Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research Flashcards
What are the 4 standards of trustworthiness?
Credibility
Dependability
Confirmability
Transferability
What is credibility?
Quantitative counterpart = Internal validity (relationship being tested is not influenced by other factors)
Requires a qualitative study to be:
- Believable to readers
- Approved/verified by research participants
How can you address credibility?
Prolonged engagement
Triangulation - how you connect the dots
Negative case analysis
Subjectivity checks
Peer debriefing
Member checking
What is prolonged involvement?
Refers to the length of time the researcher’s involvement in the study, including involvement with the environment and the studied participants.
It may pose a threat in the form of researcher bias that stems from your, and the participants’ possible assumptions of similarity and presuppositions about some shared experiences.
What is triangulation?
Refers to triangulation of data by using different instruments of data collection, methodological triangulation through mixed methods approach and theory triangulation through comparing different theories and perspectives with your own developing “theory” or through drawing from a number of different fields of study.
What is negative case analysis?
A process of analyzing “cases” or sets of data collected from a single participant, that do not match the patterns emerging from the rest of the data.
Whenever an emerging explanation of a given phenomenon you are investigating does not seem applicable to one, or a small number, you should carry out a new line of analysis aimed at understanding the source of this discrepancy.
What are subjectivity checks and audit trails?
Monitoring and keeping a record of all the research-related activities and data, including the raw interview and journal data, the audio-recordings, the researcher’s diary and the coding book.
What is peer debriefing?
Present throughout the process of the study. Opportunities to present and discuss your research at its different stages, either at internally organized events or at external conferences will provide valuable feedback, criticism and suggestions for improvement.
Input form other people helps to reduce researcher bias.
What is member checking?
Testing the emerging findings with the research participants, in order to increase the validity of the findings.
- For example, regular contact with the participants throughout the period of the data collection and analysis and verifying certain interpretations and themes resulting from the analysis of the data.
In its most common form, may be carried out by sending the interview transcript s to the participants and asking them to read them and provide any necessary comments or corrections
What are ways to address dependability?
Quantitative counterpart = Reliability
Clear presentation of methodology
Keep field notes or a journal
Maintain an audit trail
What is confirmability?
Quantitative counterpart = Objectivity
Refers to the quality of the study’s findings
The goal is not to produce objective findings, but rather findings to illustrate researcher reflexivity that clearly address any bias, assumptions, preconceived ideas, or subjectivity
Reflexivity encourages critical thinking and reflection, which is central to qualitative research
Saturation – the point at which data collection no longer explains/reveals new themes
How can you address confirmability?
Reference to literature
Audit trail
What is transferability?
Quantitative counterpart = External validity
“Because findings of qualitative research studies are unique to a small number of particular environments and individuals, it is impossible to demonstrate that the findings and conclusions will always apply or be transferable to other situations and populations.”
- Refers to the potential applicability of findings to other contexts or settings
- A study’s findings might apply to other similar experiences, contexts, or situations, but you should NOT claim that your findings are generalizable.
- Many students incorrectly assume that lack of generalizability is a limitation of their study. This is NOT a limitation in qualitative research since qualitative researchers do not seek to generalize their findings.
What are ways to address transferability?
Readers (not researchers) make the decision of whether and to what extent the study could apply to other similar settings or contexts.
As the researcher you must provide very clear description of the research context (thick description).
