Enhancing the Quality and Credibility
of Qualitative Analysis
Michael Quinn Patton
Abstrat Varying philosophical and theoretical orientations to qualitative inquiry
remind us that issues of quality and credibility intersect with audience and intended
research purposes. This overview examines ways of enhancing the quality and credibility
of qualitative analysis by dealing with three distinct but related inquiry concerns:
rigorous techniques and methods for gathering and analyzing qualitative data, including
attention to validity, reliability, and triangulation; the credibility, competence,
and perceived trustworthiness of the qualitative researcher; and the philosophical
beliefs of evaluation users about such paradigm-based preferences as objectivity versus
subjectivity, truth versus perspective, and generalizations versus extrapolations.
Although this overview examines some general approaches to issues of credibility
and data quality in qualitative analysis, it is important to acknowledge that particular
philosophical underpinnings, specific paradigms, and special purposes for qualitative
inquiry will typically include additional or substitute criteria for assuring and judging
quality, validity, and credibility. Moreover, the context for these considerations has
evolved. In early literature on evaluation methods the debate between qualitative
and quantitative methodologists was often strident. In recent years the debate has
softened. A consensus has gradually emerged that the important challenge is to match
appropriately the methods to empirical questions and issues, and not to universally
advocate any single methodological approach for all problems.
Key Word& Qualitative research, credibility, research quality