Validity in qualitative health education research

Abstract

Validity has had a contentious history in qualitative research. This is so for qualitative health education research as well. Establishing and writing about validity in qualitative research can be a challenging task as there are numerous viewpoints on what constitutes validity and varied nomenclature, such as trustworthiness, credibility, dependability, confirmability, authenticity, rigor, plausibility, goodness, soundness, transferability, and quality assessment. However, there is general agreement that establishing trust in the inferences that are made is necessary. Validity is dependent on the purpose and context of the research, and refers to conclusions that are based on particular methods used to address validity threats that are pertinent to the particular research. This article should help researchers distinguish among a variety of validation checks for a contextualized approach to establishing validity and apply these checks to their own qualitative health education research.

Keywords: Health education research; Qualitative research; Validation; Validity.