Establishing quality in qualitative research: trustworthiness, validity, and a lack of consensus

• Published in: International Encyclopedia of Education pp. 336 - 350
• Main Authors: Cain, Leia K., Williams, Rachel E., Bradshaw, Victoria
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2023
• Edition: Fourth Edition
• Subjects: Authenticity; Consistency; Credibility; Critical subjectivity; Meaningful coherence; Memoing; Positionality; Qualitative; Quality; Reliability; Resonance; Rigor; Transgressive validities; Triangulation; Trustworthiness; Validity; Critical subjectivity; Triangulation; Trustworthiness; Memoing; Consistency; Rigor; Credibility; Qualitative; Authenticity; Validity; Meaningful coherence; Quality; Transgressive validities; Resonance; Reliability; Positionality
• ISBN: 0128186291; 0128186305; 9780128186305; 9780128186299
• DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-818630-5.11032-2

In this chapter, we detail the various ways that qualitative scholars converse about the quality of their research. We do this by first briefly describing why conversations about quality are complicated within qualitative research, discussing our approach toward building arguments for quality, and then describing 23 common quality determinant constructs. Ultimately, the quality indicators that you choose will rely on your theoretical, ontological, epistemological, and methodological commitments, as quality remains a highly-contested topic within qualitative research.