Rigour and ethics

Research Methodology

Quantitative work talks about validity (measuring the right thing) and reliability (measuring consistently). Qualitative work talks about trustworthiness: credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability.

Any research with people needs informed consent, confidentiality and usually approval from an ethics committee before data collection begins. Never describe data collection that has not happened.

Example

Reliability: report Cronbach’s alpha for your scale. Trustworthiness: keep an audit trail of coding decisions.

Exercise

Use the methodology planner template to record your design, sample and ethics steps.

Lessons