Designing Trustworthy Qualitative HRD Research: Methodological Considerations

Abstract

As qualitative methods instructors, we recognize the importance of offering clear guidance—both to our students and to the field more broadly—on how to navigate the ambiguous, diffuse terrain of quality in qualitative research. Accordingly, in this paper, we present a set of considerations that qualitative researchers might draw upon as they construct claims of trustworthiness. We first foreground several foundational understandings that inform the notion of trustworthiness, as grappling with these concepts is critical to articulating how trustworthy qualitative research is designed, interpreted, and represented. We then turn to contemporary HRD literature to examine how trustworthiness has typically been described, operationalized, and justified within the field, as this abbreviated review helps to locate and ground the conversation in existing scholarship. Building on this understanding, we translate some conceptual discussions on trustworthiness into practical considerations and offer key considerations for qualitative researchers in HRD to address trustworthiness in their own studies.

Across more than a decade of teaching qualitative research methods to graduate students, we have found that one of the most persistent challenges is helping students determine what counts as trustworthy ¹ qualitative research and how to operationalize it in their own projects. We frequently encounter students’ uncertainties about how to conceptualize trustworthy qualitative research findings, which often arise from questions that implicitly invoke quantitative standards as a point of reference. Indeed, there are longstanding debates surrounding the notion of “trustworthiness” or “credible” qualitative research - with many scholars noting that there are indeed varied positions and ways of writing and enacting claims of “trustworthy,” “credible,” or even “high-quality” qualitative research findings (Lester & O’Reilly, 2021; O’Reilly & Kiyimba, 2015; Van Cleave et al., 2025).

Such debates have ranged from critiques of Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) early conceptions of trustworthiness criteria as being steeped in positivist assumptions (Shenton, 2004) to concerns that “big tent” or universal markers of quality (Tracy, 2010) are not necessarily suitable across the vast array of qualitatve methodologies and methods (Lester & O’Reilly, 2021). More recently, Van Cleave et al. (2025) advanced the idea that “trustworthiness” is not necessarily “an inherent production of high-quality research practices” (p. 1); rather, it is a “writerly accomplishment” (p. 2). That is, they suggested that: “Researchers provide the appearance of trustworthiness in how they represent various aspects of the research process in the writing, including turning people into participants, eliding research events considered ‘irrelevant,’ making decisions about inclusion” (p. 2).

The field of HRD has not been exempted from these broader debates, nor from the range of ways in which trustworthiness in qualitative inquiry has been conceptualized and enacted. As qualitative methods instructors, we recognize the importance of offering clear guidance—both to our students and to the field more broadly—on how to navigate the ambiguous, diffuse terrain of quality in qualitative research. Accordingly, in this paper, we present a set of considerations—or, perhaps more aptly, practices—that qualitative researchers might draw upon as they construct claims of trustworthiness, as they engage in the writerly accomplishment of demonstrating the quality of their work. Before outlining these practices, we foreground several foundational understandings that inform the notion of trustworthiness, as grappling with these concepts is critical to articulating how trustworthy qualitative research is designed, interpreted, and represented. We then turn to contemporary HRD literature to examine how trustworthiness has typically been described, operationalized, and justified within the discipline, as this abbreviated review helps to locate and ground the conversation in existing scholarship.

Foundations and Evolving Perspectives on Trustworthiness

A longstanding impetus for considering trustworthiness in qualitative research is to ensure that a study’s findings reflect understandable, legible, and transparent conclusions about participants’ experiences or perceptions (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Indeed, when designing qualitative research studies, scholars have often built trustworthiness by employing different practices throughout the research process. These practices have historically included the use of rich, thick description in presenting one’s findings (Geertz, 1973), engaging participants in various forms of member-checking (Birt et al., 2016; McKim, 2023), producing audit trails to describe analytic decisions (Halpern, 1983; Huberman & Miles, 2002), and by intentionally reflecting on the researcher’s subjectivities to take note of how they influenced the research process (Peshkin, 1988), among many others.

In a special issue devoted to quality in qualitative research, Lester and O’Reilly (2021) contended that the production of high-quality qualitative findings depends on methodological specificity; that is, on practices and considerations grounded in the particular qualitative approach rather than on the uncritical application of universal criteria. Quality in this sense can be thought of as conceptually linked to the notion of trustworthy qualitative research. Taken together, practices aimed at establishing trustworthiness—ranging from universal criteria (Tracy, 2010) to methodology-specific approaches (Lester & O’Reilly, 2021) to intra active, writerly enactments of rigor (Van Cleave et al., 2025)—invite readers to evaluate the quality of qualitative claims through the author’s representational practices and interpretive rendering of qualitative data.

Notably, Lincoln and Guba (1985) produced some of the earliest writing on this topic, and introduced five criteria—credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability, and authenticity—to articulate how qualitative researchers might demonstrate the quality of their work. They argued that “the basic issue in relation to qualitative research is one of trustworthiness” (p. 289), proposing a framework of trustworthiness that addressed how qualitative researchers might make claims about quality and rigor. One reason these criteria were developed reflected recognition among early qualitative methodologists that the concepts of reliability and validity, widely associated with quantitative traditions, could not align epistemologically with qualitative inquiry (Goetz & LeCompte, 1984). Rather than attempting to retrofit qualitative work into quantitative evaluative logics, Lincoln and Guba articulated a set of criteria grounded in the philosophical assumptions and methodological commitments of qualitative research. Their effort was not merely defensive but generative, as it helped formalize a language through which qualitative researchers could describe what high-quality qualitative research looks like on its own terms. This early work also reflected a growing awareness that qualitative research is interpretive, context-dependent, and inseparable from the researcher’s presence, and thus requires research designs, documentation, and representation practices that account for its distinctive orientation. As Denzin et al. (2006) reminded us, the contexts surrounding the qualitative research profoundly shape both the process and the outcome.

Because the meaning and enactment of trustworthiness have evolved significantly since Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) original articulation, we next describe their criteria using definitions that integrate contemporary perspectives. This approach allows readers to see how these early constructs continue to shape qualitative inquiry while also recognizing their evolution in response to ongoing methodological debates (Table 1).

Table 1.

Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research as Conceptualized by Lincoln and Guba (1985)

Criterion	How defined?	How achieved?
Credibility	Truthfulness of findings	Triangulation, member checking
Transferability	Applicability to other contexts	Thick description
Dependability	Consistency and repeatability	Audit trail, documentation
Confirmability	Neutrality, absence of researcher bias	Reflexivity, audit trail
Authenticity	Faithful representation of multiple realities	Fairness, depth in reporting

Credibility refers to the “truth” or plausibility of the findings—specifically, whether they offer a compelling and faithful account of participants’ experiences or perspectives. This criterion parallels concerns associated with internal validity, though adapted for qualitative inquiry. One can enhance credibility through prolonged engagement with participants, persistent observation, triangulation (using multiple data sources or methods), member checking, peer debriefing, and negative case analysis.

Transferability concerns the extent to which findings apply to other contexts or groups. It is often conceptualized as resonance, applicability, and theoretical engagement (Stalmeijer et al., 2024). Because transferability depends on a reader’s ability to judge the relevance of findings to their own context, researchers support it primarily through thick description—rich, layered accounts of setting, participants, and context. Thick description, derived from Geertz’s (1973) anthropological work, goes beyond surface-level reporting to illuminate the cultural meanings that shape participants’ actions and interpretations.

Dependability addresses the consistency or stability of the research process. In practice, one demonstrates this through transparent documentation of the key decisions made throughout the study—often referred to as an audit trail. Akkerman et al. (2008) formalized an audit procedure to guide both the researcher’s record-keeping and the auditor’s review, emphasizing the importance of linking final interpretations back to the data at each analytic step. The research procedure builds on earlier recommendations to systematically document connections between data, analysis, and interpretation (Halpern, 1983; Schwandt & Halpern, 1988).

Confirmability concerns the degree to which findings reflect participants rather than researcher bias. Achieving confirmability requires reflexivity and transparency in analytic processes (Finlay, 2002). Reflexivity asks researchers to examine how their own subjectivities, positionalities, and contexts shape the inquiry (Olmos-Vega et al., 2022). Through reflexive practice and clear documentation, researchers demonstrate how they arrived at interpretations and how their perspectives influenced the analytic process.

Authenticity refers to the fair and faithful representation of the range of realities and perspectives present in a study. It involves ensuring that participants’ voices, experiences, and viewpoints have sufficient depth, nuance, and respect. Scholars achieve authenticity through practices such as member checking and reflexive writing, which help ensure that interpretations do justice to participants’ accounts and acknowledge the researcher’s influence in shaping them.

Taken together, we suggest that these five criteria continue to offer useful vocabulary for articulating practices of trustworthiness, particularly as related to concerns about quality and rigor in qualitative research. At the same time, as subsequent scholarship has made clear, trustworthiness is not established through the mechanical application of criteria alone but through situated, interpretive, and methodologically aligned research practices. In this sense, Lincoln and Guba’s framework provides an important conceptual foundation. At the same time, contemporary approaches invite researchers to consider how particular qualitative traditions and analytic contexts influence the enactment of trustworthiness.

Given trustworthiness is not a universal or singular concept, as different qualitative traditions frame these practices in terms of quality, rigor, or other related evaluative criteria and/or terms, we present in Table 2 selected definitions of trustworthiness, alongside alternative framings that emphasize rigor or quality. Notably, not all scholars explicitly articulate notions of quality in relation to the concept of trustworthiness, but implicitly, there are conceptual links, and the practices they use position them as starting points within a wider and fluid constellation of qualitative approaches.

Table 2.

Definitions of Trustworthiness

Authors (In chronological order)	Terms	Definitions
Lincoln and Guba (1985)	Trustworthiness	“The four terms credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability are then the naturalist equivalents for the conventional terms internal validity, external validity, reliability, and objectivity” (p. 300)
Tracy (2010)	Quality	“I provide an eight-point conceptualization of qualitative quality that is unique, and perhaps provocative, because it delineates eight universal hallmarks for high quality qualitative methods across paradigms—and differentiates these from mean practices. I suggest that each criterion of quality can be approached via a variety of paths and crafts, the combination of which depends on the specific researcher, context, theoretical affiliation, and project” (p. 837)
Morse (2015)	Rigor	“I recommend that qualitative researchers return to the terminology of the social sciences, using rigor, reliability, validity, and generalizability. I then make recommendations for the appropriate use of the strategies recommended to achieve rigor: Prolonged engagement, persistent observation, and thick, rich description; inter-rater reliability, negative case analysis; peer review or debriefing; clarifying researcher bias; member checking; external audits; and triangulation” (p. 1212)
Merriam and Tisdell (2016)	Trustworthiness and rigor	“However, since both the criteria and the terminology for discussing and assessing rigor in qualitative research are in flux, we have chosen to discuss trustworthiness and rigor in interpretive qualitative research with reference to the traditional terminology of validity and reliability, though we recognize these are contested terms” (p. 237)
Anderson (2017)	Rigor	“Rigor is understood by researchers to characterize the trustworthiness, credibility, and plausibility of research as judged by the use of theory, research design, data generation, and data analysis” (p. 126)
Lester and O’Reilly (2021)	Quality	“Quality criteria are often specific to a given methodological approach due to the heterogeneity of methodological approaches” (p. 295)
Creswell and Poth (2025)	Validation	“To summarize our own stance, we consider ‘validation’ in qualitative research to be an attempt to assess the ‘accuracy’ of the findings, as best described by the researcher, the participants, and the readers (or reviewers). This view also suggests that any report of research is a representation by the author. We also view validation as a distinct strength of qualitative research by the researcher spending extensive time in the field setting, detailing thick description in their work, and remaining close to participants in the study. We use the term validation as a process, rather than verification (which has quantitative overtones) or historical words such as trustworthiness and authenticity (recognizing that many qualitative writers do return to these words, suggesting the ‘staying power’ of Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) standards)” (pp. 290–291)
Van Cleave et al., 2025	Trustworthiness	“Trustworthiness is not reflective of the ‘transparency’ of researchers. Rather, it is the result of a research story carefully crafted to convince readers that it is trustworthy” (p. 2).
		“Trustworthiness cannot be a box to check or even a responsive process but rather must be manufactured within the context of the study, self-consciously, so that researchers do not go through the motions but rather make intentional choices” (p. 3).

Trustworthiness Practices in HRD Research

To map recent trends in the use of trustworthiness practices in qualitative studies published in Human Resource Development Quarterly (HRDQ), the flagship HRD journal for empirical research, we reviewed 34 qualitative research papers published between 2020 and 2025 (Vol. 36 No. 3). As in Table 3, we found that: (a) many qualitative studies (71%) added statements as to what trustworthiness practices were used in their studies (e.g., Ben-Hador, 2024; Hirudayaraj et al., 2024; McClurg et al., 2024), while 10 studies (29%) did not provide any practices or strategies (e.g. Gubbins & Dooley, 2021; Nelson & Duxbury, 2021); (b) four studies (12%) used the four qualitative criteria of Lincoln and Guba (1985) to ensure trustworthiness: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Donald et al., 2023; Hirudayaraj et al., 2024; McClurg et al., 2024; Terblanche, 2023); (c) four studies (12%) used the terms “validity” and “reliability” to make claims about the quality of their qualitative studies (Bialek & Hagen, 2022; Donald et al., 2023; Kwon, 2024; O’Brien et al., 2022); and (d) eighteen studies used commonly cited trustworthiness practices such as member checking, peer review (peer debriefing), investigator and data triangulation, researcher positionality, audit trail, and thick descriptions with direct quotes, among others. It is important to note that Table 3 does not present these practices as uncontested given; particularly since their relevance and utility may vary, and scholars might reasonably debate their use. However, as we show in Table 3, authors of these studies claimed trustworthiness and the methodological and analytical practices they associated with achieving it.

Table 3.

Trustworthiness Practices in Qualitative Studies in HRDQ

Trustworthiness practices	Frequency
Member checks: Engage participants throughout the research process	18
Peer debriefing/peer review of analysis by a colleague, independent auditor, subject matter expert, or dissertation committee members	12
Triangulation:	8
• Multiple investigators’ independent work and consensus-building	4
• Multiple sources of data	4
Researcher positionality/reflexivity	6
Audit trail	4
Thick descriptions/direct quotes	4
Stepwise approach to data analysis	3
Reflective notes/memos on the site visit and interviews	3
Ethical considerations: De-identification of participants	2
Pilot test of interview questions	2
Data saturation of participants with a variety of attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Ben-Hador, 2024)	2
Constant comparison in analysis	2
Prolonged engagement and observation	2
Neutrality in the study findings (e.g., Hirudayaraj et al., 2024)	2
Inter-rater/intercoder agreement (e.g., Donald et al., 2023)	2
Purposeful sampling	1
Rigorous translation (Hamlin et al., 2024)	1
Seeking exceptions and contradictory evidence (Hurtienne et al., 2022)	1

Given the diverse definitions and practices for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research, we see a need to articulate what trustworthiness means, the key considerations commonly invoked, and the practical practices researchers might employ to construct it. We ground our discussion in HRD research as a starting point, while recognizing that these issues extend well beyond the field. Importantly, we do not present a fixed or exhaustive set of criteria or practices; instead, we offer a set of starting points that reflect an evolving landscape and that can (and should) be adapted, expanded, and reinterpreted across qualitative traditions.

Key Considerations for Trustworthiness

Undoubtedly, consideration of a study’s trustworthiness is essential not because qualitative researchers aim to satisfy expectations of objectivity or generalizability—critiques frequently leveled at qualitative inquiry (Kvale, 1994; Onwuegbuzie, 2000; Sims et al., 2018; Viadero, 1999)—but because trustworthiness (as well as other methodological concepts linked to it) functions as a distinctly qualitative response to questions of quality and rigor within the qualitative paradigm itself. These critiques often stem from assumptions about research designs that prioritize breadth, replicability, and distance between researcher and data; assumptions that we do not believe are well aligned with the epistemological commitments of qualitative inquiry nor with the researcher’s integral role as an interpretive instrument or actor. Viewed in this way, trustworthiness becomes an ongoing, reflexive practice shaped by epistemological commitments and methodological choices rather than a fixed or static state. Building on this understanding, we next translate some conceptual discussions on trustworthiness into practical considerations. In this way, as overviewed in Table 4, we offer key considerations for qualitative researchers to address trustworthiness in their studies.

Table 4.

Key Questions for Conducting Trustworthy Qualitative HRD Research

Category	Key questions to consider
Conceptualization/Definition	What does it mean to produce a trustworthy qualitative study?
Methodological specificity	What practices and analytic commitments are needed to establish trustworthiness within the specific qualitative methodology used in a study?
General practices (e.g., reflexivity, carefully select data excerpts, thick, rich descriptions, member-checking)	What are some of the general and commonly enacted practices of trustworthiness that might be useful within a qualitative study?

First and foremost, establishing trustworthiness requires that a qualitative researcher make explicit how they conceptualize trustworthiness and why. This practice requires careful attention to the historical and contemporary literature on trustworthiness in qualitative research, as well as related concepts such as quality, rigor, and validity. This reflective positioning is essential and, we argue, results in more intentional, grounded, and rigorous qualitative work. As highlighted in Table 2, scholars might conceptualize trustworthiness in a variety of ways, which indeed reflect their own positionality, methodological orientation, and engagement within particular qualitative traditions. Hence, it is essential that, when designing and conducting a qualitative study, a researcher spends time reflecting on the core question: What does it mean to produce a trustworthy qualitative study?

Second and closely related to the first consideration, a qualitative researcher must attend to the practices that may be unique to a given qualitative methodology. The landscape of qualitative research is vast, and within it lies a wide range of epistemologically unique methodological and analytic traditions. Within such traditions, unique understandings of how to produce trustworthy findings are often articulated. While one can rely on universal criteria (e.g., Tracy, 2010) and a plethora of checklists (e.g., COREQ) to justify claims of a trustworthy qualitative study, we view this approach as insufficient. Simply checking practices off a list is insufficient and potentially problematic, as mechanistic approaches risk obscuring the epistemological commitments and analytic logics that distinguish one qualitative methodology from another.

Attending to trustworthiness, therefore, requires methodological sensitivity rather than uncritical application of universal standards (Lester & O’Reilly, 2021). For example, Williamson et al. (2025) introduced “practices of trustworthiness” in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) research, including unique adequacy, next-turn proof, and data sessions, among others. Braun and Clarke (2019) similarly provided a methodology-specific articulation of quality and rigor in reflexive thematic analysis, foregrounding reflexivity and analytic coherence. While there is certainly overlap in some of the ideas these authors introduced, there is also specificity linked to the underlying assumptions of the unique qualitative methodology, as in conversation analysis versus reflexive thematic analysis. Methodologically specific considerations include a range of design decisions, from the preferred size of a data set to the appropriate type of data (e.g., interviews, conversational data, visual data) to analytic practices. These methodologically specific considerations are central to building a case for the trustworthiness of one’s study. Thus, a qualitative researcher must attend to the core question: What practices and analytic commitments are needed to establish trustworthiness within the specific qualitative methodology used in a study?

Third, while generic checklists risk reducing trustworthiness to a technical exercise, we contend that some trustworthiness practices nonetheless span qualitative perspectives. These considerations do not override methodological specificity; instead, they offer flexible practices through which one can enact trustworthiness across diverse qualitative traditions. As such, a key question to consider is: What are some of the general and commonly enacted practices of trustworthiness that might be useful within a qualitative study? We point to several such practices here, recognizing that this is not comprehensive rendering but instead highlights those we have found particularly generative in our own qualitative work, including:

Reflexivity

Practicing reflexivity is central to producing trustworthy qualitative research. A researcher’s interpretations are always situated and shaped by their subjectivities (Peshkin, 1988), as “texts do not simply and transparently report an independent order of reality” (Atkinson, 1990, p. 6). Scholars can enact reflexivity in multiple ways, including memo writing, journaling, and the systematic documentation of analytic and theoretical decisions. Through these practices, researchers can work toward creating a transparent audit trail that allows others to review and make sense of decision-making processes that informed the analysis. We encourage preserving data and analytic records in ways that allow readers and other researchers to verify that “data exist … and that the interpretations have been made in ways consistent with the available data” (Guba, 1981, p. 88).

Carefully Select Data Excerpts

Closely related, trustworthy qualitative research requires that scholars support their interpretations with detailed and well-integrated evidence. Rather than simply asserting findings, researchers should include carefully select data excerpts (e.g., direct block quotes) and clearly demonstrate how interpretations are grounded in the data. At the same time, we caution against indiscriminate “data dumping” and instead advocate for the thoughtful inclusion of evidence that meaningfully advances analytic claims. Notably, how one presents evidence requires attending to the specific standards of the methodology. For instance, a conversation analysis study would present findings in a way quite distinct from an autoethnographic study, given that the underlying epistemological assumptions and focus of each would be unique and reflected in a researcher’s representational practices. That is, part of generating a trustworthy study is ensuring that the practices used to present a given set of findings are consistent with the methodology.

Thick, Rich Descriptions

Regardless, detailed and thorough representational practices enable reader evaluation and underscore the writerly and readerly accomplishments that help construct trustworthiness in the study (Van Cleave et al., 2025). Moreover, thick, rich descriptions allow for one to present findings in relation to their situated meanings (Geertz, 1973) and make visible how the scholar produced meaning within context(s).

Member-checking

Finally, while not all qualitative methodologies emphasize sharing interpretations with stakeholders or participants, we suggest that researchers thoughtfully consider whether—and how—those most impacted by research findings are afforded opportunities to speak to the trustworthiness of the interpretations produced. Whether enacted through member checking or other methodology-aligned practices, attending to the perspectives of those most closely connected to the inquiry can meaningfully inform a researcher’s conceptualization of what it means to produce trustworthy qualitative work. Ultimately, it behooves the qualitative researcher to consider the extent to which participants have (dis)confirmed the interpretations of the data.

To further render these considerations tangible and practically useful, Table 5 links the trustworthiness practices noted above to its purpose, common enactments, and representative examples from HRD literature.

Table 5.

Commonly Enacted Trustworthiness Practices Defined and Linked to HRD Studies

Trustworthiness consideration	Purpose for trustworthiness	How the practice is enacted	Example HRD studies
Reflexivity	Makes visible how researchers’ positionalities, assumptions, and analytic decisions shape knowledge production	Use of reflexive memos, analytic journals, positionality statements, and documentation of analytic decisions to support transparency and analytic rigor	Ghosh et al. (2020); Hirudayaraj et al. (2024)
Careful selection of data excerpts	Demonstrates that interpretations are grounded in empirical evidence while avoiding overgeneralization or indiscriminate inclusion of data	Purposeful selection of illustrative excerpts (e.g., block quotes, narrative segments) that are tightly integrated with analytic claims and aligned with methodological conventions	Ben-Hador (2024); Lundgren and Poell (2023)
Thick, rich descriptions	Enables reader evaluation by situating findings within their social, organizational, and cultural contexts	Detailed representation of participants, settings, interactions, and processes that foreground meaning making within a context	Keshtiban et al., (2023); McClurg et al., (2024)
Member-checking (or Methodology-aligned participant engagement)	Invites those most closely connected to the inquiry to inform, refine, or challenge interpretations	Sharing interpretations with participants or stakeholders through feedback conversations, iterative analysis, or other epistemologically aligned practices	Deer et al. (2020); Kwon (2024)

Conclusion

Trustworthiness is a multidimensional practice within qualitative research. Novice scholars, students, and those new to the qualitative research tradition have an opportunity to strengthen their research by attending to these different perspectives and approaches, and this requires grounding their work in a clear definition of trustworthiness suitable to their qualitative approach. Further, addressing issues of trustworthiness might involve adopting trustworthiness practices that reflect the tradition of their research rather than the templates of standardized checklists. Finally, achieving trustworthiness in qualitative HRD research requires researchers to engage reflexively in making decisions about their study’s design, data collection methods, analysis, and interpretation, and to commit to making their decision-making processes visible to others (e.g., readers, reviewers) for evaluation. By addressing the range of considerations central to designing trustworthy qualitative research, HRD scholars can overcome the anxieties associated with it and thereby make meaningful contributions to the field.