The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is the official document that describes in detail the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions.

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Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions

BACKGROUND Interviews are among the most familiar strategies for collecting qualitative data. The different qualitative interviewing strategies in common use emerged from diverse disciplinary perspectives resulting in a wide variation among interviewing approaches. Unlike the highly structured survey interviews and questionnaires used in epidemiology and most health services research, we examine less structured interview strategies in which the person interviewed is more a participant in meaning making than a conduit from which information is retrieved. PURPOSE In this article we briefly review the more common qualitative interview methods and then focus on the widely used individual face-to-face in-depth interview, which seeks to foster learning about individual experiences and perspectives on a given set of issues. We discuss methods for conducting in-depth interviews and consider relevant ethical issues with particular regard to the rights and protection of the participants.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02418.x

The qualitative research interview

PurposeStandards for reporting exist for many types of quantitative research, but currently none exist for the broad spectrum of qualitative research. The purpose of the present study was to formulate and define standards for reporting qualitative research while preserving the requisite flexibility

/pdf/standards-for-reporting-qualitative-research-a-synthesis-of-13h0lqeqk9.pdf

Standards for reporting qualitative research: a synthesis of recommendations.

What are focus groups? How are they distinct from ordinary group discussions and what use are they anyway? This article introduces focus group methodology, explores ways of conducting such groups and examines what this technique of data collection can offer researchers in general and medical sociologists in particular. It concentrates on the one feature which inevitably distinguishes focus groups from one-to-one interviews or questionnaires – namely the interaction between research participants - and argues for the overt exploration and exploitation of such interaction in the research process.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11347023

The methodology of focus groups: the importance of interaction between research participants

Such diverse thinkers as Lao-Tze, Confucius, and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have all pointed out that we need to be able to tell the difference between real and assumed knowledge. The systematic review is a scientific tool that can help with this difficult task. It can help, for example, with appraising, summarising, and communicating the results and implications of otherwise unmanageable quantities of data. This is important because quite often there are so many studies, and their results are often so conflicting, that no policymaker or practitioner could possibly carry out this task themselves.Systematic review methods have been widely used in health care, and are becoming increasingly common in the social sciences (fostered, for example, by the work of the Campbell Collaboration). 

This book outlines the rationale and methods of systematic reviews, giving worked examples from social science and other fields. It requires no previous knowledge, but takes the reader through the process stage by stage. It draws on examples from such diverse fields as psychology, criminology, education, transport, social welfare, public health, and housing and urban policy, among others.The book includes detailed sections on assessing the quality of both quantitative, and qualitative research; searching for evidence in the social sciences;meta-analytic and other methods of evidence synthesis; publication bias; heterogeneity; and approaches to dissemination.

Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide

Qualitative research methods are enjoying unprecedented popularity. Although checklists have undoubtedly contributed to the wider acceptance of such methods, these can be counterproductive if used prescriptively. The uncritical adoption of a range of “technical fixes” (such as purposive sampling, grounded theory, multiple coding, triangulation, and respondent validation) does not, in itself, confer rigour.

In this article I discuss the limitations of these procedures and argue that there is no substitute for systematic and thorough application of the principles of qualitative research. Technical fixes will achieve little unless they are embedded in a broader understanding of the rationale and assumptions behind qualitative research.

#### Summary points

Checklists can be useful improving qualitative research methods, but overzealous and uncritical use can be counterproductive

Reducing qualitative research to a list of technical procedures (such as purposive sampling, grounded theory, multiple coding, triangulation, and respondent validation) is overly prescriptive and results in “the tail wagging the dog”

None of these “technical fixes” in itself confers rigour; they can strengthen the rigour of qualitative research only if embedded in a broader understanding of qualitative research design and data analysis

Otherwise we risk compromising the unique contribution that systematic qualitative research can make to health services research

In medical research the question is no longer whether qualitative methods are valuable but how rigour can be ensured or enhanced. Checklists have played an important role in conferring respectability on qualitative research and in convincing potential sceptics of its thoroughness.1–3 They have equipped those unfamiliar with this approach to evaluate or review qualitative work (by providing guidance on crucial questions that need to be asked) and in reminding qualitative researchers of the need for a systematic approach (by providing an aide-memoire of the various stages involved in research design and data analysis4).

Qualitative researchers stress the …

Checklists for improving rigour in qualitative research: a case of the tail wagging the dog?

Introduction - Jenny Kitzinger and Rosaline S Barbour The Challenge and Promise of Focus Groups The Impact of Context on Data - Judith Green and Laura Hart Combining Focus Groups and Interviews - Lynn Michell Telling How it Is Telling How it Feels Are Focus Groups Suitable for 'Sensitive' Topics? - Clare Farquhar with Rita Das How Useful Are Focus Groups in Feminist Research? - Sue Wilkinson Do Focus Groups Facilitate Meaningful Participation in Social Research? - Rachel Baker and Rachel Hinton How Useful Are Focus Groups for Obtaining the Views of Minority Groups? - Lai-Fong Chui and Deborah Knight Are Focus Groups an Appropriate Tool for Studying Organizational Change? - Rosaline S Barbour Can Focus Groups Access Community Views? - Claire Waterton and Brian Wynne Some Issues Arising in the Systematic Analysis of Focus Group Materials - Jane Frankland and Michael Bloor The Analytical Potential of 'Sensitive Moments' in Focus Group Discussions - Jenny Kitzinger and Clare Farquhar Can Focus Groups Be Analyzed as Talk? - Greg Myers and Phil Macnaghten Theorizing Subjects and Subject Matter in Focus Group Research - Sarah Cunningham-Burley, Anne Kerr and Stephen Pavis Afterword - Rosaline S Barbour and Jenny Kitzinger

Developing focus group research : politics, theory and practice

Introducing Focus Groups Uses and Abuses of Focus Groups Underpinnings of Focus Group Research Research Design Sampling Practicalities of Planning and Running Focus Groups Ethics and Engagement Generating Data Starting to Make Sense of Focus Group Data Analytical Challenges in Focus Group Research Realizing the Full Potential of Focus Groups

Doing Focus Groups

Introduction: The Challenge and Promise of Focus Groups

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION The Scope and Contribution of Qualitative Research Qualitative Traditions: Epistemology and Ontology Research Design Ethics PART TWO: GENERATING DATA Interviews Focus Groups Ethnography Other Sources of Qualitative Data PART THREE: COMPLEX RESEARCH DESIGNS IN PRACTICE Mixing Methods Action Research PART FOUR: ANALYZING AND PRESENTING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Analysis: Processing, Coding, and Interrogating Data Theorizing in Qualitative Analysis Presenting and Writing-up Qualitative Research

Rosaline S. Barbour

Papers

Checklists for improving rigour in qualitative research: a case of the tail wagging the dog?

Developing focus group research : politics, theory and practice

Doing Focus Groups

Introduction: The Challenge and Promise of Focus Groups

Introducing qualitative research : a student's guide