Qualitative Research: From Design to Publication
Make sure the pieces of your study fit together!
There are significant variations in how a qualitative study can be designed and conducted. Each qualitative research design encompasses specific ways of identifying and addressing a researchable problem; setting up the study; and collecting, analyzing, and presenting data. All the study’s components must be interconnected so that the study is a cohesive whole. Thinking along these lines affords a research study methodological congruence. To achieve methodological congruence, researchers will therefore need to ensure that methods of data collection, data analysis, and presentation of findings will apply to their selected research design. Dr. Linda Bloomberg, drawing on material from her book Completing your qualitative dissertation: A road map from beginning to end (2023) explains the importance of methodological congruence by ensuring alignment between a study’s selected research design and the methods used to collect, analyze and present data.
Organize your doctoral writing process
Linda Dale Bloomberg EdD. currently develops curriculum for qualitative research in graduate online programs for National University, serving as faculty coach, dissertation chair, and doctoral subject matter expert. She formerly served as an adjunct faculty and dissertation advisor in the department of adult learning and leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. She serves as consultant to various research, higher education, and nonprofit advisory boards including The Future Talent Council, and is founder of Bloomberg Associates and ILIAD (Institute for Learning Innovations and Adult Development) and cofounder of Columbia University’s Global Learning and Leadership Institute. As senior researcher for the South African Human Sciences Research Council and National Institute for Personnel Research, Dr. Bloomberg’s work focused on change management; diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and enhanced workplace learning.
Dr. Bloomberg is the author of multiple publications in the fields of qualitative research, organizational evaluation, leadership development, ensuring equitable student success, adult learning, and distance education, and is a contributor to The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation (2018). Her two most recent books include the 5th edition of Completing your qualitative dissertation: A road map from beginning to end (2023) from Sage; and Designing and delivering effective online instruction: How to engage adult learners (2021) from Teachers College Press, Columbia University. This publication was nominated for the 2021 and 2022 Division of Distance Learning (DDL) for the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), one of the premier international organizations for instructional design and ed-tech. Dr. Bloomberg presents regularly at national and international professional conferences on topics related to diversity initiatives in higher education, adult learning, qualitative research, and dissertation instruction. She holds master’s degrees in counseling psychology, organizational psychology, and education, and is credentialed with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). In 2006, she received her doctorate in adult education and organizational learning from the AEGIS program Columbia University that was established by Jack Mezirow, founder of Transformative Learning theory.