Research Justification

Elements of Research Requiring Justification

Traditionally in research conducted within any paradigm, researchers have been expected to provide an explanation about why the research is necessary. To explain the overall purpose, aims, and objectives, a rationale is constructed and may illustrate how the research endeavor addresses gaps in the existing knowledge base, contributes a new dimension or perspective, or generates theory about a phenomenon that has not been explored previously.

Another aspect of research for which one might sometimes find justification in any description is the choice of methods employed to generate data; for example, the explanation for selecting interviews, focus groups, or participant observation. Such explanations might include the opportunity to orientate to the participant's perspective through in-depth responses, to [Page 781]probe and clarify, and to ask for examples in the case of interviews.

However, it is less common in accounts of research to find an explicit rationale for the choice of research paradigm (e.g., qualitative, quantitative, postmodern, critical/subtle realist). This may be because authors are less critically reflexive about the overriding perspective they bring to their research endeavor or simply because this has not historically been expected or required in accounts of research. Certainly, the word limits imposed by editors and publishers on contributors to some journals often preclude detailed consideration of one's ontological position.

Another area within qualitative research where explanation or rationale may sometimes appear to be lacking is choice of approach or methodology (e.g., grounded theory, narrative approach, discourse analysis). This is sometimes because the explanation is implicitly woven into the description of the methodology. For example, in writing about one's choice of grounded theory as the theoretical underpinning in a research project, one is likely to allude to the lack of prior research or theorizing about the social process being explored and to cite the work of Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in explaining how theory will be created and that it will be rooted in, or “grounded” in, the data generated. Thus, the implicit justification for the choice of grounded theory may be that no theory currently exists to explain a particular social phenomenon or that changing cultures and practices mean that existing theoretical explanations need to be tested and challenged with reference to new data.

Why Justification is Considered Necessary

In posing the question “Why am I doing this research?,” perhaps the most obvious response is “In order to answer a particular research question,” and indeed the intellectual and/or and practical problem prompting the research endeavor should feature prominently in any account of it.

In considering why qualitative research particularly is being carried out, the explanation is likely to include reference to a social phenomenon requiring in-depth investigation that will provide rich, complex, and detailed information about not only the object of inquiry but also the context in which it occurs. The justification may include an acknowledgment that the exact form of the inquiry is likely to be flexible and at least partly dependent on emerging ideas and theories once the project has commenced.

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