Credibility, Dependability, and Transferability

For this discussion, complete the following:

Present a strategy to ensure credibility, dependability, and transferability in your study.

Identify how you will address researcher’s pre-understanding, preconceptions, and biases about the topic, and how you will set them aside.

Support your strategy with references to the assigned readings for this unit and the article located during your library search.

· Present a strategy to ensure credibility, dependability, and transferability in your study

Credibility: Patton (2015) states, “Your background, experience, training, skills, interpersonal competence, capacity for empathy, cross-cultural sensitivity, and how you, as a person, engage in fieldwork and analysis these things undergird the credibility of your finings”.  So, credibility depends on the researcher’s ability to accumulate, organizes, and manage data collection. I would think that using triangulation would be the most advantageous way to attain credibility within the study. As indicated by (Patton, 2015), triangulation is one way to strengthen a study because you can use several kinds od methods. Of the four types of triangulation I would choose theory triangulation which is the using multiple perspectives to interpret one set of data.

Dependability: Because dependability is focused on the process of the inquiry, the researcher is responsible for making sure that it is well documented, makes since, and can be reasonably followed. Creswell and Poth (2018) tell us that “dependability is established through an auditing of the research process”. This auditing would include identification of bias of all types, the solving of any and all conflicts, along with the use of external auditing.

Transferability: To make sure that the findings are transferable between the researcher and those being studied, thick description is necessary. According to (Creswell and Poth 2018) state that, “With such a detailed description, the researcher enables readers to transfer information to other settings and to determine whether the findings can be transferred.” Transferability is how well or the ability of research to be generalized to other populations or taken into other settings by those doing the generalizing, in this case the readers. Therefore, the strategy is to provide the thick description for data soon after it is gathered. This would include details not just about the population and its size, but also about the environment circumstances etc. 

· Identify how you will address researcher’s pre-understanding, preconceptions, and biases about the topic, and how you will set them aside 

(Patton, 2015) states, “You may establish an “audit trail” to verify the rigor of your fieldwork and confirmability of the data collected because you want to minimize bias, maximize accuracy, and report impartially.” As researchers our values, experiences, biases could influence how we report our findings so when reporting one must be able to put the emphasis on the findings with focus on the description and the analysis. You would include the triangulation of data sources and analytical perspectives to increase the accuracy and credibility of findings as eluded to by Patton (2015) as well.

EG

Reference:

Patton, M.Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods, 4th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Creswell, J.W. and Poth, C.N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among the five approaches (4th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.