MATLAB: How to look up a string in a struct and assign the number value that is associated with the string

Question

I have a struct where I specify strings that indicate certain quality levels for validation:

 VAL.qualityTypes     = struct('POOR', 1, 'FAIR', 2, 'GOOD', 3);

I have another variable ('quality') that contains one of these strings in a cell.

quality = 'GOOD'

What code would I use to obtain the number associated with the specific string, like so:

qualityNumber = 3

Answer 1

 qualityNumber =  VAL.qualityTypes.(quality)