Article S9.2 Quality Issues in Qualitative Research: Approaches and Challenges Seminar Leader: Jacob D. Vakkayil Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India jacobdvakkayil[at]yahoo.com “Quality is elusive, hard to prespecify, but we often feel we know it when we see it.” -- Clive Seale (2002, p. 102). The adjectives qualitative and quantitative have been used to characterise research methods, highlighting different assumptions, goals, and procedures involved (Maxwell & Loomis, 2003). The label qualitative research generally refers to studies that pay a greater attention to specific situations, using words rather than numbers as the input, seeking to arrive at insights through logical induction. As researchers, we need to be clear about the goals of any specific research study. This will help us avoid spending time and effort doing things that do not advance these goals. Maxwell and Loomis (2003) have described five particular goals for which qualitative studies are especially suited: (a) understanding the meaning of events, situation, experiences, and actions of participants (b) understanding the role of context on the behaviour and action of participants (c) exploring unknown phenomena in order to establish new theories (d) understanding the process that leads to occurrence of the phenomena (e) explaining causal relations between events and actions (f) providing understandable results and theories, and establishing their credibility (g) evaluating the proposed theory in order to strengthen it (h) engaging in collaborative or action research with participants Criteriology is the quest for stable criteria of rationality, which has been called upon to assess the quality of research studies (Schwandt, 1996). However, the notion of quality in research has undergone significant shifts over the years. Some of these shifts can be seen in the specific methodological literature pertaining to qualitative research. Initially, validity and reliability were the main criteria of quality in qualitative research. Relevance of research was not discussed in the methodological literature. Guba and Lincoln (1994) have argued that, although establishing the trustworthiness of a qualitative research study is important, it should also have other qualities characteristic of research. They propose their own criteria for qualitative research: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. These four criteria are meant to fulfil the functions of validity, applicability, reliability, and objectivity respectively, which have become conventionally associated with systematic inquiry. Guba and Lincoln have also clarified the procedure qualitative researchers ought to follow in order to meet the above four criteria. An important procedure for establishing credibility is through “member checks”--sharing the research material such as transcripts and research reports with the participants in the research process, so that they can give their feedback. Transferability can be achieved by giving a detailed description of the research context so that readers can apply the findings to similar other situations. Dependability and confirmability can both be achieved through documenting the research process, including the decisions made during the process, so that every aspect of the process as well as the end results can be reviewed by external auditors. Any criteria for judging the quality of research is open to debate. This is so because the notion of research itself is not absolute or final, but varied, complex, and changing. Criteria such as validity, reliability, and replicability presuppose a stable and discoverable world of which research is expected to produce an accurate image. In contrast, criteria such as credibility and dependability presuppose a different type of world, one that can be experienced but not discovered. In such a world, the purpose of research may be to synthesise the experiences so as to produce a helpful understanding of those experiences. Depending upon the type of world postulated and the type of purpose adopted, we can have different images of research. Naturally, the quality criteria will depend on the specific image of research being espoused. References Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Maxwell, J. A., & Loomis, D. M. (2003). Mixed method design: An alternative approach. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research (pp. 241-272). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schwandt, T. A. (1996). Farewell to criteriology. Qualitative Inquiry, 5(4), 58-72. Seale, C. F. (2002). Quality issues in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Social Work, 1(1), 97-110. Reported by Mahendra Kumar Shukla, with inputs from Paromita Goswami; edited by D. P. Dash. [March 27, 2011] Copyleft Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home | ||
 |