A fair trial? Judging quality in qualitative research

AbstractThere has been a welcome growth in the use of qualitative methods in health services research. Most qualitative researchers would consider many of the criteria for evaluating their research suggested in the health services literature to be important and unproblematic. In this paper I focus on two more contentious criteria: how reliability and validity (both internal and external) should be judged in qualitative research. I argue that, as with all guidelines, the criteria for evaluation have been developed on the basis of assumptions about what constitutes qualitative research. I suggest that the criteria adopted for judging qualitative research are often operationalized in ways that are only appropriate for researchers using a particular definition of qualitative research. Implicit in these criteria are assumptions that echo those adopted by quantitative research, which is often thought to be the gold standard. Researchers not following this particular gold standard are judged to be carrying out work that is not 'quality'. I suggest that the definition of 'quality' needs to be flexible enough to include qualitative research utilizing a range of different approaches and theories.