Replication is relevant to qualitative research

Abstract

Replication has received increasing attention over the last decade. This comes on the heels of prominent instances of data fabrication (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017) and estimates that few studies attempt to replicate previous findings (Makel & Plucker, 2014). Replication has been called the Supreme Court of science (Collins, 1985), as well as a basic building block of scholarship. One persistent question in informal conversations that we have not seen addressed in formal writing, is replication’s relevance to qualitative research. Qualitative research is "a situated activity that locates the observer in the world" and "consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible" (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 3). Some have argued that replication “missed the point” of qualitative research (Pratt et al., 2020, p. 3). However, in a survey of nearly 1,500 recently published education researchers, less than 10% of qualitative researchers reported that replication should never be used (Makel et al., 2021). Given the prevalence of qualitative research in education, it is important to examine replication’s relevance. In this commentary, we argue that replication is relevant to the qualitative lens in at least three ways. First, replication supports the established values in qualitative research of transparency and intentionality. Second, replication can be used to assess the well-established tradition of transferability. Third, replication can evaluate connections between reflexivity, as evidenced by positionality statements, and qualitative research findings.