ISSN 2039-2117 (online) ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 7 No 4 July 2016 184 Tackling the Issue of Credibility in Phenomenographic Interviewing to Capture Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Experience Suraini Mohd-Ali* Fariza Puteh-Behak Noor Saazai Md Saat Ramiaida Darmi Haliza Harun Rosni Samah Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Bandar Baru Nilai, 71800 Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia *Email suraini@usim.edu.my Doi:10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n4p Abstract The trustworthiness of any qualitative research is frequently questioned by positivists, perhaps because their notions of validity and reliability cannot be addressed in the same way in naturalistic work although, the framework for trustworthiness in this form of work have been in existence for many years. There are four issues of trustworthiness that are central in any qualitative research paradigm namely credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In this paper, the focus is on credibility issue in phenomenographic interviewing. Credibility is present when the research results mirror the view of the participants understudy. Investigating conceptions is the aim of phenomenographic researches and interview is commonly used as a tool to access people’s conceptions. The goal in phenomenographic research is to study the phenomenon through the lens of the participants hence, there is a high reliance on the data from the interviews with the research participants. In light of that, the phenomenographic researchers will have to exercise caution in carrying out the interviews to ensure the credibility of the data, which reflects the voice of the participants, is taken care of. Using the data from one of the author’s current research on learners’ experiences in Problem-Based Learning (PBL), the author illustrates the kind of interview questions or prompts used to elicit responses and how the credibility of the data (content-related credibility, credibility of method and communicative credibility) was attained by employing five interviewing strategies: 1) begin with superficially shared topic, 2) follow up questions focusing on eliciting ideas/concepts, 3) more follow up questions to get concrete examples of the ideas/concepts, 4) the use of empathy in the interview and 5) bracketing interviewer’s assumptions. Keywords: Research Credibility, Phenomenographic interview, Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Introduction 1. There is an often debate on the issue of trustworthiness of qualitative research by positivists because their concepts of validity and reliability cannot be framed in the same path as in naturalistic work. However, there are many writers on qualitative research methods have delineated how qualitative researchers can integrate measures that deal with these issues (Silverman, 2001; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The aim of trustworthiness in a qualitative inquiry is to support the argument that the inquiry’s findings are “worth paying attention to” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p.290). There are four issues of trustworthiness that are central in any qualitative research paradigm namely credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). For the purpose of this paper, only the issue of credibility will be discussed. Credibility is a measure used to find out whether the research findings characterise a “credible” conceptual explication of the data taken from the research participants’ original data (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In phenomenographic research, a qualitative research paradigm, the issue of credibility plays a more critical role since the primary data in this kind of study rely heavily on phenomenographic interviews. The central premise of phenomenographic interviewing is engaging participants through reflection and dialogue about their experience and