Sung Woo- questions

1. Can Triangulation enhance the reliability of qualitative research studies?
-I am curious about Triangulation as a research strategy, because I think it deals with the problems I had with qualitative approach. One of the problem of being qualitative is, I think, reliability. We discussed last week that the result of a qualitative research could be unique to the researcher. How could you tell this uniqueness is not a bias or an academic defect of the author? So Flick mentioned utility of Triangulation as a way of validation. But he did not mention to what extent, to what effect. I am eager to know.
2. In Triangulation, how can we combine the result of different theory application, data or investigators as something of one study?
-I imagine that we can try Triangulation in our group assignment #1 since we participate as different investigators. But I cannot think of a way we can combine different results as that of one study. The readings did not mention this. Systemizing and describing how to Triangulate would add another chapter of a long methodological quest?
3. Boundaries are so blur among methodologies that it is really hard to discriminate?
-Potter said differences among seven methodologies are not so great. At the same time he said they are not interchangeable (65-67). This confuses me a lot because I could see there is a huge overlap between methodologies.
4. How do you find the loop to connect a specific person, institution or text to a historical, cultural background?
-In quantitative research his may be done with sampling, testing external validity. When you do qualitative research, you tend to analyze specific case, with the unique result depending upon a specific researcher. How can you argue that the historical background is crystallized in that result?
5. Which is a good cat? A white cat? A black cat? Or the one that catches mice?
-Having read the Chapter 1 of Potter, and being more confused about the definition of qualitative, I think we should approach the matter of quanti- and quali- in a more utilitarian way. I assume the debate over methodology is a vernacular phenomenon in academia. Definitions based on the dichotomy of quali- and quanti- is reductionist, I think. The two approaches do not have to be mutually exclusive in a specific way. I found definition of Strauss and Corbin (p.7, p.11) especially troublesome. “Any kind that is not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification?” I think that is misleading.