Quality of Research Flashcards
- Criteria for evaluating the quality of research – 10 points-2016
a. Alternative criteria to the ones used in the quantitative research have been developed to evaluate research. Which are these criteria and in what way do they correspond to criteria used for quantitative research?
QUALITY OF RESEARCH
Criteria for Quantitative Research
Reliability – are the results repeatable? Are the measures consistent? Reliability is concerned with the question of whether the results of a study are repeatable.
Replication – is the study replicable? Are the procedures clearly spelled out? In order for us to assess the reliability of a measure of a concept, the procedures that constitute that measure must be replicable by someone else.
Validity is concerned with the integrity of the conclusions that are generated from a piece of research.
Measurement validity (Construct validity) – Does the measure reflect the concept it is supposed to demonstrate? Does the IQ test really measure the variations in intelligence?
Internal validity – Does the causal relationship hold water? If we suggest that X causes Y, can we be sure that it is X that is responsible for variation in Y and not something else that is producing an apparent causal relationship?
External validity – Can the result be generalized beyond the specific research context?
Ecological validity – Are the findings applicable to people’s everyday, natural social setting? This criterion is concerned with the question of whether business research sometimes produces findings that may be technically valid (or valid according to all the other criteria) but have little to do with what happens in people’s everyday lives.
Alternative Criteria
Autenticity and trustworthiness
However, a second position in relation to reliability and validity in qualitative research can be discerned. Some
writers have suggested that qualitative studies should be judged or evaluated according to quite different criteria from those used by quantitative researchers. Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Guba and Lincoln (1994) propose thatit is necessary to specify terms and ways of establishing and assessing the quality of qualitative research that provide an alternative to reliability and validity. They propose two primary criteria for assessing a qualitative study: trustworthiness and authenticity.
Qualitative Quantitative
Credibility, which parallels internal validity – i.e. how believable are the findings?
Transferability, which parallels external validity - i.e. do the findings apply to other contexts?
Dependability, which parallels reliability – i.e. are the findings likely to apply at other times?
Confirmability, which parallels objectivity – i.e. has the investigator allowed his or her values to intrude to a high degree?
Authenticity
In addition to these four trustworthiness criteria, Guba and Lincoln suggest criteria of authenticity. These criteria raise a wider set of issues concerning the wider political impact of research. These are the criteria.
• Fairness. Does the research fairly represent different viewpoints among members of the social setting
• Ontological authenticity. Does the research help members to arrive at a better understanding of their social
milieu?
• Educative authenticity. Does the research help members to appreciate better the perspectives of other
members of their social setting?
• Catalytic authenticity. Has the research acted as an impetus to members to engage in action to change their
circumstances?
• Tactical authenticity. Has the research empowered members to take the steps necessary for engaging in
action?
b. Master thesis based on a qualitative research approach often rely on a combination of interviews, observation and internal documents for data collection. Use the above alternative criteria to discuss the quality of such research. You can illustrate with an example, using interviews, observations and internal documents for data collection.
Master Thesis about Knowledge Management
