Qualitative Data Quality Checklist: Trustworthiness in Phenomenological Research

Overview of Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is the bedrock of qualitative research quality and rigor, and is comparable to validity and reliability in the quantitative context. As per Frey (2018), trustworthiness “is an assurance for quality, rigor and credibility of qualitative research.” Thus, it is the foundation upon which qualitative research rests. Different methods are required to validate qualitative research since statistics cannot be used or measured to reflect its credibility or worth: Qualitative Data Quality Checklist: Trustworthiness in Phenomenological Research.

Trustworthiness is important in qualitative research. It is particularly true for phenomenological studies, which are looking to study lived experiences. According to Amankwaa (2016), trustworthiness is a measure of rigor that assures participants’ perspectives instead of researcher bias or researcher assumptions. It is vital to build trustworthiness when examining the disciplinary practices of students with intellectual disabilities, as the population is vulnerable and the findings might influence policies that govern schools.

The four essential criteria to judge the trustworthiness of qualitative research are credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability. Credibility is what researchers have when they can have confidence in the truth of their findings; they have measured what they believe they have measured from other participants’ viewpoints. Dependability shows findings that are consistent. It could be repeated.

It shows the stability of data over time and across researchers. Confirmability focuses on whether the data resulting in findings came from the participants and not the researcher’s bias. Lastly, transferability refers to the extent to which the findings can be transferred to a different context or to other people. This requires producing sufficient detail for the reader to come to their own conclusion (Bloomberg, 2023).

Trustworthiness Strategies for the Phenomenological Study

Credibility Strategies

Member Checking and Participant Validation

In the proposed phenomenological study of the disciplinary experiences of students with disabilities, I will conduct extensive member checking to establish credibility. After every interview, I will provide participants with a written summary of the answers they gave and my initial interpretation, so they can validate and add any corrections or comments. This process will take place no more than one week from each interview to ensure a good recall of the experiences shared. Member checking is the most important strategy to establish credibility as it gives participants a firsthand opportunity to verify that their lived experiences have been accurately captured and interpreted (Amankwaa, 2016).

Prolonged Engagement and Persistent Observation.

I will have multiple interview sessions with participants for 4-6 weeks to develop rapport and elicit deeper insights into their experiences. Participants need time to share sensitive information about disciplinary encounters. These delicate subjects may not come up in one-off interactions.

This study employs a phenomenological approach. As a result, prolonged engagement is beneficial to achieve this aim because one has to do more than just scratch the surface. This will help achieve insight into the phenomenon (Bloomberg, 2023).

Dependability Strategy

Audit Trail Documentation

To ensure dependability, I will maintain a comprehensive audit trail documenting all research decisions, methodological choices, and analytical processes. The detailed record of interview protocol, transcription, coding, and development of themes will be documented. To enable external reviewers to follow the research process from data collection through final interpretation, the audit trail will follow Nowell et al.’s (2017) framework for thematic analysis. I will log my trail right after I complete any verifiable research activity to make a decision or rationale.

Confirmability Strategies

Reflexive Journaling

As I conduct this research, I will keep a reflexive journal that will detail my personal biases, assumptions, and reactions to participant responses. I will fill out this journal after each interview and analysis session so that I can bracket my own perspective and concentrate on the participant’s lived experience. Due to my background as a teacher interested in implementing PBIS (which I perceive as a great way to scale a child-centered approach), reflexive journal writing is important to me, so that my professional experience does not overshadow the experiences of the students. My journal will discuss how my positionality might affect interpretations of the data and what I do to center participants (Barbour, 2018).

Peer Debriefing

I will use a peer debriefer external to the study who has qualitative research experience but is not involved in special education or discipline. Each month, we will have a meeting where we can look at what has emerged from the results. We can also challenge these results as well as offer alternative interpretations of what they might mean.

The peer debriefer will look at interview transcripts, preliminary analysis, and reflexive journal entries to give objective feedback on how to interpret project data. During the data collection and analysis stages, the process will ensure an ongoing focus on confirmability.

Transferability Strategy

Rich, Thick Description

To enhance the transferability of my findings, I will give a fuller contextual description of participants’ school environments and disciplinary policies, as well as their personal contexts that shaped the experiences I analyze. The descriptions discussed above will provide detailed information on the school’s demographics, disciplinary procedures, support services, and community context. The phenomenological tradition calls for a rich description to help the reader understand the contexts in which something occurs so that an informed judgment can be made about whether the findings might be relevant to other settings (van Manen, 2014).

Purposeful Sampling Documentation.

I will clearly document my sampling rationale and the selection of participants with regard to both inclusion criteria and recruitment of participants. This documentation will allow future researchers to determine the specific population that was studied for the project and determine transferability to similar contexts. The participant profiles will include details of the disability category, age range, disciplinary history, and school context. Their identities will be kept anonymous through pseudonyms and composite descriptions.

Implementation Timeline and Quality Assurance.

These strategies will be systematically incorporated throughout the research process. Participants’ credibility measures start during recruitment and end with the completion of the data analyses. Dependability documentation happens with all research activities, whereas confirmability strategies require ongoing management throughout the data collection and analysis phases.

Transferability enhancement mainly refers to what researchers do during analysis and write-up. However, it requires foundational work during the data collection phase to gather adequate contextual information.

These strategies, together, will ensure that findings on students with disabilities’ lived experiences with discipline practices are trustworthy and believable. The study will generate credible, dependable, confirmable, and transferable insights through multiple strategies implemented for each trustworthiness criterion. The study insights will enhance equitable practices in education.

References

Amankwaa, L. (2016). Creating protocols for trustworthiness in qualitative research. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 23(3), 121–127.

Barbour, R. S. (2018). Quality of data analysis. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. SAGE Publications.

Bloomberg, L. D. (2023). Completing your qualitative dissertation: A road map from beginning to end (5th ed.). SAGE.

Frey, B. B. (Ed.). (2018). Trustworthiness. In The SAGE encyclopedia of educational research, measurement, and evaluation. SAGE.

Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847

van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of practice: Meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing. Left Coast Press.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Assignment 6: Formulate a Qualitative Data Quality Checklist
To develop your checklist, address each of the following two prompts:

• Create an overview of trustworthiness. Define trustworthiness, describe why it is important in qualitative research and outline the four criteria of trustworthiness (credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability). (1/2 page)
• Describe four to six strategies you can use to address trustworthiness in your proposed study. Align each strategy with one of the criteria. Provide concrete examples of what you will do, why you will do it, and when you would do this. (2 pages)

Length: This assignment will be 3-4 pages.

References: Required Resources

• Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation by Linda Dale Bloomberg ISBN: 9781071869819 Publication Date: 2023-04-26
  • Bloomberg, L. D. (2023). Completing your qualitative dissertation: A road map from beginning to end (5th ed). Sage.
    • Read Chapter 8: Presenting Research Methodology, Design, and Methods
    • This chapter section identifies the key components of a methodology chapter for a qualitative study, including ways to go about addressing issues of trustworthiness.
• Creating Protocols for Trustworthiness in https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1609406917733847
• Qualitative Research
  • Amankwaa, L. (2016). Creating protocols for trustworthiness in qualitative research. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 23(3), 121–127.
    • In this article, the author describes trustworthiness as a measure of rigor and offers examples of trustworthiness protocols for dissertation research.
      

      Qualitative Data Quality Checklist: Trustworthiness in Phenomenological Research

• Quality of Data Analysis
  • Barbour, R. S. (2018). Quality of data analysis. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative data collection. SAGE.
    • In Chapter 34, the author discusses quality measures for qualitative data. The evaluation of trustworthiness is described.
• Thematic Analysis: Striving to Meet the Trustworthiness Criteria
  • Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., & White, D. E. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 16, 1–13.
    • The purpose of this article is to guide researchers using thematic analysis while exploring issues of rigor and trustworthiness. The process of conducting thematic analysis is illustrated through an audit trail as a guide to interpreting and representing research findings that will be considered trustworthy.
• Trustworthiness
  • Frey, B. B. (Ed.). (2018). Trustworthiness. In The SAGE encyclopedia of educational research, measurement, and evaluation. SAGE.
    • In this encyclopedia segment, the author defines trustworthiness as an assurance for quality, rigor, and credibility of qualitative research. The discussion addresses the paradigmatic debates over trustworthiness in qualitative research and explores the epistemological and ontological roots of trustworthiness.
• Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research
  • Bloomberg, L. (2019). Trustworthiness in qualitative research [Webinar]. National University/Center for Teaching and Learning.
    • In this webinar, the four criteria for the trustworthiness of qualitative data are defined and described.