What Can Qualitative Psychology Contribute to Psychological Knowledge?

This article reflects on what qualitative research in psychology can contribute to the accumulation of psychological knowledge. It provides an overview of qualitative research in psychology and discusses its potential value to quantitative researchers. It also reviews the differences and similarities between qualitative and quantitative research and explains how qualitative research can be differentiated from other forms of knowing that are concerned with human experience. The article explains what makes qualitative research "research" and how to determine if something is qualitative research or another kind of meaning-making activity. It starts by defining and characterizing qualitative psychology and by identifying qualitative psychology's aims and objectives, and then goes on to examine qualitative psychology's relationship with the pursuit of knowledge and to position it within the wider field of psychological inquiry. The article identifies ways in which qualitative research contributes to psychological knowledge (including thick description, critique, and theory development) and concludes by affirming its place in a psychological research community that seeks to improve our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. Translational Abstract This article is about the role of qualitative research methods in psychological research. Qualitative research does not use numbers and statistics, and instead pays close attention to what people say about their experiences, thoughts, and feelings. The article identifies the defining features of qualitative research and explains the aims and objectives of this type of research. Because most scientific research uses quantitative methods, it is not always easy to see how qualitative research contributes to a body of knowledge. This article argues that qualitative research can contribute to psychological knowledge, and it identifies some ways in which this contribution can be recognized. The article contrasts qualitative research with other activities such as journalism, literature, and philosophy. It suggests that qualitative research is fundamentally different from these activities, and it identifies criteria that differentiate qualitative research from these other types of activities. The article concludes that qualitative research in psychology is engaged in the pursuit of knowledge and that qualitative research findings do contribute to a body of knowledge.