It is our intention in this manual to provide an overview of the use of qualitative research methods in the engineering education context. Our assumption is that users of this guide will be fairly new to qualitative approaches—and perhaps new to educational research in general. We have tried, therefore, to avoid extensive citations and detail, focusing rather on a general synthesis of the main issues and approaches.

Because qualitative research rests on a different set of philosophical assumptions about the nature of truth and limitations of research than traditional research, the opening chapter begins with an explanation of these fundamental differences. Throughout the following chapters, the ways in which these assumptions play out in researcher choices are documented.
The chapters cover the essential information needed to conduct or evaluate a qualitative study. They describe the design of qualitative studies, basic data collection strategies, analysis techniques, trustworthiness considerations, and writing up the study. Resources for additional information are listed in the final chapter.

The power of qualitative research lies in its ability to adapt to natural settings such as the classroom or laboratory; enable exploration of motivations, reasoning, decision making, and other inner thoughts of participants such as students and teachers; and permit description of the interaction of context and actors in specific settings. For many research questions in engineering education, it is the ideal research approach. It is relatively new in some disciplines, however, and often regarded with suspicion. We hope that this guide will help many researchers to see the utility of the approach, use it well, and enrich the field with new understandings and informed practice.

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Nancy Van Note Chism (general editor and author of Chapters 3, 5, 6 and 8) is Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at the Indiana University School of Education, Indianapolis. She has taught qualitative research methods courses for over twenty years at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and The Ohio State University. She has been involved in several engineering education projects during her career, including the Gateway Coalition and the Rigorous Research in Engineering Education projects, both sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Elliot Douglas (author of Chapters 1, 2, and 4) is Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. He has been involved in faculty development activities since 1998, through the ExCEEd Teaching Workshops of ASCE, the Essential Teaching Seminars of ASME, and the NSF-sponsored SUCCEED Coalition. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Society for Engineering Education, and the American Educational Research Association. His interests in engineering education are focused on qualitative research methods, active learning techniques, problem-solving, and critical thinking. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Polymer Reviews and has served as Chair of the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering of the American Chemical Society.

Wayne J. Hilson, Jr. (author of Chapter 7) is Director of the Teacher’s Resource Center at the Indiana University School of Education, Indianapolis, and a doctoral student in Higher Education and Student Affairs with a minor in Mathematics Education. His B.S. and M.S. degrees were completed at Purdue University in Mechanical Engineering and Education respectively. After working in industry following the completion of his bachelor’s degree, he served as both Assistant and Interim Director of Minority Engineering Programs at Purdue.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Nancy Chism (2010), "Qualitative Research Basics: A Guide for Engineering Educators," http://cleerhub.org/resources/8.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. data analysis
2. guide book
3. qualitative methods