On Ensuring Rigour in Accounting Research

Researchers in accounting face a challenge of ensuring that their research findings are rigorous, relevant and trustworthy. In the absence of these qualities, academic research findings are irrelevant or unacceptable. This paper discusses what constitutes “rigour’ and outlines the methods of ensuring it in quantitative, qualitative and mixed studies in the social sciences generally and particularly accounting. The paper being wholly conceptual utilises literature review to assess criteria to evaluate rigour under the commonly used research approaches. The paper provides an in-depth discussion on validity and reliability issues with their threats under quantitative, qualitative and mixed research approaches. The study concludes with observations that rigour in mixed research is not a mere summation of rigour in quantitative and qualitative components of the mixed design. The paper also concludes that research rigour is enhanced through validity and reliability addressed differently with alternative terms under the three different research approaches in accounting.