Qualitative Researchers: Dip a Toe Into the Quantitative Pond to Net an Inferential Triangulation Leg?

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: Validity and Assessing Survey Data in Educational Research

Abstract

Qualitative researchers are invited to consider a method proposed to serve as an adjunct to usual qualitative methods, with the addition of just one Likert-type item. The purpose of this paper is to provide this additional inferential quantitative procedure, and, as the necessary multinomial calculations are intensive, a spreadsheet for calculating it, affording an additional tool for achieving triangulation and validation, and to illustrate that, given sufficient effect, a significant result can be rendered with a very small sample typical in such designs. Effect size estimates and an illustration are also offered.

Authors

• Mary G. Lieberman, Florida Atlantic University

• John D. Morris, Florida Atlantic University