As qualitative methods instructors, we recognize the importance of offering clear guidance—both to our students and to the field more broadly—on how to navigate the ambiguous, diffuse terrain of quality in qualitative research. Accordingly, in this paper, we present a set of considerations that qualitative researchers might draw upon as they construct claims of trustworthiness. We first foreground several foundational understandings that inform the notion of trustworthiness, as grappling with these concepts is critical to articulating how trustworthy qualitative research is designed, interpreted, and represented. We then turn to contemporary HRD literature to examine how trustworthiness has typically been described, operationalized, and justified within the field, as this abbreviated review helps to locate and ground the conversation in existing scholarship. Building on this understanding, we translate some conceptual discussions on trustworthiness into practical considerations and offer key considerations for qualitative researchers in HRD to address trustworthiness in their own studies.
Lochmiller et al. (2026) studied this question.