones, which is known as nomophobia, an acronym for “no mobile phone phobia.”…

The opportunity of struggle: a case study on developing a Māori-centric nursing course

This paper delves into the enduring influence of Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s groundbreaking work, “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples,” while examining how the…

Outside the field, inside the home: lessons learned from adapting qualitative research strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic

This collaborative paper presents three case studies on four scholars' experiences with remote data collection. The authors highlight the challenges and strengths of online…

Incorporating pragmatism in a behaviour change-led climate adaptation project: a collaborative reflection

This article argues the value of integrating pragmatism in applying behavioural science to complex challenges. We describe a behaviour change-led knowledge co-production process…

The power (and caveats) of body mapping as a visual methodology with vulnerable youth

This study aims to explore the NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training) experiences of young people living in impoverished settings.

Conceptualising “the more-than-migrant child”

Using a feminist, post-structural and posthuman theoretical framing the paper argues for elevating the complexity of conceptions of migrant children’s engagements with and…

Harnessing the potential of translanguaging in Tanzanian secondary education

This study aims to explore motives behind teachers' and students' use of translanguaging and how they use it in Tanzanian public secondary school classrooms.

Negotiating with technology: advancing the virtual in qualitative research methods

This study aims to describe key elements that are critical to virtual qualitative research especially while working with practitioners as participants.

Fiction-writing and wonder: documenting a collaborative, creative writing process

We articulate cycles of creative storying and data analysis and the wonder that motivated the project by detailing our reading, thinking and writing processes to contribute to the…

Tell me about your trauma: an empathetic approach-based protocol for interviewing school leaders who have experienced a crisis

In this study, we illuminate how techniques can be incorporated into interview protocols when conducting research with educational leaders who are being asked to discuss their…

Advancing women to leadership in academia: does personal branding matter?

Personal branding is a strategic tool of marketing and communication to define success in organisations. While it constitutes a conscious attempt to commodify self and audit self…

Translanguaging approaches and perceptions of Iranian EGP teachers in bi/multilingual educational spaces: a qualitative inquiry

This study aims to analyze translanguaging practices and beliefs of Iranian English for General Purposes (EGP) teachers and find discrepancies between the practice and perception…

Using data as poetry and text in case study research – poetic representations of adult learner experiences in neighbourhood houses

We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity…

Women leaders' lived experiences of bravery in leadership

The research aims to understand the stories of women leaders who have demonstrated bravery in leadership. By analyzing their lived experiences through storytelling and narratives…

Conducting collage elicitation research online: what happens when we remove the scissors and glue?

This autoethnographic article presents the adaptation of collage—an arts-based method traditionally used in face-to-face settings—into an online research tool. It emphasizes the…

Reflections on a cross-cultural interview study

The aim of this article is to address some aspects of a cross-cultural interview study conducted in a PhD research project. This is done by reflecting on and discussing the…

“But our worlds are different!”: reflexivity as a tool to negotiate insider–outsider dilemmas

In ethnographic research, negotiating insider–outsider perspectives is essential in order to get closer to the participants’ lives. By highlighting the importance of empathy and…

The use of digital technologies in the co-creation process of photo elicitation

This article approaches the possibilities of photo elicitation as a technique for social research in the landscape of technology-mediated instantaneous interpersonal communication.

“Online group discussion was challenging but we enjoyed it!” an exploratory practice in extensive reading

While many works have reported adopting exploratory practice (EP) principles in language teaching research, only a few studies have explored the enactment of EP in an online…

Free association and qualitative research interviewing: perspectives and applications

This paper contributes to a dialogue about the psychoanalytic concept of free association and its application in the context of qualitative research interviewing. In doing so, it…

Opportunities and challenges facing LGBTQ+ people in employment in rural England post-pandemic: a thematic analysis

The following study aimed to better understand rural dwelling LGBTQ+ adults’ experiences of the challenges and opportunities facing their working lives in England.

It's too late – the post has gone viral already: a novel methodological stance to explore K-12 teachers' lived experiences of adult cyber abuse

The purpose of this scoping rapid review was to identify and analyse existing qualitative methodologies that have been used to investigate K-12 teachers' lived experiences of…

“A balancing act of keeping the faith and maintaining wellbeing”: perspectives from Australian faith communities during the pandemic

The pandemic presented many new challenges is all spheres of life including faith communities. Around the globe, lockdowns took pace at various stages with varying restrictions…

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Qualitative Psychology

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Journal scope statement

The mission of the journal Qualitative Psychology ® is to provide a forum for innovative methodological, theoretical, and empirical work that advances qualitative inquiry in psychology. The journal publishes articles that underscore the distinctive contributions that qualitative research can make to the advancement of psychological knowledge. Studies published in this Journal often focus on substantive topics, while also highlighting issues of epistemology, the philosophy of science, methodological criteria, or other matters bearing upon the formulation, execution, and interpretation of qualitative research.

Qualitative Psychology publishes studies that represent a wide variety of methodological approaches including narrative, discourse analysis, life history, phenomenology, ethnography, action research, and case study. The journal is further concerned with discussions of teaching qualitative research and training of qualitative researchers.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion

Qualitative Psychology supports equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in its practices. More information on these initiatives, including our journal EDI statement, is available under EDI Efforts .

Editor’s Choice

One article from each issue of Qualitative Psychology will be highlighted as an “ Editor’s Choice ” article. Selection is based on the recommendations of the associate editors, the paper’s potential impact to the field, the distinction of expanding the contributors to, or the focus of, the science, or its discussion of an important future direction for science. Editor's Choice articles are featured alongside articles from other APA published journals in a bi-weekly newsletter and are temporarily made freely available to newsletter subscribers.

Author and editor spotlights

Explore journal highlights : free article summaries, editor interviews and editorials, journal awards, mentorship opportunities, and more.

Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.

Qualitative Psychology is now using a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares each submitted manuscript against a database of 25+ million scholarly publications, as well as content appearing on the open web.

This allows APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material). A similarity report will be generated by the system and provided to the Qualitative Psychology Editorial office for review immediately upon submission.

To submit to the editorial office of Heidi Levitt, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word or Open Office format.

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7 th edition and in compliance with the Journal Article Reporting Standards – Qualitative (PDF, 163KB) . Manuscripts should be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual ). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7 th edition are available, and please see the Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (PDF, 232KB) .

You can read the editor's guidance for submitting to Qualitative Psychology  in their  editorial on PsycNet . Authors interested in learning more about our journal can also see a special section focused on the first decade of Qualitative Psychology in Volume 10, Issue 3 .

Submit Manuscript

Qualitative inquiry is relatively unbounded and affords a great deal of opportunity for creativity and originality. Thus, the editorship of the journal is going to specify general rather than rigid criteria for evaluation of submissions and will endeavor to stay open to novel approaches.

Nevertheless, there are some criteria that we'd like to outline in order to ensure that the articles published in Qualitative Psychology  are meritorious and of the highest quality. Articles will be evaluated according to the below criteria.

Manuscript preparation

Review APA's  Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines  before submitting your article.

Theoretical or methodological articles criteria

• Does the article advance our understanding of qualitative inquiry in terms of conceptualization or approach?
• Does the article position itself within approaches to the philosophy of science, interpretation theory, or epistemology?
• Does the article lay out postulates or hypotheses that lend themselves to further investigation through qualitative inquiry and/or additional theoretical analysis?
• Does the article adequately engage with existing literature?

Articles reporting results of original research criteria

• Is the topic meaningful? Is the presentation persuasive and illuminating? Will readers be enlightened on the topic by this article? Does the work advance psychological understanding?
• Is there adequate conceptualization (as opposed to simple description or reporting of themes)? Are there larger psychological questions addressed beyond reporting thematic description of a particular group of people?
• Has relevant other literature been joined? Is the relationship between this study and previous studies explicit?
• Has the mode of inquiry been explicated in detail so the reader can judge whether it was adequate and appropriate for the issues in question? This includes some discussion of the procedures of the work, and the processes of analysis and interpretation, and of how ethical challenges were met.
• Has the researcher taken into reflexive account his or her own role in the inquiry? Are assumptions and biases recognized?
• Does this work engage with methodological questions or debates? For some studies, the researcher might explicitly argue for the value of using a methodology that is different from the methods typically used to study this topic. In other cases, the researcher might explain how his or her study's design or findings further develop (or even challenge) some aspect of the qualitative approach it employs.
• Are interpretations well-grounded in presentation of data?
• Is there evidence that the researcher was tolerant of ambiguity, searched for alternative explanations, and considered negative instances? Is broader relevance considered?
• Is the contribution substantial in offering a sophisticated understanding of some aspect of human experience? Is this understanding deeply grounded in some stated perspective?
• Is the article well-written, thoughtfully shaped, sufficiently complex and engaging? Does the presentation invite further discussion?

As Qualitative Psychology will be published online as well as in print format, we strongly encourage the use of voice and video files (used with appropriate disguise and permission) to document your study.

Journal Article Reporting Standards

Authors should review the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative , qualitative , and mixed methods . The standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of the research and to facilitate collaboration and replication.

For quantitative manuscripts

JARS-Quant offers guidance to researchers using quantitative methods that may be used in research designs such as descriptive analyses, correlational analyses, quasi-experimental analyses, and experimental analyses. These JARS:

• recommend the division of hypotheses, analyses, and conclusions into primary, secondary, and exploratory groupings to allow for a full understanding of quantitative analyses presented in a manuscript and to enhance reproducibility;
• offer modules for authors reporting on replications, clinical trials, longitudinal studies, and observational studies, as well as the analytic methods of structural equation modeling and Bayesian analysis; and
• include guidelines on reporting on of study preregistration (including making protocols public); participant characteristics (including demographic characteristics; inclusion and exclusion criteria) psychometric characteristics of outcome measures and other variables, and planned data diagnostics and analytic strategy.

For qualitative manuscripts

JARS-Qual offers guidance to researchers using qualitative methods that may be used in research designs such as narrative data, grounded theory, phenomenological, critical, discursive, performative, ethnographic, consensual qualitative, case study, psychobiography, and thematic analysis approaches. These JARS:

• guide researchers to include a description of the researchers’ backgrounds and perspectives in approaching the study and how their prior understandings of the phenomenon were managed;
• provide guidance to support a description of all recruitment and data selection processes as well as data collection and data-analytic strategies used; and
• encourage a discussion of the ways that procedures used enhanced or compromised the methodological integrity of the findings.

The guidelines focus on transparency in methods reporting, recommending descriptions of how the researchers’ own perspectives affected the study, as well as the contexts in which the research and analysis took place.

For mixed methods manuscripts

JARS-Mixed offers guidance to researchers using both quantitative and qualitative methods within a study. These JARS:

• guide authors to follow the set of JARS that is appropriate for each component of the study; and
• guide authors to explicitly discuss the value of using a mixed method approach through the reporting of study aims, methods, findings, and discussion.

For all manuscripts

Authors should also review the new Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS–REC). Meant for all authors, regardless of research topic, JARS–REC include standards for all stages of research and manuscript writing, on, for example:

• Using the title, abstract, and keywords to identify race and ethnicity of participants without signaling Whiteness as default;
• Discussing the applicability of the theoretical approach to populations for which it was not developed;
• Addressing limits on generality, recognizing that generalizability is always constrained and is not the primary purpose of every study; and
• Considering whether findings could be misused to cause harm to members of historically excluded groups.
• For more, see the Guidance for Authors sections of the table (PDF, 184KB) .
• Special sections

Please see the special section proposal guidelines for detailed information on proposing special sections.

Double-space all copy. If specific participants are discussed in the article, please refer to them with names rather than initials.

Use pseudonyms unless there is some reason to use actual names and you have written permission to do so.

Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual . Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website .

Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.

Academic writing and English language editing services

Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors .

Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.

Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.

Submitting supplemental materials

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles ® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.

Abstract and keywords

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

Journal article

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review , 126 (1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012

Preferred formats for graphics files are TIFF and JPG, and preferred format for vector-based files is EPS. Graphics downloaded or saved from web pages are not acceptable for publication. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file. When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

• All color line art and halftones: 300 DPI
• Black and white line tone and gray halftone images: 600 DPI

Line weights

• Color (RGB, CMYK) images: 2 pixels
• Grayscale images: 4 pixels
• Stroke weight: 0.5 points

APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.

The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., “the red (dark gray) bars represent”) as needed.

For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:

• $900 for one figure
• An additional $600 for the second figure
• An additional $450 for each subsequent figure

Permissions

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).

On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.

• Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 13KB)

Publication policies

For full details on publication policies, including use of Artificial Intelligence tools, please see APA Publishing Policies .

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

See also APA Journals ® Internet Posting Guidelines .

APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).

• Download Full Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 41KB)

Ethical Principles

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).

In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14). This said, the sharing of qualitative data may violate other ethical standards held dear by psychologists, such as protecting confidentiality or our responsibility to protecting the decisions of participants in deciding with whom they would like to share their data. For instance, participants may decide deliberately to share data with an investigator who is anti-racist or LGBTQ+ affirming and this should not be taken to imply that they wish to share their data with any researchers who they have not vetted.

Also, sharing data may not advance either scientific or verification purposes with qualitative data. The act of de-identifying data can remove contextual factors that are critical for the interpretation of findings and lead them not to be interpretable. Many qualitative methods use epistemological approaches that recognize that the methodological expertise, engagement with participants, and content knowledge of the investigator is critical for interpretation. For these reasons, it may not be reasonable to expect a researcher to undergo the extensive process of de-identifying data in order to share them with another competent researcher outside of the study team.

In contrast, qualitative methods have other processes that can be used to verify findings. Manuscripts typically include many quotations from text or other data sources and illustrate the process of analysis for each of the main findings. In this way, the evaluation of rigor can be conducted directly from the manuscript being submitted by a competent qualitative researcher.

APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.

Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their participants, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment. Authors must also state that they have permission to use any interview material, voice or video samples obtained from their participants and have sufficiently disguised material to assure anonymity (unless they have written permission not to do so).

• Download Certification of Compliance With APA Ethical Principles Form (PDF, 26KB)

The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist , Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.

In the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , authors can find statements of cautions that indicate times when sharing data from qualitative projects may be both unethical and not useful in advancing science. Authors are encouraged to review these cautions to support them to make ethical decisions to share qualitative data.

Prior to the submission of a manuscript that is co-authored, all co-authors are expected to have agreed to have the manuscript submitted and to agree with the authorship order listed on the paper. It is the ethical responsibility of the first author to ensure this before submission.

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Heidi M. Levitt, PhD University of Massachusetts at Boston, United States

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Roberto Abreu, PhD University of Florida, United States

Leeat Granek, PhD York University, Canada

Elena Kim, PhD Bard College, NY, USA

Linda M. McMullen, PhD University of Saskatchewan, Canada

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Rosemarie Anderson, PhD Sofia University, United States

Molly Andrews, PhD          University of East London, United Kingdom

Michael Bamberg, PhD Clark University, United States

Sunil Bhatia, Med, PhD Connecticut College, United States

Virginia Braun, PhD The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Svend Brinkmann, PhD Aalborg University, Denmark

Nico A. Canoy, PhD Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines

Scott D. Churchill, PhD University of Dallas, United States

Joshua W. Clegg, PhD John Jay College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, United States

Nancy L. Deutsch, PhD University of Virginia, United States

William L. Dunlop, PhD University of California, Riverside, United States

Urmitapa Dutta, PhD University of Massachusetts Lowell, United States

Elizabeth Fein, PhD Dusquene University, United States

Michelle Fine, PhD The Graduate Center at City University of New York, United States

Daniel, Fishman, PhD Rutgers University, United States

Mark Freeman, PhD College of the Holy Cross, United States

Hanoch Flum, PhD Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

David Frost, PhD University College London, United Kingdom

Gilbert Garza, PhD University of Dallas, United States

Marco Gemignani, PhD Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Spain

Kenneth Gergen, PhD Swarthmore College, United States

Carol Gilligan, PhD New York University, United States

David M. Goodman, PhD Boston College, United States

Nisha Gupta, PhD University of West Georgia, United States

Phillip Hammack, PhD University of California, United States

Tova Hartman, EdD Ono Academic College, Israel

James Christopher Head, PhD University of West Georgia, United States

James Lamiell, PhD Georgetown University, United States

Amia Lieblich, PhD The Hebrew University, Israel

M. Brinton Lykes, MDiv, PhD Boston College, United States

Anna Madill, PhD University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Jeanne Marecek, PhD Swarthmore College, United States

Joe Maxwell, PhD George Mason University, United States

Sara McClelland, PhD University of Michigan, United States

Kate Carter McLean, PhD Western Washington University, United States

Sue L. Motulsky, MA, EdD, CAS Lesley University, United States

Ora Nakash, PhD Smith College School for Social Work, United States 

Chaim Noy, PhD Ashkelon Academic College, Israel

Susan Opotow, PhD John Jay College & The Graduate Center at City University of New York, United States

Lisa Osbeck, PhD University of West Georgia, United States

Jason D. Reynolds (Taewon Choi), PhD University of San Francisco, United States

Paul Rhodes, PhD University of Sydney, Australia

Brent Dean Robbins, PhD Point Park University, United States

Onnie Rogers, PhD, Northwestern University, United States

João Salgado, PhD University Institute of Maia, Portugal

Brian Schiff, PhD The American University of Paris, France

Eva Simms, PhD Duquesne University, United States

Ilana Singh, PhD University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Louise Bordeaux Silverstein, PhD Yeshiva University, United States

Richard Allan Shweder, PhD University of Chicago, United States

Jefferson A. Singer, PhD Connecticut College, United States

Brent D. Slife, PhD Brigham Young University, United States

Renee Spencer Boston University, United States

Jennie Park-Taylor, PhD Fordham University, United States

Cristian Tileaga, PhD Loughborough University, United Kingdom

Deborah L. Tolman, EdD Hunter College, United States

Erin E. Toolis, PhD State University of New York at Old Westbury, United States

Rivka Tuval Mashiach, PhD Bar Ilan University, Israel

Jaan Valsiner, PhD Aalborg University, Denmark

H. Shellae Versey, PhD Fordham University, United States

Tiffany R. Williams, PhD Tennessee State University, United States

Frederick J. Wertz, PhD Fordham University, United States

Cynthia Winston-Proctor, PhD Howard University, United States

Stanton Wortham, PhD Boston College, United States

Abstracting and indexing services providing coverage of Qualitative Psychology ®

Special issue of APA’s journal Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 2, June 2022. This summer’s special issue is a compendium of articles about qualitative methodology and methods. These articles, taken together, display the creativity in the evolution of qualitative research methodology.

Special issue of APA’s journal Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 2, June 2021. The special issue provides examples of how the Listening Guide has been used with a variety of questions and in a range of contexts; it highlights innovations in use of the method and underscores the radical potential in replacing judgment with curiosity.

Special issue of the APA journal Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 2, June 2019. The issue grapples with what is among the most important and intractable problems that have arisen in the study of narrative identity: How can we conceptualize stability and change in the life story?

Special issue of the APA journal Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 2, August 2018. The goal is to recognize ongoing achievements and to encourage the creation of new practices in the teaching of qualitative inquiry in undergraduate psychology programs.

Special issue of the APA journal Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 2, August 2017. Reflexivity is the art of taking the researcher's self as an object of scrutiny and examining how this self, with all its cognitive, emotional, and social parts, affects the research process.

Special issue of the APA journal Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 3, No. 1, February 2016. The issue highlights the theoretical and methodological contributions of positive youth development and how the field could be further deepened and revitalized by more purposeful inclusion of qualitative methods throughout its studies.

Journal equity, diversity, and inclusion statement

Qualitative Psychology supports equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in its practices. Since its inception, our journal has had a history of valuing critical, feminist, anti-racist, critical disability, anti-colonial, multicultural, queer, epistemically diverse, and participatory forms of qualitative research. These forms of research center the voices and experiences of under-represented and minoritized communities and individuals and further a socially just psychology. We welcome submissions to our journal from these perspectives, especially those that attend to the unique challenges and issues in conducting qualitative research from these stances and with disenfranchised people.

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Qualitative Research

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Qualitative Research  publishes papers with a clear methodological focus. We invite scholarship that has multi-disciplinary appeal, that debates and enlivens qualitative methods, and that pushes at the boundaries of established ways of doing qualitative research. We are interested in papers that are attentive to a wide audience, that are alive to new and diverse ways of thinking about qualitative methods, and that contribute to discussions within the pages of this journal. These discussions can be brought to life through empirical studies and research encounters, but we do not accept papers that focus on reporting the findings from qualitative research studies.

We see our journal as contributing to the community of academics across different fields who use qualitative methods as a way of making sense of the world. We understand methods and methodology as a practice and as a perspective, and welcome contributions that reflect on and critically engage with both aspects.  Qualitative Research is a space where ideas and understandings are used to open up methodological issues for reflection and debate, and we work hard to provide a supportive environment to foster this ethos.

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Qualitative Sociology

The journal Qualitative Sociology is dedicated to the qualitative interpretation and analysis of social life. The journal offers both theoretical and analytical research, and publishes manuscripts based on research methods such as interviewing, participant observation, ethnography, historical analysis, content analysis and others which do not rely primarily on numerical data. All papers are reviewed.

This is a transformative journal , you may have access to funding.

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Volume 47, Issue 3

Qualitative Studies of the Environment

Latest articles

Environmental sociology is running late: catching up in a faltering world.

• Harvey Molotch

The Moral Work of Participation: Disillusio , Expertise, and Urban Planning Under Neoliberalism

• Hillary Angelo
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Ad Hoc Adaptations to Climate Change in Coastal Communities

• Brianna Castro

Environmental Authenticity: Constructing Nature in Postindustrial Parks

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Everyday Oblivion in Eco-Civilized China

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About the Journal

American Journal of Qualitative Research (AJQR)   is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes qualitative research articles from a number of social science disciplines, such as health science, psychology, sociology, criminology, education, political science, and administrative studies. The journal is an international and interdisciplinary focus and greatly welcomes papers from all countries. The journal offers an intellectual platform where researchers, practitioners, administrators, and policy-makers can contribute and promote qualitative research and analysis.

Aim and Scope

The American Journal of Qualitative Research (AJQR) is a free,  peer-reviewed interdisciplinary open-access journal for scholars of qualitative research and publishes under the Center for Ethnic and Cultural Studies in Fort Myers, Florida, United States. The journal was established in 2017 as an eclectic and international forum for papers reporting original methodological insights and publishes papers with a clear methodological focus and funded-project proposals using qualitative useful to the global research community. AJQR invites scholarship with a multi-disciplinary appeal that debates and enlivens qualitative methods and pushes the boundaries of established ways of doing qualitative research. AJQR is interested in papers that are attentive to a wide audience and open to new and diverse ways of thinking about qualitative methods. 

Publication Frequency & DOI

American Journal of Qualitative Research (AJQR) is published every February, May, August, and November.  In addition to the special issues, which may be various numbers for each year.

AJQR assigns a  Digital Object Identifier (DOI)  to each published article. DOI is a unique access number that enables the identification and accessibility of each article published electronically. It is mandatory that each article published in AJQR or in the early release is assigned a DOI number.

Global or Self Plagiarism

Authors cannot use other researchers’ opinions or thoughts as their own. Similarly, authors cannot use thoughts, opinions, and parts of research from their own previous work without citing them properly. All manuscripts must be free from plagiarism contents. All authors are suggested to use plagiarism detection software to do the similarity checking. Editors check the plagiarism detection of articles in this journal by using Turnitin and/or Grammarly software.

After acceptance, the manuscripts are checked for plagiarism and bibliography and ready for publication and are given a DOI number by the Editorial Board.

Ethics Committee Approval

• All manuscripts that use data collected from human participants should submit the ethics committee approval form. These include research studies that require data collection by means of scale, questionnaire, interview, or observation.
• The researchers should acknowledge that ethical principles are taken into consideration during the data collection and analysis processes such as obtaining the volunteer informed / consent form in the article.

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal

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For queries relating to the status of your paper pre decision, please contact the Editor or Journal Editorial Office. For queries post acceptance, please contact the Supplier Project Manager. These details can be found in the Editorial Team section.

Author responsibilities

Our goal is to provide you with a professional and courteous experience at each stage of the review and publication process. There are also some responsibilities that sit with you as the author. Our expectation is that you will:

• Respond swiftly to any queries during the publication process.
• Be accountable for all aspects of your work. This includes investigating and resolving any questions about accuracy or research integrity .
• Treat communications between you and the journal editor as confidential until an editorial decision has been made.
• Include anyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submission (anyone else involved in the paper should be listed in the acknowledgements).
• Exclude anyone who hasn’t contributed to the paper, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.
• In accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools , Large Language Models cannot be credited with authorship as they are incapable of conceptualising a research design without human direction and cannot be accountable for the integrity, originality, and validity of the published work. The author(s) must describe the content created or modified as well as appropriately cite the name and version of the AI tool used; any additional works drawn on by the AI tool should also be appropriately cited and referenced. Standard tools that are used to improve spelling and grammar are not included within the parameters of this guidance. The Editor and Publisher reserve the right to determine whether the use of an AI tool is permissible.
• If your article involves human participants, you must ensure you have considered whether or not you require ethical approval for your research, and include this information as part of your submission. Find out more about informed consent .

Generative AI usage key principles

• Copywriting any part of an article using a generative AI tool/LLM would not be permissible, including the generation of the abstract or the literature review, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.
• The generation or reporting of results using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the creation and interpretation of their work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.
• The in-text reporting of statistics using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible due to concerns over the authenticity, integrity, and validity of the data produced, although the use of such a tool to aid in the analysis of the work would be permissible.
• Copy-editing an article using a generative AI tool/LLM in order to improve its language and readability would be permissible as this mirrors standard tools already employed to improve spelling and grammar, and uses existing author-created material, rather than generating wholly new content, while the author(s) remains responsible for the original work.
• The submission and publication of images created by AI tools or large-scale generative models is not permitted.

Research and publishing ethics

Our editors and employees work hard to ensure the content we publish is ethically sound. To help us achieve that goal, we closely follow the advice laid out in the guidelines and flowcharts on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) website .

We have also developed our research and publishing ethics guidelines . If you haven’t already read these, we urge you to do so – they will help you avoid the most common publishing ethics issues.

A few key points:

• Any manuscript you submit to this journal should be original. That means it should not have been published before in its current, or similar, form. Exceptions to this rule are outlined in our pre-print and conference paper policies .  If any substantial element of your paper has been previously published, you need to declare this to the journal editor upon submission. Please note, the journal editor may use  Crossref Similarity Check  to check on the originality of submissions received. This service compares submissions against a database of 49 million works from 800 scholarly publishers.
• Your work should not have been submitted elsewhere and should not be under consideration by any other publication.
• If you have a conflict of interest, you must declare it upon submission; this allows the editor to decide how they would like to proceed. Read about conflict of interest in our research and publishing ethics guidelines .
• By submitting your work to Emerald, you are guaranteeing that the work is not in infringement of any existing copyright.
• If you have written about a company/individual/organisation in detail using information that is not publicly available, have spent time within that company/organisation, or the work features named/interviewed employees, you will need to clear permission by using the  consent to publish form ; please also see our permissions guidance for full details. If you have to clear permission with the company/individual/organisation, consent must be given either by the named individual in question or their representative, a board member of the company/organisation, or a HR department representative of the company/organisation.
• You have an ethical obligation and responsibility to conduct your research in adherence to national and international research ethics guidelines, as well as the ethical principles outlined by your discipline and any relevant authorities, and to be transparent about your research methods in such a way that all involved in the publication process may fairly and appropriately evaluate your work. For all research involving human participants, you must ensure that you have obtained informed consent, meaning that you must inform all participants in your work (or their legal representative) as to why the research is being conducted, whether their anonymity is protected, how their data will be stored and used, and whether there are any associated risks from participation in the study; the submitted work must confirm that informed consent was obtained and detail how this was addressed in accordance with our policy on informed consent .  
• Where appropriate, you must provide an ethical statement within the submitted work confirming that your research received institutional and national (or international) ethical approval, and that it complies with all relevant guidelines and regulations for studies involving humans, whether that be data, individuals, or samples. Specifically, the statement should contain the name and location of the institutional ethics reviewing committee or review board, the approval number, the date of approval, and the details of the national or international guidelines that were followed, as well as any other relevant information. You should also include details of how the work adheres to relevant consent guidelines along with confirming that informed consent was secured for all participants. The details of these statements should ensure that author and participant anonymity is not compromised. Any work submitted without a suitable ethical statement and details of informed consent for all participants, where required, will be returned to the authors and will not be considered further until appropriate and clear documentation is provided. Emerald reserves the right to reject work without sufficient evidence of informed consent from human participants and ethical approval where required.

Third party copyright permissions

Prior to article submission, you need to ensure you’ve applied for, and received, written permission to use any material in your manuscript that has been created by a third party. Please note, we are unable to publish any article that still has permissions pending. The rights we require are:

• Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the article or book chapter.
• Print and electronic rights.
• Worldwide English-language rights.
• To use the material for the life of the work. That means there should be no time restrictions on its re-use e.g. a one-year licence.

We are a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) and participate in the STM permissions guidelines , a reciprocal free exchange of material with other STM publishers.  In some cases, this may mean that you don’t need permission to re-use content. If so, please highlight this at the submission stage.

Please take a few moments to read our guide to publishing permissions  to ensure you have met all the requirements, so that we can process your submission without delay.

Open access submissions and information

All our journals currently offer two open access (OA) publishing paths; gold open access and green open access.

If you would like to, or are required to, make the branded publisher PDF (also known as the version of record) freely available immediately upon publication, you can select the gold open access route once your paper is accepted. 

If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the APC (article processing charge) . This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence , which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

Alternatively, if you would like to, or are required to, publish open access but your funding doesn’t cover the cost of the APC, you can choose the green open access, or self-archiving, route. As soon as your article is published, you can make the author accepted manuscript (the version accepted for publication) openly available, free from payment and embargo periods.

You can find out more about our open access routes, our APCs and waivers and read our FAQs on our open research page. 

Find out about open

Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines

We are a signatory of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines , a framework that supports the reproducibility of research through the adoption of transparent research practices. That means we encourage you to:

• Cite and fully reference all data, program code, and other methods in your article.
• Include persistent identifiers, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), in references for datasets and program codes. Persistent identifiers ensure future access to unique published digital objects, such as a piece of text or datasets. Persistent identifiers are assigned to datasets by digital archives, such as institutional repositories and partners in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS).
• Follow appropriate international and national procedures with respect to data protection, rights to privacy and other ethical considerations, whenever you cite data. For further guidance please refer to our  research and publishing ethics guidelines . For an example on how to cite datasets, please refer to the references section below.

Prepare your submission

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We are pleased to partner with Editage, a platform that connects you with relevant experts in language support, translation, editing, visuals, consulting, and more. After you’ve agreed a fee, they will work with you to enhance your manuscript and get it submission-ready.

This is an optional service for authors who feel they need a little extra support. It does not guarantee your work will be accepted for review or publication.

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Manuscript requirements

Before you submit your manuscript, it’s important you read and follow the guidelines below. You will also find some useful tips in our structure your journal submission how-to guide.

Submit your manuscript

There are a number of key steps you should follow to ensure a smooth and trouble-free submission.

Double check your manuscript

Before submitting your work, it is your responsibility to check that the manuscript is complete, grammatically correct, and without spelling or typographical errors. A few other important points:

• Give the journal aims and scope a final read. Is your manuscript definitely a good fit? If it isn’t, the editor may decline it without peer review.
• Does your manuscript comply with our research and publishing ethics guidelines ?
• Have you cleared any necessary publishing permissions ?
• Have you followed all the formatting requirements laid out in these author guidelines?
• If you need to refer to your own work, use wording such as ‘previous research has demonstrated’ not ‘our previous research has demonstrated’.
• If you need to refer to your own, currently unpublished work, don’t include this work in the reference list.
• Any acknowledgments or author biographies should be uploaded as separate files.
• Carry out a final check to ensure that no author names appear anywhere in the manuscript. This includes in figures or captions.

You will find a helpful submission checklist on the website Think.Check.Submit .

The submission process

All manuscripts should be submitted through our editorial system by the corresponding author.

The only way to submit to the journal is through the journal’s ScholarOne site as accessed via the Emerald website, and not by email or through any third-party agent/company, journal representative, or website. Submissions should be done directly by the author(s) through the ScholarOne site and not via a third-party proxy on their behalf.

A separate author account is required for each journal you submit to. If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please choose the Create an account or Register now option in the editorial system. If you already have an Emerald login, you are welcome to reuse the existing username and password here.

Please note, the next time you log into the system, you will be asked for your username. This will be the email address you entered when you set up your account.

Don't forget to add your  ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article, along with a link to the ORCiD registry allowing others to easily match you with your work.

Don’t have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier .

Visit the ScholarOne support centre  for further help and guidance.

What you can expect next

You will receive an automated email from the journal editor, confirming your successful submission. It will provide you with a manuscript number, which will be used in all future correspondence about your submission. If you have any reason to suspect the confirmation email you receive might be fraudulent, please contact the journal editor in the first instance.

Post submission

Review and decision process.

Each submission is checked by the editor. At this stage, they may choose to decline or unsubmit your manuscript if it doesn’t fit the journal aims and scope, or they feel the language/manuscript quality is too low.

If they think it might be suitable for the publication, they will send it to at least two independent referees for double anonymous peer review.  Once these reviewers have provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.

This journal offers an article transfer service. If the editor decides to decline your manuscript, either before or after peer review, they may offer to transfer it to a more relevant Emerald journal in this field. If you accept, your ScholarOne author account, and the accounts of your co-authors, will automatically transfer to the new journal, along with your manuscript and any accompanying peer review reports. However, you will still need to log in to ScholarOne to complete the submission process using your existing username and password. While accepting a transfer does not guarantee the receiving journal will publish your work, an editor will only suggest a transfer if they feel your article is a good fit with the new title.

While all journals work to different timescales, the goal is that the editor will inform you of their first decision within 60 days.

During this period, we will send you automated updates on the progress of your manuscript via our submission system, or you can log in to check on the current status of your paper.  Each time we contact you, we will quote the manuscript number you were given at the point of submission. If you receive an email that does not match these criteria, it could be fraudulent and we recommend you contact the journal editor in the first instance.

Manuscript transfer service

Emerald’s manuscript transfer service takes the pain out of the submission process if your manuscript doesn’t fit your initial journal choice. Our team of expert Editors from participating journals work together to identify alternative journals that better align with your research, ensuring your work finds the ideal publication home it deserves. Our dedicated team is committed to supporting authors like you in finding the right home for your research.

If a journal is participating in the manuscript transfer program, the Editor has the option to recommend your paper for transfer. If a transfer decision is made by the Editor, you will receive an email with the details of the recommended journal and the option to accept or reject the transfer. It’s always down to you as the author to decide if you’d like to accept. If you do accept, your paper and any reviewer reports will automatically be transferred to the recommended journals. Authors will then confirm resubmissions in the new journal’s ScholarOne system.

Our Manuscript Transfer Service page has more information on the process.

If your submission is accepted

Open access.

Once your paper is accepted, you will have the opportunity to indicate whether you would like to publish your paper via the gold open access route.

If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the APC (article processing charge).  This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence , which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

For UK journal article authors - if you wish to submit your work accepted by Emerald to REF 2021, you must make a ‘closed deposit’ of your accepted manuscript to your respective institutional repository upon acceptance of your article. Articles accepted for publication after 1st April 2018 should be deposited as soon as possible, but no later than three months after the acceptance date. For further information and guidance, please refer to the REF 2021 website.

All accepted authors are sent an email with a link to a licence form.  This should be checked for accuracy, for example whether contact and affiliation details are up to date and your name is spelled correctly, and then returned to us electronically. If there is a reason why you can’t assign copyright to us, you should discuss this with your journal content editor. You will find their contact details on the editorial team section above.

Proofing and typesetting

Once we have received your completed licence form, the article will pass directly into the production process. We will carry out editorial checks, copyediting, and typesetting and then return proofs to you (if you are the corresponding author) for your review. This is your opportunity to correct any typographical errors, grammatical errors or incorrect author details. We can’t accept requests to rewrite texts at this stage.

When the page proofs are finalised, the fully typeset and proofed version of record is published online. This is referred to as the EarlyCite version. While an EarlyCite article has yet to be assigned to a volume or issue, it does have a digital object identifier (DOI) and is fully citable. It will be compiled into an issue according to the journal’s issue schedule, with papers being added by chronological date of publication.

How to share your paper

Visit our author rights page  to find out how you can reuse and share your work.

To find tips on increasing the visibility of your published paper, read about  how to promote your work .

Correcting inaccuracies in your published paper

Sometimes errors are made during the research, writing and publishing processes. When these issues arise, we have the option of withdrawing the paper or introducing a correction notice. Find out more about our  article withdrawal and correction policies .

Need to make a change to the author list? See our frequently asked questions (FAQs) below.

Frequently asked questions

• Dr. Richard Longman Open University - UK [email protected]
• Dr Paulina Segarra Universidad Anáhuac México - Mexico [email protected]

Editor Emeritae

• Professor Catherine Cassell University of Birmingham - UK
• Professor Albert Mills Saint Mary's University - Canada
• Professor Jean Helms Mills Saint Mary's University - Canada
• Professor Gillian Symon Royal Holloway, University of London - UK

Social Media Editor

• Dr. Nicholous Deal Mount Saint Vincent University - Canada

Associate Editor

• Professor Caio César Coelho Rodrigues FGV/EAESP - Brazil
• Dr Sadhvi Dar Queen Mary University of London - UK
• Prof. Vijayta Doshi (Special issues) Indian Institute of Management Udaipur - India
• Dr Dimitria Groutsis The University of Sydney - Australia
• Dr Christopher Hartt Dalhousie University - Canada
• Professor Jacky Hong University of Macau, China
• Dr David Jacobs Morgan State University - USA
• Dr. Ana Lopes Newcastle University - UK
• Dr Jamie McDonald University of Texas at San Antonio - USA
• Dr Charlotta Niemisto Åbo Akademi University - Finland
• Jussara Jéssica Pereira Getulio Vargas Foundation, São Paulo, Brazil
• Dr Amanda Peticca-Harris Grenoble Ecole de Management - France
• Professor Henriett Primecz Corvinus University of Budapest - Hungary
• Dr. Jenny Rodriguez University of Manchester - UK
• Dr. Stefanie Ruel Open University - UK
• Dr Fernanda Sauerbronn Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
• Dr. Stephanie Schreven University of Dundee - UK
• Dr Beata Segercrantz University of Helsinki - Finland
• Dr Nidhi Srinivas The New School - USA
• Dr Peter Svensson Lund University - Sweden
• Dr Amy Thurlow Mount Saint Vincent University - Canada
• Dr Cristian E. Villanueva Universidad Anahuac - Mexico
• Dr Laura Visser Monash University - Australia
• Emma Ferguson Emerald Publishing - UK [email protected]

Journal Editorial Office (For queries related to pre-acceptance)

• Prashant Bangera Emerald Publishing [email protected]

Supplier Project Manager (For queries related to post-acceptance)

• Suryalakshmi Balakrishnan Emerald Publishing [email protected]

Editorial Advisory Board

• Professor Iiris Aaltio Jyvaskyla University - Finland
• Professor Paul Adler University of Southern California - USA
• Dr Susan Ainsworth The University of Melbourne - Australia
• Professor Karen Ashcraft University of Colorado Boulder - USA
• Professor Howard S Becker San Francisco - USA
• Professor David Boje New Mexico State University - USA
• Professor Anne de Bruin University of Auckland - New Zealand
• Professor Marta Calas University of Massachusetts Amherst - USA
• Professor Ann Cunliffe University of Bradford - UK
• Dr Ardha Danieli University of Warwick - UK
• Professor Joanne Duberley University of Birmingham - UK
• Dr Gabrielle Durepos Mount Saint Vincent University - Canada
• Professor Alex Faria FGV University - Brazil
• Professor Martha Feldman University of California, Irvine - USA
• Professor David Fryer The University of Queensland - Australia
• Professor Silvia Gherardi University of Trento - Italy
• Professor Jeff Hearn Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration - Finland
• Professor Christopher Humphrey University of Manchester - UK
• Professor Liisa Husu Orebro University - Sweden
• Professor Paula Hyde Manchester Business School - UK
• Dr. Eduardo Infante Universidad de Sevilla - Spain
• Dr Marjut Jyrkinen University of Helsinki - Finland
• Professor Sten Jönsson Göteborg University - Sweden
• Professor Nigel King University of Huddersfield - UK
• Professor Stephen Andrew Linstead University of York - UK
• Professor John van Maanen MIT Sloan School of Management - USA
• Professor Antonio Mutti University of Pavia - Italy
• Professor Michael Myers University of Auckland Business School - New Zealand
• Professor Stella M. Nkomo University of Pretoria - South Africa
• Professor Brendan O'Dwyer University of Manchester, UK and Amsterdam University - Netherlands
• Professor Pushkala Prasad Skidmore College, USA - USA
• Professor Katrina Pritchard Swansea University - UK
• Dr Asta Pundziene Kaunas University of Technology - Lithuania
• Professor John Rodwell Swinburne University of Technology - Australia
• Professor Barbara Simpson University of Strathclyde - UK
• Professor Linda Smircich University of Massachusetts Amherst - USA
• Professor Chris Steyaert University of St Gallen - Switzerland
• Professor Roy Suddaby University of Victoria - Canada
• Professor Richard Thorpe University of Leeds - UK
• Professor Juhani Vaivio Aalto University School of Economics - Finland
• Professor M Vickers University of Western Sydney - Australia

Citation metrics

CiteScore 2023

Further information

CiteScore is a simple way of measuring the citation impact of sources, such as journals.

Calculating the CiteScore is based on the number of citations to documents (articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters, and data papers) by a journal over four years, divided by the number of the same document types indexed in Scopus and published in those same four years.

For more information and methodology visit the Scopus definition

CiteScore Tracker 2024

(updated monthly)

CiteScore Tracker is calculated in the same way as CiteScore, but for the current year rather than previous, complete years.

The CiteScore Tracker calculation is updated every month, as a current indication of a title's performance.

2023 Impact Factor

The Journal Impact Factor is published each year by Clarivate Analytics. It is a measure of the number of times an average paper in a particular journal is cited during the preceding two years.

For more information and methodology see Clarivate Analytics

5-year Impact Factor (2023)

A base of five years may be more appropriate for journals in certain fields because the body of citations may not be large enough to make reasonable comparisons, or it may take longer than two years to publish and distribute leading to a longer period before others cite the work.

Actual value is intentionally only displayed for the most recent year. Earlier values are available in the Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate Analytics .

Publication timeline

Time to first decision

Time to first decision , expressed in days, the "first decision" occurs when the journal’s editorial team reviews the peer reviewers’ comments and recommendations. Based on this feedback, they decide whether to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript.

Data is taken from submissions between 1st June 2023 and 31st May 2024

Acceptance to publication

Acceptance to publication , expressed in days, is the average time between when the journal’s editorial team decide whether to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript and the date of publication in the journal. 

Data is taken from the previous 12 months (Last updated July 2024)

Acceptance rate

The acceptance rate is a measurement of how many manuscripts a journal accepts for publication compared to the total number of manuscripts submitted expressed as a percentage %

Data is taken from submissions between 1st June 2023 and 31st May 2024 .

This figure is the total amount of downloads for all articles published early cite in the last 12 months

(Last updated: July 2024)

This journal is abstracted and indexed by

• Business Source Alumni Edition
• Complete/Corporate Plus/Elite/Premier (EBSCO)
• Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Management & Marketing
• Emerging Sources Citation Index ESCI (Clarivate Analytics)
• OCLC's Electronic Collections Online,
• ReadCube Discovery

This journal is ranked by

• Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Quality Journal List
• Australian Research Council (ERA Journal List)
• BFI (Denmark)
• NSD (Norway)
• Polish Scholarly Bibliography (PBN)
• The Publication Forum (Finland)

Reviewer information

Peer review process.

This journal engages in a double-anonymous peer review process, which strives to match the expertise of a reviewer with the submitted manuscript. Reviews are completed with evidence of thoughtful engagement with the manuscript, provide constructive feedback, and add value to the overall knowledge and information presented in the manuscript.

The mission of the peer review process is to achieve excellence and rigour in scholarly publications and research.

Our vision is to give voice to professionals in the subject area who contribute unique and diverse scholarly perspectives to the field.

The journal values diverse perspectives from the field and reviewers who provide critical, constructive, and respectful feedback to authors. Reviewers come from a variety of organizations, careers, and backgrounds from around the world.

All invitations to review, abstracts, manuscripts, and reviews should be kept confidential. Reviewers must not share their review or information about the review process with anyone without the agreement of the editors and authors involved, even after publication. This also applies to other reviewers’ “comments to author” which are shared with you on decision.

Resources to guide you through the review process

Discover practical tips and guidance on all aspects of peer review in our reviewers' section. See how being a reviewer could benefit your career, and discover what's involved in shaping a review.

More reviewer information

Calls for papers

Methodological frontiers for intersectional theorizing: advancing qualitative approaches for research in labour and organizations.

Submit your paper here! Introduction This Special Issue is interested in showcasing the innovative possibilities offered by feminist and intersec...

QROM Gender and Diversity Paper Collection

QROM presents another group of freely available published papers, covering the topics of gender and diversity in qualitative research. You can access the below papers for free until the end of November 2023. We encourage all authors in this field ...

QROM Workplace Bullying Paper Collection

We are pleased to share our second group of freely available published papers, covering the topic of workplace bullying. This is an important topic, and QROM encourages authors in this field to submit their papers to the journal. ...

QROM Classic Paper Collection

Introducing an exciting new feature of the journal Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management (QROM). Over the next few months, we plan to make groups of published papers freely available, in categories such as 'Classic...

Thank you to the 2022 Reviewers of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2022 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...

QROM Co-Editor Awarded Honorary Doctorate

The QROM team are delighted to announce that one of our Co-Editors, Professor Jean Helms Mills, has recently been rewarded an honorary doctorate by The University of Jyväskylä. The faculties of the University award honorary doctorates to persons w...

Thank you to the 2021 Reviewers of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2021 reviewers for this journal. We are very gratefu...

Thank you to the 2019 Reviewers for Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management (QROM)

The academic process as we know it could not exist without the service you provide. We are grateful for your continued support of the journal: Galit Ailon Mirian Assumpcao Lima Marcos Barros Dharmaraju Bathini ...

Thank You to the Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management Reviewers of 2018

Chahrazad Abdallah Ruth Abrams Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren Raj Agnihotri Gazi Alam Fahreen Alamgir Rafael Alcadipani Christopher Alcantara Hanan Alhaddi Stephen Allen Lindsey And...

Literati awards

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management - Literati Award Winners 2023

We are pleased to announce our 2023 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Papers Conforming to and resisting imposed id...

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal  - Literati Award Winners 2022 

We are pleased to announce our 2022 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper “Practicing care in qualitati...

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management - Literati Award Winners 2021

We are pleased to announce our 2021 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Indigenous knowledges, priorities and process...

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management is an international journal committed to encouraging and publishing critical qualitative work from researchers and practitioners within the management and organizational field throughout the world.

Aims and scope

The journal seeks to provide a forum for qualitative researchers through which they can share their work with others and,  in particular , discuss issues of research practice pertinent to qualitative approaches.

We are looking for articles that don’t just arrive at useful findings based on qualitative methods but which:

• provide an “in-depth” study of the processes involved (e.g., what activities/ interrelationships can be identified in arriving at a particular conclusion?)
• discuss/reflect on issues of research practice (i.e., what we can learn from applying selected qualitative methods);
• are critical (i.e., broadly concerned with understanding the impact of managing and organizing on human experience and life chances);
• are focussed on subjective experience (i.e., provides in-depth understanding of what people feel about the processes involved); 
• are context oriented (e.g., provides understanding of the context in which the study is conducted and the potential influence on the people under study);
• provides an in-depth account of key aspects of the (qualitative) research applied and the challenges involved (e.g., what methods were used, how/why were they used, and what lessons are to be learned from adopting a particular research strategy)

Unique attributes  

QROM  is the only journal that focuses exclusively on excellence in qualitative research across the management and organizational discipline. The journal encourages research which is critical, focused on subjective experience and context-oriented. Any topic relevant to organization and management studies is suitable. 

To encourage reflexive practice and the dissemination of critical skills in the field, the journal includes a section entitled Insider Accounts, where authors can give a frank and in-depth account of some aspect of their (qualitative) research practice. Book Reviews of relevant texts are also published under the auspices of the Book Review Editor.

Research stemming from qualitative techniques covers a spectrum of methods and can be located within a wide range of epistemological perspectives. Many of these techniques are not well known or utilized by researchers in the management and organizational studies arena despite the potentially unique perspectives they provide on important and contemporary management research issues. We encourage submissions from all epistemological perspectives that are broadly critical. 

Key benefits

QROM  is essential reading for both academics wanting an overview of the current state of the art of qualitative methods in management and organizational research and for practitioners seeking knowledge of excellent examples of applied qualitative empirical work.  QROM :

• Is the only journal that focuses exclusively on excellence in qualitative research across the management and organizational discipline
• Provides an outlet for high quality qualitative research
• Demonstrates the significant impact that outputs of qualitative research can have on everyday managerial practice
• Highlights the diverse range of subject areas to which qualitative research can contribute

Latest articles

These are the latest articles published in this journal (Last updated: July 2024 )

Understanding youth empowerment: a youth participatory action research approach

"€œdifficulty mentioning the m word"€: perceptions of a woman disclosing negative menopause symptoms in the workplace, past is prologue: from human relations to social exchange theory, top downloaded articles.

These are the most downloaded articles over the last 12 months for this journal (Last updated: July 2024 )

Reclaiming space in family histories: Impressionistic memory work as a feminist approach to historiography and storytelling

Examining theories, mediators, and moderators in financial well-being literature: a systematic review and future research agenda, revealing white supremacy culture in an organization that supports queer and trans youth.

These are the top cited articles for this journal, from the last 12 months according to Crossref (Last updated: July 2024 )

A thorn by any other name: The acceptability of terminology for subtle slights in UK workplaces

This title is aligned with our responsible management goal

We aim to champion researchers, practitioners, policymakers and organisations who share our goals of contributing to a more ethical, responsible and sustainable way of working.

Related journals

This journal is part of our HR, learning & organisation studies collection. Explore our HR, learning & organisation studies subject area to find out more.  

See all related journals

Journal of Organizational Ethnography

Journal of Organizational Ethnography is the only journal that is specifically dedicated to the theme of organizational...

International Journal of Organizational Analysis

The aim of the International Journal of Organizational Analysis is to provide a robust and discursive forum for the...

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior focuses on the presentation, development, discussion, and...

• UNC Libraries
• HSL Subject Research
• Qualitative Research Resources

Publishing Qualitative Research

Qualitative research resources: publishing qualitative research, created by health science librarians.

• What is Qualitative Research?
• Qualitative Research Basics
• Special Topics
• Training Opportunities: UNC & Beyond
• Help at UNC
• Qualitative Software for Coding/Analysis
• Software for Audio, Video, Online Surveys
• Finding Qualitative Studies
• Assessing Qualitative Research
• Writing Up Your Research
• Integrating Qualitative Research into Systematic Reviews

About this Page

Journal selection considerations, evaluating journal quality, additional resources for publishing qualitative, journals dedicated to qualitative health research, selected health journals publishing qualitative research, publishing autoethnography, additional ideas for selecting a journal, additional thoughts from successful authors and from journal editors.

• Presenting Qualitative Research
• Qualitative & Libraries: a few gems
• Data Repositories

With appreciation

Thanks to ResearchTalk Scholars, including Kathy Charmaz, Alison Hamilton, Ray Maietta, George Noblit, Rashawn Ray, Johnny Saldaña, and Margarete Sandelowski for their many tips over the years. 

Why is this information important?

As a qualitative health science researcher, it can be challenging to know where to submit your work for publication.

• Although acceptance of qualitative research is growing in the health science fields, some  familiar high-impact scientific journals may be less likely to publish it.
• Other high-impact journals that focus exclusively on qualitative research may be less familiar to health science researchers.

On this page you'll find:

• basic advice for finding journals to submit to
• tools to help you identify high quality journals in your field
• a selection of journals that specialize in qualitative health research
• a list of medical and health journals that have a good track record of publishing qualitative research. 

Where you publish can be as important as what you publish. 

Consider the following when selecting a journal to which to submit your article:

• Relevance : The journal should publish research that is relevant to your work, the type of article that you want to publish, and reach the audience that you want to read your work.  For interdisciplinary research, finding a relevant journal may mean looking beyond the journals in your field.
• Discoverability : The journal should be indexed by major citation and abstract databases, such as PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus.
• Quality : Where does the journal ranked according to impact factor and other measures of journal quality?  Who is on the editorial board of the journal?
• Public Access : Does your article need to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy ? 
• Open Access : Do you wish to publish in an open access journal, which will make the full text of your work freely available online at the time of publication? 

Check out the boxes below for resources on finding a journal and evaluating journal quality.

You want to submit your work to journals that are of high quality. That usually means that:

• The journal is relatively highly ranked on Impact Factor, Eigenfactor, or SCImago ranking
• The people on the editorial board of the journal are reputable within their fields.
• If the journal is Open Access, it is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.

Here are some tools to help you evaluate the quality of particular journals.

• Measure Your Research Impact: This UNC guide explains the different ways that impact is measured for both academic authors and articles, and offers tips on how to find impact information on individual journals.
• Google Scholar's Top Publications List: Google Scholar provides lists of the top journals in various disciplines, ranked by the h-index measurement of impact.
• Scopus A large citation and abstracting database providing comprehensive coverage of the peer-reviewed journal and conference literature, with links to full-text where available through the library; includes scientific, technical, medical, social science and arts and humanities disciplines and indexes over 20,500 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers including over 340 book series. Like Web of Science, Scopus allows researchers to perform citation searches to see how many times a work has been cited, by whom, and to rank searches by times cited, for the period 1996 -present, as well as its curated index of over 375 scientific web pages and over 24 million patents
• Directory of Open Access Journals Database of open access scientific and scholarly journals. Search for a specific journal title or browse by subject.
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association: This link will take you to a list of this organization's members. Many Open Access journals are new; checking to see that they are OASPA members is a good way to make sure they are legitimate and high quality.
• Journal Author/Name Estimator (JANE): JANE offers a combination of journal discovery and impact factor information. You can paste your abstract into the interface or search by keyword in order to get a list of journals that have published similar research, similar articles they have published, and the journal's impact factors.
• Ulrichs Web Online Ulrich's Periodicals Directory is a bibliographic database providing detailed, comprehensive, and authoritative information on serials published throughout the world. It covers all subjects and includes publications that are published regularly or irregularly and are circulated free of charge or by paid subscription. ULRICHSWEB.com is updated weekly and contains search and browse indexes--such as language and frequency--that are not found in the print version. In addition ULRICHSWEB.com links users to related serials for alternate titles and alternate media formats and contains tens of thousands of URLs and e-mail addresses for links to journals and publishers. ULRICHSWEB.com gives users access to serials information beyond the title level, with links to tables of contents, article abstracts, journal full-text, and document delivery. Note: Users will need to register for a free individual account to take advantage of the full functionality of this resource.
• PubMedReminer: This tool is similar to JANE, but only for journals and publications that are indexed in PubMed. It also allows you to find the research interests of a particular author, or look for the top authors within a particular health science discipline. 
• ThinkCheckSubmit: Choose the Right Journal for Your Research Check list to help you choose trusted journals for publishing your research.
• UNC HSL Open Access and Scholarly Communications LibGuide Information about open access publishing, open access journals, finding author support, preparing to publish, and more.
• UNC HSL Choosing Where to Publish LibGuide Information about predatory journals, open access publishing, and finding reputable journals.

Under Construction.  See, also, Writing Up Your Research tab on this guide.

• Sidhu, K., Jones, R., & Stevenson, F. (2017). Publishing qualitative research in medical journals. The British Journal of General Practice, 67(658), 229–230. http://doi.org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.3399/bjgp17X690821. PMID: 28450340
• Richardson, J., & Liddle, J. (2017). Where does good quality qualitative health care research get published? Primary Health Care Research & Development, 18(5), 515-521. doi:10.1017/S1463423617000251. PMID: 28478777
• Global Qualitative Nursing Research
• Qualitative Health Research
• Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health

This is just a sampling of journals across a number of health-related disciplines that routinely publish qualitative research. Many additional health-related journals will publish qualitative research and may offer specific information for authors about how they handle qualitative studies (e.g., longer word/page limits). For assistance with a specific journal, consult the journal's information for authors or the editor. See additional suggestions on this page. 

A unique new resource: The Qualitative Report (from Nova Southeastern University). 

• The academic journal: The Qualitative Report
• Curated by Ronald J. Chenail
• The number and variety of journals focusing primarily on qualitative approaches to research have steadily grown over the last forty years. From discipline- or profession-specific to trans-, cross-, and multidisciplinary missions, these journals represent a richly diverse approach to qualitative inquiry.
• Aging and Mental Health
• Clinical Nursing Research
• Community Practitioner
• Gerontologist
• Health: Interdisciplinary Journal for Social Study of Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Health and Social Care in the Community
• Health Care for Women International
• Health Communication
• International Journal of Qualitative Methods
• Issues in Mental Health Nursing
• Journal of Advanced Nursing
• Journal of Aging Studies
• Journal of Clinical Nursing
• Journal of Gerontological Nursing
• Journal of Health Services, Research, and Policy
• Journal of Loss and Trauma
• Journal of Mixed Methods Research
• Journal of Systemic Therapies
• Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
• Journal of Women's Health
• Journal of Women and Aging
• Nursing Older People
• Patient Education and Counseling
• Quality and Quantity: International Journal of Methodology
• Women's Health Issues
• Autoethnography : process, product, and possibility for critical social research Catalog link to Dr. Sherick Hughes' book. Chapter 7 includes a section, Publishing Authoethnography: journals and academic publishers, on pages 187-191.

*Some General and Health-related Publishers of Autoethnography from Dr. Hughes' book:

Anthropology & Education Quarterly Qualitative Social Research International Journal of Mental Health Nursing International Journal of Qualitative Methods Journal of Advanced Nursing Journal of Contemporary Ethnography Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Journal of Research in Nursing Qualitative Health Research Qualitative Inquiry Qualitative Report Qualitative Research Substance Use and Misuse  

Academic Publishers AltaMira Press (Rowman & Littlefield) Information Age Publishers Left Coast Press (Routledge) Palgrave Macmillan Peter Lang Publishers SAGE Publishing Sense Publishers

*Excerpted from Hughes, S. A. (2017). Autoethnography : process, product, and possibility for critical social research . Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc, pp. 187-190 . 

Consider the following when searching for and selecting a journal:

• Is the journal peer-reviewed?
• Is the journal relevant to your research?  Check your references to see what journals they were published in.
• Does the journal publish the type of article that you wish to submit?
• Does the journal reach the audience that you want to read your research?
• Where is the journal indexed?  This information can often be found on the journal's website, or check Ulrichsweb (see below).
• Do you wish to publish in an open access journal? 
• Does the journal have an article processing charge (APC)?  Many open access journals have an APC. 

Listed below are several resources for finding journals in which to publish your research.

• Ulrichs Web Online Online database with detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals. Use to check if journal is peer-reviewed and in what databases journal is indexed. Click on Advanced Search to search by subject. more... less... Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. Coverage: Varies by periodical
• Scopus Citation database that allows you to search source titles (journals) by subject. To search source titles, click on the Sources link in the menu bar along the top of the Scopus homepage. more... less... Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
• Jane (Journal/Author Name Estimator) Tool that compares the title and/or abstract of your article to Medline records to find journals that are the best match.

Don't be afraid to connect with journal editors or their staff or to provide them with additional resources that may be necessary for successful publishing of qualitative studies.  For example:

Regarding length limits that may not easily accommodate qualitative research:

• Editors may be open to extended page/word limits for high quality qualitative research. This information is sometimes found in instructions for authors.  
• You might consider submitting an appendix with your manuscript containing fuller treatment of the methods. In the manuscript, itself, refer to the availability of the additional methods information in the submitted appendix.  

Regarding the fit of your research for the particular journal:

• including a short statement about why your manuscript is a good fit for their journal and how it makes an important contribution

Regarding appropriate review of your manuscript by reviewers knowledgeable about qualitative research: 

• suggesting appropriate reviewers with the background and expertise to review qualitative research on your topic
• indicating reasons why a specific reviewer may have a conflict or may not be appropriate for reviewing your research
• << Previous: Integrating Qualitative Research into Systematic Reviews
• Next: Presenting Qualitative Research >>
• Last Updated: Jul 28, 2024 4:11 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.unc.edu/qual

• Media Center
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Qualitative Research

What is qualitative research.

Qualitative research is a methodology focused on collecting and analyzing descriptive, non-numerical data to understand complex human behavior, experiences, and social phenomena. This approach utilizes techniques such as interviews, focus groups, and observations to explore the underlying reasons, motivations, and meanings behind actions and decisions. Unlike quantitative research, which focuses on measuring and quantifying data, qualitative research delves into the 'why' and 'how' of human behavior, providing rich, contextual insights that reveal deeper patterns and relationships.

The Basic Idea

Theory, meet practice.

TDL is an applied research consultancy. In our work, we leverage the insights of diverse fields—from psychology and economics to machine learning and behavioral data science—to sculpt targeted solutions to nuanced problems.

Ever heard of the saying “quality over quantity”? Well, some researchers feel the same way!

Imagine you are conducting a study looking at consumer behavior for buying potato chips. You’re interested in seeing which factors influence a customer’s choice between purchasing Doritos and Pringles. While you could conduct quantitative research and measure the number of bags purchased, this data alone wouldn’t explain why consumers choose one chip brand over the other; it would just tell you what they are purchasing. To gather more meaningful data, you may conduct interviews or surveys, asking people about their chip preferences and what draws them to one brand over another. Is it the taste of the chips? The font or color of the bag? This qualitative approach dives deeper to uncover why one potato chip is more popular than the other and can help companies make the adjustments that count.

Qualitative research, as seen in the example above, can provide greater insight into behavior, going beyond numbers to understand people’s experiences, attitudes, and perceptions. It helps us to grasp the meaning behind decisions, rather than just describing them. As human behavior is often difficult to qualify, qualitative research is a useful tool for solving complex problems or as a starting point to generate new ideas for research. Qualitative methods are used across all types of research—from consumer behavior to education, healthcare, behavioral science, and everywhere in between!

At its core, qualitative research is exploratory—rather than coming up with a hypothesis and gathering numerical data to support it, qualitative research begins with open-ended questions. Instead of asking “Which chip brand do consumers buy more frequently?”, qualitative research asks “Why do consumers choose one chip brand over another?”. Common methods to obtain qualitative data include focus groups, unstructured interviews, and surveys. From the data gathered, researchers then can make hypotheses and move on to investigating them. 

It’s important to note that qualitative and quantitative research are not two opposing methods, but rather two halves of a whole. Most of the best studies leverage both kinds of research by collecting objective, quantitative data, and using qualitative research to gain greater insight into what the numbers reveal.

You may have heard the world is made up of atoms and molecules, but it’s really made up of stories. When you sit with an individual that’s been here, you can give quantitative data a qualitative overlay. – William Turner, 16th century British scientist 1

Quantitative Research: A research method that involves collecting and analyzing numerical data to test hypotheses, identify patterns, and predict outcomes.

Exploratory Research: An initial study used to investigate a problem that is not clearly defined, helping to clarify concepts and improve research design.

Positivism: A scientific approach that emphasizes empirical evidence and objectivity, often involving the testing of hypotheses based on observable data. 2 

Phenomenology: A research approach that emphasizes the first-person point of view, placing importance on how people perceive, experience, and interpret the world around them. 3

Social Interaction Theory: A theoretical perspective that people make sense of their social worlds by the exchange of meaning through language and symbols. 4

Critical Theory: A worldview that there is no unitary or objective “truth” about people that can be discovered, as human experience is shaped by social, cultural, and historical contexts that influences reality and society. 5

Empirical research: A method of gaining knowledge through direct observation and experimentation, relying on real-world data to test theories. 

Paradigm shift: A fundamental change in the basic assumptions and methodologies of a scientific discipline, leading to the adoption of a new framework. 2

Interpretive/descriptive approach: A methodology that focuses on understanding the meanings people assign to their experiences, often using qualitative methods.

Unstructured interviews: A free-flowing conversation between researcher and participant without predetermined questions that must be asked to all participants. Instead, the researcher poses questions depending on the flow of the interview. 6

Focus Group: Group interviews where a researcher asks questions to guide a conversation between participants who are encouraged to share their ideas and information, leading to detailed insights and diverse perspectives on a specific topic.

Grounded theory : A qualitative methodology that generates a theory directly from data collected through iterative analysis.

When social sciences started to emerge in the 17th and 18th centuries, researchers wanted to apply the same quantitative approach that was used in the natural sciences. At this time, there was a predominant belief that human behavior could be numerically analyzed to find objective patterns and would be generalizable to similar people and situations. Using scientific means to understand society is known as a positivist approach. However, in the early 20th century, both natural and social scientists started to criticize this traditional view of research as being too reductive. 2  

In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, American philosopher Thomas Kuhn identified that a major paradigm shift was starting to occur. Earlier methods of science were being questioned and replaced with new ways of approaching research which suggested that true objectivity was not possible when studying human behavior. Rather, the importance of context meant research on one group could not be generalized to all groups. 2 Numbers alone were deemed insufficient for understanding the environment surrounding human behavior which was now seen as a crucial piece of the puzzle. Along with this paradigm shift, Western scholars began to take an interest in ethnography , wanting to understand the customs, practices, and behaviors of other cultures. 

Qualitative research became more prominent throughout the 20th century, expanding beyond anthropology and ethnography to being applied across all forms of research; in science, psychology, marketing—the list goes on. Paul Felix Lazarsfield, Austrian-American sociologist and mathematician often known as the father of qualitative research, popularized new methods such as unstructured interviews and group discussions. 7 During the 1940s, Lazarfield brought attention to the fact that humans are not always rational decision-makers, making them difficult to understand through numerical data alone.

The 1920s saw the invention of symbolic interaction theory, developed by George Herbert Mead. Symbolic interaction theory posits society as the product of shared symbols such as language. People attach meanings to these symbols which impacts the way they understand and communicate with the world around them, helping to create and maintain a society. 4 Critical theory was also developed in the 1920s at the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. Following the challenge of positivism, critical theory is a worldview that there is no unitary or objective “truth” about people that can be discovered, as human experience is shaped by social, cultural, and historical contexts. By shedding light on the human experience, it hopes to highlight the role of power, ideology, and social structures in shaping humans, and using this knowledge to create change. 5

Other formalized theories were proposed during the 20th century, such as grounded theory , where researchers started gathering data to form a hypothesis, rather than the other way around. This represented a stark contrast to positivist approaches that had dominated the 17th and 18th centuries.

The 1950s marked a shift toward a more interpretive and descriptive approach which factored in how people make sense of their subjective reality and attach meaning to it. 2 Researchers began to recognize that the why of human behavior was just as important as the what . Max Weber, a German sociologist, laid the foundation of the interpretive approach through the concept of Verstehen (which in English translates to understanding), emphasizing the importance of interpreting the significance people attach to their behavior. 8 With the shift to an interpretive and descriptive approach came the rise of phenomenology, which emphasizes first-person experiences by studying how individuals perceive, experience, and interpret the world around them. 

Today, in the age of big data, qualitative research has boomed, as advancements in digital tools allow researchers to gather vast amounts of data (both qualitative and quantitative), helping us better understand complex social phenomena. Social media patterns can be analyzed to understand public sentiment, consumer behavior, and cultural trends to grasp how people attach subjective meaning to their reality. There is even an emerging field of digital ethnography which is entirely focused on how humans interact and communicate in virtual environments!

Thomas Kuhn

American philosopher who suggested that science does not evolve through merely an addition of knowledge by compiling new learnings onto existing theories, but instead undergoes paradigm shifts where new theories and methodologies replace old ones. In this way, Kuhn suggested that science is a reflection of a community at a particular point in time. 9

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld

Often referred to as the father of qualitative research, Austrian-American sociologist and mathematician Paul Lazarsfield helped to develop modern empirical methods of conducting research in the social sciences such as surveys, opinion polling, and panel studies. Lazarsfeld was best known for combining qualitative and quantitative research to explore America's voting habits and behaviors related to mass communication, such as newspapers, magazines, and radios. 10  

German sociologist and political economist known for his sociological approach of “Verstehen” which emphasized the need to understand individuals or groups by exploring the meanings that people attach to their decisions. While previously, qualitative researchers in ethnography acted like an outside observer to explain behavior from their point of view, Weber believed that an empathetic understanding of behavior, that explored both intent and context, was crucial to truly understanding behavior. 11  

George Herbert Mead

Widely recognized as the father of symbolic interaction theory, Mead was an American philosopher and sociologist who took an interest in how spoken language and symbols contribute to one’s idea of self, and to society at large. 4

Consequences

Humans are incredibly complex beings, whose behaviors cannot always be reduced to mere numbers and statistics. Qualitative research acknowledges this inherent complexity and can be used to better capture the diversity of human and social realities. 

Qualitative research is also more flexible—it allows researchers to pivot as they uncover new insights. Instead of approaching the study with predetermined hypotheses, oftentimes, researchers let the data speak for itself and are not limited by a set of predefined questions. It can highlight new areas that a researcher hadn’t even thought of exploring. 

By providing a deeper explanation of not only what we do, but why we do it, qualitative research can be used to inform policy-making, educational practices, healthcare approaches, and marketing tactics. For instance, while quantitative research tells us how many people are smokers, qualitative research explores what, exactly, is driving them to smoke in the first place. If the research reveals that it is because they are unaware of the gravity of the consequences, efforts can be made to emphasize the risks, such as by placing warnings on cigarette cartons. 

Finally, qualitative research helps to amplify the voices of marginalized or underrepresented groups. Researchers who embrace a true “Verstehen” mentality resist applying their own worldview to the subjects they study, but instead seek to understand the meaning people attach to their own behaviors. In bringing forward other worldviews, qualitative research can help to shift perceptions and increase awareness of social issues. For example, while quantitative research may show that mental health conditions are more prevalent for a certain group, along with the access they have to mental health resources, qualitative research is able to explain the lived experiences of these individuals and uncover what barriers they are facing to getting help. This qualitative approach can support governments and health organizations to better design mental health services tailored to the communities they exist in.

Controversies

Qualitative research aims to understand an individual’s lived experience, which although provides deeper insights, can make it hard to generalize to a larger population. While someone in a focus group could say they pick Doritos over Pringles because they prefer the packaging, it’s difficult for a researcher to know if this is universally applicable, or just one person’s preference. 12 This challenge makes it difficult to replicate qualitative research because it involves context-specific findings and subjective interpretation. 

Moreover, there can be bias in sample selection when conducting qualitative research. Individuals who put themselves forward to be part of a focus group or interview may hold strong opinions they want to share, making the insights gathered from their answers not necessarily reflective of the general population.13 People may also give answers that they think researchers are looking for leading to skewed results, which is a common example of the observer expectancy effect . 

However, the bias in this interaction can go both ways. While researchers are encouraged to embrace “Verstehen,” there is a possibility that they project their own views onto their participants. For example, if an American researcher is studying eating habits in China and observes someone burping, they may attribute this behavior to rudeness—when in fact, burping can be a sign that you have enjoyed your meal and it is a compliment to the chef. One way to mitigate this risk is through thick description , noting a great amount of contextual detail in their observations. Another way to minimize the researcher’s bias on their observations is through member checking , returning results to participants to check if they feel they accurately capture their experience.

Another drawback of qualitative research is that it is time-consuming. Focus groups and unstructured interviews take longer and are more difficult to logistically arrange, and the data gathered is harder to analyze as it goes beyond numerical data. While advances in technology alleviate some of these labor-intensive processes, they still require more resources. 

Many of these drawbacks can be mitigated through a mixed-method approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research can be a good starting point, giving depth and contextual understanding to a behavior, before turning to quantitative data to see if the results are generalizable. Or, the opposite direction can be used—quantitative research can show us the “what,” identifying patterns and correlations, and researchers can then better understand the “why” behind behavior by leveraging qualitative methods. Triangulation —using multiple datasets, methods, or theories—is another way to help researchers avoid bias. 

Linking Adult Behaviors to Childhood Experiences

In the mid-1980s, an obesity program at the KP San Diego Department of Preventive Medicine had a high dropout rate. What was interesting is that a majority of the dropouts were successfully losing weight, posing the question of why they were leaving the program in the first place. In this instance, greater investigation was required to understand the why behind their behaviors.

Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with almost 200 dropouts, finding that many of them had experienced childhood abuse that had led to obesity. In this unfortunate scenario, obesity was a consequence of another problem, rather than the root problem itself. This led Dr. Vincent J. Felitti, who was working for the department, to launch the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, aimed at exploring how childhood experiences impact adult health status. 

Felitti and the Department of Preventive Medicine studied over 17,000 adults with health plans that revealed a strong relationship between emotional experiences as children and negative health behaviors as adults, such as obesity, smoking, and intravenous drug use. This study demonstrates the importance of qualitative research to uncover correlations that would not be discovered by merely looking at numerical data. 14  

Understanding Voter Turnout

Voting is usually considered an important part of political participation in a democracy. However, voter turnout is an issue in many countries, including the US. While quantitative research can tell us how many people vote, it does not provide insights into why people choose to vote or not.

With this in mind, Dawn Merdelin Johnson, a PhD student in philosophy at Walden University, explored how public corruption has impacted voter turnout in Cook County, Illinois. Johnson conducted semi-structured telephone interviews to understand factors that contribute to low voter turnout and the impact of public corruption on voting behaviors. Johnson found that public corruption leads to voters believing public officials prioritize their own well-being over the good of the people, leading to distrust in candidates and the overall political system, and thus making people less likely to vote. Other themes revealed that to increase voter turnout, voting should be more convenient and supply more information about the candidates to help people make more informed decisions.

From these findings, Johnson suggested that the County could experience greater voter turnout through the development of an anti-corruption agency, improved voter registration and maintenance, and enhanced voting accessibility. These initiatives would boost voting engagement and positively impact democratic participation. 15

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• Versta Research. (n.d.). Bridging the quantitative-qualitative gap . Versta Research. Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://verstaresearch.com/newsletters/bridging-the-quantitative-qualitative-gap/
• Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
• Smith, D. W. (2018). Phenomenology. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/#HistVariPhen
• Nickerson, C. (2023, October 16). Symbolic interaction theory . Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/symbolic-interaction-theory.html
• DePoy, E., & Gitlin, L. N. (2016). Introduction to research (5th ed.). Elsevier.
• ATLAS.ti. (n.d.). Unstructured interviews . ATLAS.ti. Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://atlasti.com/research-hub/unstructured-interviews
• O'Connor, O. (2020, August 14). The history of qualitative research . Medium. https://oliconner.medium.com/the-history-of-qualitative-research-f6e07c58e439
• Sociology Institute. (n.d.). Max Weber: Interpretive sociology & legacy . Sociology Institute. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://sociology.institute/introduction-to-sociology/max-weber-interpretive-sociology-legacy
• Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions (4th ed.). University of Chicago Press.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Paul Felix Lazarsfeld . Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Felix-Lazarsfeld
• Nickerson, C. (2019). Verstehen in Sociology: Empathetic Understanding . Simply Psychology. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/verstehen.html
• Omniconvert. (2021, October 4). Qualitative research: Definition, methodology, limitations, and examples . Omniconvert. https://www.omniconvert.com/blog/qualitative-research-definition-methodology-limitation-examples/
• Vaughan, T. (2021, August 5). 10 advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research . Poppulo. https://www.poppulo.com/blog/10-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-qualitative-research
• Felitti, V. J. (2002). The relation between adverse childhood experiences and adult health: Turning gold into lead. The Permanente Journal, 6 (1), 44–47. https://www.thepermanentejournal.org/doi/10.7812/TPP/02.994
• Johnson, D. M. (2024). Voters' perception of public corruption and low voter turnout: A qualitative case study of Cook County (Doctoral dissertation). Walden University.

About the Author

Emilie Rose Jones

Emilie currently works in Marketing & Communications for a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. She completed her Masters of English Literature at UBC in 2021, where she focused on Indigenous and Canadian Literature. Emilie has a passion for writing and behavioural psychology and is always looking for opportunities to make knowledge more accessible. 

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