ABSTRACT

Although a concern for credibility has been embedded throughout the previous chapters in relation to each element of the research process, here we reflect upon qualitative research credibility in the larger context of applied disciplinary knowledge. Interpretive description seeks access to an important kind of knowledge about human subjective experience. However, we must remember that its products are not inevitably accurate, relevant, or even necessarily socially responsible, and the knowledge deriving from them will be no more or less credible than knowledge derived from a range of alternative sources. Thus, it is essential that we have access to thoughtfully developed quality criteria to assist with both reading this kind of research and guiding the conduct of it (Engel & Kuzel, 1992; Kuzel & Engel, 2001; Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson, & Spiers, 2002; Popay, Rogers, & Williams, 1998; Seale & Silverman, 1997; Tracy, 2010).