Research Audit Trail: A Strategy for Enhancing Trustworthiness of Qualitative Research

Abstract

This academic paper aimed to conduct a detailed study of audit trail, a strategy for enhancing trustworthiness of qualitative research study. A non-systematic literature review method was applied in this study. A review of literatures related to the audit trail was conducted and data extraction was performed and used as a basis for composing this article. The concepts of validity and reliability including trustworthiness of qualitative research were reviewed along with the four principles of validity and reliability or trustworthiness of qualitative research; credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability plus 22 strategies for enhancing the trustworthiness of qualitative research stressing on audit trail. The review data was synthesized as a set of knowledge derived from this study as a step-by-step procedure for establishing a research audit trail. The process comprised six steps as follows: (1) a review of the four principles of trustworthiness of qualitative research (2) a review of the 22 strategies for determining the trustworthiness of qualitative research stressing on the audit trail (3) a review of the major components of the audit trail (4) a review of guidelines for establishing the audit trail (5) Establishing and application of the audit trail that lead to (6) trustworthiness of qualitative research project. This new procedure could be utilized by qualitative researchers especially the novice researchers in enhancing their qualitative research projects.