Dealing with qualitative research demands the researcher to have a clear focus on the main techniques and requirements this research method has towards the studies carried out with its help. The “big three” among these requirements consist of research validity, ethical considerations, and integrity. The importance of these concepts becomes even more prominent if the topic of the proposed research, i. e. recidivism among juvenile delinquents and the effect of programs intended to reduce its rates, comes into play. In this paper, these three basics of qualitative research, i. e. validity, ethical considerations, and integrity will be considered in the context of their practical use in juvenile recidivism research.
The first point to be always present in qualitative research is validity. According to Shank (2006), this concept “deals with the notion that what you say you have observed is, in fact, what really happened” (p. 111). Drawing from this definition, validity becomes critically important to qualitative research as the tool used by scholars to inquire about the true reasons for certain events. In the research, validity is also vitally significant, and it will be ensured by the purely scholarly approach to the study and by the supervision of the research process and results reporting by both peer scholars and outside observers and assessors, whose main task will be to monitor the objectivity and the very validity of results actually obtain and results made public.
Needless to say, ethical considerations are also significant for the procedure of the qualitative research, especially the one involving interviewing as one of the tools, or the only one, of gathering basic research data. According to Patton (2002), interviews are powerful intervention instruments that sometimes reveal certain data that an interviewee might not even know of him/herself before the procedure (p. 405). In the research dealing with juvenile delinquency, recidivism in it, and the effectiveness of the programs designed to reduce it, ethical considerations are especially important in such interviews. To ensure the ethics of the interviews, this research will make sure that all the questions used are ethical in the wide sense of the concept and do not lead to obtaining any unnecessary or potentially conflict-related data.
Finally, research integrity is also important in qualitative studies, as it is necessary to ground the reported research results and conclusions. As Schram (2006) argues, there are three major concerns the researcher has to face regarding integrity; they are possible effects of the researcher’s presence on the results obtained, potential selective experience, and engaged subjectivity of results (p. 133). To ensure the integrity of the juvenile recidivism study, the researcher will maximally limit his/her influence upon the setting of the interviews and respondents’ answers to the questions set. Furthermore, the researcher will try to address all the data obtained without selectivity biases, and finally treat all the data obtained as equally important for the research outcomes (Trochim W. M. K., & Donnelly, 2006, p. 187).
Thus, validity, ethical consideration, and integrity are critical for the qualitative research, and in the study of juvenile recidivism the researcher will try to follows the above principles to ensure presence of all these three elements. The major concerns related to this will include the need to ensure objectivity of the research and its completeness in respect of data obtaining and analysis. Finally, the researcher‘s awareness of the importance of validity, ethical consideration, and integrity will provide additional grounds for keeping to these essentials of qualitative study in the planned juvenile recidivism research.
References
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Schram, T. H. (2006). Conceptualizing and proposing qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Shank, G. D. (2006). Qualitative research: A personal skills approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Trochim W. M. K., & Donnelly, J. (2006). The research methods knowledge base. Mason, OH: Thomson Learning.