Do You Believe in Rigor in Qualitative Health Research?

Hello Qualitative Mind,

Merriam-Webster describes rigor as "strict precision; exactness. "Rigor in qualitative health research, however, is not exactly about precision. It’s about demonstrating how the findings of a particular inquiry are worth paying attention to. I see rigor as the aspect of qualitative health research that makes it meaningful and impactful to researchers and participants. Yet, I know that rigor makes many inexperienced qualitative health researchers nervous, as if their research is being judged too harshly or they need to justify the unjustifiable, e.g., subjectivity. This perception might be linked to the fact that qualitative health research is complex and nuanced. Moreover, it requires critical thinking and strong writing skills from the researcher. Altogether, these factors can make even the most diligent and hard-working health researcher nervous.

So how do qualitative health researchers approach rigor? That’s an interesting question because there are actually different ways that qualitative researchers approach rigor. In health sciences, the “ignore/dismiss” approach is not commonly found or accepted. Simply saying rigor does not work for qualitative health research is likely not going to get the research findings (and researcher) very far. Overall, most qualitative health researchers choose to embrace rigor using the same terms that are also used in quantitative research (i.e. validity, reliability and generalizability) or follow an alternative approach where they use separate terms to describe rigor (i.e., credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability).

In my qualitative health research, heavily influenced by Drs. Janice Morse and Maria Mayan, I’ve chosen to embrace rigor. I apply standards such as validity, reliability, and generalizability however redefined within qualitative inquiry. I believe my qualitative health research represents good scientific work, and I can explain my efforts to conduct rigorous research by embracing the quantitative terms everyone is used to seeing and hearing. Yet, I redefine the terms according to what they mean within qualitative inquiry where I also embrace different ways of knowing and experiencing the world. The best way for me to explain this further is by giving you an example, and my favorite example is generalizability.

I find generalizability fascinating because it's often the cause of a sentence in the limitations of a qualitative study that says "knowledge cannot be generalized". Is this really the case though? In my opinion, this represents a classic case of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Even though some researchers, depending on their theoretical paradigm, say that qualitative health research will never be generalizable because we don't have the measures in place to ensure generalizability (i.e., large, representative sample size), I think we can strive for generalizability in both quantitative and qualitative research. We’re really trying to ask and answer this question, “How can one determine the extent to which the findings of a particularl inquiry have applicability in other contexts or with other subjects?” So the aim is to do research that is generalizable; in other words,research that can explain the same phenomenon, the same experience, somewhere else. We want our qualitative findings to be useful to others. In qualitative health research, we commonly use purposeful samplingto select participants who can contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon both broadly and in depth. Thus, when thinking about generalizability within qualitative research we strive to collect qualitative data that will include a variety of experiences so these varied experiences can help us to understand similar scenarios, topics, or problems. As Jan Morse says, the knowledge in qualitative research is what is generalized.

After reading the above example about generalizability, what are your thoughts about rigor and defining rigor in your qualitative health research? This is something I’ll be covering in depth in Module 2 of the Qualitative Research Blueprint which I’ll be introducing to you at the end of my upcoming [FREE] webinar The Five Mistakes That Lead to Unpublishable Health Research (click HERE to register for one of the three available dates).

I will end with a quote by Sue Monk Kidd that beautifully and perfectly illustrates my perception of generalizability within qualitative research, "The deeper we go into our own experience, our own journey; the more likely we are to hit the universal."

This is what I sincerely believe that we need to aim for with our qualitative health research. By going deep into our data, and using strategies that ensure rigorous qualitative research, we might be able to hit that universality as we dive deep into individuality.

Talk soon,

Maira