RESEARCH QUALITY

The issue of acceptance of the research quality of qualitative studies has been debated for decades (Shenton, 2004). Applying positivist terminologies like ‘reliability’, ‘validity’ and ‘generalisability’ can harm the quality of qualitative studies. Qualitative studies have their own research quality. However, the preference for quantitative methods in the area of service quality research reflects the dominance of positivistic epistemology, which seeks to measure customer perceptions of service quality objectively. It is therefore necessary to translate positivist concepts into the terminologies of qualitative research to show the peculiar properties of qualitative research (Golafshani, 2003). The following table provides an overview of established quantitative terms and their translation into a qualitative mind-set:

Terminology in quantitative research Meaning Terminology in qualitative research Meaning

Reliability Repeatability; _{consistence over}

time (Kirk and Miller (1986) as cited in (Golafshani, 2003) Trustworthiness (Seale, 1999) (Denzi n & Lincoln, 2011) Credibility, dependability, confirmability, transferability (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011)

Validity Truthfulness of research results; construct validity testable

(Cronbach, 1988)

Rigour (Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011); credibility (Altheide & Johnson, 2011) Sound application of methods (Lincoln et al., 2011)

Generalisability Degree to which research findings are applicable to other populations or samples (Falk & Guenther, 2013) Transferability; naturalistic and theoretical generalisability (Stake, 1978) Knowing the particular and generalising it in another context (Stake, 1978)

Table 3.6: Patten (2017) Terminology of quantitative versus qualitative research

Reliability is a concept that is widely used by positivists. In a quantitative context, it means that a study can be repeated, and it leads to the same results when the same methodology is applied (Golafshani, 2003). Reliable results must be consistent over time. However, in qualitative research, the concept is deemed irrelevant because the purpose of qualitative research is to ‘generate understanding’ rather than to measure and generate explanation as in quantitative research (Stenbacka, 2001, p. 551). Instead of reliability, it is the concept of ‘trustworthiness’ that is relevant for qualitative research. ‘Trustworthiness’ consists of four variables: ‘credibility’, ‘dependability’, ‘confirmability’ and ‘transferability’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Nevertheless, ‘trustworthiness is always negotiable and open-ended, and not a matter of final proof, whereby readers are compelled to accept an account’ (Seale, 1999, p. 468). This study addresses the issue of

trustworthiness as follows. The research was conducted according to the guidelines of the University of Gloucestershire’s Handbook of Research Ethics (Gloucestershire, 2008) and it addresses some additional topics in order to avoid conflicts of interest, and to meet the ethical standards of research studies (Saunders et al., 2009).

Triangulation was used as ‘an essential tactic to interrogate multiple sources of evidence’ (Yin, 2009, p. 2). Triangulation makes case study research ‘hard’, although it has been classically considered a ‘soft’ form of research (Yin, 2009). Therefore, the study generated empirical materials using two techniques: in-depth interviews and focus groups. Both techniques helped ‘to describe what all participants have in common as they experience a phenomenon’ (Creswell, 2007, p. 58) and were combined to provide ‘a more holistic view of the setting’ (Morse, 1994, p. 224).

This chapter has offered some reflexive discussion, whereby the researcher’s personal and professional background was revealed alongside details of the research process, and the potential for bias. The limitations of the research were also disclosed (Outhwaite & Turner, 2007).

Validity in quantitative research means ‘the extent to which a concept is accurately measured’ (Heale & Twycross, 2015, p. 66). This positivistic meaning of validity does not work in a social world, ‘where there are … multiple perspectives, … different methods and materials with which to work, and myriad uses and audiences’ (Altheide & Johnson, 2011, p. 593). Altheide and Johnson (2011) propose a set of criteria for assessing ‘credibility’, such as ‘considering the place of evidence in an interactive process between the researcher, the subject matter (the phenomenon to be investigated), the intended effort or utility, and the

audience for which the project will be evaluated and assessed’ (Altheide & Johnson, 2011, p. 593). Lincoln et al. (2011) refer to rigour when defining validity in qualitative research. They argue for rigour in the application of methods and ‘for both a community consent and a form of rigour-defensible reasoning, plausible alongside some other reality that is known to the author and the reader in ascribing salience to one interpretation over another and in framing and bounding the interpretive study itself’ (Lincoln et al., 2011, p. 120). Patton (1999) also views rigour as an alternative concept of validity in qualitative research. He introduced the concept of technical rigour as ‘searching for rival explanations, explaining negative cases, triangulation, and keeping data in context’ (Patton, 1999, p. 1198). Patton (1999) views technical rigour as being fundamental to the researcher’s credibility. This study addresses credibility by means of a detailed description of the research process and coherent conclusions.

In quantitative studies, researchers stake claims to the generalisability of their findings. In positivist terminology, the term generalisability means ‘the degree to which the research findings are applicable to other populations or samples’ (Falk & Guenther, 2013, p. 89). Three different positions of qualitative researchers on the issue of generalisability can be synthesised: (1) Generalisability is not the purpose of qualitative research. In fact, research is seen as a contribution to research, or as an interpretation of a phenomenon. Readers should ‘weigh our interpretation, judge whether it has been soundly arrived at and is plausible … , and decide whether it has application to their interests and concerns’ (Crotty, 1998, p. 41), (2) Qualitative research is generalisable, but one needs to be aware of the limitations due to the limited units of analysis used in comparison to quantitative studies (Eisenhardt, 2007) and (3) Qualitative research is as

generalisable as quantitative research: ‘What becomes useful in understanding this is a full and thorough knowledge of particular findings, recognising them in new and foreign contexts. It is also important to acknowledge that knowledge is a form of generalisation too, not a scientific induction, but a naturalistic generalisation’ (Stake, 1978, p. 6). This study follows the notion of Yin (2009), who suggests that case studies are generalisable to theoretical propositions and not to populations. In this sense, the case study does not represent a sample, and in carrying out a case study, the research goal is to generalise theories, not to enumerate statistical frequencies. In the current study, participants expressed their personal perceptions of multichannel service quality in fashion settings. This means that the findings are analytically generalisable to the phenomenon within the setting that the research was carried out (Azemi, 2016; Maxwell, 2013; Robson, 2007).

In the context of research quality, the current study certainly follows some ethical considerations, which are discussed in the next section.