Whether you’re using your research to evaluate a program, write your dissertation, or answer questions about a particular topic, it’s good practice to solidify what your qualitative research objective is.
You also want to ensure that your stakeholders, whether that’s your dissertation chair, the research committee or other people on your team, agree with you on the objective.
You don’t want to be too deep into your research plan before realizing the set of participants you recruited aren’t the right people for answering the questions you want to answer with your research.
I highly recommend writing your qualitative research objective first, and socializing it before beginning any study.
Once you have your qualitative research objective, you can make sure that your research questions, and your recruiting criteria all roll up to it.
Online software such as Delve can help streamline how you’re coding your qualitative coding. Try a free trial or watch a demo of the Delve.