Reliability and validity of qualitative research
Hi all!!
Today I came across a problem and I don't know how to solve it. It has to do with my methodology chapter (which by the way my supervisors had already accepted but today raised the issue) and my reliability and validity section.
I am doing a qualitative research. The interviews were conducted in Greek and they were translated by me into English. So, I didn't have any respondents' validation. Even if I sit down again and transcribe the interviews in Greek, I don't have any more communication with my respondents, so I can't have them validate these.
My supervisors are concerned with this issue and have told me to find a way to address it...
I don't know how I could do this! Any suggestion????? ,-) :$
You could present them with your analysis and ask for their comments. Or you could talk to a different group of similar people and ask for theirs (e.g. like a focus group).
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You see, the problem is that I can't find them... Most of them are now retired and I don't have any contact details. Also, as the analysis is done in English, I can't give it to them (nor can I find another similar group) as the research is done in Greek and is about Greece...
I can't form a focus group with adequate knowledge of English here, and I can't do it either in UK, as this would change the specific national context....
Hi Emmaki
Depending on your stance you could argue against validation on ontological grounds.. ie validation against what ? some sort of truth ? an object, a fact ? I would argue validation is impossible. All knowledge is partial, local and situated. With all research being interpretation, participants interpretation of their past experiences and your interpretation of their story.
I'm more comfortable with triangulation in qual research considering its definition of adding depth, richness, sense-making, internal coherence - Denzin and Lincoln & Guba and Lincoln can be cited here.
I've also used the work of Golden-Biddle and Locke on convincing qual research - they use three elements. Criticality, Authenticity and Plausibility. They give a series of factors for each of these that if its fits your stance you could use. Look them up.
Addressing your sups, if you agree with any of above, could be making a case against validation.
All the best. Chuff
Hi Emmaki, my research is mainly quant, but I have done one smallish qualitative study. I have 'validated' the responses by going back to some of the original participants to see whether I have interpreted their views correctly and also by showing the analysis to a couple of other people who are very experienced in working with my client group to see if the analysis resonates with their experiences of people with dementia. I have just had the reviewers' comments back on this paper and they were complimentary about this type of validation- however, a colleague of mine also went back to the original participants in one of her studies and the reviewers for her paper ripped that aspect of the 'validation' apart. So it is pretty controversial regarding what is accepted as a suitable 'validation' method and I wouldn't get too hung up over this, since so many people have different views. I have got a couple of papers in my office about this- I will send you the references tomorrow (if I don't- remind me!). Can you share your analysis with any suitably experienced 'experts' to see if it resonates with their views? I myself am not totally convinced that this 'validates' anything, but some people seem to like that method. Best, KB
Hiya,
Golden-Biddle and Locke, yes.
Also, if reliability is a problem, and all translation is subjective, could you have someone else translate from greek to english for you so you have a comparative translation to yours to show you haven't misrepresented the greek? It would have to be someone uninterested in your project but it might just give substance to your transcripts.
just a thought.
Cobweb
I roughly remember a source from Wood (2006) that dealt with research in a latin american country during their insurgency fights (hmm, I want to say Honduras, but not 100%). Anyway, point was that Woods is not perfectly fluent in Spanish and was talking about reliability with translation issues. This involved running through two (or more) translations, Spanish-English first, English-Spanish second and comparing the meanings. Repeat until you get the same ideas across. That might be one way to aide in validity.
It depends what your supervisors mean by validity. It is very common in interviewing research to send the person/people that you interviewed either a transcript, your written work, their quoted words in your work, etc and asking for their review of it. You might find that they even want to add information to what was said ( and if allowed by your methodology this can be a boon of new information and insight). It is not always necessary to send a whole transcript--it depends what you are doing with the work. For instance, how are you analysing the interview results? Do you treat the interview data as raw data to be analysed further ( ie via some methodology such as grounded theory) or do you treat the raw data as final data? Do you do statistical analysis or the like on interview results ( etc...)
Questions about validity other than the accuracy of your depiction of what your interviewees said should be done according to the methodology you are using. For instance, grounded theory would not use measures of reliability and validity, but of theoretical saturation and other means to see if the data has been analysed well and whether more data is needed. Your chosen methodology should have some clear guidelines on establishing the satisfactory quality of research. If you are using a non-quants, non-positivistic method, its likely something other than validity and reliability and replicability.
