Qualitative Assertions as Prescriptive Statements

The primary question regarding prescriptive appropriateness is a difficult one to answer for the qualitative researcher. While there are certainly qualitative researchers who have offered prescriptive protocols to better define and describe the terrain of qualitative research design and there are qualitative researchers who offer research conclusions that might be considered prescriptive by the reader, the nature of qualitative research tends to avoid the prescriptive statement in the research findings. Instead, a transparent process of research design, theoretical framework application or construction, participant population/ sample identification, and data collection/analysis are revealed throughout the research manuscript leading not to prescriptive findings but rather to asserted outcomes that are carefully communicated to the reader within the context of the research design and