Abstract
Existing literature documents criteria for ensuring rigor for qualitative research (e.g., Cohen and Crabtree. Annal Fam Med 6: 331–339, 2008; Morse et al. 2001; Morse et al. Int J Qual Method 1: 13, 2002). Given the important role of recognition of the determinants of health in the realm of health research and the contributions of qualitative research to health evidence, there is an ongoing need for clarity. Strategies of verification are internal to the research process, and are the responsibility of the researchers and their team. The techniques used in the verification process incrementally contribute to the validity of the research (Meadows and Morse. The nature of qualitative evidence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001). Similarly traditional and evolving strategies have been established for the validation process.
In this chapter we first present the arguments of select publications that lead current thinking on verification and validation strategies in qualitative health research. The general discussion of strategies for ensuring that rigor is followed by examples of assessing rigor using two case studies. The first case study is a project focused on community health and community knowledge within an ethnic community. The assessment of rigor was done from inside the research project (i.e., by a research team member). The second case study is a project focused on knowledge of scope of practice criteria. An auditor from outside the research project team was responsible for the assessment of rigor in this case, an example of outside assessment. The chapter concludes with a brief comparison of inside and outside assessment of rigor, and includes suggestions for rigor assessment generally in qualitative research.
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Notes
- 1.
“The problem of member checks is that, with the exception of case study research and some narrative inquiry, study results have been synthesized, decontextualized, and abstracted from (and across) individual participants, so there is no reason for individuals to be able to recognize themselves or their particular experiences (Morse 1998; Sandelowski 1993). Investigators who want to be responsive to the particular concerns of their participants may be forced to restrain their results to a more descriptive level in order to address participants’ individual concerns. Therefore, member checks may actually invalidate the work of the researcher and keep the level of analysis inappropriately close to the data. The result is that there is presently no distinction between procedures that determine validity during the course of inquiry, and those that provide the research with such credentials on completion of the project (Wolcott 1994)” (Morse et al. 2002, p. 16).
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Meadows, L., Robinson Vollman, A. (2016). Evaluating Qualitative Health Research from Inside and Outside. In: Olson, K., Young, R., Schultz, I. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Health Research for Evidence-Based Practice. Handbooks in Health, Work, and Disability, vol 4. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2920-7_7
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