Rigor o f Findings
The four criteria for assessing rigor are credibility, fittingness, auditability, and
confirmability (Sandelowski, 1986). Credibility, or the faithful interpretation and
representation of the participants’ experiences in the research, was established in the
following ways: (1) a sample of people with chronic pain was selected to ensure that
participants being studied had experience and knowledge related to the purpose of the
study, (2) two individuals with RA completed the questionnaire to assess the effectiveness of the research question; (3) investigator bias and influences were tracked by way of an investigator diary and memos; and, (4) the investigator’s thesis supervisor and committee members were utlized as research methods experts to guide and verify procedures and interpretations at each step of the concept mapping process.
Fittingness refers to the applicability of the research findings. This