Another commonly acknowledged theoretical issue in social research is generalisation. Many scholars (e.g. Kerlinger and Lee, 2000; Shadish, Cook and Campbell, 2002; Polit and Beck, 2010) believed that the notion of generalisability is a primary criterion for appraising the quality of a quantitative research, instead of a qualitative research. According to Polit and Beck (2010), the notion of generalisation mainly discussed by quantitative researchers, refers to ‘an act of reasoning’ that contains drawing wide conclusions from inference grounded on the researched. Recognising that many of the qualitative researchers (e.g. Erlandson et at, 1993; Seale, 1999; Denzin and Lincoln, 1995) disagreed or even deny the significance of the generalisability
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Comparing to the quantitative research, qualitative research comprises of a somewhat small sample which are not ‘statistically represented’ that generalisation should be representational on the content of scope of experiences, opinions, factors and outcomes of the studied population. Thus, creating generalisation in qualitative research lays in the issues of validity and reliability of the level of notions, explanation and groups of the parent population (Lewis and Ritchie, 2003: 269). Among the three discussed qualitative methods (individual interview, focus group participant observation), it can be claimed that participant observation deemed as having the weakest position in generalising research findings. As LeCompte and Goetz (1982) noted, research involves participant observation usually result in poor or lack of validity (replicability) and reliability (accurancy) of research findings due to a lack of prospect of generalisation (LeCompte and Goetz, 1982). Dissimilar from many of the research using participant observation, Siobhan (2010)’s study illustrated the richness of her data on racial inequalities within three different exotic dance clubs in New York City. For example, data collected in Conquest (exotic dance club predominately for White people) demonstrated that Black dancers are seen as more hypersexualised than White dancers that customers can pay less but obtaining more sexual services, where data collected in Temptations (exotic dance club owned by Black people) shown that light-skinned Black dancers are more preferred by customers than darker skinned black dancers because are deemed as more erotic (Siobhan, 2010). In her research, it can be noted that data she gathered can be generalised as it is possible to transfer to other settings such as the racial difference in
Comparing to the quantitative research, qualitative research comprises of a somewhat small sample which are not ‘statistically represented’ that generalisation should be representational on the content of scope of experiences, opinions, factors and outcomes of the studied population. Thus, creating generalisation in qualitative research lays in the issues of validity and reliability of the level of notions, explanation and groups of the parent population (Lewis and Ritchie, 2003: 269). Among the three discussed qualitative methods (individual interview, focus group participant observation), it can be claimed that participant observation deemed as having the weakest position in generalising research findings. As LeCompte and Goetz (1982) noted, research involves participant observation usually result in poor or lack of validity (replicability) and reliability (accurancy) of research findings due to a lack of prospect of generalisation (LeCompte and Goetz, 1982). Dissimilar from many of the research using participant observation, Siobhan (2010)’s study illustrated the richness of her data on racial inequalities within three different exotic dance clubs in New York City. For example, data collected in Conquest (exotic dance club predominately for White people) demonstrated that Black dancers are seen as more hypersexualised than White dancers that customers can pay less but obtaining more sexual services, where data collected in Temptations (exotic dance club owned by Black people) shown that light-skinned Black dancers are more preferred by customers than darker skinned black dancers because are deemed as more erotic (Siobhan, 2010). In her research, it can be noted that data she gathered can be generalised as it is possible to transfer to other settings such as the racial difference in