Establishing Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research in Social Work

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

[1]  C. Brun.  The process and implications of doing qualitative research : An analysis of 54 doctoral dissertations , 1997 .

[2]  J. Reich.  Pregnant with Possibility: Reflections on Embodiment, Access, and Inclusion in Field Research , 2003 .

[3]  R. Furman,et al.  Poetry and Photography , 2005 .

[4]  Dorothy Horsburgh,et al.  Evaluation of qualitative research. , 2003, Journal of clinical nursing.

[5]  Jackie Waterfield,et al.  Making words count: the value of qualitative research. , 2004, Physiotherapy research international : the journal for researchers and clinicians in physical therapy.

[6]  J. Hearn,et al.  Researching others: epistemology, experience, standpoints and participation , 2004 .

[7]  L. Froggett,et al.  Narratives of Social Enterprise , 2004 .

[8]  G. Russell,et al.  Research as Interacting Dialogic Processes: Implications for Reflexivity , 2002 .

[9]  Dalit Yassour Borochowitz.  Teaching a Qualitative Research Seminar on Sensitive Issues , 2005 .

[10]  L. Gillam,et al.  Ethics, Reflexivity, and “Ethically Important Moments” in Research , 2004 .

[11]  H. Stein.  A Window to the Interior of Experience. , 2004 .

[12]  J. Creswell,et al.  Determining Validity in Qualitative Inquiry , 2000 .

[13]  J. Creswell.  Qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five traditions. , 1998 .

[14]  Defeng Li,et al.  Trustworthiness of think‐aloud protocols in the study of translation processes , 2004 .

[15]  J. Aguinaldo.  Rethinking Validity in Qualitative Research from a Social Constructionist Perspective: From Is this Valid Research? To What Is this Research Valid for? , 2004 .

[16]  Tami Spry,et al.  Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis , 2001 .

[17]  D. Macbeth,et al.  On “Reflexivity” in Qualitative Research: Two Readings, and a Third , 2001 .

[18]  N. Mauthner,et al.  Reflexive Accounts and Accounts of Reflexivity in Qualitative Data Analysis , 2003 .

[19]  C. Seale.  Quality Issues in Qualitative Inquiry , 2002 .

[20]  M. Sandelowski.  Rigor or rigor mortis: the problem of rigor in qualitative research revisited. , 1993, ANS. Advances in nursing science.

[21]  Daniel Lowery,et al.  The Iron Cage of Methodology , 2004 .

[22]  E. Guba,et al.  Naturalistic inquiry: Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1985, 416 pp., $25.00 (Cloth) , 1985 .

[23]  D. Padgett.  Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research: Challenges and Rewards , 1998 .