Qualitative Methodological Designs as Presented in High-Impact Open Access Social Science Journals

Abstract

In this article we describe the uses of qualitative methodological designs in social science journals. A content descriptive analysis was performed. We reviewed 186 papers published in open-access journals indexed in the Scopus electronic database (Elsevier) during 2013-2015. Of the articles reviewed, 75% contained descriptions of the methodological designs utilized. In 51% of the articles qualitative designs were employed based on the type of study (ethnography, action research, grounded theory methodology, phenomenology, discourse analysis, among others); 37% of the articles used a design based on the specific guidelines for each approach; 11% based on the theoretical orientation of the authors (e.g., postpositivism, constructivism, critical theory, and others). We conclude that there are differences in conceptions of qualitative methodological designs in the corpus of articles reviewed.