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www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/aaen
School of Nursing and Midwifery Studies, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff, UK
Qualitative research continues to help researchers throughout. Examples of text are offered, to illu-
address issues in nursing and nurse education. This minate the points being made. In these text sam-
paper describes a layout of a qualitative research ples, the indicator (Ref) or (refs) is used to show
report, suitable for publication in a journal. Al- that references to the literature or research would
though the paper refers to qualitative accounts, be placed there. Given that the examples offered
the same principles may be applied to quantitative are fictitious, it is not appropriate that ‘real’ ref-
reports and those with mixed methods (Tashakkori erences are offered. Where names of authors have
and Teddlie, 1998). been used, they are also fictitious. The subheadings
There are, of course, no absolutes in this area. in this paper (illustrated thus: Literature review)
Some types of qualitative research will call for a are used to indicate headings that might be used in
different sort of report. The aim of this paper is to the reader’s report.
encourage the first-time researcher to write up Other accounts of report writing of this sort are
their work in a systematic way. The paper may also available (see, for example: Richardson, 1990;
help the experienced researcher to think about the Hollaway and Wheeler, 1996; Burnard, 1996; Hol-
issues through a critique of this article. liday, 2001). As with any writing, some general
Given the confines of a paper in a journal of this principles apply: writing should be clear, simple
sort, certain conventions have been adopted and accurate (Gillett, 1990; Strong, 1991; Kirkman,
1992). The research account should report all as-
pects of the work carried out and offer an appro-
q
priate selection from the findings.
This article was originally published in Nurse Education
Today, Volume 24, Issue 3, pages 174–179. This article is
Key sections of a published, qualitative research
republished with permission from Nurse Education Today. report are as follows and each will be dealt with in
E-mail address: burnard@cardiff.ac.uk. turn.
0965-2302/$ - see front matter c 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aaen.2003.11.006
Writing a qualitative research report 177
ment about sample size in qualitative studies. Reports and not to offer a detailed review or critique of
describe single-person studies (Refs). Other commenta- data collection methods. There is a considerable
tors suggest sample sizes ranging from 6 (refs) to 30
(refs). It was felt that 20 respondents should be able to
literature on the interview method and this and
supply varied and detailed accounts for the purposes of other qualitative data collection methods are dis-
this study. cussed in the literature (Weller and Romney, 1988;
McCracken, 1988; Thomas, 1993; Coulon, 1995;
Henry (1990) offers more details about the pro-
Holstein and Gubrium, 1995; Morgan, 1997; Stew-
cesses of selecting a sample from a total popula-
art, 1998; Stouthamer-Loeber and van Kammen,
tion and Johnson (1991) discusses the issues
1995; Gillham, 2000; Fowler, 2001; Yin, 2001).
involved in sampling for ethnographic research.
An example of the first approach is as follows: As far as possible, the findings section should be
exhaustive in reporting the data. However, given
Learning to cope the restricted space of a journal paper, decisions
have to be made about what to put in and what to
A number of respondents found that they learned leave out. A convention that appears to have arisen
to cope by talking about their stress to mentors, in reporting verbatim quotes under a particular
clinical practitioners and educators. In particular, category heading seems to be three or four items.
the found it useful to read widely on the topic as a Longer quotes are often better for preserving
way of attempting to understand what was hap- context. Short quotes can often, either be taken
pening to them. One suggested that: out of context or seem to offer little elaboration of
an idea.
I think it takes the sting out of it really. Once you have Also, if links are made to existing research,
some idea of what stress is about and what causes it, those links should be clear and obvious. There
you can start to deal with it. The worse thing was, like,
not knowing what was happening to me. I learned quite
should be no sense of ‘bending’ the data to make
a bit from a computer search I did in the School. what will be a spurious link with what has gone
before. Enough evidence should be presented to
Another respondent noted that simply under- establish that such links really are there. Other
standing stress did not necessarily help you to cope ways of describing findings are to be found in the
with it. literature (Riessman, 1993; Fetterman, 1996;
I dunno. I know the theories about stress but somehow, in Denzin and Lincoln, 1998b).
the end, its you. You have to cope somehow. It’s where
the theory breaks down a bit. Knowing the theory doesn’t
always help you to cope.
findings. Again, such applications should be realis- Other issues that may be reported include:
tic and no attempt should be made to extrapolate ethical approval and how it was obtained (Kimmel,
beyond the data. Arguably, it is impossible to 1988; Sieber, 1992), funding sources and, in some
generalise from qualitative data (because of the cases – where a number of authors are involved in
sampling methods, the ways of collecting data and the paper – an account of the division of labour.
the methods of analysis) – and most would say that Also, readers of the various journals may find that
it is not the point of doing qualitative research to some favour a particular ‘house style’ when re-
generalise in this way. However, it is sometimes a porting research.
temptation for the researcher to project his or her It is hoped that this paper helps the neophyte
findings into the future and to attempt to predict researcher and offers the more experienced one a
the implications of it through generalisation out to chance to reflect on his or her own practice and, as
a larger population. appropriate, be critical of the approach adopted
There is some debate amongst researchers about here. While there can never be a standardised
whether or not the researcher should offer an template for writing research reports, certain
evaluation of the work, at the end of a paper. The features always occur in any account.
researcher must decide whether or not to be crit-
ical of what he or she has done or to allow this
function to rest with the reader. He or she should
also be aware of the limitations of research itself References
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Writing a qualitative research report 181
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