UNDERSTANDING AND EVALUATING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

This article was written for scholars who do not engage in qualitative research and/or who are not familiar with its methods and epistemolog ies. It focuses on naturalistic qualitative research with families, An overview of the goals and procedures of qualitative research is first presented. This is followed by a discussion of the linkages between e pistemologies and methodology. Then, possible guidelines involved in t he several steps of the evaluation process of qualitative family paper s are reviewed. This is complemented by an overview of problems freque ntly encountered both by reviewers and by authors of such papers. The variety of qualitative epistemologies and methods in family research i s highlighted, even though our focus is limited to epistemologies lend ing to naturalistic fieldwork.