Quote From butterfly20:
Have you been specifically told that you had to obtain reliability and validity? It might be that you have to run these tests if they are needed in the method section.
Yes, I was told it needs to be a part of it, but of course with no direction or assistance whatsoever.
Quote From Pjlu:
Hi there, just wondering with your qualitative results-you mention that you didn't do any member checking (I think?). However, you must have used a method for analysing or interpreting your qualitative data. So for example, you would have coded for categories or sub themes and then used inductive methods or similar for clustering these into themes which you then would have described and interpreted.
No, there was no member checking done. I didn't know it was concept until very recently. (My fault I didn't even look at a textbook when I was doing all of this!) I used thematic analysis (I guess). I basically just read and re-read over the transcripts until I found themes or what I thought were themes and kept changing them until my supervisors agreed.
A lot of these methods can be described as variations on inductive thematic analysis-which is a valid interpretivist methodology. Likewise with your questionnaire (for students), in analysing the quantitative data, you must have used simple descriptive statistics-which are valid provided you outline your use of these and clarify how far you are taking the results. I agree with Zutterfly, getting results from schools and institutions can be a challenge in itself and pilot studies are not always possible. When you discuss your results, comparing the findings from both data sets, then using the main themes and findings, cross analysed against the literature should be okay-provided, as mentioned by Zutterfly-you outline your understanding of the limitations.
I only use basic descriptive statistics to obtain percentages of how many pupils experienced what. I shall do the best I can with this. Thanks!
