This chapter exposes readers to the strategies of handling trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. The first section contains information related to the methods of promoting credibility of qualitative research projects and instruments. The computation of coefficient of credibility (CC) is demonstrated in this section. The second section addresses the strategies of promoting transferability of qualitative projects and outputs. There is a discussion on whether the qualitative research outputs and completed projects should be generalized to other contexts. The strategies of enhancing dependability are handled in Section 3, and Section 4 contains the methods of handling conformability in qualitative research projects. The chapter is concluded by a question and answer section.
Top1 Key Concepts
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Trustworthiness – is the acceptability of qualitative research instruments/outputs, the acceptability is based on credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability.
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Credibility – the ability of qualitative instruments to answer the qualitative projects’ objectives and the connection between the qualitative outputs and the real situation on the ground.
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Transferability – the application of qualitative outputs to other similar contexts as well as the replication of qualitative studies to other similar contexts.
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Conformability – the control of bias in qualitative projects/have something to do with objectivity.
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Dependability – have something to do with the reliability of qualitative projects and outcomes.
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Table of Specification – a table with details that should be used in designing qualitative instruments. It can be used to validate the qualitative instruments.
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Coefficient of Credibility – a formula used to compute the validity/credibility of qualitative instruments.
Top2 Learning Outcomes
By the end of the chapter, readers should be able to;
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Describe the concepts of credibility, transferability, conformability and dependability in qualitative projects
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Identify strategies for boosting trustworthiness of qualitative instruments and outputs
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Apply trustworthiness strategies in qualitative projects
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Compute the credibility of qualitative instruments via Coefficient of Credibility (CC)
Top4 Introduction
What is interesting to note from the case study above is that Mr Benson worked with a team of researchers when designing instruments. The team also exposed the instruments to a pilot study. The aim of all these activities were to improve the trustworthiness of qualitative instruments and outputs. In positivist paradigm (quantitative research), trustworthiness is equivalent to reliability and validity. The positivists modify their research instruments during pilot studies in order to make sure that they are valid and reliable. Silverman (2001) and Pittts (1994) made starling contributions towards the concept of trustworthiness in qualitative study. There are two major issues related to trustworthiness that qualitative research specialists should address. The qualitative researchers should test the credibility of qualitative research instruments. Finally, they should prove that the qualitative research outputs are reliable.
Trustworthiness in qualitative research can be defined as the credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability of qualitative research instruments and outputs. Credibility is equivalent to internal and external validity of quantitative paradigm. Transferability is connected to generalizability, dependability is related to reliability while conformability is equivalent to objectivity when compared with the quantitative paradigm. (Guba, 1981).