Auditing

Audit Trail

The trustworthiness of a qualitative research process is often shown through a transparent demonstration of the totality of the process of inquiry. In essence, the reader of the study can become immersed in each stage of the research and understand the decisions made at each stage. To some, this increases the quality of the work and assures the results are not a result of deception, fraud, or manipulation. Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba are credited with the original conceptualization of an audit trail for qualitative inquiry where a third party could theoretically follow each step of the study and recreate, or confirm, the results. Lincoln and Guba argued for six categories of data that can help inform a proper audit trail:

• 1.
  raw data,
• 2.
  data reduction and analysis notes,
• 3.
  data reconstruction and synthesis products,
• 4.
  process notes,
• 5.
  materials related to intentions, and
• 6.
  preliminary developmental information.

Marian Carcary has further clarified that an audit trail can be “intellectual” or “physical.” A physical audit trail deals with the “nuts and bolts” of the research process from the initial identification of the research problem to the resulting theory or instrument created as a result of the inquiry. The intellectual trail delves into decisions surrounding the internal thinking of the researcher throughout the process and the ways in which the researcher’s own biases and dispositions influenced the procedure. In all, an audit trail serves as a way to enhance the trustworthiness and credibility of qualitative research.

An example of both trails can be found in Carcary’s (2009) article. The author detailed her intellectual transition, describing how she questioned her traditional positivist beliefs and ultimately selected an adapted grounded theory approach. In the physical audit, the steps of the research process are clearly laid out with supporting information for each decision. For example, she describes her interview schedule:

Auditing Moving Forward

[Page 148]Considerable debate still exists over the best methods, if any, for measuring credibility, reliability, validity, and transferability in qualitative research. Many qualitative researchers have cautioned against the adoption of largely positivist ideas to “justify” or “give credibility to” qualitative work. Pierre Bourdieu has warned against a global audit culture where results and processes are scrutinized through a governance lens that ultimately influences the findings to a far greater degree than the types of audits previously discussed.

...