Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches

"Creswell does an excellent job categorizing the various qualitative methods into five approaches: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study...The author has expanded on and updated the information he presented in the first edition of the book (Creswell, 1998), including discussion of the various schools of thought that have developed among qualitative researchers since the mid 1990's...Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing among five approaches is a highly informative book; researchers will likely return again and against to the book as they expand their comfort zone within qualitative research."

-Peggy M. Delmas, University of Alabama

“Creswell has produced an even more outstanding and valuable text for qualitative research than the First Edition.”

-Edith King, University of Denver

Like the bestselling First Edition, this new version explores the philosophical underpinnings, history, and key elements of each of five qualitative inquiry approaches: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. Using an accessible and engaging writing style, author John W. Creswell compares theoretical frameworks, ways to employ standards of quality, and strategies for writing introductions to studies, collecting data, analyzing data, writing a narrative, and verifying results.


New to the Second Edition:

• Brings the philosophical and theoretical orientations to the beginning of the book: This grounds students in the foundational thinking behind these methods much earlier.
• Gives broader coverage of narrative research: One of the original five approaches is expanded from "Biography" to "Narrative," thus exploring a wider range of narrative opportunities, biography still being one of them.
• Offers a much deeper discussion of interpretive approaches: There is much more emphasis on interpretive and postmodern perspectives such as feminism and critical theory.
• Provides more specific steps for doing research within each approach: The actual procedure for each approach is discussed and includes the sub-types of qualitative research within each of the five approaches.
• Illustrates phenomenology and ethnography: Two new, recent sample journal articles: one covering a phenomenological study; the other on an ethnographic study are included.
• Includes additional examples: More examples from the human services add to the robust examples in education, sociology, and psychology already present in the text.