Reliability & Validity

1. Reliability & Validity Qualitative Research Methods

2. Reliability & Validity Qual vs. Quant “The quantitative study must convince the reader that procedures have been followed faithfully because very little concrete description of what anyone does is provided. The qualitative study provides the reader with a depiction in enough detail to show that the author’s conclusion ‘makes sense’. . . The quantitative study portrays a world of variables and static states. By contrast the qualitative study describes people acting in events.” (Firestone, 1987, p. 19)

3. Reliability & Validity Challenges What can you possibly tell from an n of 1? 2. What is it worth to just get the researcher’s interpretation of what is taking place? 3. How can you generalize from a small, nonrandom sample?

4. Reliability & Validity Challenges 4. If the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis, how can we be sure the researcher is a valid and reliable instrument? 5. How will you know when to stop collecting data?

5. Reliability & Validity Challenges 6. Isn’t the researcher biased and just finding out what he or she expects to find? 7. Without hypotheses, how will you know what you’re looking for? 8. Don’t people lie to field researchers?

6. Reliability & Validity Challenges 9. Doesn’t the researcher’s presence result in a change in participants’ normal behavior, thus contaminating the data? 10. If somebody else did the study, would they get the same results?

7. Reliability & Validity Criteria Some argue that qualitative researchers should consider validity and reliability from the philosophical assumptions underlying the chosen paradigm.

8. Reliability & Validity Qual vs. Quant Criteria

9. Reliability & Validity Criteria Credibility: the extent to which interpretations can be validated as true, correct, and dependable - Is the study believable from the perspective of those observed, does it ring true to the people studied? - Is the data complete?

10. Reliability & Validity Criteria Credibility: Some argue one can never truly discover the reality of a situation and should look for what’s credible instead. - Validity is relative - Humans are closer to the truth than if a data collection instrument had been interjected between us and the participants

11. Reliability & Validity Criteria Credibility: Use triangulation to overcome inherent flaws - data - investigator - interdisciplinary - theory

12. Reliability & Validity Criteria Credibility: Have adequate engagement in data collection, a.k.a, saturation - Holistic - Look for data that supports alternate explanations

13. Reliability & Validity Criteria Credibility: Employ reflexivity Reflexivity: the process of reflecting critically upon the self as the researcher, the “human instrument”

14. Reliability & Validity Criteria Transferability: degree to which the results can be applied to other settings/situations - Researcher supplies thick (detailed) descriptions - Pays careful attention to the sample

15. Reliability & Validity Criteria Transferability: “In qualitative research, a singe case or small, nonrandom, purposeful sample is selected precisely because the researcher wishes to understand the particular in depth, not to find out what is generally true of the many.” (Merriam, 2009, 224)

16. Reliability & Validity Criteria Dependability: concerned with whether or not the findings can be duplicated/repeated - Describes changes in the setting and how those changes affected the research

17. Reliability & Validity Criteria Dependability: Difficult because human behavior is constantly changing - many interpretations - no benchmarks or static means of measurements - similarity of answers does not ensure accuracy

18. Reliability & Validity Criteria Dependability: More important to ask if whether the results are consistent with the data collected

19. Reliability & Validity Criteria Dependability: Strategies to help with dependability: - triangulation - peer examination - investigator’s position - audit trail

20. Reliability & Validity Criteria Dependability: Audit trail:independent readers can authenticate the findings of a study by following the trail of the researcher

21. Reliability & Validity Criteria Confirmability: the degree to which the results can be corroborated by others - Results should be well-reasoned - The results of the study vs. the researcher’s bias?

22. Reliability & Validity Criteria Confirmability: One concern is reactivity - How the act of observation changes a situation

23. Reliability & Validity Criteria Different criteria apply to different methods i.e. In narrative analysis look for what “tells” a persuasive story in a narrative way vs. the thick description needed in an ethnography of a cultural group

24. Reliability & Validity Evaluating Research Are the methods of research appropriate to the nature of the question being asked? Is the connection to an existing body of knowledge or theory clear? Are there clear accounts of the criteria used for the selection of cases for study and of the data collection and analysis?

25. Reliability & Validity Evaluating Research 4. Does the sensitivity of the methods match the needs of the research question? 5.Were the data collection and record keeping systematic? 6. Is reference made to accepted procedures for analysis?

26. Reliability & Validity Evaluating Research 7. How systematic is the analysis? 8. Is there adequate discussion of how themes, concepts and categories were derived from the data?

27. Reliability & Validity Evaluating Research 9. Is there adequate discussion of the evidence for and against the researcher’s arguments? 10. Is a clear distinction made between the data and their interpretation?

28. Qualitative Research Methods Reliability & Validity