This article describes an deductive approach to qualitative research, meaning that researches begin their studies with hypotheses to test or they use theory to guide their research. Either way, theory is part of their research from the beginning, in contrast to other approaches to qualitative research that guide researchers not to use theory but to conduct research for the purposes of identifying relevant theory.

In theory-guided and theory-testing approaches, researchers attempt to find exceptions and variations in the theory they use so as to develop more helpful and relevant theory.