Deborah Carpenter YesterdayAug 5 at 6:39pmManage Discussion Entry Criteria for my Study / Rationale When I consider my proposed study, I think deeply about the idea that the most important aspect of...

Deborah Carpenter

Criteria for my Study / Rationale

When I consider my proposed study, I think deeply about the idea that the most important aspect of qualitative research is the close contact and connection that qualitative researchers have with their research participants (Freeman et al., 2007). Because my participants will be Associate Faculty Members at my institution, it is critical that I consider criteria that foster and support the quality of trusting relationships that will result in the accumulation of rich and revealing data. The second critical idea is that I want to consider the pragmatic piece (Freeman et al., 2007) by asking myself how my study can generate useful, informational, and thought-provoking feedback that can be shared with relevant and interested practitioners. I am interested in learning more about faculty perceptions of their annual review experience, conducted by full-time faculty: their thoughts about the evaluation instrument, the corresponding conference, and the impact of this feedback on faculty members’ desire to integrate suggestions and improve their practice. I know that I will have to be thoroughly transparent in raising criticisms, discussing limits and uncertainties, and interpreting competing views and explanations. The criteria I select to demonstrate validity and reliability will determine how trustworthy and credible I appear to my own educational community, and I take this responsibility seriously.

The criteria I find most useful for my proposed study are those proposed by Tracy (2013, as cited in Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) which state that a study must be presented as worthy, rigorous, transparent, credible, relevant to audiences, valuable to the field, ethical, and thoroughly aligned with its grounding research questions. Both methodological rigor and documentation of procedure are crucial if the study is to be both effective and convincing (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Freeman et al., 2007). To increase the validity and reliability of my study, I will ensure that I practice triangulation in my data collection, engage in member checks with the faculty who have shared their insights, collect data until I ensure that responses are sufficiently saturated; that I have sufficiently immersed myself in the data (Morrow, 2005). Finally, I will address my own position within my organization and how this role impacts and is impacted by the research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Through the discussion self-criticisms, limitations, and uncertainties, I am more likely to improve the trustworthiness of my qualitative research study.

Freeman, M., deMarrais, K., Preissle, J., Roulston, K., & St Pierre, E. A. (2007). Standards of

evidence in qualitative research: An incitement to discourse.Educational Researcher,

36(1), 25-32.

Merriam, S. B., Tisdell, E. J. (2016).Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and

Implementation(4th ed). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Morrow, S. L. (2005). Quality and trustworthiness in qualitative research in counseling

psychology.Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), 250-260.

Lateia Smith

Merriam and Tisdell (2016) affirmed that data audits validate reliability, especially among peer reviews. In my opinion, data audits should get conducted for all interviews and observations. Here is where ethics deals with the interaction between the researchers and the participants of the study. Ethics among researchers, participants, and fabrication of data will get accessed in the member checks. Triangulation validates qualitative research with internal consistency using questionnaires. Another way to validate qualitative studies is through in-depth interviews using recordings or video tapings. Validations of interviews are conducted with randomly selected participants (usually performed by members). Data verification should be checked for response variance, item reliability, and other methodological gaps in the interviews (National Longitudinal Surveys, n.d.). Qualitative examiners need to confirm the interview was appropriately conducted. Respondents were/are asked the length of the interview, the method used, and sessions (if there is a video recording, the analyzer can verify through this recording). Analyzers offer to reinterview to validate and compare the interview responses with the original questions to maintain reliability (National Longitudinal Surveys, n.d.). According to National Longitudinal Surveys (n.d.), data validation is used to measure the consistency of responses between the interview and reinterview to find any mismatch ranges and gauge the performance of the interview.

Reference

Merriam, S. B., Tisdell, E. J. (2016).Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation(4th ed). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

National Longitudinal Surveys. (n.d). Interview Validation. https://www.nlsinfo.org/content/cohorts/nlsy97/using-and-understanding-the-data/interview-validation