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Qualitative work: quality criteria that are not borrowed from trials

Reliability and validity are the wrong words. Here are the right ones.

Qualitative psychotherapy research is frequently judged against criteria designed for something else, by reviewers who ask for larger samples and inter-rater reliability. Both requests usually misunderstand the enterprise: qualitative work aims at depth and defensible interpretation, not at estimating a population parameter.

What quality means here

Credibility
Do the findings represent the participants’ accounts plausibly? Supported by member reflections, prolonged engagement, and negative case analysis.
Transferability
Has enough context been given for a reader to judge whether this applies elsewhere? Thick description does the work that generalisation does elsewhere.
Dependability
Is the process documented well enough to be followed? An audit trail of decisions.
Confirmability
Are the interpretations traceable to the data rather than to the researcher’s preferences?
Reflexivity
What did the researcher bring — their position, assumptions, relationship to participants, and stake in the findings? Not a confession; an analytic account of how their position shaped what could be seen.

Common weaknesses in qualitative psychotherapy manuscripts

  • Quotations presented as findings. A quotation illustrates an interpretation; it does not constitute one.
  • Themes that are topic summaries rather than analytic claims — "communication" is a topic, "participants described withholding in order to protect the therapist" is a finding.
  • No negative cases. If everything fits, the analysis has probably been shaped to fit.
  • Reflexivity as a paragraph of biography with no analytic consequence.
  • Saturation asserted rather than demonstrated, or invoked in designs where the concept does not apply.
  • Method named but not described — "thematic analysis" covers several incompatible procedures; say which, and cite it.

Choosing a method, briefly

MethodSuited toWatch for
Reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke)Patterned meaning across a datasetDo not report coder reliability; the authors explicitly reject it for this method
Interpretative phenomenological analysisDetailed lived experience, small homogeneous samplesSample of 6–10; idiographic depth before cross-case
Grounded theoryBuilding a theory of a processRequires theoretical sampling and constant comparison, not just coding
Framework analysisApplied and policy-relevant questionsMatrix-based; good for team work and audit trails
Consensual qualitative researchPsychotherapy process, team-basedDesigned for this field; uses consensus judgements and an auditor
Discourse / narrative analysisHow language constructs the phenomenonDifferent epistemology; do not mix with realist thematic claims

Sources

  • Elliott, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (1999). Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38(3), 215–229

    guideline

  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis?. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 328–352

    article

  • Levitt, H. M., et al. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for qualitative primary research in psychology (JARS-Qual). American Psychologist, 73(1), 26–46

    guideline

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