This book explores the philosophical underpinnings, history and key elements of each of five qualitative inquiry traditions: biography, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study. John W Creswell relates research designs to each of the traditions of inquiry and consistently compares each of the research strategies for theoretical frameworks, writing introduction to studies, collecting data, analyzing data, writing the narrative, and employing standards of quality and verifying results.

Five journal articles in the appendix offer fascinating reading as well as examples of the five different qualitative designs. The final chapter demonstrates how a case study can be reinterpreted and analyzed via each of the four other qualitative traditions.