C4ME, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Neuadd Meirionnydd, Heath Park, Cardiff, UK.
Centre for Trials Research, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Neuadd Meirionnydd, Heath Park, Cardiff, UK.
Perspect Med Educ. 2024 May 6;13(1):280-287. doi: 10.5334/pme.1102. eCollection 2024.
Most students in Health Profession Education courses are new to the world of qualitative research. Faced with the challenge of designing a research project, they are often drawn towards using the questionnaire as a data collection method, commonly assuming that utilising open-ended questions alone constitutes qualitative research design. Designing questionnaires that meet the standards of rigour is challenging, and this common assumption reflects inexperience with and misunderstandings of qualitative ontology, as well as the lack of methodological literature on designing and developing qualitative questionnaires. This paper is written with research supervisors as well as students in mind, as it is aimed to help elucidate the decision-making process and the justification for using a qualitative questionnaire. Drawing upon examples of research conducted by our students, and the wider literature, we demonstrate how qualitative questionnaires can produce rich and meaningful findings when they (1) prioritise qualitative research values, and (2) follow a rigorous design process when the questionnaire is developed. We conclude by offering a simple framework for developing rigorous qualitative questionnaires to those who may consider using this approach.
大多数医学专业学术文献课程的学生都对定性研究领域不熟悉。在面对设计研究项目的挑战时，他们往往倾向于使用问卷作为数据收集方法，通常认为仅使用开放式问题就构成了定性研究设计。设计符合严谨性标准的问卷极具挑战性，这种常见的假设反映了对定性本体论的经验不足和误解，以及缺乏关于设计和开发定性问卷的方法学文献。本文旨在为研究导师和学生提供帮助，阐明使用定性问卷的决策过程和理由。本文通过引用我们学生的研究示例和更广泛的文献，展示了当定性问卷（1）优先考虑定性研究价值观，以及（2）在开发问卷时遵循严格的设计流程时，如何产生丰富而有意义的发现。最后，我们为那些可能考虑使用这种方法的人提供了一个开发严谨的定性问卷的简单框架。
