What Is The Trustworthiness Of A Qualitative Study

3.8. Trustworthiness of the study

According to Shenton (as cited in Gabu, 1981, p. 25 & Silverman, 2000, p. 27) the trustworthiness of a qualitative study is often questioned by the positivist perhaps because their opinions of validity and reliability cannot be addressed. Yet, numerous writes on research methods, have verified how qualitative approach can incorporate actions that deals with these issues. Shento (20014) proposed four criteria that he trust should be considered by qualitative academics in pursuit of trustworthy.

3.8.1 Credibility This is alternative internal validity; the goal is to ensure that the study measure or test what is actually intended. Which should be equivalent to the concept of validity? Credibility, deals with the question, of “How reliable are the findings with reality”? Guaranteeing credibility is one of the most significant aspects in establishing trustworthiness (Shenton, 2004). Therefore, the

This is mostly done to validate if the findings of the study are applicable to other situation or if it can be applied to other broader population since qualitative studies are specific to a smaller number of particular environments and individuals. It would be impossible to prove that the results and conclusions are valid to other situations and populations, meaning that “the goal of the qualitative research is not to generalize finding across populations” (Maree, 2007, p. 155). However, a qualitative researcher can improve transferability by detailing the research methods, contexts, and assumptions underlying the study. Seale (1999) advocates that transferability is accomplished by only if a detailed, rich description of the settings studied to provide the reader with adequate evidence to be able to critic the applicability of the findings to other settings that they know (p.