What is confirmability in qualitative research and how do we establish it?
Confirmability is the last criterion of Trustworthiness that a qualitative researcher must establish. This criterion has to do with the level of confidence that the research study’s findings are based on the participants’ narratives and words rather than potential researcher biases. Confirmability ensures that participants, rather than the qualitative researcher, shape the findings. There are a couple of techniques that you can use to establish the confirmability of the research study’s findings:
Audit Trail. This technique is the most popular for establishing confirmability because it is highly useful when writing the results chapter. An audit trail is when a researcher documents the process of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. You record unique topics, note thoughts on coding, explain why codes were merged, and clarify the meaning of themes.
Reflexivity. This is a technique that is useful in qualitative research, especially in phenomenological research. Reflexivity is an attitude that a qualitative researcher adopts when collecting and analyzing the data. A qualitative researcher must examine their background and position to understand how these influence the research process, from topic selection to presenting conclusions. In order to achieve reflexivity, a qualitative researcher can keep and maintain a reflexive journal. Think of this as a diary where you reflect on what is happening in the research process, with regard to your values and interests.
Boiling these two techniques down, you will need to provide a rationale for the decisions you made during the research process. The confirmability criterion of Trustworthiness may be the easiest one to establish, as it is just a matter of about explaining the decisions that are being made in the research process. These details can help provide valuable insight for readers to understand how the themes emerged from the data.