What does credibility mean in qualitative research?

The criteria for evaluating qualitative research is by reference to


1) credibility


2) transferability


3) dependability


4) confirmability





What on earth do these mean? how do you decide whether research is credible?

What does credibility mean in qualitative research?
Qualitative research describes the type of answers you would analyze from a survey, which is what I'm in the middle of completing for my Master's Degree.





Here is an example of one of my questions:





Are you challenged by your AP course?


Extremely challenged


Somewhat challenged


Not challenged at all





I surveyed 41 AP students, and have 41 answers. Some students also write in personal comments to describe why they don't feel challenged. This is qualitative research. In order to turn my qualitative research into quantitative, I'd make it into number format.





Qualitative example: One female senior states she is unchallenged because, "My instructor does not follow the curriculum for AP and is teaching us material we learned 2 years ago."





Quantitative example: 14% of the students feel unchallanged by their AP course.





Credibility refers to the questions asked, the population you are researching, the researcher's bias, validity of the research, etc.





Dependability refers to the outcomes, results, report of findings.





Not sure about the others though.





Good luck!