Generalizability
The extent to which findings from a sample or setting can be applied to other people, contexts, or times.
Generalizability is the degree to which the results of a study apply beyond the specific sample, setting, and time in which they were produced. In quantitative research it is often called external validity and depends heavily on how the sample was drawn from the population. Probability sampling supports statistical generalization; convenience samples do not.
Qualitative research usually claims a different kind of transfer. Rather than statistical generalization, it aims for transferability: providing enough thick description of the context that readers can judge whether findings apply to their own settings, or generalizing analytically to theory rather than to populations.
In a thesis, claims must match the sampling. State precisely to whom and to what contexts the findings can extend, and no further. Overclaiming from a small or convenient sample is one of the most common examiner criticisms, while a carefully bounded claim is easy to defend.
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