Reflections and review on the audit procedure: Guidelines for more transparency

Abstract

Arguably, quality assurance is more complicated in qualitative studies than in quantitative studies. Several procedures for quality assurance are available, among which the audit procedure as proposed by Akkerman, Admiraal, Brekelmans, and Oost. In this article, we reflect on this procedure based on our own experiences as well as based on a review of studies in which the audit procedure was employed. More specifically, we discuss (1) the choice for an auditor and the relationship between auditee and auditor and (2) the function of the audit. We propose that future auditees (a) explicitly report on the auditee–auditor relationship, (b) explicitly report on the function of their audit, and (c) have their audit trail documents available for review. With this methodological position paper, we aim to contribute to the current call to make social science studies and their conclusions more transparent and thereby to enhance the quality of qualitative studies.