Dear researchers.
Semi-structured guide is often used in qualitative studies. I am wondering if there are any standard method to face validate the guide.
What should be examined in the face validation of semi-structure interview guide?
Please share your valuable insights.
Thank you.
Construct validity and face validity are important. Does your guide cover the key contructs of importance in the literature? Face validity - have you tested the questions with local respondents typical of those who are participants in the research? Do they respond to the structured guide in the manner that you hope will deduce information about the pre identified constructs of interest and induce any emergent constructs or unexpected information.
I recommend the following:
https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/qualitative-research-evaluation-methods/book232962
Also, maintaining validity through the analysis is as important as in research design. I utilize McCracken’s (1988) five step process. Those steps are as follows:
1. Read and review each interview transcript twice – once for understanding content and the second for identifying patterns.
2. Develop observations into descriptive and interpretive categories based on evidence in the transcripts, the literature review, and conceptual framework
3. Examine preliminary codes to identify connections and develop pattern codes
4. Determine basic themes by examining clusters of comments
5. Examine themes from all interviews across groupings to delineate the primary themes evident in the data, which serve as answers to the research questions
one respondent to your question suggested a pretest of your guide, which is useful, but you probably also want to discuss with potential interviewees the questions that you think you might ask, talking about how they understand the terms you are using, whether they think the questions are relevant to their experience or tap what they know, if something important is missing. Are you asking questions in a way that allows your interviewees enough room to answer freely from their own experience and understanding? Only after several such discussions would I do an actual dry run pretest and see how it went.
Concepts such as face validity and construct vanity typically come from quantitative research, where they refer to the successful measurement of variables. So, their relevance to qualitative interviews is limited.
If instead, your question is how to create an effective interview, then I would recommend the advice of doing some pre-test or trial interviews and "debriefing" with the participants afterwards to get their reactions. Another strategy is start by talking to "key informants" who know a great deal about the area you are researching.
I agree with David Morgan, face validity is not usually an issue in qualitative research, but if you are doing semi structured interviews with a question guide, it is critical that the questions you ask are meaningful to the interviewees and seem to them to cover the research topic you share with them. You can do this in a variety of ways, as posters here have suggested, and I would recommend using more than one of these techniques. Discuss the project with knowledgeable key informants first, then draw up your question guide, after which you can try out your questions on a subgroup of potential interviewees, going over the questions with them, for their understanding of your vocabulary, for the relevance and importance of your questions, and for their ability to answer the questions from their own knowledge and experience. And as you do your interviews, especially with the first few, analyze them carefully for gaps between what you asked and what was answered, and modify your questions accordingly. you do not have to stick to the same questions throughout your project, and if they are not working, it is critical that you not persist with them. You want to change your questions as you learn more and see new directions.
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