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Qualitative inquiry has recently experienced a burgeoning in the field of educational research. Qualitative research is uniquely positioned to provide researchers with process-based, narrated, storied, data that is more closely related to the human experience. One can learn so much from another's experience, and from a good story. Yet, the degree of trust one has in the person telling the tale has much to do with the degree of trust attributed to the telling. It is the same with studies conducted from a qualitative research approach. Indeed, building trust is imperative. Fortunately, there have been several attempts by qualitative methodologists to specify how trust in qualitative findings might be conveyed and enhanced for consumers. But be advised beforehand, even the construction of trustworthiness is far from an exact procedure. This column presents recommendations from several research writers for developingandrelyingontrust for another's research findings, with particular focus on the academic success fields of developmental education and learning assistance. Lincoln and Guba's (1985) seminal overview and organizational scheme provides the main focus, and others' work on trustworthiness is synthesized and then integrated into the mix.
Why Worry About Trustworthiness?
Reading reports of qualitative research can be a highly variable experience. The methodologies that organize qualitative findings and the rhetorical structures that guide writing are many. Some researchers make fists; others make maps. Some writers of qualitative research use a narrative approach and tell a "good story." Others provide what has been described by Clifford Geertz (1973) as "thick description." With this term, he intends that readers would be treated to texts so rich in details that the event or the object of description is palpable. Given such variety in method, and with multiple genre that do not adhere to a single organizational structure, readers must often stake their own claims about the writers' thinking. These discourse transactions are always operating in any written communication. But readers who review a research report written about a quantitative study, such as a study of a Supplemental Instruction pod for a college algebra course, can rely on a standard structure. Readers usually know what to expect in a research report, at least in terms of organization. So where should learning assistance professionals and developmental educators as consumers of qualitative research hang...