Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Philosophical assumptions and interpretive frameworks -- Designing a qualitative study -- Five qualitative approaches to inquiry -- Five different qualitative studies -- Introducing and focusing the study -- Data collection -- Data analysis and representation -- Writing a qualitative study -- Standards of validation and evaluation -- "Turning the story" and conclusion.

This book explores the philosophical underpinnings, history, and key elements of five qualitative inquiry approaches: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. The authors compare the approaches and relate research designs to each of the traditions of inquiry in a highly accessible manner. Featuring new content, articles, pedagogy, references, and expanded coverage of ethics throughout, the book is an introduction to the theories, strategies, and practices of qualitative inquiry. In the Fourth Edition of this bestselling book, John W Creswell and new co-author Cheryl N Poth explore the philosophical underpinnings, history and key elements of each of five qualitative inquiry traditions: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study - putting them side by side, so that we can see the differences. The authors relate research designs to each of the traditions of enquiry. They compare theoretical frameworks and ways to employ standards of quality, as well as strategies for writing introductions to studies, collecting data, analyzing data, writing a narrative and verifying results. New in this edition: * Updated materials on each tradition * More on interpretive frameworks and ethics * More visual depictions of the five approaches * Two new topical articles in Chapter 5, reproduced in full in the appendices. [Ed]

This bestseller explores the principles of each of five qualitative inquiry traditions: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study. The Fourth Edition features more visual representations of the five approaches.

Text in English.