Issues of Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research Coursework

Introduction

The data-handling strategy for this study is informed largely by the goal of adding substantially to existing knowledge gaps around the profile of the working-adult bully and the antecedents of his misplaced aggression. The prior submission about a mixed-methods approach that starts with quantitative methods – established checklists and protocols defining the prevalence of bullying behavior and its correlates in organizational factors – proceeds to a subsequent stage where exploratory in-depth interviews will pursue the goal of drawing out salient character traits of both bullies and provocative victims.

The Constraints of Qualitative Approaches and the Strategic Considerations

The qualitative component of the proposed mixed-method approach is essential for understanding the social phenomenon of bullying, the perpetrators themselves, describing their self-concept and organizational environment. As such, this second stage can generate hypotheses for subsequent research that might be tested with established personality inventories like the 16 PF.

That said, external validity is not the strong suite of qualitative interviewing. Even reliability requires the use of a semi-structured questionnaire and for the researcher to carry out all interviews herself in order to minimize personality as a source of variance (Golafshani, 2003). The nature of the research question subject of this study does not permit the presumption of spontaneous, naturally occurring statements. Since the predispositions and environmental factors of bullying are known only to perpetrators themselves, prompted questioning is the sole discovery route. Framing the right questions, being non-judgmental, and correctly interpreting how bullies describe themselves and their environment rests on the clinical expertise of the researcher.

The Nature of the Data

The first-stage postal survey will yield two ways to select respondents for the follow-on stage of in-depth interviews. A sample will be drawn from participants who admit that they engage in at least one-third of the instances of hostile, aggressive and bullying behavior measured by the Workplace Aggression Research Questionnaire (WARQ) or acknowledge having “been the perpetrator myself” in the Workplace Bullying Institute checklist. The researcher will then carry out one-on-one face-to-face interviews with those assenting to continued participation in the study.

At this stage, the onus is on the researcher to diagnose, in a qualitative context, the expected traits of assertiveness, aggression, hostility, egocentricity, and being highly competitive that Seigne, Coyne, Randall and Parker extracted with the use of the ICES Personality Inventory and the IBS Clinical Inventory (2007). Clearly, we deal with the pre-existing and naturally-occurring phenomena of enduring predispositions that the mere presence or involvement of the researcher does not necessarily incite or provoke to greater heights (Patton, 2002). Quite the contrary, the researcher needs to maintain a neutral, accepting stance lest participants become inhibited about admitting to the “anti-social” inclinations of aggression and bullying.

A previous submission showed there exists a precedent – by Branch, Ramsay, and Barker (2007), albeit in the case of upward bullying – for in-depth interviews as tool to discover the characteristics and behavior of bullies. For face validity, the depth interviews will open with general questions about satisfaction with career, work environment, leadership styles, and personal strengths and weaknesses before probing about experiences with bullying others in the past 6 months to a year. The interview will indirectly elicit incidence and frequency of bullying behavior by asking what attitudes and actions of colleagues or subordinates provoke one to deal harshly and repeatedly with them. Probes can take the form of asking whether one’s actions are reasonable, what personal traits of theirs enable respondents to explicitly “tell off” others and not habitually withdraw from a confrontation, whether these are essential to success in climbing the corporate ladder, how the employee would describe his upbringing and current home life, etc. Owing to the descriptive nature of the study and carefully-neutral construction of the open-ended questions, one need not fear that respondents will simply play back what they hear from the researcher. Rather, this is qualitative inquiry in all it’s depth, richness and detail (Shank, 2005; Schram, 2005).

References

Branch, S., Ramsay, S. & Barker, M. (2007). Managers in the firing line: Contributing factors to workplace bullying by staff – An interview study. Journal of Management and Organization, 13 (3): 264-281.

Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 8(4), 597-607.

Patton, M. Q. (2002), Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd Ed.) London: Sage.

Shank, G. D. (2005). Qualitative research: A personal skills approach (2^nd Ed).

Schram, T. H. (2005). Conceptualizing and proposing qualitative research. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Seigne, E., Coyne, I., Randall, P. & Parker, J. (2007). Personality traits of bullies as a contributory factor in workplace bullying: An exploratory study. International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 10 (1); 118-132.