Interpretation and Method Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn

94 MEANING AND METHODOLOGY

criterion of “internal validity,” which emerges from positivist concerns, they propose a reconfigured

and renamed “credibility” criterion as more appropriate to interpretive research. Nevertheless, a

positivist influence is still apparent in their work: As subsequent scholars argued, establishing a

parallel set of terms meant accepting positivist presuppositions about what matters in scholarly

research. (Lincoln herself later accepted this critique of parallelism and offered reconceptualized

criteria [1995] in lieu of the earlier ones.)

In their second edition, Miles and Huberman (1994) introduced a discussion of “standards for

quality.” They adopted the approach of Lincoln and Guba, listing both the methodologically

positivist terms and Lincoln and Guba’s interpretive terms; but they added a third set of possible

criteria for three of the four original ones. For example, they added “authenticity” to rival “inter-

nal validity” and “credibility” in response to criteria literature published after the 1985 Lincoln

and Guba text, most notably in Guba and Lincoln (1989), which argued for “authenticity” as

more appropriate for qualitative research than “validity.” Perhaps sensitive to the emerging criti-

cism of the initial Lincoln and Guba approach, Miles and Huberman added a fifth set of criteria as

well—“Utilization/Application/Action”—arguing that this set is “an essential addition to more

traditional views of ‘goodness’” (1994, 280). Table 5.1 traces the beginnings of the debate about

criteria for judging interpretive-qualitative research quality as reflected in these texts, portending

the proliferation of criteria that followed in subsequent years.

CRITERIA: AN EVOLVING DEBATE

A decade ago we noted (in Huberman and Miles [1983]), that qualitative researchers shared

no canons, decision rules, algorithms, or even any agreed-upon heuristics to indicate whether

Table 5.1

Interpretive Approaches to Evaluative Criteria: The Classic Texts

Terms used in Miles and Huberman

methodological Lincoln and Guba (1994): parallel and

Criterion positivism^1 (1985): parallel terms^2 new terms

Truth value Internal validity Credibility Internal validity/credibility/

authenticity

Applicability External validity/ Transferability External validity/

generalizability transferability/fittingness

Consistency Reliability Dependability Reliability/dependability/

auditability

Neutrality Objectivity Confirmability Objectivity/confirmability^3

Utilization/application/ action^4

Sources: The first three columns are taken from Erlandson et al. (1993, 133), who replicate Lincoln and

Guba’s (1985) approach to evaluative criteria. The sets of terms in the fourth column are the subheadings

under which Miles and Huberman discuss what they call “Standards for Quality” (1994, 278–80).

(^1) Lincoln and Guba (1985) refer to the “conventional paradigm” rather than to “methodological positivism.”
(^2) Lincoln and Guba (1985) refer to their approach as “naturalistic inquiry” rather than as “interpretive.”
(^3) Miles and Huberman (1994) offered no new terms for this criterion.
(^4) Miles and Huberman (1994) added a fifth criterion that was not present in the earlier discussion of
Lincoln and Guba (1985).