To what extent can findings be generalized from qualitative studies?
- The phenomena that qualitative studies aim to investigate is often time and context specific → constructivist view → does not aim to generalize
- Rather, transferability is primarily the responsibility of the one doing the generalizing from a qualitative perspective
- What the researcher should do to improve transferability is to provide detailed contextual information → the reader who transfer the findings to another context would be responsible to make judgement of how sensible the transfer is
- Transferability: the degree to which the results of qualitative research can be generalized or transferred to other contexts or settings
- Representative generalization - individual studied cannot represent the population
- Inferential generalization - individual is unique and rare → cannot apply findings to the general population
- Theoretical generalization - data used to help construct theory rather than to test existing theory