RESEARCH

VALIDITY IN
QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH

(“TRUSTWORTHINESS”)
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 • the term validity have traditionally been
attached to the quantitative research
tradition.
VALIDITY IN
• some qualitative researchers have
QUALITATIVE
suggested that the traditional quantitative RESEARCH
criteria of reliability and validity are not
relevant to qualitative research (e.g., J. K.
Smith, 1984).
• Most qualitative researchers argue that
some qualitative research studies are
better than others, and they use the term
validity or trustworthiness to refer to this
difference in quality.
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 VALIDITY
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 VALIDITY
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 VALIDITY
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 triangulation
VALIDITY IN
QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH a validation approach based on the search for
convergence of results obtained by using multiple
investigators, methods, data sources, and/or
theoretical perspectives.
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 RESEARCHER VALIDITY IN
QUALITATIVE
BIAS RESEARCH
Obtaining results
consistent with
what the researcher
wants to find
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 The key strategy that is used to understand
researcher bias is called reflexivity, which
means that the researcher actively engages in
critical self-reflection about his or her potential
biases and predispositions
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 Another strategy that researchers use to reduce the
effect of researcher bias is called negative-case
sampling. This means that researchers attempt
carefully and purposively to search for examples that
disconfirm their expectations and explanations about
what they are studying.
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 VALIDITY IN
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Three types of validity (Maxwell, RESEARCH
1992, 1996):
• descriptive validity
• interpretive validity
• theoretical validity.
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 Descriptive Validity

the factual accuracy of the account as reported by the researchers.

The key questions that are addressed in descriptive validity are these:
• Did what was reported as taking place in the group being studied
actually happen?
• Did the researchers accurately report what they saw and heard?
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 One effective strategy used to obtain descriptive
validity is the use of multiple investigators. In
the case of descriptive validity, it is helpful to
use multiple observers
to record and describe the research participants’
behavior and the context in which they
were located.
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 Interpretive or Emic
Validity
- refers to portraying accurately the meanings attached by
participants to what is being studied. More specifically, it is the
degree to which the qualitative researcher accurately
understands research participants’ viewpoints, thoughts,
feelings, intentions, and experiences, and successfully portrays
them in the research report.
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 Participant feedback (or member checking) is
perhaps the most important strategy. By sharing
your interpretations of participants’ viewpoints
with the participants
and other members of the group, you may clear
up areas of miscommunication.
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 When writing the research report, using many
low-inference descriptors is also helpful so that
the reader can experience the participants’ actual
language, dialect, and personal meanings. In this
way, the reader can hear how the participants
think and feel about issues and experiences.
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 A verbatim is the lowest-inference descriptor of all
because the participants’ exact words are provided in
direct quotations.
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 Example:
I wouldn’t do the work. I didn’t like the teacher and I
didn’t like my Mom and Dad. So, even if I did my
work, I wouldn’t turn it in. I completed it. I just didn’t
want to turn it in. I was angry with my Mom and Dad
because they were talking about moving out of state at
the time. (Okey
& Cusick, 1995, p. 257)
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 Theoretical Validity

the degree to which a theoretical explanation developed in a research

study fits the data and is therefore credible and defensible.
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 A strategy for promoting theoretical validity is
extended fieldwork. This
means spending a sufficient amount of time
studying your research participants and their
setting so that you can have confidence that the
patterns of relationships you believe are
operating are stable and so that you can
understand why these relationships occur.
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 You may decide to use the strategy called multiple
theoretical perspectives (Table 11.2). This means
that you would examine how the phenomenon being
studied would be explained by different theories
or different perspectives. The various
theories/perspectives might provide you with
insights and help you develop a more useful
explanation.
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 As you develop your theoretical explanation, you
should make some predictions based on your theory
and test the accuracy of your predictions. When
doing this, you can use the
pattern-matching strategy (Table 11.2).
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 As you develop your theoretical explanation, you
should make some predictions based on your theory
and test the accuracy of your predictions. When
doing this, you can use the
pattern-matching strategy (Table 11.2).
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 Another useful strategy for promoting theoretical
validity is called peer
review (Table 11.2), which means that you spend
time discussing your explanation with your
colleagues so that they can identify any problems in
it.
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 A related strategy is called critical friend. Used by
action researchers, this is a type of peer review. A
critical
friend is someone you trust whom you interact with
throughout your research project (beginning,
middle, and end) to provide honest and open
feedback about your actions.
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 Internal Validity

-the degree to which a researcher is justified in concluding that

an observed relationship is causal. Often qualitative
researchers are not interested in cause-and-effect relationships
among variables because they study particulars and are
interested in description.
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 The qualitative researcher
takes on the role of the “detective” searching for
cause(s) of a phenomenon, examining each possible
“clue” and attempting to rule out each rival
explanation generated (see researcher-as-detective
and ruling out alternative explanations in Table
11.2).
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 When using multiple methods (Table 11.2), the
researcher uses more than one method of research in
a single research study. The word methods is used
broadly here to refer to different methods of
research (ethnography, correlational, experimental,
and so forth) as well as to different methods of data
collection (e.g., interviews, questionnaires, focus
groups, observations).
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 When using multiple data sources (Table 11.2), the
researcher uses multiple data
sources in a single research study. Using multiple
“data sources” does not mean using different
research or data collection methods. Rather, it means
collecting data from multiple sources using a single
method.
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 External Validity

is important when you want to generalize from a set of research

findings to other people, settings, times, treatments, and outcomes.
Traditionally, generalizability has not been a purpose of qualitative
research, and, not surprisingly, external validity tends to be a weakness
of qualitative research.
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 When qualitative researchers are interested in causation,
they tend to be more concerned about idiographic or
local or singular causation (i.e., identifying the
immediate, intentional, particular, complex, and local
causes of specific attitudes, actions, and events) and less
concerned with nomothetic causation (i.e., demonstrating
universal or general scientific laws), which is
important in quantitative research.
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 Idiographic causation

Local, singular, particularistic causes, including intentions,

specific or local attitudes, conditions, contexts, and
events
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 Nomothetic
causation
The standard view of causation in science; refers to causation
among variables at a general level of
analysis and understanding
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 Stake (1997) used the term naturalistic generalization to
refer to this process of generalizing on the basis of
similarity.
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 Some experts show another way to generalize from
qualitative research (e.g., Yin, 2014).
Qualitative researchers can sometimes use replication
logic, just like the replication logic that is commonly used
by experimental researchers when they generalize beyond
the people in their studies, even when they do not have
random samples.
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 According to replication logic,
the more times a research finding is shown to be true with
different sets of people, the more confidence we can place
in the finding and in the conclusion that the finding
generalizes beyond the people in the original research
study (Cook & Campbell, 1979).
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 Replication logic

The idea that the more times a research finding is

shown to be true with different sets of people, the more
confidence we can place in the finding
and in generalizing beyond the original
participants
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 According to replication logic, the more times your theory
or a research finding is replicated with other people, the
greater the support for the generalizability of the theory or
research finding. Now assume that other researchers find
that the relationship holds in classrooms at several other
grade levels. If this happens, the evidence suggests that
the finding further
generalizes to students in other grade levels.
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