Research and Course Guides: Qualitative Research Methods: Home

Welcome to the Qualitative Research Methods Guide

This guide outlines how to get started on your research. If you'd like more one-on-one research assistance with the Education librarian, please make an appointment by clicking the "Schedule Consultation" button.

Quick Links:

Ask A Librarian: Get research help from a librarian immediately via chat or email, plus options for phone, zoom, or in person consultations. Chat is available 24/7
Interlibrary Loan: Get articles and books UST libraries don't own delivered to you for free using this service. Living outside of the seven-county metropolitan area? Get books delivered to your home address.
Library Search: The best place to get started. Explore physical and digital materials like books, journals, ebooks, maps, videos and more
Google Scholar: Search for your topic in this database that covers many different fields and includes sources like articles, dissertations, court proceedings, professional conference papers, and more. Use the "Cited By" link to show materials that cited an article. Be sure to navigate to Google Scholar through the A-Z databases page or manually log in to be sure you get access to the full text of articles for free.

I need more help: Other Campus Resources

Citation Help: Looking for help citing a paper or presentation in APA? There are many options available:

UST libraries APA Format Guide
OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue
If you have specific citation questions, the full APA manual is the most extensive source

Research Assistance: Saint Thomas librarians offer "drop in" research help at the Reference desk of most UST libraries and are also online through chat (the chat service is available 24/7). If you would like more personalized assistance, schedule an appointment with the Education librarian by clicking on the "schedule consultation" button.

Center For Writing: The School of Education Graduate Writing Center offers in person, zoom, and written feedback appointments for graduate. And offer graduate and doctorate writing support specifically. Connect with the Graduate Writing Assistant at the downtown Minneapolis campus by emailing gradwriting@stthomas.edu

Qualitative Research Communities

Grounded Theory Online
Interactive, structured help to guide you in developing a search strategy using keywords. From the Uinversity of Arizona Libraries
Qualitative research and Cochrane reviews
Chapter 20 of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Describes how Cochrane searches for, analyzes and synthesizes qualitative research. Is especially useful for synthesizing research from both qualitative and quantitative research.
Research Methods Knowledge Base -- Qualitative Research
A nice, basic description of qualitative research and some of the specific methodologies used. Discusses the relative strengths of quantitative vs. qualitative methods.
The Association for Qualitative Research
Check out the library here for really interesting articles on methodology, including how to read and analyze conversational talk, when qualitative research is the appropriate methodology, and more.

Sage Research Methods: Foundations

Feeling less confident than you'd like about research?

Sage Research Methods: Foundations is the perfect companion for a novice or returning researcher. It provides bite-size, introductory overviews to all the major methods topics written by a renowned roster of methods experts, to help get you on your way.

These accessible entries can help you get to the heart of the concept before you dig deeper into books or journal articles.