In the struggles to have its legitimacy recognized, qualitative research has been framed as a singular entity understood in relation to quantitative research. This interpretation is now being challenged, resulting in the emergence of increasingly complex, frequently contradictory, and often unarticulated understandings of the goals and practices associated with qualitative research. This article chronicles the pragmatic and ethical struggles the author encountered as her own ideas, reflecting the developing status of qualitative research perspectives, gradually shifted during the process of conducting a doctoral study. The purpose is to open for discussion the implications associated with contradictory discourses around qualitative research.
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