By Dalat TESOL
Helping new researchers navigate the rich landscape of qualitative inquiry in language education
📌 Introduction
Quantitative research tells you how much or how many—but qualitative research tells you how and why. If you’re exploring beliefs, classroom experiences, identity formation, or interaction patterns in TESOL, qualitative designs are essential.
But not all qualitative research is the same. Each design has its own logic, tools, and outcomes. This article introduces the most commonly used qualitative research designs in TESOL and applied linguistics—so you can choose one that fits your research question and context.
🧠 What is a Qualitative Research Design?
A qualitative design is the blueprint for how you collect, analyze, and interpret non-numerical data such as interviews, observations, written texts, or interactions.
Key features of qualitative designs:
- Emphasize participants’ perspectives
- Use open-ended or semi-structured data
- Focus on depth over breadth
- Are flexible, iterative, and context-sensitive
🔍 Overview of Major Qualitative Designs in TESOL
| Design | Purpose | Common Data Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Case Study | Deep investigation of a bounded context | Interviews, documents, classroom observation |
| Ethnography | Cultural understanding of a group over time | Fieldnotes, immersion, participant observation |
| Narrative Inquiry | Understanding lives through personal stories | Life histories, interviews, journals |
| Phenomenology | Exploring lived experience of a phenomenon | In-depth interviews, reflection logs |
| Grounded Theory | Developing theory grounded in data | Iterative interviews, memos, coding cycles |
| Action Research | Improving local practices through reflection | Cycles of intervention, reflection, data collection |
| Conversation Analysis (CA) | Uncovering how talk is organized in interaction | Video/audio recordings, Jefferson transcription |
| Discourse Analysis (DA) | Analyzing language use, power, and identity in texts | Transcripts, written texts, multimodal data |
📘 1. Case Study
Focus: A detailed exploration of a single case (e.g., a class, school, teacher, or learner)
When to use:
- Your RQ centers on understanding a specific context
- You want multiple types of data (interviews, documents, observations)
Example:
A case study of an EMI (English Medium Instruction) science teacher’s classroom practices in a Vietnamese university.
✅ Strength: rich, multi-perspective understanding
⚠️ Limitation: limited generalizability
🌍 2. Ethnography
Focus: Cultural practices and shared meanings in a group
When to use:
- You’re studying how beliefs and norms shape behavior
- You can immerse yourself in the community over time
Example:
An ethnographic study of translanguaging practices among multilingual students in a bilingual secondary school.
✅ Strength: in-depth, contextual insight into cultural patterns
⚠️ Limitation: time-intensive, requires trust-building
🧑🎓 3. Narrative Inquiry
Focus: Personal stories as a way of understanding experience
When to use:
- You want to explore teacher or learner identity
- You are interested in the temporal unfolding of experience
Example:
How a returning Vietnamese PhD graduate reconstructs academic identity after re-entering the local university system.
✅ Strength: honors voice and emotion
⚠️ Limitation: small samples, requires narrative sensibility
🌀 4. Phenomenology
Focus: The essence of lived experience around a shared phenomenon
When to use:
- You explore emotional, sensory, or cognitive experiences
- You seek depth over scope
Example:
Exploring the lived experience of writing anxiety among novice EFL university students.
✅ Strength: deep insight into human experience
⚠️ Limitation: interpretive, requires researcher reflexivity
🏗️ 5. Grounded Theory
Focus: Developing new theories based on emergent data
When to use:
- There’s no existing theory that fully explains your phenomenon
- You’re open to following what the data suggests
Example:
Building a theory of how EFL teachers develop AI literacy through informal learning.
✅ Strength: theory building from the ground up
⚠️ Limitation: time-intensive, requires multiple coding rounds
🔁 6. Action Research
Focus: Improving your own or your institution’s practice through research
When to use:
- You’re both teacher and researcher
- You want to test and reflect on a new method
Example:
Using action research to improve students’ engagement in reading circles in a Vietnamese university reading class.
✅ Strength: practical, empowering, reflective
⚠️ Limitation: may lack external objectivity
💬 7. Conversation Analysis (CA)
Focus: How interaction is organized (turn-taking, repair, sequence)
When to use:
- You analyze real-time classroom or institutional talk
- You have video/audio recordings and want to analyze transcripts
Example:
Turn-taking and teacher-student alignment in Vietnamese EAP classrooms.
✅ Strength: fine-grained insight into social interaction
⚠️ Limitation: requires transcription expertise (Jefferson system)
🗣️ 8. Discourse Analysis (DA)
Focus: How language constructs social realities (power, identity, positioning)
When to use:
- You’re analyzing how texts, talks, or policies shape meaning
- You want to examine identity, positioning, or ideology
Example:
A discourse analysis of teacher beliefs about AI in language learning across policy statements and interviews.
✅ Strength: links language and social structures
⚠️ Limitation: often abstract, interpretive
🎯 How to Choose the Right Design
Ask yourself:
- What is your main purpose?
- Explore experience → Phenomenology
- Develop theory → Grounded Theory
- Understand context → Case Study/Ethnography
- Change practice → Action Research
- Analyze texts → DA or CA
- What data can you access ethically and realistically?
- Do you need to immerse in a site, follow a story, or record interactions?
📝 Tip: Match your design to your research questions, not the other way around.
✅ Final Checklist
| Step | Consideration |
|---|---|
| Research Question | Does it ask “how,” “why,” or “in what way”? |
| Design Fit | Does the design align with your goal and context? |
| Data Access | Can you collect data ethically and meaningfully? |
| Time/Skill | Do you have time and resources to analyze this type of data? |
📚 Further Reading
- Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design.
- Richards, K. (2003). Qualitative Inquiry in TESOL.
- Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics.
- Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation.
🌱 Final Thoughts
Qualitative designs offer rich insights into the lives, practices, and identities of language teachers and learners. The key is to choose the design that fits your research question—and to engage deeply with your participants and data.
“Good qualitative research doesn’t just ask questions—it listens, reflects, and respects complexity.”