ABSTRACT
This chapter is about what many writers in both Europe, particularly the UK, and the USA refer to as quality. It begins by posing the main questions a researcher should consider when deciding how to ensure and document the quality of a study, and then go on to describe a range of goals, criteria and techniques for answering them. Researchers should not be bound to a specific viewpoint or set of criteria; instead, they should have a range of options through which they may establish and communicate their own perspectives and approaches to naming, knowing, and engaging the quality of a study. Too often, researchers will give much more attention to one of the questions and less to the others, which diminishes their efforts to establish and document the quality of the research. It is important for researchers to describe decisions related to all three questions when ensuring and documenting the quality of the study.
