I have interviewed 40 women re their experiences of birth injury from a quantitative database of medically diagnosed damage and analyzed their responses. Need to check my framework and analysis is valid ?
I agree with Chamara that "validity" can be quite a controversial concept in qualitative research. But if you simply mean whether you have high quality results,. Braun and Clarke's original 2006 article on Thematic Analysis offers a table with "A 15-point checklist of criteria for good thematic analysis."
Beyond that, some qualitative researchers prefer what Lincoln & Guba, 1985 called "credibility" rather than the more quantitatively motivated terminology of validity.
Actually, in research, there are many 'validities' which one might consider; however, to initially keep things simple, and addressing data analysis, this will be valid if it 'measures' what you intended it to 'measure'.
Correct me if I've got it wrong; your framework is the quantitative database from which you took your sample of women for your study-----seems valid to me: you've used a particular framework to return the kind of sample that you wanted.
There is ongoing debate as to whether quantitative and qualitative research can be judged by the same standards, with some writers, such as Lincoln and Guba stating that different standards are required, while this position is challenged by others such as Morse et al, 2002 or Greenhalgh, 2010, who re-affirm that terms such as 'validity' will do very nicely for both, thank you.
In other words, there is no consensus one way or the other.
My own take on this debate is that, for qualitative research, I'll quite happily use some of the 'alternative' terms such as 'credibility', 'transferability', 'dependability' or 'confirmability'----which of course all mean slightly different things and this is not actually 'validity'; but I'll also quite happily use 'validity'.
Please also refer to the following papers, which should be helpful to your topic:
- Rolfe, G. (2006) Validity, trustworthiness and rigour: quality and the idea of qualitative research, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 53, 3, pp. 304-310.
- Winter, G. (2000) A comparative discussion of the notion of 'validity' in qualitative and quantitative research, The Qualitative Report, 4, 3/4, pp. 1-14.
There are of course now a great number of frameworks that can be used. Here are some references I have found helpful:
Cohen, D.J. & Crabtree, B.F. (2008). Evaluative criteria for qualitative research in health care: controversies and recommendations, Annals of Family Medicine, 6: 331–339.
Dixon-Woods, M., Shaw, R.L., Agarwal, S. & Smith, J.A. (2004) The problem of appraising qualitative research, Quality and safety in health care, 13: 223-225.
Elliott, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (1999) Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38, 215-229.
Madill, A., Jordan, A. & Shirley, C. (2000) Objectivity and reliability in qualitative analysis: realist, contextualist and radical constructionist epistemologies, British journal of psychology, 91: 1-20.
Mayrick, J. (2006) What is good qualitative research? A first step towards a comprehensive approach to judging rigour/quality, Journal of Health Psychology, 11(5): 799-808.
Parker, I. (2004) Criteria for qualitative research in psychology, Qualitative research in psychology, 1:1-12.
Spencer, L. & Ritchie, J. (2012) In pursuit of quality. In D. Harper & A. R. Thompson (Eds.) Qualitative research methods in mental health and psychotherapy – a guide for students and practitioners. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative Criteria: Eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16 (10), 837-851.
Yardley, L. (2000). Dilemmas in qualitative health research, Psychology and Health, 15: 215-228.
Yardley, L. (2008) Demonstrating validity in qualitative psychology. In Smith, J.A. (Ed.) Qualitative Psychology. (2nd Ed.) London: Sage.
Hi All
Thank you so much for these great responses- you have all been so helpful !!
I agree Charmara - this could generate quite a discussion -qualitative research is often seen as quite vague and medical communities often question its relevancy.
However, a new way of thinking seems to be emerging that qualitative research informs public policy very well. My team see this research as novel but want me to persist and my supervisor is quite a lateral thinker despite his leaning to quantitative.
David - I have that Braun paper and have utilized it well - the check list is good.
Charles - will check that chapter. I just need to ensure my coding and analysis of women's responses are transparent.
Thank you Phillip - your affirmation re the database is really helpful.
Lizette and Kenneth your papers are great - Elliott et al. looks really insightful
Warm regards
Elizabeth
Like said Prof Morgan see
Denzin N K and Lincoln Y. S. (eds). (1994). Introduction: Entering the field of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin N K & Y. S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 1-17. London: Sage.
Denzin, N. K. & Y. S. Lincoln (2000). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd edn.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1─28.
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