Can There Be Criteria for Selecting Research Criteria?—A Hermeneutical Analysis of an Inescapable Dilemma

Abstract

For some time now qualitative researchers have been debating the implications of the cri sis of representation in social and educational research. The untenability of any notion of absolute truth has left us with the problem of determining the status of research findings. Considerable attention has been devoted to finding criteria that will enable judgments to be made between competing research claims. However, this leads to a second, equally intractable problem: How can we determine which set of putative criteria to adopt? This article analyzes the nature of criteria in qualitative research from a hermeneutical per spective, arguing that criteria can only be located in the interaction between research findings and the critical reader of those findings. It is suggested that it is both illogical and pointless to attempt to predetermine a definitive set of criteria against which all qualitative research should be judged.