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RELIABILITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 149
reliability of quantitative research. Purists might
argue against the legitimacy, relevance or need for
this in qualitative studies.
In qualitative research reliability can be
regarded as a fit between what researchers record
as data and what actually occurs in the natural
setting that is being researched, i.e. a degree
of accuracy and comprehensiveness of coverage
(Bogdan and Biklen 1992: 48). This is not to
strive for uniformity; two researchers who are
studying a single setting may come up with very
different findings but both sets of findings might
be reliable. Indeed Kvale (1996: 181) suggests
that, in interviewing, there might be as many
different interpretations of the qualitative data as
there are researchers. A clear example of this
is the study of the Nissan automobile factory
in the United Kingdom, where Wickens (1987)
found a ‘virtuous circle’ of work organization
practices that demonstrated flexibility, teamwork
and quality consciousness, whereas the same
practices were investigated by Garrahan and
Stewart (1992), who found a ‘vicious circle’ of
exploitation, surveillance and control respectively.
Both versions of the same reality coexist because
reality is multilayered. What is being argued for
here is the notion of reliability through an eclectic
use of instruments, researchers, perspectives and
interpretations (echoing the comments earlier
about triangulation) (see also Eisenhart and Howe
1992).
Brock-Utne (1996) argues that qualitative
research, being holistic, strives to record the
multiple interpretations of, intention in and
meanings given to situations and events. Here the
notion of reliability is construed as dependability
(Lincoln and Guba 1985: 108–9; Anfara et al.
2002), recalling the earlier discussion on internal
validity. For them, dependability involves member
checks (respondent validation), debriefing by
peers, triangulation, prolonged engagement in the
field, persistent observations in the field, reflexive
journals, negative case analysis, and independent
audits (identifying acceptable processes of
conducting the inquiry so that the results are
consistent with the data). Audit trails enable the
research to address the issue of confirmability of
results, in terms of process and product (Golafshani
2003: 601). These are a safeguard against the
charge levelled against qualitative researchers,
namely that they respond only to the ‘loudest
bangs or the brightest lights’.
Dependability raises the important issue of
respondent validation (see also McCormick and
James 1988). While dependability might suggest
that researchers need to go back to respondents
to check that their findings are dependable,
researchers also need to be cautious in placing
exclusive store on respondents, for, as Hammersley
and Atkinson (1983) suggest, they are not in a
privileged position to be sole commentators on
their actions.
Bloor (1978) suggests three means by which
respondent validation can be addressed:
researchers attempt to predict what the
participants’ classifications of situations will
be
researchers prepare hypothetical cases and then
predict respondents’ likely responses to them
researchers take back their research report to
the respondents and record their reactions to
that report.
The argument rehearses the paradigm wars discussed
in the opening chapter: quantitative measures
are criticized for combining sophistication
and refinement of process with crudity of concept
(Ruddock 1981) and for failing to distinguish
between educational and statistical significance
(Eisner 1985); qualitative methodologies,
while possessing immediacy, flexibility, authenticity,
richness and candour, are criticized for being
impressionistic, biased, commonplace, insignificant,
ungeneralizable, idiosyncratic, subjective
and short-sighted (Ruddock 1981). This is an arid
debate; rather the issue is one of fitness for purpose.
For our purposes here we need to note that criteria
of reliability in quantitative methodologies differ
from those in qualitative methodologies. In qualitative
methodologies reliability includes fidelity to
real life, context- and situation-specificity, authenticity,
comprehensiveness, detail, honesty, depth
of response and meaningfulness to the respondents.
Chapter 6