"Ask Me No Secrets, I'll Tell You No Lies:" What Happens When a Respondent's Story Makes No Sense

Authors

Sarah Flicker, University of TorontoFollow

Abstract

In health research, we depend heavily on the goodwill of study participants. However, the whole social contract of health research is based on the premise that everyone comes to the research table with honorable intentions. What course should we take if we doubt the authenticity of our participants accounts? Through the use of an illustrative case study, this paper will explore three different ways of thinking about (and handling) implausible narratives.

Keywords

Reliability, Validity, Trustworthiness, Self-report, Lies, Qualitative, and Community-Based Participatory Research

Acknowledgements

I want to express my gratitude to the entire Positive Youth Project team– especially the youth who shared themselves and their stories. Many thanks to Harvey Skinner and Jeffery Aguinaldo for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Funds for this research were m a de possible by a grant from The Ontario HIV Treatment Network.

Publication Date

9-1-2004

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2004.1922

Recommended APA Citation

Flicker, S. (2004). "Ask Me No Secrets, I'll Tell You No Lies:" What Happens When a Respondent's Story Makes No Sense. The Qualitative Report, 9(3), 528-537. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2004.1922