Domain Ontology: The New Method of Mapping the Field of Qualitative Research Practices

Abstract

Already in the early 1990s, one could encounter the opinion that the state in which the field of qualitative research finds itself bears the hallmarks of the ‘curse of abundance’. Since then, the phenomenon of proliferation in the field has continued to gain momentum. Due to the dynamic growth of qualitative variants of research methodologies, methods and techniques, as well as the enormous internal diversity of the field, qualitative researchers are struggling to orient themselves in the field of their own research practice. Increasingly, many researchers signal the need to systematize their knowledge of the numerous contemporary variants of qualitative research practice. This article responds to this need. It presents a model of the field of contemporary qualitative research based on the IT concept of domain ontology, developed based on a multidimensional content analysis of five dominant methodological journals presented in the form of a semantic network. The proposed model gives an insight into the essential elements of the field (epistemological approaches, data collection and analysis methods, classified into 369 ontological classes), as well as shows their clusters and inter-class relationships. It indicates the existence of three sub-fields characterized by the presence of different approaches and research methods, which differ in density and the strength of relationships. The ontological model of the qualitative research field is an important step toward the development of a domain qualitative research knowledge base, i.e., an information system organizing methodological knowledge that allows for trend monitoring, knowledge management, and effective use of knowledge in research practice.