Explainable artificial intelligence and social science: Further insights for qualitative investigation

Abstract We present a scoping review of user studies in explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) entailing qualitative investigation. We draw on social science corpora to suggest ways for improving the rigor of studies where XAI researchers use observations, interviews, focus groups, and/or questionnaire tasks to collect qualitative data. We contextualize the presentation of the XAI papers included in our review according to the components of rigor discussed in the qualitative research literature: (a) underlying theories or frameworks; (b) methodological approaches; (c) data collection methods; and (d) data analysis processes. The results of our review dovetail with calls made by others in the XAI community advocating for collaboration with experts from social disciplines toward bolstering rigor and effectiveness in user studies.