a. Lichtman (2013) elucidated “personal criteria” for “a good piece

Respond to one of the following questions and reply to at least one other student’s post.

a. Lichtman (2013) elucidated “personal criteria” for “a good piece of qualitative research”, which include being explicit about the researcher’s role and his or her relationship to those studied, making a case that the topic of the study is important, being clear about how the study was done, and making a convincing presentation of the findings of the study. Based on the work you have done in this course, what would be your personal criteria?

b. Patton uses the term “prepon­derance of evidence” to describe the “best fit” between the data a researcher gathers and the patterns and conclusions he or she draws. This is a term borrowed from courtroom procedure, where it is the standard of proof used in noncriminal cases. In the legal context, a judge or jury must find that a given fact is proven if, based on the evidence provided. it is more likely than not (or to “>50% likely”) to be true. In your opinion, is this an appropriate standard for the validation of qualitative research? (Note that in both the QR and legal contexts, “preponderance” implies a quantifiable amount.)

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Q2:please see the upload file for the Q2 to answer.
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the chapter we read is
Chapter Nine
Dealing with Validity, Reliability, and Ethics

All research is concerned with producing valid and reliable knowledge in an ethical manner. Being able to trust research results is especially important to professionals in applied fields because practitioners intervene in people’s lives. Research results are trustworthy to the extent that there has been some rigor in carrying out the study. Ensuring validity and reliability in qualitative research involves conducting the investigation in an ethical manner.

I. Validity and Reliability

Validity and reliability in a qualitative study are about providing information and rationale for the study’s processes and adequate evidence so that readers can determine the results are trustworthy. The applied nature of most social science inquiry makes it imperative that researchers and others have enough confidence in the conduct of the investigation and in the results of any particular study that they may trust themselves in acting on the study’s implications or constructing social policy or legislation based on them. Lichtman’s four criteria for good qualitative research are that it (1) be explicit about the researcher’s role relationship to those studied, (2) make a case that the topic of the study is important, (3) be clear about how the study was done, (4) and make a convincing presentation of the findings of the study. Exhibit 9.1 is a list of sample questions often asked of qualitative researchers that touch on validity and reliability.

II. Internal Validity or Credibility

Internal validity deals with the question of how research findings match reality. Internal validity in all research thus hinges on the meaning of reality. One of the assumptions underlying qualitative research is that reality is holistic, multidimensional, and ever changing. Validity must be assessed in terms of whether the findings are credible given the data presented. Additionally, validity has to be assessed in relationship to the purposes and circumstances of the research, rather than as a context-independent property of methods or conclusions. Because human beings are the primary instrument of data collection and analysis in qualitative research, interpretations of reality are accessed directly through participants’ observations and interviews.

A. Triangulation

Probably the most well known strategy to shore up the internal validity of a study is what is known as triangulation, whereby you make use of more than one data collection method, multiple sources of data, multiple investigators or multiple theories.

B. Member Checks/Respondent Validation

Member checks (or respondent validation) involves soliciting feedback on your preliminary or emerging findings from some of the people that you interviewed. This rules out the possibility of misinterpreting the meaning of what participants say and do and the perspective they have on what is going on, and is an important way of identifying your own biases and misunderstanding of what you observed”. Exhibit 9.2 shows member check comments and actions taken by the researcher in response to the comments.

C. Adequate Engagement in Data Collection

Adequate engagement in data collection makes sense when you are trying to get as close as possible to participants’ understanding of a phenomenon. The best rule of thumb is that the data and emerging findings must feel saturated: no new information surfaces as you collect more data. Failure to find strong supporting evidence for alternative ways of presenting the data or contrary explanations helps increase confidence in the initial, principal explanation you generated.

D. Researcher’s Position/Reflexivity

Researcher’s position, or reflexivity, examines how a particular researcher’s values and expectations influenced the conduct and conclusions of the study.

E. Peer Examinationor Peer Review

Peer examination or peer review involves asking one or more colleagues to scan some of the raw data and assess whether the findings are plausible based on the data.

III. Reliability or Consistency

Reliability is problematic in the social sciences because human behavior is never static, nor is what many experience necessarily more reliable than what one person experiences. The connection between reliability and internal validity from a traditional perspective rests for some on the assumption that a study is more valid if repeated observations in the same study or replications of the entire study produce the same results. This logic relies on repetition for the establishment of truth; however, measurements, observation, and people can be repeatedly wrong. The question then is not whether findings will be found again, but whether the results are consistent with the data collected. Furthermore, the human instrument can become more reliable through training and practice.

A. Audit Trail

In addition to triangulation, peer examination, and investigator’s position (discussed above), a qualitative researcher can optimize consistency, and therefore reliability, via the audit trail, a detailed account of how the study was conducted and how the data were analyzed. In order to construct this trail, the researcher keeps a research journal or records real time memos on the process of conducting the research. In a book-length or thesis-length report of the research, the audit trail is in the methodology chapter (often with supporting appendices). Due to space limitations, journal articles tend to have a very abbreviated audit trail or methodology section.

IV. External Validity or Transferability

External validity is concerned with the extent to which the findings of one study can be generalized to other situations. Generalizability in the statistical sense (from a random sample to the population) cannot occur in qualitative research, but there are ways to assess validity more appropriate to qualitative research.

Transferability asks whether a subsequent investigator can make an application of the initial investigator’s research findings.

Working hypotheses reflect situation-specific conditions in a particular context and are an alternative to empirical generalizations.

Extrapolations are modest speculations on the likely applicability of find­ings to other situations under similar, but not identical, conditions.

Concrete universals are arrived at by studying a specific case in detail and then comparing it with other cases studied in equal detail. What we learn in a particular situation we can transfer or generalize to similar situations subsequently encountered.

Reader or user generalizability involves leaving the extent to which a study’s findings apply to other situations up to the people in those situations. As with transferability, the researcher has an obligation to provide enough detailed description of the study’s context to enable readers to compare the “fit” with their situations.

Eisner asserts that in qualitative research, accumulation is not vertical, but horizontal. Connections between qualitative studies and the world are built by readers via analogy and extrapolation.

Rich, thick description, which enhances transferability includes a description of the setting and participants of the study, as well as a detailed description of the findings with adequate evidence presented in the form of quotes from participant interviews, field notes, and documents.

Maximum variation sampling involves purposefully picking a wide range of cases to get variation on dimensions of interest. This (1) documents diversity; (2) identifies important common patterns that are common across the diversity on dimensions of interest; and enables more readers to apply the study’s findings to their situation.

In typicality or modal category sampling, one describes how typical the program, event, or individual is compared with others in the same class, so that users can make comparisons with their own situations.

Some research designs, particularly action research designs, require alternate and/or additional conceptualizations of validity, such as outcome validity, democratic validity, catalytic validity, and process validity.

V. How Ethical Considerations Relate to the Trustworthiness of Qualitative Research

Part of ensuring the trustworthiness of a study—its credibility—is that the researcher is trustworthy in carrying out the study in as ethical a manner as possible. Ethical issues can be with respect to procedures–guidelines or codes of ethics prescribed by organizations or institutional review boards, such as do no harm and informed consent; situational, meaning they come up in the research context; or relational, meaning they relate to the researcher’s role and impact on relationships and treatment of participants.

Patton’s “Ethical Issues Checklist” identifies items to be considered when engaging in qualitative research:

1. Explaining the purpose of the inquiry and methods to be used

2. Reciprocity (what’s in it for the interviewee and issues of compensation)

3. Promises

4. Risk assessment

5. Confidentiality

6. Informed consent

7. Data access and ownership

8. Interviewer mental health

9. Ethical advice (who will be your counselor on ethical matters)

10. Data collection boundaries

11. Ethical and methodological choices

12. Ethical versus legal issues

In qualitative studies, ethical dilemmas are likely to emerge with regard to the collection of data and in the dissemination of findings.

A. Data Collection

Most people who agree to be interviewed enjoy sharing their knowledge, opinions, or experiences. Interview respondents may feel their privacy has been invaded, they may be embarrassed by certain questions, and they may tell things they had never intended to reveal. In-depth interviewing may have unanticipated long-term effects. Painful, debilitating memories may surface in an interview, even if the topic appears routine or benign. A researcher should be able to make referrals to resources for assistance in dealing with problems that may surface during an interview.

Observation has its own ethical pitfalls, depending on the researcher’s involvement in the activity. Observations conducted without the awareness of those being observed raise ethical issues of privacy and informed consent. There is a continuum of ethical issues based on how “public” the observed behavior is. Participant observation raises questions for both the researcher and for those being studied. The act of observation may bring about changes in the activity, rendering it somewhat atypical. Participants may become so accustomed to the researcher’s presence that they may engage in activity they will later be embarrassed about, or reveal information they had not intended to disclose. Further, an observer may witness behavior that creates its own ethical dilemmas, especially behavior involving abuse or criminal activity. Knowing when and how to intervene is perhaps the most perplexing ethical dilemma facing qualitative investigators.

Somewhat less problematic are the documents a researcher might use in a study. Although public records are open to anyone’s scrutiny, and data are often in aggregated (and hence anonymous) form, personal records pose potential problems unless they are willingly surrendered for research purposes.

Online data sourcespresent additional ethical considerations such as how to obtain informed consent, assessing the authenticity of the data source, determining what is considered in the public domain and available to the researcher without consent, and so on.

C. Data Analysis

Ethical issues arise from researcher bias, including bias the researcher may not be aware of. Since the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection, data have been filtered through his or her particular theoretical position and biases, and opportunities thus exist for excluding data contradictory to the investigator’s views.

D. Disseminating Findings

Ethical issues may arise if there is a sponsoring agency for the research; once the report is made to the sponsoring agency, and the investigator loses control over the data and its subsequent use. Anonymity is another issue. It is less problematic in survey or experimental studies, when data are in aggregated form, than in a qualitative case study. At the local level, it is nearly impossible to protect the identity of either the case or the people involved, especially with insiders who can identify or misidentify the individuals concerned.
the book is Merriam, S. & Tisdell, E. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Franciso, CA: Jossey-Bass.
MAKE SURE THAT YOU USE THE TABLE 9.1 FOR THE LAST PART ON QUESTION 2.