Designing Qualitative Research

Introduction

Validity and reliability are means of communicating and demonstrating the research processes rigor and the research finding trustworthiness. Reliability in quantitative research refers to measurement consistency. Validity measures the level to which a measure accurately stands for the concept it claims to measure. There are internal and external validity in quantitative research. Internal validity handles the study outcome validity, and assists to lower other frequently reasons, unanticipated for these results. External validity defines the level in which a measure represents the measured concept accurately (Burkholder et al., 2016).  This paper evaluated validity and it use in quantitative research.

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Explanation of Threat to Internal and External Validity in Quantitative Research

There are various internal and external threats to validity. Threats to internal validity include history which is events occurrence that could modify the study results, maturation which refers to any modifications which happen in the subject during the study that were not part of it and that would influence the results. Others include testing which associates with probable impacts of a pretest on participants’ performance in the posttest of a study, instrumentation which regards the impacts of the study outcome of the inconsistent employment of measurement instruments. Statistical regression describes the extreme scores tendency to move toward the subsequent retesting mean score (Punch, 2013).

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Others include mortality which describes the subjects’ loss from a study as a result of their original non-availability or future withdrawal from the research, and selection that regards the probability that study group might possess varying attributes and that those variations might impact the outcomes. Threats to external validity include interaction testing effect, interaction impacts of selection bias as well as the experimental treatment, testing interaction effect, interaction impacts of biases selection and the experimental treatment, experimental arrangements reactive impacts, and interference of multiple-treatment (Creswell, 2013).

Strategy to Mitigate Each Threat

To mitigate internal threats and to maximize the level of internal validity the researcher will need to standardize the states in which the research is conducted. This will minimize instrumentation and history threats. The research will also need to get more information regarding research study participants’ aids in reducing threats from selection and mortality. Acquiring more information on research study procedural details for instance when and where the research takes place will minimize instrumentation and history threats (Creswell, 2013). Another way includes selecting suitable research design which will control all other internal threats.

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To mitigate and maximize threats to internal validity the researcher will require to employ research design which does not involve pretests and to select a design where by only a single treatment is allocated to every subject. Other measures include employing random assignment and selection participants and use a placebo group and control group. The researcher should also carefully define variables in a manner which is meaningful environments past that where the study is being carried out, and employment of blind procedures of data collection (Babbie, 2017).

Possible Ethical Issues in Quantitative Research and How it Might Influence the Design Decisions

The possible ethical issues that can be encountered in the quantitative research include adhering to the ethical requirements demanded while using human population such as ensuring consent, and data privacy. This may affect the validity of the data collected since in some researches the data accuracy can be affected by participants’ cautiousness and thus, blind data collection may be needed. This creates ethical issue and thus, impacting the research design.

Amenable Research Topic to Scientific Study in Quantitative Approach

An amenable research topic in quantitative scientific study refers to the agreeability of the research topic with the research approach or the research design. It measures how much the research topic represents the actual research activity (Punch, 2013).

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Conclusion

Validity is highly valued in quantitative research. There are two forms of validity which include external and internal validity. The two forms of validity contain threats which need to be handled to enhance a high level of validity in the research. The researcher should consider employing all right measures to ensure that all ethical research requirements have been met.

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