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Introduction
The discussion around what qualitative research is and how we can evaluate it is ongoing. [3] Creswell (2007, p. 36) recently noted that "some extremely useful introductory books to qualitative research these days do not contain a definition that can be easily located". As reported by [13] Sandelowski and Barroso (2009), due to the different paradigms that drive researchers, the debate has not reached a definitive conclusion. Thus [12] Rolfe (2006, p. 305), following their work, argues that:
any attempt to establish a consensus on quality criteria for qualitative research is unlikely to succeed for the simple reason that there is no unified body of theory, methodology or method that can collectively be described as qualitative research; indeed, that the very idea of qualitative research is open to question.
We do not aim to state definitely what is and what is not qualitative research but we agree with [11] Porter (2007) when he states, analysing Rolfe's contribution, that there are two main ways of defining qualitative research: the first refers to method (using this word to identify the kind of information that is collected and analysed), the second one refers to epistemological and ontological assumptions.
The problematic nature of qualitative research can be connected to linguistic questions as [16] Tobin and Begley (2004, p. 389) partially uphold when they state that "due to a long history of producing important findings, quantitative research has become the language of research rather than the language of a particular paradigm". Qualitative study has progressively gained a more accepted position in the academic world of qualitative researchers ([8] McCracken, 1988) but there is still often a feeling of inferiority among qualitative researchers. Another contentious issue is what makes "the good qualitative researcher" (for an interesting treatment of the subject see the article of [1] Brinkmann (2007) with the same title). This is a topic that involves all the questions stated above as well other issues.
Even with these discussions in mind, our aim in this paper is to indicate some guidelines for the authors who want to submit their articles to the review process to be accepted by the Journal of Workplace Learning (JWL).
Why do we need to speak about this?
To share the research results, as well...