when it comes to qualitative research trustworthiness is a critically important concept to understand and apply and chances are this seemingly simple word means a lot more than you think and this video we'll impact what exactly trustworthiness means within the context of qualitative research and the four key pillars that make a study trustworthy let's jump into it first things first let's define our terms and explain what we mean when we talk about trustworthiness in qualitative research at the most foundational level trustworthiness is about ensuring that your findings are credible and reliable and can be interpreted within context in other words it's about accurately representing the realities of your participants and being transparent about how you achieved that Loosely speaking trustworthiness and qualitative research is comparable to validity and reliability in quantitative research but with a focus on capturing the nuances of human experiences if you're not familiar with the concepts of validity and reliability we've got an explainer video covering that the link is in the description so with our terms defined the next question is of course how do I make my study trustworthy well to build trustworthiness into your qualitative research you need to focus on four key pillars these are credibility transferability dependability and confirmability that's a mouthful I know but don't worry we'll unpack each of these pillars in simple terms and show you how to apply them to your study by the way if you are new to formal academic research be sure to check out our extensive collection of free research templates and checklists these are tried and trusted resources that will help you FastTrack your research and writing and avoid all the costly mistakes that we've seen thousands of students make you can find the links to those down in the description all right let's start by unpacking trustworthiness pillar number one credibility simply put credibility is about making sure your findings correctly reflect the actual perspectives of your participants in other words it's about accuracy are you capturing what they're trying to say this is somewhat similar to the concept of validity and quantitative research so how do you boost credibility in your study well first things first you need to ensure that you spend enough quality time with participants don't rush it naturally the more time you spend with your participants the better you'll understand their perspectives this is pretty common sensical but all too often we see students trying to rush the research process and then finding that their data simply isn't Rich enough to analyze out OU in the world of formal academic research this practice is called prolonged engagement got to love the fancy academic label right the next thing you'll want to do is to double check your findings with participants in other words once you've drawn up your findings take them back to your participants and ask them does this reflect what you meant this is called member checking again this is a pretty basic technique but it gets skipped over all too often and at Great expense last but not least least wherever possible you should try to use multiple data sources for example you could triangulate your data set by using a mix of interviews surveys or observations if you not familiar with the concept of triangulation you'll definitely want to check out our explainer video covering that link in the description to bring this all together let's look at a practical example so let's say you're studying remote workers experiences of certain phenomena to enhance the credibility of your study you would one spend enough time with a variety of remote workers to really understand their day-to-day realities two share your findings with them to confirm that you've interpreted their experiences correctly and three crosscheck and compare your interview findings against survey results or notes from observing remote work environments by taking these steps you'd help ensure that your research accurately reflects your participants reality qualities in other words that your study is credible next up let's look at Pillar number two transferability simply put transferability is about helping other researchers determine whether your findings are relevant to their situation unlike quantitative research where we often aim to generalize results qualitative research focuses on providing Rich detailed descriptions of a phenomenon within a relatively narrow context so when presenting qualitative research you need to help other researchers judge whether your findings apply to their context in other words whether your findings are transferable so how exactly do you enhance transferability firstly you need to provide thick and Rich descriptions in Practical terms this means writing detailed accounts of your research context participants and setting naturally the more detail you include about your study setting the easier it'll be for others to assess whether your findings are relevant secondly you need to be transparent about your methods and context in other words you need to clearly detail your sampling strategy and any other methodological factors that might affect the relevance of your results as we always say Clarity is key when it comes to your methodology so make it clear what you did and how you did it let's look at a practical example to make this a little more tangible imagine you're studying how nurses coped during a crisis at a local hospital to enhance transferability you would clearly describe the hospital environment the specific Health crisis and the demographics of the nurses in your study you'd address key questions like who did you interview how did you select them and how did you interview them in other words you'd paint as Vivid a picture as possible so that other researchers could easily determine whether your findings are transferable to the specific Hospital crisis they're studying all right onto trustworthiness pillar number three dependability while the first two pillars focused on accuracy and context dependability focuses on the stability and consistency of your research process so simply put this pillar asks if someone else were to repeat your study under similar circumstances would they get similar results in other words is your research process dependable so how do you enhance dependability in your study well the most important thing here is to document your research process in detail in Practical terms this means keeping a record of every step in your research from your data collection methods to your analysis techniques essentially you want to provide a clear step-by-step recipe that another researcher could easily follow to take this a step fur further you can also make use of an external reviewer or reviewers you could have someone outside your study review your methods and findings to ensure everything is clear consistent and sensible apart from increasing dependability this will also help you identify blind spots and broader issues with your study so there's more than just one benefit to getting an external reviewer to recap then by documenting your research thoroughly and perhaps even getting an external review you'll make it easier for others to replicate your study and trust your findings last but certainly not least let's unpack confirmability the final key pillar of trustworthiness simply put confirmability is about ensuring that your findings are shaped by your data not by your personal biases in other words it's about being transparent about your decisions and showing that your conclusions come from your participants not your preconceptions in Practical terms there are a few things that you can do to boost your studies confirmability and there's quite a bit of overlap with the techniques that we've already looked at first of all you want to keep a detailed audit Trail in other words you need to document everything from how you collected your data to how you made your interpretations triangulation which we looked at previously also helps enhance confirmability so wherever possible possible cross check your data by using multiple sources lastly as with the previous pillar we looked at it's useful to bring in an external reviewer to examine your audit Trail and confirm that your findings are rooted in the data this external stamp of approval will both help you reduce bias and prove it long story short you want to do whatever you can to reduce the risk of personal bias and demonstrate that your findings are based on the data set itself of course as with any research Endeavor it's impossible to remove bias entirely but these efforts will help you show that your findings are as objective as possible we have covered a lot of ground right so let's do a quick recap trustworthiness in qualitative research rests on four key pillars credibility is about reflecting your participants perspectives accurately transferability is about providing enough detail for other researchers to assess your study's relevance to their specific context dependability is about ensuring consistency and transparency in your process and confirmability is about demonstrating that your findings are shaped by the data not your personal views as you can see building trustworthiness is no small task it takes careful planning and a commitment to transparency but by putting in the effort and focusing on these four pillars you'll generate research that others can trust and build upon if you're working on a dissertation remember to check out our mey collection of free templates and checklists these tried and trusted resources will help you FastTrack your research and writing and avoid all the costly mistakes that we've seen thousands of students make you can find the links to those in the description if you enjoyed the video hit the like subscribe buttons and be sure to check out this video next I'll see you 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