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Reflection and validity in qualitative research.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Examples from two ethnographic studies illustrate how reflection is essential in order to perceive the truth of others. The first example describes how cultural misunderstandings between Moroccans and Canadians living in a small Israeli village engendered arguments, and how the author strived to gain greater objectivity and to examine the meanings she was imposing on events. The second example describes an interview study with Israeli Arab and Jewish educators, and the author's attempts to externalize and examine her own feelings, values and opinions in order to achieve greater objectivity and stronger internal validity.

Introduction

As a Canadian living in Israel I have become more and more aware of how culture, values, insider and outside knowledge and personal experience influence the ways qualitative researchers analyze and present their data. The journey from Canada, where I shared the mainstream experiences and values (and thus seldom reflected on them) to Israel, where I am an outsider in so many ways, has immeasurably sharpened my sensitivity to the workings of culture. As Fetterman (1998) writes, the concept of culture "becomes immediately meaningful after cross-cultural experience ... Attitudes or habits that natives espouse virtually without thinking are distinct and clear to the stranger" (p. 17). This is certainly true, but in order to ascribe proper meanings to the attitudes or habits of those in a "strange" culture, the researcher must externalize and evaluate her own attitudes and habits. My values and experiences are those of a Canadian, an academic, a woman, a grandmother, a Jew. As I have sought to understand the experiences of Jews, Arabs and Christians in Israel I have discovered as never before how one's native culture works as a set of tinted glasses through which the world is perceived. Through vignettes from two ethnographic studies (Court, 2002; Court, 2004) I will illustrate how reflection is essential in order to see beyond personal experience to perceive the truth of others.

The goal of many qualitative studies is to arrive at a 'true' description and interpretation of the lives of the people studied. This means identifying norms and values that underlie participants' actions in a particular setting and reaching understanding of the meanings they ascribe to their actions, rather than imposing external meanings. A study's internal validity is dependent on the extent to which the researcher succeeds at these tasks. Together with rigorous application of traditional methods of reaching internal validity, the qualitative researcher is called on to do continuous self-checking about her interpretations. In...

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