TRIANGLES AND CRYSTALS - ON THE GEOMETRY OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Triangulation has become increasingly appealing to researchers in nurs ing as a device to grasp the complexity of human phenomena, operationa lize the holistic elan of nursing, and to accommodate both qualitative and quantitative approaches to inquiry. Yet, a misplaced ecumenicism, definitional drift, and conceptual misappropriation are evident in di scussions of triangulation, which has become a technique for everythin g. Moreover, the triangle is somewhat lacking as image and metaphor fo r qualitative inquiry. As an idea and technique (in)formed by the tria ngle, triangulation should be used only to refer to a distinctive stra tegy for confirmation employed within research paradigms in which conv ergent and consensual validity are valued, and in which it is deemed a ppropriate to use information from one source to corroborate another. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.