Validity and Reliability Qualitative research methods Validity and Reliability Kevin Meethan and Alison Anderson

Reliability, Validity Generalisability and Replicability Reliability, Validity Generalisability and Replicability: Do they apply to qualitative research?   These four concepts are always at the fore-font of any discussion about research methods and need some consideration here. Click to add notes

Reliability Bryman (2008) notes that there are three ways in which we talk about reliability:   Reliability usually refers to how consistently your data is measured, in other words if we were to undertake a study and the redo it later we would get the same results. It can also refer to whether or not the indicators that are used in the scales are consistent, that is the answers to one question are related to answers to other questions. This is often referred to as internal reliability. For example we would not expect someone who had a stated preference for the colour blue to prefer something that was red rather than something that was blue Inter-observer consistency is where we can be sure that what one person observed is what another person would also observe in that situation Click to add notes

Validity Validity may appear similar to reliability but there are some differences, Bryman notes that there are five ways in which the term is used, but they all address the issue of the extent to which the measure accurately reflects what you are trying to address in your research.   Click to add notes

Generalisability Generalisability is quite simply where we can expect that the findings of our research can be generalised to a wider population than those we studied

Replicability Replicability is more commonly associated with scientific experiments. Let’s suppose that a chemist has formulates a hypothesis that putting X and Y together will produce Z. The first time it is tried the result is Z, and then, no matter how many times it is replicated, the answer is consistently Z. This means we can then predict that X+Y=Z   Click to add notes

Replicability and Qualitative Research In terms of the social research, the question then is can a study be replicated in the same way? It is this latter point that tends to cause the greatest problems for qualitative research, however we also have to think if criteria derived from both the natural sciences and quantitative methods are the most appropriate yardsticks for qualitative research which often seeks out subjective meanings as data. One approach put forward by Lincoln and Guba (1985) is to think in terms of ‘trustworthiness’ which consists of four elements Click to add notes

Trustworthiness 1. Credibility - good research design & practice  2. Transferability – you could expect to see similar (if not exact) processes under similar circumstances  3. Dependability – you are advised to keep a complete record of the research process so it can be ‘audited’. 4. Confirmability - researcher must account for the fact that their own biases may influence the results, sometimes this is also referred to as reflexivity   Click to add notes

References Bryman, A. (2008 3rd edition) Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press: Oxford Lincoln, Y. and Guba, E. (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverley Hills: Sage. Click to add notes

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