Alterlab ssci reflexivity gate

Reflexivity Gate — Trustworthiness Before the Interpretivist Claim

Skill type: DISCIPLINE-ENFORCING. This is the qualitative analog of the measurement gate in the social-science methods spine. Where the measurement gate asks "is this number a valid, reliable measure?", the reflexivity gate asks "is this interpretation trustworthy — and is the researcher's hand in it made visible?" It runs no coding itself; it requires the warrant and routes execution to alterlab-qualitative-analysis.

The Core Rule

IN INTERPRETIVE WORK THE RESEARCHER IS THE INSTRUMENT. STATE POSITIONALITY AND EARN TRUSTWORTHINESS
BEFORE MAKING A CLAIM — DON'T ASSERT RIGOR, EVIDENCE IT.

Positivist validity does not transfer to interpretivist work. The field's analog is Lincoln & Guba's trustworthiness: credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability. A qualitative claim is only as strong as the warrant behind each — and the researcher's positionality shapes the finding, so it must be declared, not hidden behind a passive voice.

When to Use This Skill

• "Review the trustworthiness / rigor of my qualitative study."
• "I'm writing up my thematic / grounded-theory / ethnographic findings — am I ready?"
• "How do I address reflexivity and positionality in my methods section?"
• "Can I say my interpretivist findings generalize to other settings?" (← transferability warrant)

Does NOT Trigger

The request is really about…	Route to	Why not this skill
Quantitative scale reliability / validity (omega, CFA, invariance)	alterlab-ssci-measurement-gate	This gate is the qualitative validity analog.
Actually coding the data / computing intercoder reliability	alterlab-qualitative-analysis	This gate requires trustworthiness; that skill does the coding.
Choosing the qualitative design / method (grounded theory, phenomenology)	alterlab-qualitative-methods	Method selection, upstream.
Auditing the final written claim against design + evidence	alterlab-ssci-inference-gate	Terminal claim audit.
Picking the study design in the first place	alterlab-ssci-design-gate	Design routing.

The four trustworthiness criteria (Lincoln & Guba)

Criterion	Positivist analog	Warrant the gate requires
Credibility	internal validity	triangulation (data / investigator / method), member-checking, prolonged engagement, negative-case analysis, peer debriefing
Transferability	external validity	thick description of context so a reader can judge fit — NOT a claim of statistical generalization
Dependability	reliability	an audit trail: documented, traceable decisions from raw data to themes
Confirmability	objectivity	findings grounded in data, not researcher bias — reflexive bracketing, an audit of the chain of evidence

Positionality & reflexivity — evidenced, not asserted

Require a positionality statement: the researcher's role, relationship to participants/setting, and the standpoint (disciplinary, social, personal) that shapes interpretation. "Reflexivity" written as a one-line claim is not evidence — the gate wants how positionality was examined and how it affected coding/interpretation (e.g. a reflexive journal, bracketing notes, team debriefs).

Gate verdict semantics (matches the other ssci gates)

• PASS — positionality stated; all four trustworthiness criteria have a named, evidenced warrant.
• WARN — a criterion is addressed thinly (e.g. member-checking claimed but not described); advance with the caveat recorded in gate_log.
• BLOCK (fail-closed) — no positionality statement at all, OR an interpretivist generalization / causal claim with no transferability (thick-description) warrant. The claim must be scoped to the studied case, or the warrant supplied, before writing proceeds.

The Design Passport (hand-off)

Append the qualitative-validity stanza the orchestrator threads downstream:

positionality: <researcher role, relationship to setting, standpoint — or "MISSING" (BLOCK)>
trustworthiness:
  credibility: <triangulation / member-checking / prolonged engagement — evidence, or "none">
  transferability: <thick description present? scope of any transfer claim>
  dependability: <audit trail present?>
  confirmability: <reflexive bracketing / evidence chain>
reflexivity_evidence: <journal / bracketing / debriefs — how positionality was examined>
claim_scope: <case-bounded (transferable by thick description) | over-generalized (BLOCK)>

alterlab-ssci-inference-gate later audits the written claims against claim_scope.

Self-Check Before Advancing

• Is positionality stated and its effect on interpretation examined (not just asserted)?
• Does each of the four criteria have a named, evidenced warrant, not a bare label?
• Is any generalization scoped by thick description to what the case supports (not statistical)?
• Is the reliability step method-appropriate — a coefficient only for codebook/content-analytic work, consensus-and-reflexivity for reflexive TA (routed to alterlab-qualitative-analysis)?

References

• references/trustworthiness.md — the four criteria, their techniques, positionality guidance, and a write-up template.
• scripts/trustworthiness_checklist.py — stdlib linter flagging missing positionality / criteria / over-generalized claims against the Passport facts.

Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.