Good, bad, different or something else? A scoping review of the convictions, conventions and developments around quality in qualitative research

Abstract

We present a scoping review of methodological papers in the social science literature covered in Scopus from 2017 to 2022. In this review, we document the shared norms, ideals and practices regarding the quality of qualitative research methodology. More specifically, we examined the regularly proposed idea that qualitative methodology is so diverse that it is unfeasible to establish shared quality standards. Coding of 111 articles yielded 17 categories that relate to key topics discussed in publications on research quality in qualitative research, such as the quality of the research process, integrity, reflexivity, ethics and transparency. These codes reflect both established ideals and new developments. We conclude that articles in our sample have many shared values in common, but that these values at this point do not yet translate into shared research practices or a common core for quality evaluation.

Keywords: meta-research; qualitative research; scoping review; social sciences; source criticism; transparency.

Figure 1.

Overview of selection procedure.

Figure 2.

Overview of the hierarchy of codes and themes