The Nature of Qualitative Evidence

Rating:
Summary: Research is more than null hypothesis testing!
Review: This book is written in the shadow of the Cochrane Collaboration and their standards for Evidence-Based Medicine. EBM is difficult to argue with since it gives priority to the best quantitative medical evidence, looking primarily at the results of randomized, controlled clinical trials and secondarily at meta-analytic studies of clinical reports. From this perspective, qualitative research methodologies provide a subjective perspective at best and mere hearsay at worst.

Nonetheless, these medical researchers argue rather persuasively that there is a necessarily and valuable role to be played by qualitative research approaches. The practice of medicine encompasses more than technology. Even the most effective medication can be adversely impacted by other environmental influences in the patient's life; and established treatment protocols routinely rely on patient compliance. It is in this "black box" of patient motivations, attitudes, and belief structures that qualitative methodologies often excel because they presuppose collaboration of researcher and research subject.

The authors refer to medicine as an applied science, and it is in the application of scientific research that qualitative information is required. Analogically, other applied sciences (e.g. - psychology and social work) are most likely to reap therapeutic results from attention to both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

The attentive reader will find logical justification and philosophy support for implementation of qualitative methodologies. I cannot recommend this volume more highly, and I suggest that more social science graduate students should be apprised of its content. Social science research should not be restricted to null hypothesis testing.