Data Triangulation in Qualitative Research

Data Triangulation in Qualitative Research

Data: Today I was disappointed. My student Kay left his water bottle in my room. 20 minutes or so into my next class, I remembered Kay’s water bottle and turned to place it on my desk. As I picked it up, I quickly noticed it had been broken. Looking up, I then notice that the broken piece of Kay’s water bottle was in Carlos’s hands.

I addressed Carlos and ask him why he broke the water bottle, he said. “I don’t know miss”. I said Carlos, “would you want to come back to get your water bottle and find it broken?”. Carlos said, “No”. I asked him again why he did it, and he said he didn’t consider what he was actually doing. Along with Carlos breaking an object that isn’t his, my students are constantly breaking keys off the chromebooks. In times like these, I ask myself whether or not my students consider how their actions will affect others? I wonder how developed their empathy is? Recently, I have become more worried about my students and their ability to consider others before they act.

Validation through Triangulation: The interpretation of this data is that my students lack a developed sense of empathy because they don’t consider the feelings of others before they act. They also have the tendency to break items that don’t belong to them and consistently fail to consider the harm being done. To validate this interpretation, I would  need to implement empathy lesson plans and to determine how those lessons are affecting the students develop and understanding of empathy. To do this, I would need to gather data by triangulation. Meaning I would conduct interviews, class observations, and student work and determine how those data points are changing over time and if that change is affecting the understanding and expression of empathy. I could also consider surveying my students as well to gather information on their level of empathy. I would need to triangulate my data by gathering three separate sources.