BENCHMARKING USAGE OF QUALITY INDICATORS IN QUALITATIVE HUMAN SUBJECTS DESIGN THEORY AND METHODS RESEARCH

The purpose of this paper is to benchmark current practices in how qualitative research in Design Theory and Methods fields is presented. Given that qualitative research methods are often viewed as “subjective,” and that most traditionally-trained engineering researchers have not been educated in intensive qualitative research methodologies, it is important to assess whether and how the extant literature seeks to establish credibility. Using a variety of qualitative quality indicators from other long-established traditions that regularly enforce high standards in qualitative research, we performed a content analysis of a systematically-curated corpus of publications published in ASME Journal of Mechanical Design between the years 2010-2025 in order to identify opportunities for the field to better employ and defend the use of qualitative methods. Findings from this work show that more recent papers show a higher attendance to quality concerns and employment of qualitative standards for quality, perhaps due to cross-disciplinary influence from developing peripheral fields like engineering education, and emergent researchers who have interdisciplinary training in these domains. This work also highlights the opportunity for researchers seeking to employ qualitative data in their research work by providing a more credible and legitimized way to establish quality in their methods. In addition, we hope that this work will guide reviewers of qualitative human subjects work to better assess quality of qualitative research designs and the communication of valuable qualitative research findings.