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Critical Theory: Broadening Our Thinking to Explore the Structural Factors at Play in Health Professions Education

Paradis, Elise MA, PhD; Nimmon, Laura PhD; Wondimagegn, Dawit MD; Whitehead, Cynthia R. MD, PhD

E. Paradis is assistant professor, status only, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9103-4721 .

L. Nimmon is a scientist, Centre for Health Education Scholarship, and assistant professor, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7291-603X .

D. Wondimagegn is associate professor of psychiatry and chief executive director, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, and a consultant psychiatrist, Tikur Anbessa Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

C.R. Whitehead is vice president, education, Women’s College Hospital, director and scientist, Wilson Centre for Research in Education, and professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0134-9074 .

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a collection of Invited Commentaries exploring the Philosophy of Science.

Funding/Support: E. Paradis’ research is funded by the Canada Research Chairs program. L. Nimmon’s research is funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant 430-2018-0409. C. Whitehead’s research is funded by the BMO Financial Group Chair in Health Professions Research, University Health Network.

Other disclosures: None reported.

Ethical approval: Reported as not applicable.

Correspondence should be addressed to Elise Paradis, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, 144 College St., Toronto, ON M4S 3M2, Canada; telephone: (415) 792-7549; email: [email protected] ; Twitter: @ep_qc.

As part of the Philosophy of Science series of Invited Commentaries, this article on critical theory describes the origins of this research paradigm and its key concepts and orientations (ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology, and rigor). The authors frame critical theory as an umbrella term for different theories, including feminism, antiracism, and anticolonialism. They emphasize the structural analysis that critical scholars conduct to uncover and sometimes address the role that social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender factors play in health professions education. They note the importance of acknowledging one’s social location when doing critical research and highlight the core values of democracy and egalitarianism that underpin critical research. Methodologically, the authors stress how critical scholars reject singular truths in favor of more nuanced portraits of concepts and events, mobilize inductive approaches over deductive ones, and use critical theory to develop their projects and analyze their data. Following upon this elucidation of critical theory, the authors apply this paradigm to analyze the sample case of Lee, a medical resident who was involved in a medication error. The authors conclude that research conducted in the critical tradition has the potential to transcend individualistic accounts by revealing underlying structural forces that constrain or support individual agency.

Contemporary health professions education is awash in “critical” conversations. The critical perspective is broad and encapsulates, for example, critical theory, 1 critical reflection, 2 critical evaluation, 3 and critical consciousness. 4 What is the glue that unites these apparently discordant concepts that are gaining traction in the field? What does it mean to be “critical,” beyond proffering a critique or airing criticisms?

This article aims to provide some clarity around these seemingly divergent issues. Conceptual clarity will allow the health professions education community to invoke critical theory with insight and deliberation, bringing social and cultural advancement to the field.

In this article, we outline a history of critical theory. We then delineate the core concepts and orientations that define critical theory. Finally, to enhance understanding, we illustrate how a critical theorist would approach studying a specific case (see Box 1).

A Quick History of Critical Theory

In the social sciences, critical theory is the branch of knowledge that originated from the Frankfurt School, a school of social theory developed between World War I and World War II, in Germany. 5 Critical theorists rejected positivistic approaches such as those embraced by Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim, among others, and were influenced by the Marxian historical, dialectic, and materialistic approach to knowledge creation. Instead of aiming to find universal rules for human behavior, critical scholars favored approaches that underscore people’s material conditions of existence and the impact on social and intellectual life. Over the course of the 20th century, critical theory (the umbrella term) opened the way for strands of critical theories that include feminist, antiracist, anticolonialist, queer, and many other positionalities. Critical theory today represents a space that embraces vast social concerns and other conflict theories—that is, theories that stress intergroup struggles and anchor their analyses in people’s everyday lives, often as they are determined by their ascribed characteristics, defined as individual traits over which one has no control, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc. Box 2 includes key terms and definitions, and Box 3 provides a list of key references.

Grounding Concepts and Orientations

Ontology: the nature of reality.

Critical theory assumes an ontological position in which reality is shaped over time by structures such as social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender constructs. 6 These structures, and other institutional and cultural forces, interact dynamically to form the tapestry of social life. 7 Social structures are elaborate and can determine one’s thinking and behavior, often unconsciously.

Examining the globalization of medical education, a postcolonial critical theorist could question the very notion of “universal standards,” particularly as these have mostly been developed by and represent the dominant worldview of Euro-Americans. She would investigate how local populations in Ethiopia, for instance, relate and respond to pressures to harmonize their medical school curricula with these Euro-American “universal standards.” Similarly, a feminist critical theorist might examine how the gendered hierarchies of medical training are created and maintained and how these constrain women trainees’ future achievements. Critical theorists are thus attentive to inequitable power relations, aim to raise consciousness, and, in doing so, some seek to emancipate those entangled in oppressive social dynamics. 8

Critical theorists and scholars consider social reality as shaped partly through discourses: a set of tacit rules mediated by language and symbols that regulate what can or cannot be said, who has the authority to speak, who must listen and obey, and whose social constructions and experiences are valid or invalid. 7 Yet these “truths” can always be challenged by competing groups with different agendas. 7 , 9 Disruptive change is made possible by identifying, unpacking, and replacing potentially oppressive discourses, and thus critical theory opens up the possibility of human agency, resistance, and change. Yet critical theory can also seem controlling and hegemonic in its own way, by forcing onto others what they can perceive to be a radical view of a future where differences are overly politicized and often dichotomized.

Epistemology: The nature of knowledge

Critical theory takes an epistemological position that all knowledge is constructed from a specific position and that this position is determined at the intersection of the multiple structures that distribute power in a society. 6 What the critical theorist can know is deeply influenced by, first, the historical location of the objects she tries to understand; and, second, by her own social location in the socially constructed structures of power. This view is reflected, for example, in the work of feminist epistemologists Donna Haraway 10 and Sandra Harding, 11 who have criticized empiricist views of science, arguing that all scientists are contextually situated. And so, while research is often reported as “objective,” these scholars contend that there is no “view from nowhere” 12 and so call on scholars to study the social and historical locations of those who do science, so that the influences of their contexts on the science they develop can be examined. A key goal of critical theorists is to problematize or “make strange” an otherwise assumed normative phenomenon to understand and/or change it.

A distinguishing element of critical theory is that reality is recognized to be mediated by language. One simple, yet telling, example of the power of language in medical education is the fact that researchers need to be able to present and publish their research in English to have an internationally recognized voice in the field. Just think about how challenged many native English-speaking researchers would be if overnight the legitimized language changed to Chinese or Amharic, or if they were thrown back to the olden days of Latin scholarship! Critical theorists emphasize how language regulates and dominates, resists and challenges, empowers and liberates based on preexisting power structures.

Different critical theorists have different views of the relationship between language and power, but most would concur that language is both shaped by reality and it constructs reality. 7 Most critical scholars will therefore be qualitative researchers who will be extremely attentive to the linguistic characteristics of their data, as well as their own role co-constructing data and their meaning. From a critical theory perspective, however, language always reflects power structures, and therefore it cannot be neutral—and this is true for all scholarship, both quantitative and qualitative, since research articles are primarily constituted of text. Science has an inescapable relationship to language, and thus to relationships of power.

Axiology: The study of values and how they influence the research process

More explicitly and reflexively than most other scholars, critical scholars are moved by a particular axiology. The intrinsic values or axiology of critical theory are democracy and egalitarianism, and thus critical work will tend to pursue such values. Critical scholars will also be moved by the assumption that human action is at once constrained by social structures and capable of disrupting them. 7 A large proportion of critical scholars uses the productive aspects of power to create egalitarian, democratic social structures. 13 , 14 A specificity of critical scholarship at the epistemological and methodological levels is therefore an interest in the expansion of consciousness toward power dynamics and disruptive acts of language. 7

Paying attention to axiology allows critical theorists to ask questions such as what values underpin the militaristic metaphors (such as physician “orders,” the “war” on cancer, etc. 15 ) and why are hierarchical structures so pervasive in health care systems? In another example of how critical theorists would study medical education, these scholars would ask If implicit hierarchical values limit representation of marginalized voices (e.g., the precarious workforce, trainees, patients, loved ones), can we ever achieve the learner-centered and patient-centered goals we so often espouse? Or: How is the knowledge learned in medical school reinforcing preexisting worldviews that deny the importance of the social sciences and humanities? 16 , 17

Methodology: How to conduct scientific research

The epistemological and ontological bases of critical theory have important methodological consequences. First, critical scholars will reject totalizing claims about social realities. For example, a homogeneous “universal truth” about nature, individuals, groups of people, or phenomena will be challenged critically as a “singular truth”: a truth that comes from a limited perspective, captured at a specific time and location. To illustrate, a critical theorist would not assume that any educational tool, be it problem-based learning, interprofessional education (IPE), or competency-based medical education, would be appropriate in contexts other than the ones in which they were developed.

Second, critical scholars will generally favor inductive data collection approaches, where the researcher explores a topic using one or more critical theoretical frames of reference (feminism, colonialism, etc.) rather than tests a hypothesis. These scholars will listen closely to data generated in naturalistic settings rather than collect data for a specific purpose in a laboratory setting. A critical theoretical research design will be flexible and naturalistic, and findings will be anchored in their social and historical realities. For instance, instead of simply trying to “neutrally” translate an IPE model from North America to Addis Ababa, the critical theorist might instead ask a research question about, for example, the cultural and historical interprofessional hierarchies and political influences in both North America and Ethiopia and the ways in which they overlap or diverge.

Third, critical scholars will use strands of critical theory to frame their inquiry, define their research question, help analyze their data, and interpret their findings. Theories will likely be used both deductively and inductively: Scholars will use core concepts deductively to guide data analysis and interpretation—using race, gender, or class as lenses through which to understand the world— and use data to inductively refine theory in their specific context. For example, critical scholars are always sensitized to power structures and their impact on individuals, groups, organizations, or social phenomena, including the scholars’ own role in the research at hand. Thus, critical scholars researching IPE in Addis Ababa might draw upon postcolonial or feminist theories to examine implications of this educational intervention in this particular low-resource setting.

Rigor: Criteria for evaluating the quality of research

Criteria for quality and rigor will differ from those used in more positivistic paradigms. Instead of validity, reliability, and objectivity, criteria will include credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, 18 all of which are widely used, but also substantive contribution, 19 holism, evocativeness, and emancipatory potential. 8 , 20 , 21 In assessing quality and rigor, a critical scholar would look for evidence that her research contributed to a contextual understanding of a phenomenon that exposed problematic power relations and pointed to a way to reshape hierarchies. For example, does her research open possibilities for North American trainees and patients to feel more or less empowered in health care settings? How does a research project that seeks to articulate hierarchies in Ethiopian health care systems lead to relevant Ethiopian models of education for collaboration? It is in this sense that holism, evocativeness, and emancipatory potential are all facets of high-quality critical research.

Investigating the Case of Lee

In reading the case of Lee (Box 1), a critical scholar would start by situating Lee within their structural, organizational, and interpersonal context. This would include questioning how their environment contributes to their sense of disempowerment and distress about “their” error. Key questions would include how are the structure of health systems, the culture of medicine, expectations of Lee’s specific residency program, and interpersonal relationships with peers and authority figures contributing to their emotional response to the event? Depending on Lee’s gender identity, a critical scholar might also question the role of gender in Lee’s responsibility for administrating the drug, instead of the nurse. If Lee is a woman, was she given this role by a nurse who saw it as Lee’s job, and how does this impact the meaning Lee brings to her work? A critical perspective could also focus on other hierarchies and oppressions within the case, for example, the missing perspective of the patient: Where are the patient and family in this story? What are their roles in co-constructing Lee’s understanding of the event and later response? What is the historical, cultural, organizational, and political context for this omission? Finally, critical scholars would pay close attention to the language used in the vignette and in any data collected. When studying language in use, does it highlight or veil relationships of influence that contribute to Lee’s distress?

In conclusion, we want to encourage readers to use critical theory as a paradigm to conduct health professions education research when their research aims to transcend individualistic and reductionist perspectives. Critical theory broadens our thinking by exploring how a range of different structures influence human organizations, interactions, and behavior. It is of particular relevance when examining social and historical processes through a social justice or discursive lens, and is perfectly suited for the study of power, resistance, and emancipation.

Sample Casea

Lee was a resident assigned to monitor a postop patient. The patient had a periodically low respiratory rate and lower-than-normal pulse and blood pressure. Narcan was ordered on an “as needed” basis, to be given in doses of 0.2 mg intravenously. In checking the patient’s vitals, Lee decided it was time to administer an intravenous (IV) dose of Narcan.

Once Lee injected the vial of Narcan into the IV port, Lee noticed it was labeled “2 milligrams per 1 milliliter (ml)”—the entire vial should not have been injected. Feeling panicky, Lee reported the mistake to an attending and rushed back to the patient’s side to monitor the vital signs. Lee was surprised to find that the patient’s vitals had come up to normal rates, and the patient was actually much more alert. When Lee reported this change to the attending surgeon and anesthesiologist, they told Lee to continue to monitor the patient closely, remarking that it may have been just what the patient needed.

Lee felt hugely relieved, but was still overwhelmed and very upset. In most cases, giving 10 times a normal dose of any medication could have led to extremely serious consequences, and even death. Still, Lee managed to remain outwardly composed and took the time to complete an incident report. At the end of the day, when Lee finally sat down to rest, the incident played over and over again. Lee did not sleep.

a This sample case is used throughout the Philosophy of Science Invited Commentaries to illustrate each research paradigm.

Key Terms and Definitions

Discourse: A set of statements and ideas mediated through language and symbols that regulate what can or cannot be said, who has the authority to speak (versus whose voices are silenced), what knowledge is legitimized (versus what knowledge is marginalized), and whose social constructions and experiences are valid (versus whose are considered invalid).

Critical: A type of scholarship or inquiry that aims to question the assumptions of dominant forms of thinking by challenging the power relations that are normative and assumed.

Critical theory: An umbrella term for a set of theories that aim to make social structure visible through an analysis of power relations. Strands of critical theories include feminist theories, postcolonial theories, Marxist theories, intersectionality, etc.

Structure: The political, social, cultural, historical, and economic forces that influence individual behavior and thus create predictable patterns based on someone’s social location.

Making (the familiar) strange: A phrase coined by playwright and director Bertolt Brecht. Challenging the dominant way of seeing a phenomenon by uncovering its underlying assumptions and proposing an alternative explanation of things that are taken for granted.

Key References on Critical Theory in Education

Freire P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th anniversary ed). (M. Bergman Ramos, Transl.). New York, NY: Continuum; 2000.

Kumagai A, Wear D. ”Making strange”: A role for the humanities in medical education. Acad Med. 2014;89:973–977.

Kincheloe J, McLaren P. Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In: Lincoln Y, Denzin N, eds. The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 2003:433–488.

Acknowledgments:

The authors wish to thank 2 anonymous reviewers for high-quality feedback, as well as Emily Harvey, Anna McLeod, and Lara Varpio for coordinating the Philosophy of Science series of Invited Commentaries.

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Criteria for Good Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Review

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• Open access
• Published: 18 September 2021
• Volume 31 , pages 679–689, ( 2022 )

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• Drishti Yadav   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2974-0323 1  

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This review aims to synthesize a published set of evaluative criteria for good qualitative research. The aim is to shed light on existing standards for assessing the rigor of qualitative research encompassing a range of epistemological and ontological standpoints. Using a systematic search strategy, published journal articles that deliberate criteria for rigorous research were identified. Then, references of relevant articles were surveyed to find noteworthy, distinct, and well-defined pointers to good qualitative research. This review presents an investigative assessment of the pivotal features in qualitative research that can permit the readers to pass judgment on its quality and to condemn it as good research when objectively and adequately utilized. Overall, this review underlines the crux of qualitative research and accentuates the necessity to evaluate such research by the very tenets of its being. It also offers some prospects and recommendations to improve the quality of qualitative research. Based on the findings of this review, it is concluded that quality criteria are the aftereffect of socio-institutional procedures and existing paradigmatic conducts. Owing to the paradigmatic diversity of qualitative research, a single and specific set of quality criteria is neither feasible nor anticipated. Since qualitative research is not a cohesive discipline, researchers need to educate and familiarize themselves with applicable norms and decisive factors to evaluate qualitative research from within its theoretical and methodological framework of origin.

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Good Qualitative Research: Opening up the Debate

Beyond qualitative/quantitative structuralism: the positivist qualitative research and the paradigmatic disclaimer.

What is Qualitative in Research

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

“… It is important to regularly dialogue about what makes for good qualitative research” (Tracy, 2010 , p. 837)

To decide what represents good qualitative research is highly debatable. There are numerous methods that are contained within qualitative research and that are established on diverse philosophical perspectives. Bryman et al., ( 2008 , p. 262) suggest that “It is widely assumed that whereas quality criteria for quantitative research are well‐known and widely agreed, this is not the case for qualitative research.” Hence, the question “how to evaluate the quality of qualitative research” has been continuously debated. There are many areas of science and technology wherein these debates on the assessment of qualitative research have taken place. Examples include various areas of psychology: general psychology (Madill et al., 2000 ); counseling psychology (Morrow, 2005 ); and clinical psychology (Barker & Pistrang, 2005 ), and other disciplines of social sciences: social policy (Bryman et al., 2008 ); health research (Sparkes, 2001 ); business and management research (Johnson et al., 2006 ); information systems (Klein & Myers, 1999 ); and environmental studies (Reid & Gough, 2000 ). In the literature, these debates are enthused by the impression that the blanket application of criteria for good qualitative research developed around the positivist paradigm is improper. Such debates are based on the wide range of philosophical backgrounds within which qualitative research is conducted (e.g., Sandberg, 2000 ; Schwandt, 1996 ). The existence of methodological diversity led to the formulation of different sets of criteria applicable to qualitative research.

Among qualitative researchers, the dilemma of governing the measures to assess the quality of research is not a new phenomenon, especially when the virtuous triad of objectivity, reliability, and validity (Spencer et al., 2004 ) are not adequate. Occasionally, the criteria of quantitative research are used to evaluate qualitative research (Cohen & Crabtree, 2008 ; Lather, 2004 ). Indeed, Howe ( 2004 ) claims that the prevailing paradigm in educational research is scientifically based experimental research. Hypotheses and conjectures about the preeminence of quantitative research can weaken the worth and usefulness of qualitative research by neglecting the prominence of harmonizing match for purpose on research paradigm, the epistemological stance of the researcher, and the choice of methodology. Researchers have been reprimanded concerning this in “paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000 ).

In general, qualitative research tends to come from a very different paradigmatic stance and intrinsically demands distinctive and out-of-the-ordinary criteria for evaluating good research and varieties of research contributions that can be made. This review attempts to present a series of evaluative criteria for qualitative researchers, arguing that their choice of criteria needs to be compatible with the unique nature of the research in question (its methodology, aims, and assumptions). This review aims to assist researchers in identifying some of the indispensable features or markers of high-quality qualitative research. In a nutshell, the purpose of this systematic literature review is to analyze the existing knowledge on high-quality qualitative research and to verify the existence of research studies dealing with the critical assessment of qualitative research based on the concept of diverse paradigmatic stances. Contrary to the existing reviews, this review also suggests some critical directions to follow to improve the quality of qualitative research in different epistemological and ontological perspectives. This review is also intended to provide guidelines for the acceleration of future developments and dialogues among qualitative researchers in the context of assessing the qualitative research.

The rest of this review article is structured in the following fashion: Sect.  Methods describes the method followed for performing this review. Section Criteria for Evaluating Qualitative Studies provides a comprehensive description of the criteria for evaluating qualitative studies. This section is followed by a summary of the strategies to improve the quality of qualitative research in Sect.  Improving Quality: Strategies . Section  How to Assess the Quality of the Research Findings? provides details on how to assess the quality of the research findings. After that, some of the quality checklists (as tools to evaluate quality) are discussed in Sect.  Quality Checklists: Tools for Assessing the Quality . At last, the review ends with the concluding remarks presented in Sect.  Conclusions, Future Directions and Outlook . Some prospects in qualitative research for enhancing its quality and usefulness in the social and techno-scientific research community are also presented in Sect.  Conclusions, Future Directions and Outlook .

For this review, a comprehensive literature search was performed from many databases using generic search terms such as Qualitative Research , Criteria , etc . The following databases were chosen for the literature search based on the high number of results: IEEE Explore, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The following keywords (and their combinations using Boolean connectives OR/AND) were adopted for the literature search: qualitative research, criteria, quality, assessment, and validity. The synonyms for these keywords were collected and arranged in a logical structure (see Table 1 ). All publications in journals and conference proceedings later than 1950 till 2021 were considered for the search. Other articles extracted from the references of the papers identified in the electronic search were also included. A large number of publications on qualitative research were retrieved during the initial screening. Hence, to include the searches with the main focus on criteria for good qualitative research, an inclusion criterion was utilized in the search string.

From the selected databases, the search retrieved a total of 765 publications. Then, the duplicate records were removed. After that, based on the title and abstract, the remaining 426 publications were screened for their relevance by using the following inclusion and exclusion criteria (see Table 2 ). Publications focusing on evaluation criteria for good qualitative research were included, whereas those works which delivered theoretical concepts on qualitative research were excluded. Based on the screening and eligibility, 45 research articles were identified that offered explicit criteria for evaluating the quality of qualitative research and were found to be relevant to this review.

Figure  1 illustrates the complete review process in the form of PRISMA flow diagram. PRISMA, i.e., “preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses” is employed in systematic reviews to refine the quality of reporting.

PRISMA flow diagram illustrating the search and inclusion process. N represents the number of records

Criteria for Evaluating Qualitative Studies

Fundamental criteria: general research quality.

Various researchers have put forward criteria for evaluating qualitative research, which have been summarized in Table 3 . Also, the criteria outlined in Table 4 effectively deliver the various approaches to evaluate and assess the quality of qualitative work. The entries in Table 4 are based on Tracy’s “Eight big‐tent criteria for excellent qualitative research” (Tracy, 2010 ). Tracy argues that high-quality qualitative work should formulate criteria focusing on the worthiness, relevance, timeliness, significance, morality, and practicality of the research topic, and the ethical stance of the research itself. Researchers have also suggested a series of questions as guiding principles to assess the quality of a qualitative study (Mays & Pope, 2020 ). Nassaji ( 2020 ) argues that good qualitative research should be robust, well informed, and thoroughly documented.

Qualitative Research: Interpretive Paradigms

All qualitative researchers follow highly abstract principles which bring together beliefs about ontology, epistemology, and methodology. These beliefs govern how the researcher perceives and acts. The net, which encompasses the researcher’s epistemological, ontological, and methodological premises, is referred to as a paradigm, or an interpretive structure, a “Basic set of beliefs that guides action” (Guba, 1990 ). Four major interpretive paradigms structure the qualitative research: positivist and postpositivist, constructivist interpretive, critical (Marxist, emancipatory), and feminist poststructural. The complexity of these four abstract paradigms increases at the level of concrete, specific interpretive communities. Table 5 presents these paradigms and their assumptions, including their criteria for evaluating research, and the typical form that an interpretive or theoretical statement assumes in each paradigm. Moreover, for evaluating qualitative research, quantitative conceptualizations of reliability and validity are proven to be incompatible (Horsburgh, 2003 ). In addition, a series of questions have been put forward in the literature to assist a reviewer (who is proficient in qualitative methods) for meticulous assessment and endorsement of qualitative research (Morse, 2003 ). Hammersley ( 2007 ) also suggests that guiding principles for qualitative research are advantageous, but methodological pluralism should not be simply acknowledged for all qualitative approaches. Seale ( 1999 ) also points out the significance of methodological cognizance in research studies.

Table 5 reflects that criteria for assessing the quality of qualitative research are the aftermath of socio-institutional practices and existing paradigmatic standpoints. Owing to the paradigmatic diversity of qualitative research, a single set of quality criteria is neither possible nor desirable. Hence, the researchers must be reflexive about the criteria they use in the various roles they play within their research community.

Improving Quality: Strategies

Another critical question is “How can the qualitative researchers ensure that the abovementioned quality criteria can be met?” Lincoln and Guba ( 1986 ) delineated several strategies to intensify each criteria of trustworthiness. Other researchers (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ; Shenton, 2004 ) also presented such strategies. A brief description of these strategies is shown in Table 6 .

It is worth mentioning that generalizability is also an integral part of qualitative research (Hays & McKibben, 2021 ). In general, the guiding principle pertaining to generalizability speaks about inducing and comprehending knowledge to synthesize interpretive components of an underlying context. Table 7 summarizes the main metasynthesis steps required to ascertain generalizability in qualitative research.

Figure  2 reflects the crucial components of a conceptual framework and their contribution to decisions regarding research design, implementation, and applications of results to future thinking, study, and practice (Johnson et al., 2020 ). The synergy and interrelationship of these components signifies their role to different stances of a qualitative research study.

Essential elements of a conceptual framework

In a nutshell, to assess the rationale of a study, its conceptual framework and research question(s), quality criteria must take account of the following: lucid context for the problem statement in the introduction; well-articulated research problems and questions; precise conceptual framework; distinct research purpose; and clear presentation and investigation of the paradigms. These criteria would expedite the quality of qualitative research.

How to Assess the Quality of the Research Findings?

The inclusion of quotes or similar research data enhances the confirmability in the write-up of the findings. The use of expressions (for instance, “80% of all respondents agreed that” or “only one of the interviewees mentioned that”) may also quantify qualitative findings (Stenfors et al., 2020 ). On the other hand, the persuasive reason for “why this may not help in intensifying the research” has also been provided (Monrouxe & Rees, 2020 ). Further, the Discussion and Conclusion sections of an article also prove robust markers of high-quality qualitative research, as elucidated in Table 8 .

Quality Checklists: Tools for Assessing the Quality

Numerous checklists are available to speed up the assessment of the quality of qualitative research. However, if used uncritically and recklessly concerning the research context, these checklists may be counterproductive. I recommend that such lists and guiding principles may assist in pinpointing the markers of high-quality qualitative research. However, considering enormous variations in the authors’ theoretical and philosophical contexts, I would emphasize that high dependability on such checklists may say little about whether the findings can be applied in your setting. A combination of such checklists might be appropriate for novice researchers. Some of these checklists are listed below:

The most commonly used framework is Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) (Tong et al., 2007 ). This framework is recommended by some journals to be followed by the authors during article submission.

Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) is another checklist that has been created particularly for medical education (O’Brien et al., 2014 ).

Also, Tracy ( 2010 ) and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP, 2021 ) offer criteria for qualitative research relevant across methods and approaches.

Further, researchers have also outlined different criteria as hallmarks of high-quality qualitative research. For instance, the “Road Trip Checklist” (Epp & Otnes, 2021 ) provides a quick reference to specific questions to address different elements of high-quality qualitative research.

Conclusions, Future Directions, and Outlook

This work presents a broad review of the criteria for good qualitative research. In addition, this article presents an exploratory analysis of the essential elements in qualitative research that can enable the readers of qualitative work to judge it as good research when objectively and adequately utilized. In this review, some of the essential markers that indicate high-quality qualitative research have been highlighted. I scope them narrowly to achieve rigor in qualitative research and note that they do not completely cover the broader considerations necessary for high-quality research. This review points out that a universal and versatile one-size-fits-all guideline for evaluating the quality of qualitative research does not exist. In other words, this review also emphasizes the non-existence of a set of common guidelines among qualitative researchers. In unison, this review reinforces that each qualitative approach should be treated uniquely on account of its own distinctive features for different epistemological and disciplinary positions. Owing to the sensitivity of the worth of qualitative research towards the specific context and the type of paradigmatic stance, researchers should themselves analyze what approaches can be and must be tailored to ensemble the distinct characteristics of the phenomenon under investigation. Although this article does not assert to put forward a magic bullet and to provide a one-stop solution for dealing with dilemmas about how, why, or whether to evaluate the “goodness” of qualitative research, it offers a platform to assist the researchers in improving their qualitative studies. This work provides an assembly of concerns to reflect on, a series of questions to ask, and multiple sets of criteria to look at, when attempting to determine the quality of qualitative research. Overall, this review underlines the crux of qualitative research and accentuates the need to evaluate such research by the very tenets of its being. Bringing together the vital arguments and delineating the requirements that good qualitative research should satisfy, this review strives to equip the researchers as well as reviewers to make well-versed judgment about the worth and significance of the qualitative research under scrutiny. In a nutshell, a comprehensive portrayal of the research process (from the context of research to the research objectives, research questions and design, speculative foundations, and from approaches of collecting data to analyzing the results, to deriving inferences) frequently proliferates the quality of a qualitative research.

Prospects : A Road Ahead for Qualitative Research

Irrefutably, qualitative research is a vivacious and evolving discipline wherein different epistemological and disciplinary positions have their own characteristics and importance. In addition, not surprisingly, owing to the sprouting and varied features of qualitative research, no consensus has been pulled off till date. Researchers have reflected various concerns and proposed several recommendations for editors and reviewers on conducting reviews of critical qualitative research (Levitt et al., 2021 ; McGinley et al., 2021 ). Following are some prospects and a few recommendations put forward towards the maturation of qualitative research and its quality evaluation:

In general, most of the manuscript and grant reviewers are not qualitative experts. Hence, it is more likely that they would prefer to adopt a broad set of criteria. However, researchers and reviewers need to keep in mind that it is inappropriate to utilize the same approaches and conducts among all qualitative research. Therefore, future work needs to focus on educating researchers and reviewers about the criteria to evaluate qualitative research from within the suitable theoretical and methodological context.

There is an urgent need to refurbish and augment critical assessment of some well-known and widely accepted tools (including checklists such as COREQ, SRQR) to interrogate their applicability on different aspects (along with their epistemological ramifications).

Efforts should be made towards creating more space for creativity, experimentation, and a dialogue between the diverse traditions of qualitative research. This would potentially help to avoid the enforcement of one's own set of quality criteria on the work carried out by others.

Moreover, journal reviewers need to be aware of various methodological practices and philosophical debates.

It is pivotal to highlight the expressions and considerations of qualitative researchers and bring them into a more open and transparent dialogue about assessing qualitative research in techno-scientific, academic, sociocultural, and political rooms.

Frequent debates on the use of evaluative criteria are required to solve some potentially resolved issues (including the applicability of a single set of criteria in multi-disciplinary aspects). Such debates would not only benefit the group of qualitative researchers themselves, but primarily assist in augmenting the well-being and vivacity of the entire discipline.

To conclude, I speculate that the criteria, and my perspective, may transfer to other methods, approaches, and contexts. I hope that they spark dialog and debate – about criteria for excellent qualitative research and the underpinnings of the discipline more broadly – and, therefore, help improve the quality of a qualitative study. Further, I anticipate that this review will assist the researchers to contemplate on the quality of their own research, to substantiate research design and help the reviewers to review qualitative research for journals. On a final note, I pinpoint the need to formulate a framework (encompassing the prerequisites of a qualitative study) by the cohesive efforts of qualitative researchers of different disciplines with different theoretic-paradigmatic origins. I believe that tailoring such a framework (of guiding principles) paves the way for qualitative researchers to consolidate the status of qualitative research in the wide-ranging open science debate. Dialogue on this issue across different approaches is crucial for the impending prospects of socio-techno-educational research.

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Yadav, D. Criteria for Good Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Review. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 31 , 679–689 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-021-00619-0

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Critical Thinking: A Model of Intelligence for Solving Real-World Problems

Diane f. halpern.

1 Department of Psychology, Claremont McKenna College, Emerita, Altadena, CA 91001, USA

Dana S. Dunn

2 Department of Psychology, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA 18018, USA; ude.naivarom@nnud

Most theories of intelligence do not directly address the question of whether people with high intelligence can successfully solve real world problems. A high IQ is correlated with many important outcomes (e.g., academic prominence, reduced crime), but it does not protect against cognitive biases, partisan thinking, reactance, or confirmation bias, among others. There are several newer theories that directly address the question about solving real-world problems. Prominent among them is Sternberg’s adaptive intelligence with “adaptation to the environment” as the central premise, a construct that does not exist on standardized IQ tests. Similarly, some scholars argue that standardized tests of intelligence are not measures of rational thought—the sort of skill/ability that would be needed to address complex real-world problems. Other investigators advocate for critical thinking as a model of intelligence specifically designed for addressing real-world problems. Yes, intelligence (i.e., critical thinking) can be enhanced and used for solving a real-world problem such as COVID-19, which we use as an example of contemporary problems that need a new approach.

1. Introduction

The editors of this Special Issue asked authors to respond to a deceptively simple statement: “How Intelligence Can Be a Solution to Consequential World Problems.” This statement holds many complexities, including how intelligence is defined and which theories are designed to address real-world problems.

2. The Problem with Using Standardized IQ Measures for Real-World Problems

For the most part, we identify high intelligence as having a high score on a standardized test of intelligence. Like any test score, IQ can only reflect what is on the given test. Most contemporary standardized measures of intelligence include vocabulary, working memory, spatial skills, analogies, processing speed, and puzzle-like elements (e.g., Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Fourth Edition; see ( Drozdick et al. 2012 )). Measures of IQ correlate with many important outcomes, including academic performance ( Kretzschmar et al. 2016 ), job-related skills ( Hunter and Schmidt 1996 ), reduced likelihood of criminal behavior ( Burhan et al. 2014 ), and for those with exceptionally high IQs, obtaining a doctorate and publishing scholarly articles ( McCabe et al. 2020 ). Gottfredson ( 1997, p. 81 ) summarized these effects when she said the “predictive validity of g is ubiquitous.” More recent research using longitudinal data, found that general mental abilities and specific abilities are good predictors of several work variables including job prestige, and income ( Lang and Kell 2020 ). Although assessments of IQ are useful in many contexts, having a high IQ does not protect against falling for common cognitive fallacies (e.g., blind spot bias, reactance, anecdotal reasoning), relying on biased and blatantly one-sided information sources, failing to consider information that does not conform to one’s preferred view of reality (confirmation bias), resisting pressure to think and act in a certain way, among others. This point was clearly articulated by Stanovich ( 2009, p. 3 ) when he stated that,” IQ tests measure only a small set of the thinking abilities that people need.”

3. Which Theories of Intelligence Are Relevant to the Question?

Most theories of intelligence do not directly address the question of whether people with high intelligence can successfully solve real world problems. For example, Grossmann et al. ( 2013 ) cite many studies in which IQ scores have not predicted well-being, including life satisfaction and longevity. Using a stratified random sample of Americans, these investigators found that wise reasoning is associated with life satisfaction, and that “there was no association between intelligence and well-being” (p. 944). (critical thinking [CT] is often referred to as “wise reasoning” or “rational thinking,”). Similar results were reported by Wirthwein and Rost ( 2011 ) who compared life satisfaction in several domains for gifted adults and adults of average intelligence. There were no differences in any of the measures of subjective well-being, except for leisure, which was significantly lower for the gifted adults. Additional research in a series of experiments by Stanovich and West ( 2008 ) found that participants with high cognitive ability were as likely as others to endorse positions that are consistent with their biases, and they were equally likely to prefer one-sided arguments over those that provided a balanced argument. There are several newer theories that directly address the question about solving real-world problems. Prominent among them is Sternberg’s adaptive intelligence with “adaptation to the environment” as the central premise, a construct that does not exist on standardized IQ tests (e.g., Sternberg 2019 ). Similarly, Stanovich and West ( 2014 ) argue that standardized tests of intelligence are not measures of rational thought—the sort of skill/ability that would be needed to address complex real-world problems. Halpern and Butler ( 2020 ) advocate for CT as a useful model of intelligence for addressing real-world problems because it was designed for this purpose. Although there is much overlap among these more recent theories, often using different terms for similar concepts, we use Halpern and Butler’s conceptualization to make our point: Yes, intelligence (i.e., CT) can be enhanced and used for solving a real-world problem like COVID-19.

4. Critical Thinking as an Applied Model for Intelligence

One definition of intelligence that directly addresses the question about intelligence and real-world problem solving comes from Nickerson ( 2020, p. 205 ): “the ability to learn, to reason well, to solve novel problems, and to deal effectively with novel problems—often unpredictable—that confront one in daily life.” Using this definition, the question of whether intelligent thinking can solve a world problem like the novel coronavirus is a resounding “yes” because solutions to real-world novel problems are part of his definition. This is a popular idea in the general public. For example, over 1000 business managers and hiring executives said that they want employees who can think critically based on the belief that CT skills will help them solve work-related problems ( Hart Research Associates 2018 ).

We define CT as the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed--the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions, when the thinker is using skills that are thoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinking task. International surveys conducted by the OECD ( 2019, p. 16 ) established “key information-processing competencies” that are “highly transferable, in that they are relevant to many social contexts and work situations; and ‘learnable’ and therefore subject to the influence of policy.” One of these skills is problem solving, which is one subset of CT skills.

The CT model of intelligence is comprised of two components: (1) understanding information at a deep, meaningful level and (2) appropriate use of CT skills. The underlying idea is that CT skills can be identified, taught, and learned, and when they are recognized and applied in novel settings, the individual is demonstrating intelligent thought. CT skills include judging the credibility of an information source, making cost–benefit calculations, recognizing regression to the mean, understanding the limits of extrapolation, muting reactance responses, using analogical reasoning, rating the strength of reasons that support and fail to support a conclusion, and recognizing hindsight bias or confirmation bias, among others. Critical thinkers use these skills appropriately, without prompting, and usually with conscious intent in a variety of settings.

One of the key concepts in this model is that CT skills transfer in appropriate situations. Thus, assessments using situational judgments are needed to assess whether particular skills have transferred to a novel situation where it is appropriate. In an assessment created by the first author ( Halpern 2018 ), short paragraphs provide information about 20 different everyday scenarios (e.g., A speaker at the meeting of your local school board reported that when drug use rises, grades decline; so schools need to enforce a “war on drugs” to improve student grades); participants provide two response formats for every scenario: (a) constructed responses where they respond with short written responses, followed by (b) forced choice responses (e.g., multiple choice, rating or ranking of alternatives) for the same situations.

There is a large and growing empirical literature to support the assertion that CT skills can be learned and will transfer (when taught for transfer). See for example, Holmes et al. ( 2015 ), who wrote in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , that there was “significant and sustained improvement in students’ critical thinking behavior” (p. 11,199) for students who received CT instruction. Abrami et al. ( 2015, para. 1 ) concluded from a meta-analysis that “there are effective strategies for teaching CT skills, both generic and content specific, and CT dispositions, at all educational levels and across all disciplinary areas.” Abrami et al. ( 2008, para. 1 ), included 341 effect sizes in a meta-analysis. They wrote: “findings make it clear that improvement in students’ CT skills and dispositions cannot be a matter of implicit expectation.” A strong test of whether CT skills can be used for real-word problems comes from research by Butler et al. ( 2017 ). Community adults and college students (N = 244) completed several scales including an assessment of CT, an intelligence test, and an inventory of real-life events. Both CT scores and intelligence scores predicted individual outcomes on the inventory of real-life events, but CT was a stronger predictor.

Heijltjes et al. ( 2015, p. 487 ) randomly assigned participants to either a CT instruction group or one of six other control conditions. They found that “only participants assigned to CT instruction improved their reasoning skills.” Similarly, when Halpern et al. ( 2012 ) used random assignment of participants to either a learning group where they were taught scientific reasoning skills using a game format or a control condition (which also used computerized learning and was similar in length), participants in the scientific skills learning group showed higher proportional learning gains than students who did not play the game. As the body of additional supportive research is too large to report here, interested readers can find additional lists of CT skills and support for the assertion that these skills can be learned and will transfer in Halpern and Dunn ( Forthcoming ). There is a clear need for more high-quality research on the application and transfer of CT and its relationship to IQ.

5. Pandemics: COVID-19 as a Consequential Real-World Problem

A pandemic occurs when a disease runs rampant over an entire country or even the world. Pandemics have occurred throughout history: At the time of writing this article, COVID-19 is a world-wide pandemic whose actual death rate is unknown but estimated with projections of several million over the course of 2021 and beyond ( Mega 2020 ). Although vaccines are available, it will take some time to inoculate most or much of the world’s population. Since March 2020, national and international health agencies have created a list of actions that can slow and hopefully stop the spread of COVID (e.g., wearing face masks, practicing social distancing, avoiding group gatherings), yet many people in the United States and other countries have resisted their advice.

Could instruction in CT encourage more people to accept and comply with simple life-saving measures? There are many possible reasons to believe that by increasing citizens’ CT abilities, this problematic trend can be reversed for, at least, some unknown percentage of the population. We recognize the long history of social and cognitive research showing that changing attitudes and behaviors is difficult, and it would be unrealistic to expect that individuals with extreme beliefs supported by their social group and consistent with their political ideologies are likely to change. For example, an Iranian cleric and an orthodox rabbi both claimed (separately) that the COVID-19 vaccine can make people gay ( Marr 2021 ). These unfounded opinions are based on deeply held prejudicial beliefs that we expect to be resistant to CT. We are targeting those individuals who beliefs are less extreme and may be based on reasonable reservations, such as concern about the hasty development of the vaccine and the lack of long-term data on its effects. There should be some unknown proportion of individuals who can change their COVID-19-related beliefs and actions with appropriate instruction in CT. CT can be a (partial) antidote for the chaos of the modern world with armies of bots creating content on social media, political and other forces deliberately attempting to confuse issues, and almost all media labeled “fake news” by social influencers (i.e., people with followers that sometimes run to millions on various social media). Here, are some CT skills that could be helpful in getting more people to think more critically about pandemic-related issues.

Reasoning by Analogy and Judging the Credibility of the Source of Information

Early communications about the ability of masks to prevent the spread of COVID from national health agencies were not consistent. In many regions of the world, the benefits of wearing masks incited prolonged and acrimonious debates ( Tang 2020 ). However, after the initial confusion, virtually all of the global and national health organizations (e.g., WHO, National Health Service in the U. K., U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) endorse masks as a way to slow the spread of COVID ( Cheng et al. 2020 ; Chu et al. 2020 ). However, as we know, some people do not trust governmental agencies and often cite the conflicting information that was originally given as a reason for not wearing a mask. There are varied reasons for refusing to wear a mask, but the one most often cited is that it is against civil liberties ( Smith 2020 ). Reasoning by analogy is an appropriate CT skill for evaluating this belief (and a key skill in legal thinking). It might be useful to cite some of the many laws that already regulate our behavior such as, requiring health inspections for restaurants, setting speed limits, mandating seat belts when riding in a car, and establishing the age at which someone can consume alcohol. Individuals would be asked to consider how the mandate to wear a mask compares to these and other regulatory laws.

Another reason why some people resist the measures suggested by virtually every health agency concerns questions about whom to believe. Could training in CT change the beliefs and actions of even a small percentage of those opposed to wearing masks? Such training would include considering the following questions with practice across a wide domain of knowledge: (a) Does the source have sufficient expertise? (b) Is the expertise recent and relevant? (c) Is there a potential for gain by the information source, such as financial gain? (d) What would the ideal information source be and how close is the current source to the ideal? (e) Does the information source offer evidence that what they are recommending is likely to be correct? (f) Have you traced URLs to determine if the information in front of you really came from the alleged source?, etc. Of course, not everyone will respond in the same way to each question, so there is little likelihood that we would all think alike, but these questions provide a framework for evaluating credibility. Donovan et al. ( 2015 ) were successful using a similar approach to improve dynamic decision-making by asking participants to reflect on questions that relate to the decision. Imagine the effect of rigorous large-scale education in CT from elementary through secondary schools, as well as at the university-level. As stated above, empirical evidence has shown that people can become better thinkers with appropriate instruction in CT. With training, could we encourage some portion of the population to become more astute at judging the credibility of a source of information? It is an experiment worth trying.

6. Making Cost—Benefit Assessments for Actions That Would Slow the Spread of COVID-19

Historical records show that refusal to wear a mask during a pandemic is not a new reaction. The epidemic of 1918 also included mandates to wear masks, which drew public backlash. Then, as now, many people refused, even when they were told that it was a symbol of “wartime patriotism” because the 1918 pandemic occurred during World War I ( Lovelace 2020 ). CT instruction would include instruction in why and how to compute cost–benefit analyses. Estimates of “lives saved” by wearing a mask can be made meaningful with graphical displays that allow more people to understand large numbers. Gigerenzer ( 2020 ) found that people can understand risk ratios in medicine when the numbers are presented as frequencies instead of probabilities. If this information were used when presenting the likelihood of illness and death from COVID-19, could we increase the numbers of people who understand the severity of this disease? Small scale studies by Gigerenzer have shown that it is possible.

Analyzing Arguments to Determine Degree of Support for a Conclusion

The process of analyzing arguments requires that individuals rate the strength of support for and against a conclusion. By engaging in this practice, they must consider evidence and reasoning that may run counter to a preferred outcome. Kozyreva et al. ( 2020 ) call the deliberate failure to consider both supporting and conflicting data “deliberate ignorance”—avoiding or failing to consider information that could be useful in decision-making because it may collide with an existing belief. When applied to COVID-19, people would have to decide if the evidence for and against wearing a face mask is a reasonable way to stop the spread of this disease, and if they conclude that it is not, what are the costs and benefits of not wearing masks at a time when governmental health organizations are making them mandatory in public spaces? Again, we wonder if rigorous and systematic instruction in argument analysis would result in more positive attitudes and behaviors that relate to wearing a mask or other real-world problems. We believe that it is an experiment worth doing.

7. Conclusions

We believe that teaching CT is a worthwhile approach for educating the general public in order to improve reasoning and motivate actions to address, avert, or ameliorate real-world problems like the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that CT can guide intelligent responses to societal and global problems. We are NOT claiming that CT skills will be a universal solution for the many real-world problems that we confront in contemporary society, or that everyone will substitute CT for other decision-making practices, but we do believe that systematic education in CT can help many people become better thinkers, and we believe that this is an important step toward creating a society that values and practices routine CT. The challenges are great, but the tools to tackle them are available, if we are willing to use them.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, D.F.H. and D.S.D.; resources, D.F.H.; data curation, writing—original draft preparation, D.F.H.; writing—review and editing, D.F.H. and D.S.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

No IRB Review.

Informed Consent Statement

No Informed Consent.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Introduction to Research: Humanities and Social Sciences

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Writing Critical Reviews

What is a Critical Review of a Journal Article?

A critical review of a journal article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of an article's ideas and content. It provides description, analysis and interpretation that allow readers to assess the article's value.

Before You Read the Article

• What does the title lead you to expect about the article?
• Study any sub-headings to understand how the author organized the content.
• Read the abstract for a summary of the author's arguments.
• Study the list of references to determine what research contributed to the author's arguments. Are the references recent? Do they represent important work in the field?
• If possible, read about the author to learn what authority he or she has to write about the subject.
• Consult Web of Science to see if other writers have cited the author's work. (Please see 'How to use E-Indexes'.) Has the author made an important contribution to the field of study?

Reading the Article: Points to Consider

Read the article carefully. Record your impressions and note sections suitable for quoting.

• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author's purpose? To survey and summarize research on a topic? To present an argument that builds on past research? To refute another writer's argument?
• Does the author define important terms?
• Is the information in the article fact or opinion? (Facts can be verified, while opinions arise from interpretations of facts.) Does the information seem well-researched or is it unsupported?
• What are the author's central arguments or conclusions? Are they clearly stated? Are they supported by evidence and analysis?
• If the article reports on an experiment or study, does the author clearly outline methodology and the expected result?
• Is the article lacking information or argumentation that you expected to find?
• Is the article organized logically and easy to follow?
• Does the writer's style suit the intended audience? Is the style stilted or unnecessarily complicated?
• Is the author's language objective or charged with emotion and bias?
• If illustrations or charts are used, are they effective in presenting information?

Prepare an Outline

Read over your notes. Choose a statement that expresses the central purpose or thesis of your review. When thinking of a thesis, consider the author's intentions and whether or not you think those intentions were successfully realized. Eliminate all notes that do not relate to your thesis. Organize your remaining points into separate groups such as points about structure, style, or argument. Devise a logical sequence for presenting these ideas. Remember that all of your ideas must support your central thesis.

Write the First Draft

The review should begin with a complete citation of the article. For example:

Platt, Kevin M.F. "History and Despotism, or: Hayden White vs. Ivan the Terrible  and Peter the Great." Rethinking History 3:3 (1999) : 247-269.

NOTE: Use the same bibliographic citation format as you would for any bibliography, works cited or reference list. It will follow a standard documentation style such as MLA or APA.

Be sure to ask your instructor which citation style to use. For frequently used style guides consult Queen's University Library's Citing Sources guide.

The first paragraph may contain:

• a statement of your thesis
• the author's purpose in writing the article
• comments on how the article relates to other work on the same subject
• information about the author's reputation or authority in the field

The body of the review should:

• state your arguments in support of your thesis
• follow the logical development of ideas that you mapped out in your outline
• include quotations from the article which illustrate your main ideas

The concluding paragraph may:

• summarize your review
• restate your thesis

Revise the First Draft

Ideally, you should leave your first draft for a day or two before revising. This allows you to gain a more objective perspective on your ideas. Check for the following when revising:

• grammar and punctuation errors
• organization, logical development and solid support of your thesis
• errors in quotations or in references

You may make major revisions in the organization or content of your review during the revision process. Revising can even lead to a radical change in your central thesis.

NOTE: Prepared by University of Toronto Mississauga Library, Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre.

• << Previous: Writing Resources
• Next: Annotated Bibliography >>

Additional Resources

Writing a Critical Review (Allyson Skene, The Writing Centre, U of Toronto at Scarborough)

The Book Review or Article Critique (Margaret Procter, Writing Support, University of Toronto)

Critical Reviews of Journal Articles (Herbert Coutts, University of Alberta)

Writing a Critical Review (The Writing Centre, Queen's University)

• Last Updated: Aug 22, 2024 2:41 PM
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• Resources for Research in Critical Theory

Publications Related to Critical Theory

Literary theory & criticism , criticism: a quarterly for literature and the arts, wayne state university press.

Criticism  provides a forum for current scholarship on literature, media, music, and visual culture. A place for rigorous theoretical and critical debate as well as formal and methodological self-reflexivity and experimentation, the journal aims to present contemporary thought at its most vital.

New Literary History

The johns hopkins university press.

New Literary History focuses on questions of theory, method, interpretation, and literary history. Rather than espousing a single ideology or intellectual framework, it canvasses a wide range of scholarly concerns. By examining the bases of criticism, the journal provokes debate on the relations between literary and cultural texts and present needs. A major international forum for scholarly exchange, it has received six awards from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

Journal of Narrative Theory

Eastern michigan university.

JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory , founded in 1971 as The Journal of Narrative Technique , is a refereed, international journal published three times a year by the Department of English at Eastern Michigan University. The journal continues to follow the high standards set during its first four decades of publication; the newly focused JNT showcases theoretically sophisticated essays that examine narrative in a host of critical, interdisciplinary, or cross-cultural contexts. Of particular interest are history and narrative; cultural studies and popular culture; discourses of class, gender, sexuality, race, nationality, subalternity, and ethnicity; film theory, queer theory, and media studies; new historical, poststructural, or global approaches to narrative forms (literary or otherwise); along with essays that span or subvert epistemic and disciplinary boundaries. In sum, the journal strives to be multi-genre, multi-period, and multi-national.

INTERDISCIPLINARY THEORY

New german critique     , duke university press.

New German Critique has been a prime mover in shaping the discipline of German studies. For thirty years the journal has sought to define the meanings of "cultural studies" and to draw on the rich tradition of German theory as intrinsic to the shaping of those meanings.

French Studies    

Oxford university press.

French Studies publishes articles and reviews spanning all areas, including language and linguistics, all periods and aspects of literature in France and the French-speaking world, thought and the history of ideas, cultural studies, film, and critical theory.

Social Text    

Social Text covers a broad spectrum of social and cultural phenomena, applying the latest interpretive methods to the world at large. A daring and controversial leader in the field of cultural studies, the journal consistently focuses attention on questions of gender, sexuality, race, and the environment, publishing key works by the most influential social and cultural theorists. As a journal at the forefront of cultural theory, Social Text seeks provocative interviews and challenging articles from emerging critical voices. Each issue breaks new ground in the debates about postcolonialism, postmodernism, and popular culture.

Thesis Eleven: Critical Theory and Historical Sociology    

Sage publishing.

Thesis Eleven publishes theories and theorists, surveys, critiques, debates and interpretations. The journal also brings together articles on place, region, or problems in the world today, encouraging civilizational analysis and work on alternative modernities from fascism and communism to Japan and Southeast Asia. Marxist in origin, post-Marxist by necessity, the journal is vitally concerned with change as well as with tradition.

Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities    

Taylor & francis.

Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities was established in September 1993 to provide an international forum for vanguard work in the theoretical humanities. In itself a contentious category, the journal believes that ’theoretical humanities’ represents the productive nexus of work in the disciplinary fields of literary criticism and theory, philosophy, and cultural studies. The publication is dedicated to the refreshing of intellectual coordinates, and to the challenging and vivifying process of re-thinking.

Constellations    

Constellations is an international peer-reviewed journal committed to publishing the best of contemporary critical and democratic theory. The journal fosters creative thinking in philosophy, politics, social theory, and law. It believes that longstanding assumptions about critical theory – its methods, concepts and emancipatory aims – need to be rethought. The journal aims to help expand the global possibilities for radical politics and social criticism in the coming period.

Comparative Studies in Society and History    

Cambridge university press.

Comparative Studies in Society and History (CSSH) is an international forum for new research and interpretation concerning problems of recurrent patterning and change in human societies through time and in the contemporary world. The journal sets up a working alliance among specialists in all branches of the social sciences and humanities as a way of bringing together multidisciplinary research, cultural studies, and theory, especially in anthropology, history, political science, and sociology. It also includes review articles and discussion bring readers in touch with current findings and issues.

Diogenes    

Published with the support of UNESCO, Diogenes provides a forum for discussion in all areas of philosophy and humanistic studies. The journal was established in the belief that the exchange of ideas among a wide variety of disciplines would not only enrich the separate fields of study but also reveal new perspectives and possibilities for cross-fertilization. It fulfills an international mandate, with editions in English, French, Chinese and Arabic.

History of the Human Sciences    

History of Human Sciences is an international journal of peer-reviewed scholarly research, which provides an important forum for contemporary research in the social sciences, in the humanities, and in human psychology and biology. The journal is especially concerned with research that reflexively examines its own historical origins and interdisciplinary influences in an effort to review current practice and to develop new research directions .

SOCIAL THEORY / POLITICAL THEORY / CULTURAL STUDIES

Critical times: interventions in global critical theory    , international consortium of critical theory programs.

Critical Times: Interventions in Global Critical Theory  is a peer-reviewed, open access online journal published by the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs with the aim of foregrounding the global reach and form of contemporary critical theory. The journal seeks to reflect on and facilitate forms of transnational solidarity that draw upon critical theory and political practice from various world regions. Calling into question hemispheric epistemologies in order to revitalize left critical thought for these times, the journal publishes essays, interviews, dialogues, dispatches, visual art, and various platforms for critical reflection, engaging with social and political theory, literature, philosophy, art criticism, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences.

Postmodern Culture    

As the first electronic peer-reviewed journal in the humanities, Postmodern Culture (PMC) is a groundbreaking experiment in scholarly publishing. The journal has become a leading journal of interdisciplinary thought on contemporary cultures. It offers a forum for commentary, criticism, and theory on subjects ranging from identity politics to the economics of information.

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory    

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes papers which make a substantial contribution to contemporary social theory. The journal particularly investigates the interface between social and political theory, often explored in thematic issues. It invites articles from sociology, political science, cultural and legal studies, anthropology, and philosophy that provide original perspectives on the social. The journal features theory articles as well as more empirical contributions, but empirical papers should outline implications for social theory.

Anthropology and Humanism    

Anthropology and Humanism concerns that central question of the discipline: what it is to be human. The journal welcomes contributions from all major fields of anthropology and from scholars in other social science disciplines, as well as the humanities. It seeks to bring out the intricate and contradictory processes of life in other cultures--including those of anthropologists. Whether working with life histories or demographics, poetics or nutrition, artistic expression or scientific writing, this journal strives to maintain a focus on the human actors themselves. It values writing that delights, writing that outrages, writing that evokes the human condition in all its messiness, glory, and misery, writing that reveals the social blockages that are deleterious to our social and physical environment and is able to promote cross-cultural understanding.

Time & Society

Time & Society is a peer-reviewed journal which publishes articles, reviews, and scholarly comment discussing the workings of time and temporality across a range of disciplines, including anthropology, geography, history, psychology, and sociology. Work included within the journal focuses on methodological and theoretical problems, including the use of time in organizational contexts. It also features critiques of and proposals for time-related changes in the formation of public, social, economic, and organizational policies. 

International Journal of Cultural Studies

International Journal of Cultural Studies is a leading venue for scholarship committed to rethinking cultural practices, processes, texts and infrastructures beyond traditional national frameworks and regional biases. Established to revitalize cultural studies against the dangers of parochialism and intellectual ossification, the journal interrogates what culture means, and what culture does, across global and local scales of power and action, diverse technologies and forms of mediation, and multiple dimensions of performance, experience and identity. It provides a critical space for theoretical and methodological innovation in global cultural research.

European Journal of Cultural Studies

European Journal of Cultural Studies is a major international, peer-reviewed journal founded in Europe and edited from the Netherlands and the UK. The journal promotes a conception of cultural studies rooted in lived experience. It adopts a broad-ranging view of cultural studies, charting new questions and new research, and mapping the transformation of cultural studies in the years to come. The journal publishes well theorized empirically grounded work from a variety of locations and disciplinary backgrounds. It engages in critical discussions on power relations concerning gender, class, sexual preference, ethnicity and other macro or micro sites of political struggle.

Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies

Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies publishes open-peer reviewed research articles, critical analyses of contemporary media representations, autoethnography, poetry, and creative non-fiction. The journal provides an explicit forum for the intersections of cultural studies, critical interpretive research methodologies, and cultural critique.

WOMEN'S STUDIES / GENDER STUDIES / QUEER THEORY

Feminist theory.

Feminist Theory is an international interdisciplinary journal that provides a forum for critical analysis and constructive debate within feminism. The journal is genuinely interdisciplinary and reflects the diversity of feminism, incorporating perspectives from across the broad spectrum of the humanities and social sciences and the full range of feminist political and theoretical stances.

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy is a forum for cutting-edge work in feminist philosophy. Since its inception in the mid-1980s, the journal has been a catalyst for broadening and refining feminist philosophy as well as an invaluable resource for those who teach in this area. It features scholarship using feminist philosophy arising out of diverse traditions and methods within philosophy and interdisciplinary in orientation.

Gender & Society

Articles appearing in Gender & Society analyze gender and gendered processes in interactions, organizations, societies, and global and transnational spaces. The journal primarily publishes empirical articles, which are both theoretically engaged and methodologically rigorous, including qualitative, quantitative, and comparative-historical methodologies. It not only publishes the best of every perspective but seeks to advance a distinctly social perspective with which to analyze gender.

Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies

Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies first appeared in 1989 at the moment of a critical encounter—a head-on collision, one might say—of theories of difference (primarily Continental) and the politics of diversity (primarily American). In the ensuing years, the journal has established a critical forum where the problematic of differences is explored in texts ranging from the literary and the visual to the political and social. differences highlights theoretical debates across the disciplines that address the ways concepts and categories of difference—notably but not exclusively gender—operate within culture.

European Journal of Women's Studies

Sage publishing .

The European Journal of Women's Studies is a major international forum for publishing original research, theoretically sophisticated, and empirically grounded in the field of gender studies, with a focus on the complex theoretical and empirical relationship between women and the particular, and diverse, national and transnational contexts of Europe. As well as publishing top-quality scholarly articles, the journal includes overviews on the state of Women's Studies in different European countries, short topical and polemical pieces, book and film reviews, interviews, and conference reports.

Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies

University of nebraska press.

One of the premier publications in the field of feminist and gender studies, Frontiers has distinguished itself for its diverse and decisively interdisciplinary publication agenda that explores the critical intersections among—to name a few dimensions—gender, race, sexuality, and transnationalism. Many landmark articles in the field have been published in the journal, thus critically shaping the fields of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Providing a much-needed forum for interdisciplinary discussion, GLQ publishes scholarship, criticism, and commentary in areas as diverse as law, science studies, religion, political science, and literary studies. The journal aims is to offer queer perspectives on all issues touching on sex and sexuality. In an effort to achieve the widest possible historical, geographic, and cultural scope, it particularly seeks out new research into historical periods before the twentieth century, into non-Anglophone cultures, and into the experience of those who have been marginalized by race, ethnicity, age, social class, body morphology, or sexual practice. A notable feature is "The GLQ Archive," a special section featuring previously unpublished or unavailable primary materials that may serve as sources for future work in lesbian and gay studies.

Sexualities

Sexualities is an established international journal and an invaluable resource, publishing articles, reviews and scholarly comment on the shifting nature of human sexualities. The journal adopts a broad, interdisciplinary perspective covering the whole of the social sciences, cultural history, cultural anthropology and social geography, as well as feminism, gender studies, cultural studies and lesbian and gay studies. It publishes work of an analytic and ethnographic nature which describes, analyses, theorises and provides a critique on the changing nature of the social organisation of human sexual experience in the late modern world.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society  

Northeastern university college of social sciences and humanities.

Recognized as the leading international journal in women’s and gender studies, Signs is at the forefront of new directions in feminist scholarship. Challenging the boundaries of knowledge concerning women’s and men’s lives in diverse regions of the globe, the journal publishes scholarship that raises new questions and develops innovative approaches to our understanding of the past and present. What makes feminist scholarship published in Signs distinctive is not necessarily the subject of investigation or particular methods of inquiry but the effort to cultivate alternative research practices that further feminist, queer, and antiracist goals of social transformation. It publishes pathbreaking articles, review essays, comparative perspectives, and retrospectives of interdisciplinary interest addressing gender, race, culture, class, nation, and sexuality. Whether critical, theoretical, or empirical, articles published in Signs generate theories, concepts, analytical categories, and methodological innovations that enable new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing, and new ways of living.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Comparative literature and culture, purdue university press.

The intellectual trajectory of Comparative Literature and Culture is located in the humanities and social sciences in the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Comparative cultural studies is a contextual approach in the study of culture in all of its products and processes. The journal's theoretical and methodological framework is built on tenets borrowed from the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies and from a range of thought including literary and culture theory, systems theory, and communication theories. The intellectual trajectory of the journal includes work in a global and intercultural context with a plurality of methods and approaches, and in interdisciplinarity in the study of the processes of communicative action(s) in culture, the production and processes of culture, the products of culture, and the study of the how of these processes; the epistemological bases of comparative cultural studies are in (radical) constructivism and in methodology the contextual (systemic and empirical) approach is favored (however, comparative cultural studies does not exclude textual analysis proper or other established fields of scholarship).

Culture, Theory and Critique

Culture, Theory and Critique is a refereed, interdisciplinary journal for the transformation and development of critical theories in the humanities and social sciences. The journals aims to critique and reconstruct theories by interfacing them with one another and by relocating them in new sites and conjunctures. It is an international as well as interdisciplinary journal whose success depends on contributions from a variety of sources, so that debate between different perspectives can be stimulated. One of the aims of the journal is to break down theoretical hierarchies and latent intellectual hegemonies. To this end, it endeavours to incorporate perspectives from diverse cultural, intellectual and geographical contexts. The journal particularly encourages work which addresses and contextualizes theories, texts (including cinema, media, fine arts, scientific treatises, etc.), and ethnographic material produced outside of North America and Western Europe.

Comparative Literature

The oldest journal in its field in the United States,  Comparative Literature  explores issues in literary history and theory. The ACLA-affiliated publication presents a variety of critical approaches and offers a wide-ranging look at the intersections of national literatures, global literary trends, and theoretical discourse. Continually evolving since its inception in 1949, the journal remains a source for cutting-edge research and prides itself on publishing the work of talented scholars breaking new ground in the field.

Comparative Literature Studies

Penn state university press.

Comparative Literature Studies publishes comparative critical articles that deal with works in two or more languages, and which may range across the rich traditions of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America, and that examine the literary relations between East and West, North and South. Articles within the journal may also explore movements, themes, forms, the history of ideas, relations between authors, the foundations of criticism and theory, and issues of language and translation. Intermedial studies, such as film and literature or graphic novels, are also welcomed as long as they adhere to the polyglot principles of comparative studies. Each issue of the journal also contains numerous book reviews of the most important comparative literature monographs and essay collections.

Philosophy and Literature

For more than forty years, Philosophy and Literature has explored the dialogue between literary and philosophical studies. The journal offers fresh, stimulating ideas in the aesthetics of literature, theory of criticism, philosophical interpretation of literature, and literary treatment of philosophy. It challenges the cant and pretensions of academic priesthoods through its assortment of lively, wide-ranging essays, notes, and reviews that are written in clear, jargon-free prose.

Environmental Philosophy

Philosophy documentation center.

Environmental Philosophy features peer-reviewed articles, discussion papers, and book reviews for persons working and thinking within the broad field of "environmental philosophy." The journal welcomes diverse philosophical approaches to environmental issues, including those inspired by the many schools of Continental philosophy, studies in the history of philosophy, indigenous and non-Western philosophy, and the traditions of American and Anglo-American philosophy.

Derrida Today

Edinburgh university press.

Derrida Today  focuses on what Jacques Derrida's thought offers to contemporary debates about politics, society and global affairs. The journal features controversies about power, violence, identity, globalisation, the resurgence of religion, economics and the role of critique all agitate public policy, media dialogue and academic debate. It explores how Derridean thought and deconstruction make significant contributions to this debate, and reconsider the terms on which it takes place.

Philosophy & Social Criticism

Philosophy & Social Criticism is a fully peer reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles. The journal presents original theoretical contributions to the latest developments in social and political thought, emphasizing the contributions of continental scholarship as it affects international theoretical developments In contemporary society reason cannot be separated from practical life and at their interface a critical attitude is forged. It was established nearly thirty years ago to bring together articles which foster this attitude. It is now a leading international journal in social and political philosophy.

Comparative and Continental Philosophy

Comparative and Continental Philosophy is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes leading edge papers by internationally respected scholars in comparative and continental philosophy. Published in affiliation with the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, this academic journal is accessible to a wide range of readers from various disciplines such as philosophy, religion, art history, comparative literature, critical theory, phenomenological psychology, and cultural theory. Although anchored in the discipline of philosophy and designed to provide a much needed niche in the natural development of continental philosophy into other non-western ways of thinking, submissions are welcomed from other disciplines as well and need not be necessarily comparative in nature. For comparative submissions, Asia is the journal’s primary focus, but we welcome papers devoted to any non-western region, especially Africa, Latin America, and comparative Continental and Anglo-American philosophy. The journal also includes papers on critical spirituality that discuss inter-cultural encounters and address understanding through meditative thinking, papers on contemporary feminism, and comparative ecology/environmental philosophy. 

History and Theory

History and Theory leads the way in exploring the nature of history, featuring prominent international thinkers who contribute their reflections in the following areas: critical philosophy of history, speculative philosophy of history, historiography, history of historiography, historical methodology, critical theory, and time and culture. Related disciplines are also covered within the journal, including interactions between history and the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and psychology.

Journal of the Philosophy of History

The Journal of the Philosophy of History (JPH) is devoted to philosophical examinations of history and of historiography. The journal features conceptual studies of what history and historiography are and of what their philosophy is and ought to be. It is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. We welcome contributions from all branches of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of the historiography of science, aesthetics, and value theory, so long as they engage fruitfully with history and historiography. The journal also welcomes historiographical contributions, so long as they engage fruitfully with issues in the philosophy of history and of historiography.

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