Using Pre-Analysis Plans in Qualitative Research

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been a significant push for greater transparency in the social sciences. For example, epistemological and methodological debates have addressed the scope, meaning, and appropriateness of research transparency, and scholars have developed tools and practices to facilitate the process. One such approach is preregistration, the practice of recording a priori a study’s design and its plan of analysis in open and public repositories (Haven et al. 2020). While it is a standard practice in experimental social science, it has been a matter of contested debate in observational work, both quantitative and qualitative. Arguments in favor of using this practice in qualitative inquiry, as well as opposing views, have recently been published (Büthe et al. 2015; Elman and Kapiszewski 2014; Elman and Lupia 2016; Kern and Gleditsch 2017; Haven et al. 2020; Jacobs et al. 2021; Kapiszewski and Karcher 2020; Moravcsik 2014; Piñeiro and Rosenblatt 2016).