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Evaluating Qualitative Research in Social Geography: Establishing ‘Rigour’ in Interview Analysis
Author(s) -
Baxter Jamie,
Eyles John
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.0020-2754.1997.00505.x
Subject(s) - rigour , qualitative research , argument (complex analysis) , set (abstract data type) , sociology , epistemology , frame (networking) , inference , management science , empirical research , work (physics) , engineering ethics , computer science , social science , engineering , mechanical engineering , telecommunications , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , programming language
A review of 31 empirical and eighteen substantive papers by qualitative social geographers mainly using in‐depth interviews reveals little explicit reference to the principle(s) adopted to enhance ‘rigour’ and to ensure meaningful inference. Given the modest explicit discussion of evaluative criteria in these papers, a scheme from evaluation research itself is critically reviewed. A set of evaluation questions derived from this review and their application to an empirical piece of qualitative work frame an argument for a general set of criteria rather than rigid rules for assessing qualitative work. Such criteria can serve as anchor points for qualitative evaluation.