Qualitative research became a field a few decades ago and in the last two decades, it has been steadily growing and expanding to wider and wider regions of the world. Just like any new paradigm shift in any field, the integration of qualitative research has faced challenges, although in many western countries, the resistance has considerably decreased. Much has been written about the challenges of and solutions have been proposed for the integration of qualitative research. Despite that, for higher education institutions that were driven by quantitative research for decades, embracing qualitative research can be suspicious, ignored, discouraged, resisted, challenging, or overwhelming. No known study has been conducted to explore this paradigm shift from the perspective of how universities successfully integrate qualitative research in their research culture. This grounded theory was undertaken specifically for this reason. Based on the significant progress experienced in the integration of qualitative research in higher education in the Philippines over the last decade, this study was undertaken to learn how an effective integration of qualitative research in the institutional or organizational research culture occurs. Data was collected through 49 individual semi-structured interviews that involved 45 participants: 10 university faculty members, 10 research organization leaders, eight deans, eight doctoral students, five university research directors and vice presidents, and four doctoral graduates. Furthermore, data was collected through written documents, class observations, memos, and existing literature as required in grounded theory.
The study resulted in specific indicators that define a qualitatively strong university, establishing the factors that challenge the integration of qualitative research in higher education, and effective strategies that can be used to promote and integrate qualitative research in their culture.
The major contributions of this study were the taxonomy of qualitification, which is defines five levels of qualitative research integration and the actual theory of qualitification, that is, the theory that explains how higher education institutions effectively embrace qualitative research.