Steve Tippins Ph.D.Helping doctoral students get their dissertation accepted, succeed in their careers, & change the world | Academic Career Advisor | Dissertation Chair & Founder, Beyond PhD Coaching | 35 + years of experience.

The Secret to Nailing Your Qualitative Research

13 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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In this instructional segment, the presenter emphasizes the importance of clearly defining the time frame and scope of a qualitative study. He explains that most qualitative research relies on a one-time interview, but alternative designs like action research involve multiple interviews at different stages (beginning, middle, end). He notes that member checking—sending findings back to participants for verification—is a common practice. While longitudinal qualitative studies exist, they are more complex and less common. When conducting case studies, researchers must specify whether they are examining a single case, multiple cases, or multiple sites. The speaker concludes by offering a link to a free dissertation help community for viewers who request it.

Chapters

You want to make sure you explain the time and scope of your research. Typically, a qualitative study is a one-time interview. There are approaches— action research is one we haven't talked about— where many times you have interviews at a beginning, middle, and even end of a process. But more often than not, we're talking about a one-time interview. And that includes if you're doing member checking, that's sending things back to them just to find out if what you recorded for them or got written down for them is actually what they think they told you. On occasion, there There can be longitudinal studies, but it's much more complex and more rare in this approach. And when you're doing case study, you're going to definitely clarify, am I doing a single case or multiple case or multiple sites? Drop the word help in the comments and I'll send you the link for our free dissertation help community.