Abstract
One criticism about qualitative research is that it is difficult to generalize findings to settings not studied. To explore this issue, I examine three broad arguments for generalizing from data: sample-to-population extrapolation, analytic generalization, and case-to-case transfer. Qualitative research often uses the last argument, but some efforts have been made to use the first two. I suggest that analytic generalization can be very helpful for qualitative researchers but that sample-to-population extrapolation is not likely to be.
Keywords
GeneralizationExtrapolationCriticismArgument (complex analysis)Qualitative researchSample (material)Qualitative propertyPopulationEpistemologyPsychologyComputer scienceManagement scienceMathematicsSociologyStatisticsSocial sciencePolitical scienceMedicineEconomics
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Interpreting Qualitative Data
Part I: Theory and Method in Qualitative Research What Is Qualitative Research? Designing a Research Project Generalizing from Case Study Research Credible Qualitative Research ...
Sample size for qualitative research
Purpose Qualitative researchers have been criticised for not justifying sample size decisions in their research. This short paper addresses the issue of which sample sizes are a...
How Many Interviews Are Enough?
Guidelines for determining nonprobabilistic sample sizes are virtually nonexistent. Purposive samples are the most commonly used form of nonprobabilistic sampling, and their siz...
Nuclear cosmochronology within analytic models of the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood
This paper investigates whether the age of the Galaxy can be deduced from natural radioactivity. I demonstrate that two recent influential claims (by Butcher and by Fowler) that...
A General Inductive Approach for Analyzing Qualitative Evaluation Data
A general inductive approach for analysis of qualitative evaluation data is described. The purposes for using an inductive approach are to (a) condense raw textual data into a b...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1993
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 16-23
- Citations
- 816
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
816
OpenAlex
Cite This
William A. Firestone
(1993).
Alternative Arguments for Generalizing From Data as Applied to Qualitative Research.
Educational Researcher
, 22
(4)
, 16-23.
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x022004016
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.3102/0013189x022004016