Participant validation: A strategy to strengthen the trustworthiness of your study and address ethical concerns

Abstract

How can you as a researcher ensure the trustworthiness of your data and results? This chapter presents participant validation as a strategy for doing so and discusses the ethical challenges that come with it. Participant validation implies that the researcher in one way or another presents the data material or the preliminary analysis to the informants to validate and assess interpretations. In this chapter, previous literature and studies of participant validation are reviewed, and a case study of cultural diversity and inclusion in the workplace is used as an example of how participant validation can be incorporated in the research process. The chapter shows how participant validation addresses as well as raises ethical concerns. The examples used in the chapter demonstrate how participant validation can contribute to qualitative research by generating new data that can be incorporated into a study. As an integrated part of the research process, participant validation represents a site and an opportunity for values work.