Questioning Professional Autonomy in Qualitative Inquiry

This article reviews the rules, processes, and behaviors of Institution Review Board (IRB) for qualitative inquiry in the social sciences within the framework of professional autonomy. The research will demonstrate how IRBs draw procedural criteria from the biomedical sciences and favor criteria applicable to quantitative social-science research when reviewing qualitative social science research applications. Typically, quantitative research assumes that social facts have an objective reality and that they reduce data to numerical indices. There is also the assumption that social facts are deductive, begin with hypotheses and theories, identify variables, and measure relationships among variables. In contrast, qualitative research assumes that reality is socially constructed and makes minor use of numerical indices. This type of research is inductive, ends with hypotheses and grounded theories, restricts identification of variables, and faces difficulty in measuring relationships among variables. Since an important factor in qualitative social-science research is that researchers enjoy discretion in deciding what they would like to research and the means with which they want to carry it out, and ultimately IRBs control this, IRB review often generates frustration among qualitative social-science researchers.