Epistemology is your way of looking at the world; how you understand your knowledge of the world.

Reflexivity is one practice used and documented by researchers that increases the internal validity of the study.

Emic is the term anthropologists use to describe insider or participant perspectives.

Fieldnotes, memos, and keeping a journal are three forms in which a researcher generates data for analysis in a qualitative study.

Three ways to determine trustworthiness are asking, is it 1) acceptable practice, 2) competent practice, 3) ethically conducted?

Some of the strategies for ensuring credibility and rigor are

1. using a critical friend
2. using the community of practice
3. "being there"
4. triangulation
5. participant validation

Member checking is verifying one's data and interpretations with study respondents. It helps to guard against investigator bias and gives the respondents a chance to correct your data if it is inaccurate.

Question: What should I do if I have to conduct interviews with English speakers and my native language is Italian -- should I use a translator?
Answer: If you are fluent in English, you may not need a translator, but you must be able to personally translate cultural meanings from the other language. If not fluent, consult with a translator and discuss with them beforehand what your questions are to make sure they can translate and not loose meaning from the participants. Not having a translator and not being fluent can create a lot of work for yourself or having a translator that mis-quotes meaning can alter the results.

Reflexivity allows researchers to be critical of their own biases. It opens the door to examining ways in which they are part of the setting, context, and social phenomenon since the researcher's mere presence can modify the actions of the participants. Researchers often change their perspective while researching, and reflexivity can out those differences.

Prompt: Discuss questions a school can ask regarding informed consent and describe how you as a qualitative researcher could respond to those questions.
Answer: What is the focus of the research? What are the guiding questions? Why and for whom is the research being done? What role(s) will school personnel be asked to play in this research? What feedback will the school receive, what form will it take, and at what stages of the research process will it be provided? The the conceptual framework should be used to answer some. Some of the content is required for IRB approval and may be able to be carbon copied to the school administrators.

Inductive data analysis is the process of reasoning from specific details to a general body of knowledge to a theory. Deductive data analysis is opposite; it takes a theory and tests it's applicability.

high inference observation: The boy may have gotten his feelings hurt by the group of girls that whispered something in his direction.
low inference observation: The boy is building a castle in the sandbox; girl put a feather on the top of the castle; the boy and girl are friends.