Guidelines for Qualitative Research Being Published in Sex Roles

As I wrote in 2008 (Frieze 2008), and is still the case, agrowing number of papers submitted to and ultimatelypublished in Sex Roles involve the analysis of qualitativedata. As is also true for quantitative data analysis, eachjournal editor makes decisions about what types ofmethods and reporting are acceptable within this largermethodology. Since we receive many questions aboutqualitativepapers(butrarelyareaskedaboutquantitativedatapresentations),theseguidelinesforqualitativeresearchreportsare being published now and will appear on the journalwebsite so that our requirements are readily available topotential authors.The first questions we ask in evaluating a manuscriptsubmitted for publication considerationthat reports on qualita-tive data is what data were collected and how the data werecoded. We ask whether the data collection and analysis weredone in a scientific way. As in any scientific paper, it isessentialthatsufficientinformationbeprovidedsothatanotherresearcherwouldbeabletofindsimilarinformationandwouldalsointerpretthesamedatainthesamewayastheauthorofthepaper being evaluated. Interpretation of interview data is ahighly subjective process. In order to validate the analysis ofthe data, ideally, someone other than the author should becategorizing the responses. Confirmation biases of findingwhat one expects to find are well known. If it is impossibleto have the researcher’s data categorized entirely by someoneelse, at least some of the categorization should be verifiedby someone else who is not aware of the predictions orassumptions of the original researcher.To further elaborate on the specific requirements for thisjournal,weaskthattheresearcherprovidealistingofallissuescodedinthedata,withpossiblecodesforeachoftheseissues.Eachofthesepossiblecodingcategoriesshouldbedefinedinaway that would allow another researcher to code similar datausing these same categories. These definitions should be pro-vided in a table, so they can be readily seen by the reader.Secondly,it isrequiredthattheresearcherexplainclearlyhowthe assignment of coding categories was validated. Ideally,there should be a report of inter-coder reliability, with kappavalues for each code. The identity of each coder and exactlywhat data were coded by each person should be provided. Ifthis is not possible, and someone other than the author hasdone the coding, it would be possible to establish validity byprovidingasummaryofthecodesandtheresultsofthecodinganalysis to each of the original study participants to see if theconclusionsdrawnreflect whatheorshesaidintheinterview.If this alternative method of validation is used, a full report ofhow people were contacted, exactly what they said, and thenumber of people responding needs to be provided. Similarguidelines need to be followed if the researcher is codingpictures, printed text, or some other form of qualitative data.Ifdataarecodedusingacomputerizedprocedure,validationof the final counts is not needed. However, we do need thecomplete list of search terms used to classify each codingcategory. Data should also be presented about exactly howthe programs were set up and whether additional terms wereadded in the coding process.If the data are handled in an acceptable way, we thenmove to other aspects of the paper in deciding whetheror not we can accept the paper for publication. Sex Rolesdoes not publish completely exploratory studies. Thus,we require that the researcher have some idea of whattypes of issues he or she hopes to examine in the data.Formal hypotheses are welcomed, but not required forqualitative data analysis. Research questions, expressed interms of particular coding categories, should be clearlyexpressedintheIntroductionsectionofthepaper.Theoryandpreviously published research about why these particular