Keywords in Qualitative Methods

editorial board member, Qualitative Research, and Chair, Trustees of the Foundation which owns the Sociology of Health and Illness journal After graduating with a first class degree in Geography from Manchester University, I worked for 4 years as a researcher in the department of Public Health Medicine in Gwent Health Authority. In 1995 I moved to the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University where I started my academic career as a research assistant working on a Department of Health funded study to estimate the prevalence of injecting drug use in Wales using the ‘contact-recontact’ method. Between 1997 and 2003 I worked as a Research/Tutorial Fellow for the same department. In this role I was engaged in teaching medical sociology and research methods as well as employed on a number of projects including the disclosure of emotional problems in primary care and the construction of risk within cancer genetics. During this time I also completed a PhD which presented an ethnographic investigation of a scientific culture focussing on an emerging and potentially zoonotic virus called Borna Disease Virus. I have also recently completed a qualitative methods text book published by Sage (Bloor and Wood 2006).In 2003 I was appointed as a non-clinical lecturer in the Department of General Practice (now Department of Primary Care & Public Health). My teaching areas include communication skills, research methods and aspects of medical humanities such as literature and medicine and philosophy of medicine at undergraduate level. I have also taught research methods at post-graduate level. I am currently co-supervising two PhD students. Previous PhD students include Michelle Edwards who studied the practice of health literacy in patients with a long-term health condition through self-directed learning, patient education and social interaction. I have also served as a member of the Local Research Ethics Committee. Since my appointment to lecturer in 2003, my main areas of research have been in the areas of common infections and health care communication.

′The book at hand is a very useful additional reference to the qualitative research methodology bibliography′ - Qualitative Research

• Access NegotiationsAction ResearchAnalytic Induction Analytic Notes (see Research Diary)Authenticity (see Naturalism)Authorial presence (see Reflexivity)Audio-recordingAutoethnographyBias BiographiesCase StudyChicago School (see Symbolic Interactionism) Citizens′ JuryCoding (see Indexing)Cognitive MappingCommunity Studies (see Action Research and Ethnography)Computer-Assisted Data Analysis Computer Mediated Interviewing (see Electronic Data Collection)Confessional Accounts (see Writing)Constant Comparative Method (see Grounded Theory)Conversation AnalysisCovert ResearchCritical Cases (see Case Study)Dangerous FieldworkData Protection (see Ethics)Deconstructionism (see Discourse Analysis) Delphi GroupsDepth Interviews (see Interviewing)Deviant Case Analysis (see Analytic Induction)Diary Methods Discourse AnalysisDocumentary MethodsElectronic Data Collection Ethics EthnographyEthnomethodologyFeminist Methods FieldnotesFieldwork Relationships Focus GroupsForeshadowed Problems (see Ethnography)Gatekeepers (see Access Negotiations)GeneralisationGoing Native (see Bias)Grounded TheoryGroup InterviewsIndexingIndigenous Researchers (see Public Participation)Informed Consent (see Ethics)Interviews Key InformantsLeaving the FieldLife History (see Oral History)Logical AnalysisMember Validation (see Triangulation)Meta EthnographyMixed Methods (see Multiple Methods)Multiple Methods NarrativesNaturalismObservation (see Ethnography)Oral HistoryParticipant Observation (see Ethnography)Phenomenological MethodsPilotingPositivism (see Naturalism)PostmodernismPost-Structuralism (see Postmodernism)Process EvaluationPublic ParticipationPublic/Private AccountsPublic Sociology (see Whose Side Are We On?)Purposive Sampling (see Sampling)Qualitative/Quantitative Combinations (see Multiple Methods)Rapid Assessment Realism (see Naturalism)ReflexivityReliabilityResearch DiaryResearcher Safety (see Dangerous Fieldwork)Respondent Validation (see Triangulation)Sampling Semi-Structured Interviews (see Interviews)Social Network AnalysisSoftware (see Computer-Assisted Data Analysis)Symbolic Interactionism Taxonomies Telephone Interviewing (see Electronic Data Collection) Thick Description (see Theoretical Saturation)Theoretical Sampling (see Sampling)Theoretical SaturationTime Sampling (see Sampling)TranscriptionTriangulationTrustUses of Qualitative ResearchVideo RecordingVideo Analysis (see Video Recording)VignettesVirtual Focus Groups (see Focus Groups)Validity (see Reliability)Whose Side Are We On?Writing