Validity...or Trustworhiness?

It's been a crazy few days!  If it weren't for my brother coming down to hangout for a while I probably would have more in common with Nosferatu than a regular human being😹 (having been stuck indoors for most of the weekend).  When I started off this summer I gave myself a deadline to be done with my methods chapter by August 30th (chapter 3 of my proposal).  After reading...and reading...and reading...and re-reading (select articles form EDDE 802), I reached a point of saturation when it comes to methods.  I really wanted to read all of Lincoln & Guba's 1985 book called Naturalistic Inquiry during this round, but it seems like I will just need to focus on specific aspects of the book.

So, in this whirlwind of activity, I went through the preamble to my methods section, my target participant descriptions, my data collection, my data analysis techniques, and any limitations.  I added to these sections, explicated, went more in-depth in each section, I corrected issues that were brought up by Debra in EDDE 805, some outstanding issues and comments from the feedback on the parts I had worked on MDDE 702, and some of the initial comments I got back from my dissertation chair. **phew** That was hard work!  The only parts that I still have left to complete in order to be "done" with my methods section are (1) The ethics section; (2) the validity/reliability/bias section;  (3) a conclusion section for the chapter bringing it all together; (4) an appendix with a sample survey; and (5) an appendix with the participant consent form.  I am considering adding (6) the REB application to an appending as well before I call this section "done".  I am not sure if I will be done by August 30th (as was the original plan) but I think I will be damn close.

That said, there is one thing that is tripping me up, and that has to do with the validity/reliability/bias section.  Bias is actually not that hard.  I think I can write up procedures and things to be on the lookout for in order to avoid bias in both data collection and analysis.  The thing that  is much more concerning is philosophical:  Do I go with Trustworthiness, Credibility, Dependability, and Transferability as what I talk about in this section (coming from the Lincoln and Guba tradition of qualitative research work)?  Or do I choose the more traditional Validity and Reliability and discuss my methods in that frame of reference?  Of course, for qualitative studies the Lincoln & Guba approach makes sense (at least it does to me, and it's references in a variety of other texts I've read on qualitative approaches to research), but at the same time quite a few of the texts that I've read (both on case studies and on qualitative studies in general) still use reliability and validity as terms in qualitative researcher. So, so I "translate" validity and reliability (from the texts) in Lincoln & Guba terms?  Just discuss in the framework of Lincoln & Guba? or try to smash both together?  Perhaps start with Validity & Reliability and transition to L&G terms since they make sense?    I need to re-read Chapter 11 of Naturalistic Inquiry this week to help make up my mind (any thoughts are more than welcome in the comments).

As of this point I am at 23 pages (with 1 paragraph of lorem ipsum text, and quite a few scraps of though patterns for items 1 and 2 above), so I am thinking I should be wrapping this up soon and not getting logorrhea.

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