internal reliability in qualitative research

There can be other ways in which the reliability can be enhanced for example the researcher can take the test several times before reaching any conclusion.The ability to demonstrate the validity and reliability of research findings is one of the important factors that determine the value of scientific research.

This means that different respondents should not take different meanings of the questions that you have phrased for them. Simple a reliable question is one that is simply stated and does not have double meanings.

The wordings of the questions themselves can make the research instrument reliable or unreliable.

The way the interviewer interacts with the respondents should remain same in each interview.

Making the environment as neutral as possible can bring positive effects.

The respondents can also affect the reliability of the research instrument if they are in a different mood in different interviews.The place where the interview is done or the questionnaire is submitted or in the case of observations where the observations are made should remain same in re-test.There are various ways in which the reliability of the research instrument can be enhanced although it is impossible to ascertain that you get a 100 percent reliable research instrument in a qualitative research. How to enhance the reliability in a qualitative research To make a research instrument reliable the researcher can take several re-tests before reaching to any conclusion. There can be various reasons for the unreliable results in this case one of the reason could be that new criminal acts happened in that community. The reliability of this research instrument is not good. Now you decide to conduct the same interview again after a lapse of say a month and you get to know that 10 % of the respondents say that they encountered or became a culprit of a juvenile crime.

You ask questions from some people that you selected randomly and you came to the conclusion that 5 % of the respondents say that they were physically or emotionally harmed by the adolescents. The researcher has no control over the experiences of the respondents there are many other factors that he/she cannot control.įor example, you conduct interviews to know the prevalence of juvenile crimes in a community.

A simple reason can be their experiences which usually change over a period of time with new experiences respondents may start thinking differently. Several factors influence the respondents to respond differently. In qualitative research, repeatability is often not the aim of the research and when the research instrument such as a questionnaire is used repeatedly over a period of time it is difficult to get the same responses.How unreliable is the research instrument?Ĭoncept of reliability in qualitative research.How reliable the research instrument is.

Internal reliability in qualitative research