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Selected Qualitative Methods Sections
Author Bio
Introduction
Qualitative Methods
Data Techniques
Sampling
Analysis Techniques
Currently selected section: Reliability and Validity
Software
Acknowledgements
 

Chapter 7: Selected Qualitative Methods: Reliability and Validity
        

With qualitative analyses and with triangulation there are appropriate major concerns about reliability and validity. Would people say the same things if asked again to a focus group? How does one account for good or bad days for interviews and narratives? Two groups have thought through and laid out for the rest of us excellent protocols for ensuring reliability and validity. My own protocol for ensuring reliability and validity is also available. Generalizability is not the goal of qualitative research, though ensuring reliability and validity does produce more generalizable results, especially when confirmed across cases, institutions, populations, settings and time. As in quantitative research, repeated analyses on new data sets can confirm results.

 

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