Rigor in Qualitative Social Work Research: A Review of Strategies Used in Published Articles

Abstract

This study was conducted to describe strategies used by social work researchers to enhance the rigor of their qualitative work. A template was developed and used to review a random sample of 100 articles drawn from social work journals listed in the 2005 Journal Citation Reports: Science and Social Sciences Edition. Results suggest that the most commonly applied strategies were use of a sampling rationale (67%), analyst triangulation (59%), and mention of methodological limitations (56%); the least common were negative or deviant case analysis (8%), external audit (7%), and specification of ontology (6%). Of eight key criteria, researchers used an average of 2.0 (SD = 1.5); however, the number used increased significantly between 2003 and 2008.The authors suggest that for this trend to continue, social work educators, journal editors, and researchers must reinforce the judicious application of strategies for enhancing the rigor of qualitative work. KEY WORDS: qualitative methods; methods; rigor; social work ********** The social nature of inquiry is an ongoing challenge to the production of good in social work. As the positivist belief in the potential objectivity of social work has come into question, researchers using a range of paradigms have recognized the pervasive effects of human limitations and This has motivated some postpositivist researchers to carefully design their studies, using quantitative methods to minimize bias or subjectivity. Over time, these efforts have become standardized as criteria to ensure the rigor of the work. In a postpositivist framework, these would be described as standards for establishing reliability and (Padgett, 2004). As social using qualitative methods has moved beyond anthropology and into the social sciences, researchers have had to grapple with the meanings of terms such as objectivity, and validity (among others) in a completely new context--one that insists on recognition of the interactive dimension of social inquiry. How can social work researchers using qualitative methods produce credible work when objectivity is no longer assumed or even pursued (Kincheloe, 2001; Padgett, 2004; Rolfe, 2004)? Sometimes referred to as criteriology, this question has been a conundrum for qualitative researchers for at least three decades. It has given rise to a substantial body of literature on criteria: whether they are needed, what they should be called, how and when they should be implemented, and whether they can be used to evaluate the quality of the work (Caelli, Ray, & Mill, 2003; Davies & Dodd, 2002; Emden & Sandelowski, 1998, 1999; Kincheloe, 2001; Marshall, 1989; Rolfe, 2004, Seale, 1999, 2002;Whittemore, Chase, & Mandle, 2001). We discuss the main points of this literature here as background to the present study. Dialogue about criteria started in the early 1980s as qualitative methods became more visible in the social sciences (LeCompte & Goetz, 1982; Lincoln, 1995; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Early discussions about criteria, such as Kirk and Miller's (1986) Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research, were based on postpositivist assumptions. Lincoln and Guba proposed criteria based on the terms credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, which were based on the postpositivist concepts of internal validity, external validity, reliability, and objectivity. Lincoln (1995) rightly calls these early efforts, including her own, foundationalist: These criteria.... rested in assumptions that had been developed for an empiricist philosophy of research, and spoke to the procedural and methodological concerns that characterize empiricist and post-empiricist research (p. 276). Although some objected to the use of these parallel terms, they did offer a useful vocabulary for qualitative researchers to speak about their work with those unfamiliar with qualitative methods and perspectives. …