Shenandoah Conservatory’s Director of the Janette Ogg Voice Research Center and Associate Professor of Voice (Baritone) and Voice Pedagogy David Meyer, D.M., collaborated with Shenandoah University Division of Education & Leadership Professor of Research John R. Goss, III, Ph.D., to publish a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Singing. The article, “Fatal Flaws in Voice Research and How to Avoid Them, Part Two: Qualitative Studies” discusses common problems in qualitative singing research.
Qualitative studies often use interviews or surveys to explore real-world phenomena and ask questions like, “why?” or “I wonder what, or how?” The most common errors seen in these studies include researchers’ overestimation of their expertise, failure to practice intellectual humility, failure to control for researcher bias, and privileging the “expert in the room” rather than participants’ perspectives. In their publication, Dr. Meyer and Dr. Goss examine interview protocols and a common method for ensuring trustworthiness called “member checking.” Recommendations for avoiding common errors in survey research, both qualitative and quantitative, are discussed. The article is available at https://doi.org/10.53830/sing.00026.
Visit www.davidmeyervoice.com to learn more about Meyer.
Goss oversees leadership and organizational studies at Shenandoah University and serves as the head of the Doctor of Philosophy in Organizational Leadership, Doctor of Professional Studies in Organizational Leadership (residential and global) and Master of Science in Organizational Leadership programs at Shenandoah University. His expertise is in the teaching of research methods, the philosophy of practice and the anthropology of organizations. Goss’s research examines policy, ethics, and identity and their relationship to social organization (e.g., conflict, professional roles and power).
