ABSTRACT
We have been suggesting that case study is the most practicable and useful form of practitioner research, even though the quality of such case studies, often written by busy practitioners, is sometimes questioned (Foreman-Peck and Murray 2008). We have addressed the issue of quality standards for practitioner research in Chapter 3. Here we discuss in more depth the issue of verification, that is, the means by which practitioner researchers can present their research as credible and trustworthy. This is important for the users of research: practitioners whose work may be informed by the research and researchers who may wish to build upon the findings of others. Reassurance is needed that the findings or recommendations proposed are sufficiently sound to be taken seriously. Verification is, however, no simple matter. In Chapter 5, for instance, the notion
of providing an ‘audit trail’ was introduced, which would allow an ‘auditor’ to check claims made in the case study, with references to the case record (Bassey 1999: 77). Bassey’s suggestion that an auditor’s certificate of assurance from a named academic be attached to published case studies has not been taken up by researchers and editors, and published case studies appear without the case record for obvious reasons of space. Quantitative data are more easily presented in tables than qualitative evidence. Suggestions for a measure of transparency have been made in Chapter 6 in the form of a table summarising details of the nature and amount of data and evidence that any conclusions or recommendations are drawing on. A great deal of trust must be placed in the researcher. Research training is important here and in the context of award-bearing courses, such as the Certificate in Higher Education, and in departmental reviews of research, certain standards for the validation of practitioner research ought to be insisted on. McNiff and Whitehead usefully describe the role of a validation group, whose purpose is to scrutinise colleagues’ data or evidence, consider knowledge claims and question weaknesses in internal validity (McNiff and Whitehead 2006: 159-62). Articles for publication in academic journals should be subjected to rigorous anonymous peer review. Given the difficulty of publishing the case study ‘record’, the lack of a national
archive of materials (such as would be available to a historian), and the impossibility
of the scientific replication of ‘findings’ in most (but not all) cases, we might ask whether case study knowledge claims are of use to anyone else beside those carrying them out to develop their personal professional wisdom. What makes any findings, conclusions or actions from case study research valid or trustworthy? A sceptic may question whether a case study accurately describes and explains a state of affairs. Or if we are concerned with evaluating ‘what works’, the sceptic may ask, how do we know that it was the intervention that produced the outcome and not something else? And in the case of action research, it is not obvious whether traditional ideas about validity are comprehensive enough, since we are concerned, additionally, with the quality of relationships and the effectiveness of change. Ideas about validity were originally designed to evaluate fixed designs using
quantitative data, that is designs which are set before the main data collection phase begins. There is a considerable debate about their appropriateness for flexible or evolving designs, such as case study designs, using mainly or wholly qualitative data. The picture is somewhat further complicated by the fact that flexible designs may use some quantitative data and incorporate fixed designs within them. Indeed, we have been arguing that in many cases a mixed quantitative/ qualitative approach is superior. In the following sections we discuss validity issues associated with fixed designs and then consider validity in the context of flexible designs. Practitioner researchers need to be aware of the range of validity issues in order to assess which are most appropriate for their own projects.
