Within qualitative research, there is quite a debate about whether "validity" is a proper form way to evaluate our work. Indeed, some would say that Guba & Lincoln's ideas about trustworthiness and credibility are just ways of renaming validity.

Personally, I like the term credibility because its root meaning is "believability," which gets to the key point of whether a reader would be willing to believe our results, based on the methods that we used to produce them.

Hello Prof.

I find your question really interesting and look forward to reading the responses of others who have a greater insight into this than I do. I didn't use triangulation in an interpretivist grounded theory study in which I used semi-structured interviews to collect my data; looking back at what I wrote at the time, I had felt that my field notes of my observations of the participant gave a certain amount of a certain type of triangulation, but I didn't use formal triangulation.

I looked to see what others had written. The ResearchGate link is not the full text, but I have followed with a full text link:

Decrop, A. (1999). Triangulation in qualitative tourism research. Tourism management, 20(1), 157-161.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222789456

https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0261517798001022/1-s2.0-S0261517798001022-main.pdf?_tid=8e8c10f0-d04d-11e7-a00b-00000aab0f6b&acdnat=1511441898_48067032bb13878614c68e938757659a

Kellier F (2011) Interpretivism and the pursuit of research legitimisation: an integrated approach to single case design. Leading issues in business research methods, 1, 45. Leading issues in business research methods, 1, 45.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Felicity_Kelliher/publication/228381989

It will be good to read the response of others.

Very best wishes,

Mary

Dear Arun Aditya Sahay,

To me, the major objective of triangulation, be it collecting multiple data, or employing mutliple analysts, is to make your case compelling and credible in the eyes of research community. It is your own view of the nature and existance of reality and change may occur only when you believe that the social reality is out there independent of our thinking, we can measure it and law like generalizations can be developed about it.

I may be at the risk of being wrong, but personally I do not see any mechanism through which more traingulation(s) can fundamentally shift your ontology from interpretivist(I'll call it non-realist ontology) to positivist (realist ontology)

Regard

If by triangulation you mean checking to see if two different methods (usually one qualitative and one qualitative) yield the same results, then the question of why you are pursuing that goal is what determines whether your research involves positivism. In particular, if you think there is one "true" set of results and that triangulation will help you eliminate "false" results, then that goes with the logic positivism.

Alternatively, if you believe that using more than one set of methods can enhance the "credibility" or "trustworthiness" of your research, then this a widely supported position in constructionist research. In particular, Lincoln & Guba (1985) strongly favored triangulation for these purposes in their book, Naturalistic Inquiry.

I think ontology like any other philosophy has nothing to do with a technical methodological issue like triangulation. I wonder if triangulation rises the same ontological problems in navigation or in geometry.

Triangulations are perceived to be of fivet5ypes:

In our case, the question arose because we are traiangulating in neither of the above five ways. Simlistically, one can say that cross case analysis can be considered a data triangulation. What if one wants to triangulate the findings from a number of cases?

Maybe your research is a multiple case study. In that situation comparing the results obtained from case studies is common. It is something you have to do in order to find similarities and differences. It is a type of research not a type of triangulation.

Another option that addresses the interpretivist and positivist contrast that you present would be critical realism. Here is information on a critical realist article: Show morehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2008.06.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Case study research is the most popular research method for researchers in industrial marketing. However despite a number of attempts the problem of satisfactorily justifying the use of case research remains. This paper proposes critical realism as a coherent, rigorous and novel philosophical position that not only substantiates case research as a research method but also provides helpful implications for both theoretical development and research process. The article describes the critical realist approach due to Sayer and develops a general application of a critical realist approach to case research. An example of its use in practice is presented using a case study of the development of a buyer–seller relationship after the installation of a new MIS system.

Hi Erik

Thanks for bringing in "Critical Realism" in the discussion. Yes, we are doing Case study research but does it mean that in case we do triangulation, our ontology should shift from that of Interpretivist to critical Realist?

If you are willing to select another approach to ontological and epistemology issues, then I personally would recommend Pragmatism over Critical Realism. From a Pragmatic point of view, the centuries-long arguments over the nature of reality and the possibility of truth pose unanswerable questions. Instead, Pragmatism brings human experience to the center, and asks questions such as, "What difference would it make to act one way rather than another?"

This emphasis on consequences could be very useful in your situation, because you consider what difference it would make to use triangulation or not. In addition, if the triangulation you are considering involves both qualitative and quantitative methods, that puts you into the realm of mixed methods, where Pragmatism is the "dominant paradigm."

I think it does not change the investigator's focus. One can distinguish between reliability (positivist model) and validity. Validity is fundamental in all types of investigations. Triangulation is one of the best validation strategies, in a qualitative approach.

Within qualitative research, there is quite a debate about whether "validity" is a proper form way to evaluate our work. Indeed, some would say that Guba & Lincoln's ideas about trustworthiness and credibility are just ways of renaming validity.

Personally, I like the term credibility because its root meaning is "believability," which gets to the key point of whether a reader would be willing to believe our results, based on the methods that we used to produce them.

Hi David

I entirely agree with you that if a researcher is considering triangulation using both qualitative and quantitative methods, that puts him into the realm of mixed methods, and ths, Pragmatism is the "dominant paradigm." My question is when a researcher is using only qualititative method and within that he/she is triangulating, what should be his/her epistomological stance.

From my experiences on the field, I would say that I am very much in agreement with Professor David Morgan when he said that using more than one set of methods can enhance the "credibility" or "trustworthiness" of one's research. That is an important element in Social Constructionist research. I believe when a researcher goes out into the field and encounters multiple stakeholders, most of the times unexpectedly, in case study research which is ethnographic in nature, and intended to bring out social constructions of the respondents, for formulating a grounded theory, he/she will naturally use a 'method triangulation' and 'data triangulation' approach. He/she can use a mix of interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and document the social constructions of reality by the respondents/participants in the research. One moves from being a social constructionist to interpretivist when one get onto identifying constructs and developing theory from these social constructions. At that time, he/she is moving from being a social constructionist (not constructivist, that is different) to an interpretivist, as the researcher intends to develop objective knowledge from the subjective experiences of the respondents/participants. Thus if the interpretivist is the butterfly, social constructionism is the larva. Traingulation exist in both stages. While method triangulation and data triangulation can come in social constructionism, theory triangulation can come in interpretivism, if the researcher plans to traingulate the theory developed by him/her with that postulated by others. But that does not outright make the social constructionist or the interpretivist, a positivist. So as the question of Professor Arunaditya Sahay goes, I believe an interpretivist can surely use triangulation in his/her qualitative research. As Professor David Morgan had said, it would depend on the principal question of 'why' one intends to do triangulation in one's qualitative research. Regarding critical realism , which Professor Erik Aasland shared, and Pragmatism, which Professor David Morgan shared, I am doing some reading to understand them better.

Looking forward to the response of all the members in this discussion.

Hi Arun,

As a qualitative researcher, I use a mix of qualitative methodologies to triangulate and thus increase the credibility of my data. In the planning process, I take into consideration differing issues of reactivity associated with individual methods. Generally, I am not addressing my specific epistemology or ontology. However, I would be more inclined to take a critical realist rather than pragmatic position.

I think that triangulation is necessary regardless of the study approach used. I think that the ultimate purpose of a researcher, even if he or she claims understanding a phenomenon in a initial step , is to produce a valid knowledge.

Triangulation is relevant to both qualitative and quantitative is research method.

One reason why researchers triangulate in a social research is because of the interpretivist's (to use the term in the question) concern with explanation. For example, quantitative data may help to indicate a relationship between the two variables that the research may be interested in but the statistics cannot explain why such a relationship exists. Such may only be attempted with complementary qualitative data. Statistics, indeed mathematics, lacks the element or function, explain, in the social or linguistic sense and therefore cannot interpret.

Arun,

I'm not clear from your original post whether you mean to use different cases to triangulate, or to triangulate in some way within the cases. In either case, I think your question, "does my ontology change from interpretivist to positivist" is taking the wrong starting point.

I believe that either, as David Morgan has suggested, you take the (pragmatist) line of doing what is most useful (driven by the research question and it ultimate aim), or you decide what your ontological commitments are and then follow them. An urge to use particular strategies does I think pose useful questions about your ontological/epistemological commitments, which it may be worthwhile to examine. Faced with similar 'crises' in my own research, for example, I came to a flavour of critical realism (with a strong interest in the 'interpreted world').

For my students, I tend to recast triangulation within the interpretivist paradigm as 'enrichment', 'added depth', or adopting Geertz's concept of 'thick description', perhaps 'thickness' or 'thickening'. In this respect, either multiple strategies within a case, or multiple cases, can be treated in the same way: positivistic triangulation (as per Yin), or a more interpretive 'thickening'.

If you are using predominantly qualitative technique of obtaining data then your epistemology is interpretivist (in your terms). I think it is not the problem at all. We need to use methods which are best for eliciting data and this entirely depends on the research question and the object. I think you are still working within the interpretivist paradigm. Anyway, I would't bother too much about it. The main thing is the validity of the research and in an empirical sociological research it entirely depends on the accuracy of following the method (technique) of getting data. The fact that you use triangulation doesn't mean you are switching to the positivist epistemology.

There is a methodological discussion whether the research techniques we are using should always refer to the strict epistemology. For example, objectivist ontology and positivist epistemology should unavoidably lead to the use of quantitative methods. And similarly, constructionist ontology and interpretive epistemology should unavoidably lead to the use of qualitative methods. Society (particularly the contemporary one) is too complicated to reduce explanation solely to one epistemology that should determine everything else. We can (and should) play around across all available research techniques more freely, and only the research question is our restrictive tool, not the epistemological tradition.

Hi Peter,

My question mainly pertain to triangulation within the case. About the triangulation across the cases, I am clear about ontological stance. In qualitative research, as I understand, triangulation falls within the interpretivist paradigm because it is done for 'enrichment'and 'added depth'. It also helps in 'thickening the description' but to my surprise questions were raised about epistemology and ontological stance stating that in case study research understanding and reflection is more important and that triangulation leads towards positivist approach as the researcher tries to proove or disprove some point.

How to convince this school of researchers?

Part of the problem is that triangulation as a concept has a long and complex history, going back into the 1950s. In its early history, it was primarily treated as a form of validation, where results were felt to have greater validity if they were confirmed by more than one method. This position shifted in the 1980s when triangulation was treated as adding depth and detail to an analysis. Good sources on this would be Denzin (2012) in the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, and Flick (2017) in Qualitative Inquiry, along with Flick's chapter in the most recent Denzin & Lincoln handbook.

In general, however, most people consider treat Lincoln & Guba's (1985) treatment as the authoritative source on triangulation in qualitative inquiry.

Hi Arun,

re: 'how to persuade a school of researchers' ... I don't know if this was a rhetorical question, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless and it encouraged me to think it through, so if it was rhetorical, just ignore me, but ...

Taking it literally, I think I would find Prof Morgan's synthesis a pretty good foundation and if I were evaluating, say a doctoral student presentation, then surely it's about fit with the question. As I suggested before, I think choice of methods may 'betray' underlying epistemological commitments rather than 'require' them. I gave a project update during my PhD where I explained that I didn't want to do member checking in my essentially phenomenological study because of the limitations about interview data, preferring observation. What I actually said in the presentation though, was that I had no confidence that the research participants would be 'right'.

A colleague questioned my idea (given a largely interpretivist frame) of 'being right'. Initially, I wanted to explain it away as a simple turn of phrase. But it turned out to be an immensely productive (constructive!) challenge that made me go right back to asking what form of knowledge I believed I could draw from my research.

Maybe there's some potential course content or seminar on foundations of research philosophy.

Triangulating a number of interpretivist case studies does not change your chosen ontology from interpretivist to positivist; rather, as David mentions above, triangulation adds depth to your analysis.

Hi Philip

I appreciate your view point. Despite a course on 'foundations of research philosophy', I find the doctoral students confused about epistemology and ontology, especially those pursuing qualitative research. What is your exoperience and how do you make these students confident about their epistemological and ontologIical position and blending of the same with their research?.

My personal experience is that relying on the concepts of ontology and epistemology as a way to teach research foundations is a rather old-fashioned approach, dating back to the mid-1980s. In particular, it ignores most of what we have learned since the rise of mixed methods over the past 15 years.

Thus, it has become increasingly apparent that the emphasis on ontology and epistemology ignores the more practical issues involved in actually collecting and analyzing data. This helps explain the rise of pragmatism as a paradigm in mixed methods, because it explicitly questions the relevance of ontological and epistemological issues that have not been resolved in thousands of years of debate.

Instead of pursuing questions about the nature of reality or the possibility of truth, pragmatism concentrates on the the fundamental question of what difference would it make to act one way rather than another. For the present case, this would ask about the value of adding an additional source of data, rather than whether doing so violates some supposed standard from an abstract philosophy of knowledge.

My own literal experience is in coming to an ontological/epistemological position prior to my MSc. research in 2016

I agree with David that just basing one's research around ontology/

epistemology is now somewhat old-fashioned; however, arguing that emphasising these ignores practical issues of data collection and analysis, begs the counter-argument that one cannot collect and analyse relevant, authentic data except from an ontological/epistemological position; my resolution to this is that we now consider all three prior to any intended research; decide on what we consider to be the nature of the reality that we intend to research---quantitative, qualitative, or a mix of the two (ontology); how then, generally, we will research this (epistemology); and then fine-tune this 'how' by fielding methods which will collect and analyse what we consider to be the most relevant and authentic data in any particular research case (pragmatism).

The resolution to the bare o/e debate is that one's o/e position 'depends' on one's intended research; and perhaps students (even Doctoral) have difficulty with their o/e position because they fail to realise that it must change somewhat, with regard to one's intended research.

Phillip,

I disagree with the argument that one needs an ontological and epistemological position in order to choose methods. What matters most in selecting a method is one's research purposes, not one's abstract position on issues in the philosophy of knowledge.

The failure, ultimately, of the ontology and epistemology approach (especially as initiated and elaborated by Guba & Lincoln) was that it explicitly denied that there was any direct connection to decisions about methods. Guba & Lincoln were always quite explicit that their stance on the paradigm debates was about realism versus constructivism, with no explicit connection to either qualitative or quantitative methods. But with no connection to methods, it is hard to answer the "so what" question.

So, somehow, we have both gave pre-eminance to the link between research methods and research purposes, and allowed the domination of philosophical issues that had nothing to do with either methods or purposes. At some point, that contradiction was bound to break down.

My own interpretation of Lincoln and Guba's work is that they offered a powerful argument which created a space for qualitative research.This political success, however, came at the expense of practicality. That became unavoidably clear when mixed methods research demonstrated that methods could be combined without any regard to ontological and epistemological issues.

In these terms, the attempt to define social science research methodology was itself a paradigm -- as Kuhn intended that word to mean. As such, the emphasis on ontology and epistemology was intended to define both the questions research methodologists should be asking and the types of answers they should be providing for those questions. It was the dominant paradigm in social science research methodology from roughly 1985 to 2000, but now it has seen its day, and it is time to move on.

If we look at the concept of triangulation, also called (cross examination) We find that it means using more than one tool or method of data collection and analysis of the same phenomenon in order to verify the validity of the results in the study in addition to it contributes to reduce the (Bias), which may be caused by the method or tool to collect data. The purpose here is to raise the level of confidence in the results by collecting data in more than one way to consider whether the data collected in more than one way have the same results and reinforce or support each other or not.

David,

I agree that one should choose the best method for one's research purpose, but as far as I can see, this choice is most informed when made within consideration of one's ontological/epistemological position for doing a particular piece of research.

I think that Lincoln and Guba were wrong to deny the connection between o/e position and decisions about research methods.

Broadly, doing quantitative or qualitative research---or a mix of both---requires us to change our o/e position accordingly; I see no contradiction in this; maybe pragmatism is introduced here.

Some research requires us to see and collect elements of a fixed reality which is 'out there'---as in survey research. Some research requires us to engage with constantly changing social interaction---as in open interviewing. Both styles are intended to collect the most authentic data for a specific research purpose.

While perhaps research sometimes leads us the wrong way when o/e position for doing that particular research is not adequately considered.

What is the reality that I am looking into here? How best can I research it in order to understand 'what's going on'?

For instance, the late John Booth Davies and colleagues showed that 'the usual' survey research into drug addicts' accounts of their experience concluded that these accounts were informative of addicted lifestyles; however, Booth Davies' more qualitative-tending research showed them actually to be contextually performative; this latter conclusion has major implications for drug-misuse rehabilitation.

I still don't see how clarifying ontological and epistemological assumptions makes any difference in doing good research. In particular, one could produce multiple examples where qualitative research challenged the results from quantiative research, and vice versa. But nothing about that refers to metaphysical assumptions about the nature or reality etc. -- the results of applying those methods would have been same regardless of which assumptions were made about philosophical issues.

As for taking ontological and epistemological assumptions down to the level of methods, then you are going to have to start making rules about which methods a Constructivist or Post-Posivist can or cannot use. I think Guba and Lincoln were wise not to open that can of worms.

I agree that simply launching research from a broadly quantitative or qualitative o/e position makes no difference to the actual piece of research in itself---it can still be good research of its kind; however, I think that the approach of this good piece of research could be considered to have been misapplied if another piece of research taking a different approach to the same topic was to yield what was considered more insightfully useful data.

This is the case with the Booth Davies example of my previous post, in which the research result discrepancy seems to have arisen because survey was misapplied---driven by an a priori o/e position----with the purpose of understanding drug addicts' accounts of their experience, while Booth Davies' research----from a different o/e position---seems to be more insightfully useful.

Actually, I am not advocating taking ontological and epistemological position down to the level of methods---I'll leave that to Pragmatism, which I think can be practised only within an ontological/epistemological position.

I see Pragmatism as the 'fine-tuner' within a wider o/e position, enabling the researcher to apply the exactly apposite research method for the purpose in-hand.

Pragmatism, especially as laid out by John Dewey, was explicitly opposed to what he called the "epistemological industry" (i.e., the centuries old debate between realism and what we could call constructivism). Instead, he followed William James in emphasizing the fundamental question, "What difference would it make?" That is why I highlighted the point that it was the methods rather than the philosophical assumptions that made the difference in your example.

Overall, pragmatism is a legitimate and well-developed philosophy that operates outside the concern with ontology and epistemology in the traditional philosophy of knowledge.

The questions are both interesting and confusing. In my opinion, ontology concerns the reality of our research. As long as reality is not regulated by the researchers then it is not positivist. But when the reality can be arranged (eg using a questionnaire that has an answer option) it includes a positvist ontology. Triangulation is one of the qualitative research strategies aimed at enhancing the understanding of researchers rather than seeking the truth. Thus, when using triangulation there is no reason to suggest that ontologies have changed to positivists as long as facts and data are not regulated by researchers. Thanks.

Hi Junianita,

Triangulation can be used both in qualitative and quantitative method.

I am entering the debate a bit late but I have benefited a great deal from the expert researchers debating the paradigm wars and how it should affect research and therefore the outcomes. Speaking from a novice position, and notwithstanding the noble position of the pragmatists, I found it useful to understand my own reality as a researcher and how I fit into the research question and therefore the research. I did try to ignore the philosophy and discovered that I did not adequately understand what is required because the foundation was somewhat superficial. I think that basic course in research for new researchers would provide a solid foundation to establish a firm base as a researcher. Certainly I feel a lot better about understanding what research is all about, then the argument about validity and credibility make sense to make.

No doubt, basic course in research for new researchers would provide a solid foundation to establish a firm base as a researcher and therefore, it is necessary. However, understanding of what research is all about is equally necessary; thus both knowledge of the domain of research as well as philosophy of research is equally important.

Pragmatism is itself a philosophical paradigm, which argues in favor of thinking about how beliefs lead to actions which have consequences. The other alternative is to continue the two-thousand year old debate about the nature of reality.

I agree with David. If you have both knowledge of the domain of research as well as philosophy of research, you are most likely to be pragmatic in today's world as your beliefs will lead to action. Probably you may bcome Action Researcher.

Good methodology is good methodology. Pragmatists and critical realists have different theoretical underpinnings. In some cases, if they are being especially precise, they may use different terminology to describe their processes. However, correct and defensible research methods don't differ.

I just glanced through one of these business articles claiming to bring in critical realism to undergird their research. Even with a second reading, I could find nothing that was really "critical realism" that had them doing anything different methodologically. It was like some slight of hand to try and pad the research.

We need none of that.

No doubt, Pragmatists and Critical Realists should have different theoretical underpinnings but in this regard I would go with David. A research is a research and methodlogy is a means to end rather than an end in itself. Young researchers, most of the time, do not understand the fine difference between terminologies. As long as their method is aligned to their research question, it should be fine even if their perception of the philosophical terminology may not be appropriate.

Of course one's research method must be aligned to one's research question; but this is fundamentally underpinned by one's ontological/epistemological position---one's idea of the nature of reality and therefore how to investigate it.

I get the sense that Pragmatism alone, simply glosses over this fundamental underpinning.

Pragmatism as philosophy says that people who insist on asking questions about the nature of reality and truth are asking the wrong questions -- those are the ones that haven't been answered in two thousand years. So it doesn't so much "bypass" as reject what John Dewey called the "epistemological industry" and the "spectator school of philosophy."

Instead, the emphasis in pragmatism is on human experience and human action. The ultimate question for pragmatists is: What difference would it make if one were to act one way rather than another? Ultimately, all researchers make decisions about what to study and how to study it, and those decisions are what matters most.

We all are in agreement that the research method must be aligned to one's research question. Where we are differing is about philosophy of pragmatism and the researcher's position with regard to ontology/epistemology. The question is: should we, as a researcher, just be the spectator of philosophy or create our own belief and go by that in the research. Will the research community accept such a position?

Essentially, I think that a researcher should be guided by her/his belief as to the foundations of research practice in terms of Ontology, Epistemology AND Pragmatism.

Combining these two very different approaches to philosophy will not work, because the classical pragmatist philosophers (e.g., Charles Pierce, William James, John Dewey) explicitly denied the relevance of ontology and epistemology. One of their principal goals was to create an approach to the philosophy of knowledge that eliminated these issues as unanswerable and essentially unhelpful with regard to understanding what they considered central: human experience and human action.

If you wanted to read something about the critical realistic perspective, Paul Hiebert wrote some good pieces on the subject. He was writing as a Christian anthropologist.

The moment we talk of philosophy of knowledge, Ontology and Epistemology become relevant as they are part of philosophy.

I'm a novice PhD student and indeed i learn a lot from the above debate on philosophical underpinnings. Based on my perspectives as a novice researcher, i agree that it is indeed difficult when i started my year one to relate to the concepts that relate to philosophical underpinnings. i've been advised that as i progress through my PhD journey, i'll start to understand on my beliefs and the development of knowledge. Indeed these claims are true as i progress, details for my research become clearer. i develop my critical skills and reflect on the research questions plus the aim of my research with the guidance of my supervisory team. I find that it's good for a novice PhD student to write down their assumptions or beliefs which refer to their ontology when they begin the journey. As they build their knowledge or epistemology, they should be aware that based on the tuning of their research questions and these philosophical underpinnings may change. Again as for me, continuously reading in depth on these concepts will make one's aware of the issues raised as the above along their PhD journey.

Siti

Nice to see your posting. Building of knowledge can be related to 'episteme building' and not epistemology.

I use both quantitative and qualitative methods and at times mixed method depending on the problem. Quantitative data helps to indicate a relationship between the two variables but the statistics does not explain why such a relationship exists. Triangulation, too, does not help in understanding 'why'. Of course, it helps in confirmation of the results obtained. What to do when one is researching a nascent phenomenon? How to triangulate there?

Along with the flourishing of qualitative research in social science , for some scholars, meaning of triangulation has also expanded from verification and cross-checking of data to divergence of data. This has also come up to the interpretive paradigm. Nevertheless, personally, I do not prefer to go for this.

There are many types of triangulation e.g.

–Data Triangulation

–Investigator triangulation

–Theoretical triangulation

–Methodological Triangulation

Irrespective of the approach of research, triangulation, according to me, can be used effectively.

This has been a fabulous conversation to encounter. I am very grateful to all the contributors, Arunaditya Sahay for keeping the question on track by a real need, Erik Aasland, David L Morgan and Philip Adams for giving so much of their voices...

Thank you all, including the less frequent contributors - the subject matter came alive and fluent in my head as I read along.

Is there a precedent or a problem in citing these discussions?

David

Yes, there is a precedence. In the defence of one f my candidates, the learned examiner had posed the question, "How can you triangulate when you are doing a case study? It is cross case analysis which is far from triangulation. Qualitative methods are not amenable to triangulation."

Dr Arunaditya

" In our case, the question arose because we are traiangulating in neither of the above five ways. Simlistically, one can say that cross case analysis can be considered a data triangulation. What if one wants to triangulate the findings from a number of cases? ".

As far as my I understood the question, it is not triangulation at all. Rather, your question relates to debate on the use of cases or case study companies. In fact, Yin (1994) and Eisenhardt (not sure about the year, 1989) usually advocate the use of multiple cases. The main idea behind using multiple case studies (3, 5, 7 etc) is that they somehow try to focus on enhancing the generalizability of the findings, which often is not the purpose in qualitative research, including those based on interpretivism.

On the other hand, Easton (1995), Dubois and Gadde (2002) and Dubois and Araujo (2004) and many others stresses the use of a single case, suggesting to study the depth rather than breadth and generalization or any statistical significance. The generalization and the significance of course are better served through quantitative studies. But anyway, there are plenty of examples and justification through which a single case study or multiple case studies can be justified. So its all about justification in the end.

To me both Yin (1994) and Eisenhardt (1989), who usually advocate the use of multiple cases as well as Easton (1995), Dubois and Gadde (2002) who stress the use of a single case is acceptable. The issue is richness of the data. Having said this. I hasten to add that generalizability of the findings is not the aim of qualitative research.

Yes, Dr. Arunaditya

Generalizabality is not the purpose, but I think qualitative research offers analytical lessons for the practitioners and a theory that can be further explored or tested.

[David Jones]

Of course, we can't use the discussion in such forums as references to support our concepts/arguments. However, all the discussion in the thread is easily available in books and research papers.

To David Jones,

if citing them, remember that they are opinions.

Yes, there is debate on the use of cases or case study companies. True, Yin (1994) and Eisenhardt (1989) advocate the use of multiple cases whereas Easton (1995), Dubois and Gadde (2002) and Dubois and Araujo (2004) stresses the use of a single case. They argue that the depth rather than breadth is needed. To me both breadth and depth is needed for generalization but the case studies have generally been used for theory building rather than generalization. Having said this, I accept the position that case study research can also be done from positivist stance.

Indeed a substantial discussion,

My view is that it can be used and if in some innovative way then it needs to be explained and exposed to comments and critique afterwards when research is published. Over time there will be a new way of applying triangulation or perhaps it will take longer time until the rejected proposal is accepted when other unknown details are discovered in future.

Triangulation can be used in two ways; 1: with the assumption that converging separate datasets will somehow 'validate' one's research results---but what if this does not happen?; which brings us to way number 2: comparing said datasets for research insight.

Philip

I am also an advocate of the use of triangulation even in qualitative research. However, I wonder whether it will increase the depth of research. What is your take on this?

Denzin originally described "method triangulation" as a way to increase validity by comparing the outcomes of two different methods. Later, when he changed his mind about applying the whole concept of validity to qualitative research, he also changed his mind about the value of triangulation -- advocating instead that it could broaden one's understanding of the research topic.

First of all, I will continue to use the term 'triangulation' in my following answer (recognising that that there is an argument for its 'datedness'-----originally borrowed from navigation and surveying to determine, as in those disciplines, some point of 'validity' of research results).

And yes. I think that triangulation can increase the depth of research by way of enabling us to gain insight from examining parallel datasets.

For example, in the area of my especial interest, drug addiction, and using triangulation in a broader sense than simply indicating multi-agreement 'validity' , one could implement a project which usefully compares the datasets of a specific number of drug addicts attending a drug rehab agency, how they might present themselves differently in different situations, and the percentages of those who do so; thus, one potentially increases the depth-understanding of the research from simply that of so many attending a rehab to the further understanding of how attendees might present themselves in different situations (e.g. clinic, with family, in the community---and at the rehab.)

These research results could be very useful for treatment professionals to encourage insightful reflection in drug addict clients.

In terms of terminology, I have argued for "convergence" to mean comparing how similar the results are (relying on the original metaphor from navigation), and "complementarity" as combining different methods to gain different insights into a topic.

Article Commentary—After Triangulation, What Next?

I have gone through the commentary referred above. Doing away with triangulation as a term in mixed methods research will neither affect the depth or the width of the qualitative research.

The movement to do away with the term triangulation is in the field of mixed methods, where it is used into many separate ways. I think that some of the same confusions exist in qualitative research as well (e.g., validation versus breadth), but qualitative and mixed methods are two relatively different fields, so what happens in one of them may not have much impact on the other.

David,

I'm astonished at "..qualitative and mixed methods are two relatively different fields...." this statement seems to hark back to the futile 'paradigm wars' that I thought pragmatists were trying to erase and just do research.

By different fields, I mean that they have different traditions and different interests. I personally feel that the paradigm wars have be over for quite a while now, and good riddance to them.

With regard to triangulation, the tradition in qualitative research is usually traced to Lincoln and Guba (1985), who made it one of the foundations of their approach to validity (which they renamed under headings like credibility and trustworthiness). This is quite different from the tradition in mixed methods that goes back to the work of Donald Campbell -- who was the source for Denzin's early emphasis on the convergence of qualitative and quantitative results. In this field, however, there has been a pushback against treating both convergence and complementarity as falling under the same label, which has not occurred in qualitative methods.

Sequencial mixed method, anyway does not use triangulation but parallel mixed method can always use triangulation.