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Establishing “Trustworthiness” (Guba & Lincoln (1985), Naturalistic Inquiry, Chapter 11

Truth value - credibility

Applicability - transferability

Consistency - dependability

Neutrality - confirmability

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Truth Value - Credibility

Definition: Create confidence in the “truth” of the findings of a particular inquiry for the subjects (respondents) and context.

How to achieve?

By “representing multiple constructions adequately” so they are “credible to the constructors of the original multiple realities”,

Conducting research using methods that maximize credibility, and

Having constructors approve the findings as credible representations of multiple realities.

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Truth Value - Credibility

Details on “how to”

Ensure “prolonged engagement”, carry out “persistent observation”, and “triangulate” sources, methods, and investigators (not theories)

Conduct “peer debriefing” - share your thoughts with a colleague who will play the “devil’s advocate”

Engage in “negative case analysis”

Determine “referential adequacy” (e.g. tape recorders, video cameras)

Conduct “member checks” continuously

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Applicability - Transferability

Definition: The extent to which the findings have applicability to other contexts or with other subjects.

How to achieve?

Provide sufficient evidence to enable receivers/users to understand the results to make their own judgements about similarity.

Encourage receivers/users to conduct small, verifying studies to ensure transferability.

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Applicability - Transferability

Details on “how to”

Provide the amount of “thick description -- the ‘data base’ -- needed to enable someone to reach a conclusion about whether transfer can be contemplated as a possibility”.

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Consistency - Dependability

Definition: Whether the findings of an inquiry would be repeated if the inquiry were replicated with the same subjects in the same context.

How to achieve?

Guard against “instrumental decay” such as fatigue and other human frailties and errors.

Seek means for taking into account both factors of instability and factors of phenomenal or design induced change.

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Consistency - Dependability

Details on “how to”

Use “overlap methods” consistent with triangulation (to achieve something akin to reliability).

Conduct an “inquiry audit” to determine the fairness of the process of the inquiry and the accuracy of the product -- the data, findings, interpretations, and recommendations.

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Neutrality - Confirmability

Definition: The degree to which the findings of an inquiry are determined by the subjects and conditions of the inquiry and not by the biases, motivations, interests, or perspectives of the inquirer.

How to achieve?

Emphasize the quality of the data.

Ensure the data are confirmable.

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Neutrality - Confirmability

Details on “how to”

Conduct a “confirmability audit”

Create an “audit trail”.

Carry out the “audit process” in five stages: 1) Preentry, 2) Determination of auditability, 3) Formal agreement, 4) Determination of trustworthiness, and 5) Closure.

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The Phenomenological Study

Describes the “lived experiences” of several individuals about a concept or “phenomenon”. Explores the structures of consciousness in human experiences.

Details of “how to”:

Investigator brackets her own preconceived ideas about the phenomenon.

Investigator writes research questions that explore the meaning of the experience for individuals and asks individuals to describe their everyday “lived experiences”.

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The Phenomenological Study (cont.)

Details of “how to” (cont.):

Investigator collects data from individuals (5 to 25) who have experienced “the phenomenon” under investigation through long interviews.

Investigator conducts “phenomenological data analysis” to create “clusters of meanings” expressed as psychological and phenomenological concepts and then “textural descriptions” of what was experienced and the “structural description” of how it was experienced.

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The Phenomenological Study (cont.)

Details of “how to” (cont.):

Investigator creates a report that helps the reader understand better the “essential, invariant structure (or essence) of the experience, recognizing that a single unifying meaning of the experience exists”.

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The Phenomenological Study (cont.)

Why challenging?:

Investigator needs thorough grounding in philosophical precepts of phenomenology.

Participants must be chosen carefully to ensure they have experienced the phenomenon.

Bracketing of personal experience may be difficult.

Difficult for investigator to decide how and in what way his/her won personal experience will be introduced.

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A Grounded Theory Study

A grounded theory study generates or discovers a theory, an abstract analytical schema of a phenomenon, that relates to a particular situation.

Details of “how to”:

Investigator conducts 20-30 interviews based on several visits to the field.

Investigator also collects and analyzes observations and documents, while she/he begins analysis (i.e., utilize a “zigzag process”).

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A Grounded Theory Study (cont.)

Details of “how to” (cont.):

Conduct “open coding” as a means of data analysis by forming initial categories and by segmenting information.

Conduct “axial coding” by assembling the data in new ways, specifying strategies, identifying the context and intervening variables, and delineating the consequences.

Conduct “selective coding”, to identify a story line and write the story.

Possibly create a “conditional matrix”.

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A Grounded Theory Study (cont.)

Why Challenging?

Difficult to set aside theoretical ideas and notions.

Investigator has to be systematic even though the inquiry is evolving.

Difficult to tell when categories are saturated or when the theory is sufficiently detailed.

Primary outcome is a theory with specific components.

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An Ethnography Study

An ethnography is a description and interpretation of a cultural or social group or system. The researcher examines the group’s observable and learned patterns of behavior, customs, and ways of life.

Details of “how to”:

Investigator engages in extensive fieldwork, gathering information through observations, interviews, and materials helpful to developing a portrait and establishing “cultural rules” of the group.

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An Ethnography Study (cont.)

Details of “how to” (cont.):

Investigator gains access through “gatekeepers”,

locates “key informants” and shows concern for “reciprocity” and “reactivity”,

avoids “deception”, and

creates a “holistic” cultural portrait of the social group that portrays both the views of the actors in the group (emic) and the researcher’s interpretation of the views (etic).

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An Ethnography Study (cont.)

Why challenging?

Researcher needs grounding in cultural anthropology and the meaning of a social-cultural system.

The time to collect data is extensive.

Writing the storytelling style often used may be challenging.

The researcher may “go native” and abandon the study or be compromised in the study.

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A Case Study

A case study is an exploration of a “bounded system” or a case (or multiple cases) over time through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information.

Details of “how to”:

Utilize “purposeful sampling” to ensure a case (or cases) that is information rich.

Draw on multiple sources of information such as observations, interviews, documents, and audiovisual materials.

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A Case Study (cont.)

Details of “how to” (cont.):

Develop a detailed description of the case(s).

Analyze themes or issues and make interpretations or “assertions” about the data.

Ensure that each case is rich in “the context of the case” or setting in which it represents.

Narrate the study through a chronology of events, critical incidents, or other strategy.

If multiple cases, conduct “within-case analysis” and then “cross-case analysis”.

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A Case Study (cont.)

Why Challenging?

Deciding on the case, i.e., “bounded system”.

Deciding whether to study a single case or multiple cases.

Conducting “purposive sampling” appropriately.

Collecting sufficient information.

Deciding the “boundaries” of the case