Engaging with Methodological Issues in Qualitative Research: Sharing Personal Experience to Benefit Novice Researchers

Abstract

In Ghana and many African countries, students in tertiary education institutions are less familiar with qualitative research methodologies, despite the legion literature on this subject and its popularity in western higher education institutions. In this paper, I share my experience on how I engaged with methodological issues in a qualitative study which I conducted. The paper seeks to demonstrate that despite the apparently messy nature of qualitative research, its characteristics, principles and defining canons are translatable from theory to practice, from rhetoric to reality, and from the pages of textbooks to the pragmatics of research. The paper aims to provide insights to novice researchers who have interest in qualitative research methodologies but feel hesitant to apply them. Hopefully, the fears of such researchers would be allayed and they would be emboldened to venture into this exciting and excellent area of research.

Keywords: Credibility, positivism, post-positivism, qualitative research, research paradigm,