reflexivity in qualitative research example

Chapter 6. Reflexivity

Introduction.

Related to epistemological issues of how we know anything about the social world, qualitative researchers understand that we the researchers can never be truly neutral or outside the study we are conducting. As observers, we see things that make sense to us and may entirely miss what is either too obvious to note or too different to comprehend. As interviewers, as much as we would like to ask questions neutrally and remain in the background, interviews are a form of conversation, and the persons we interview are responding to us . Therefore, it is important to reflect upon our social positions and the knowledges and expectations we bring to our work and to work through any blind spots that we may have. This chapter discusses the concept of reflexivity and its importance for conducting reliable qualitative research.

Reflexivity: What It Is and Why It Is Important

Remember our discussion in epistemology ? Qualitative researchers tend to question assertions of absolute fact or reality, unmediated through subject positions and subject knowledge. There are limits to what we know because we are part of the social worlds we inhabit. To use the terminology of standpoint theorists, we have a standpoint from which we observe the world just as much as anyone else. In this, we too are the blind men, and the world is our elephant. None of us are omniscient or neutral observers. Because of this epistemological standpoint, qualitative researchers value the ability to reflect upon and think hard about our own effects on our research. We call this reflexivity. Reflexivity “generally involves the self-examination of how research findings were produced, and, particularly, the role of the researcher in their construction” ( Heaton 2004:104 ).

There are many aspects of being reflexive. First, there is the simple fact that we are human beings with the limitations that come with that condition. We have likes and dislikes, biases, blind spots, preferences, and so on. If we do not take these into account, they can prevent us from being the best researcher we can be. Being reflective means, first and foremost, trying as best as possible to bracket out elements of our own character and understanding that get in the way. It is important to note that bias (in this context, at least) is not inherently wrong. It just is. Unavoidable. But by noting it, we can minimize its impact or, in some cases, help explain more clearly what it is we see or why it is that we are asking the questions we are asking. For example, I might want to communicate to my audience that I grew up poor and that I have a lot of sympathy and concern for first-generation college students as a result. This “bias” of mine motivates me to do the work I do, even as I try to ensure that it does not blind me to things I find out in the course of my research. [1]

A second aspect of being reflexive is being aware that you yourself are part of the research when you are conducting qualitative research. This is particularly true when conducting interviews, observing interactions, or participating in activities. You have a body, and it will be “read” by those in the field. You will be perceived as an insider or an outsider, as a friend or foe, as empathetic or hostile. Some of this will be wrong. People will prejudge you based on the color of your skin, your presented gender, the accent of your language. People will classify you based on the clothes you wear, and they will be more open to you if you remind them of a friendly aunt or uncle and more reserved if you remind them of someone they don’t like. This is all natural and inevitable. Your research will suffer if you do not take this into account, if you do not reflect upon how you are being read and how this might be influencing what people tell you or what they are willing to do in front of you. The flip side of this problem is that your particular body and presence will open some doors barred to other researchers. Finding sites and contexts where your presented self is a benefit rather than a burden is an important part of your individual research career. Be honest with yourself about this, and you will be more successful as a qualitative researcher. Learn to leverage yourself in your research.

The third aspect of being reflexive is related to how we communicate our work to others. Being honest with our position, as I am about my own social background and its potential impact on what I study or about how I leveraged my own position to get people to open up to me, helps our audiences evaluate what we have found. Maybe I haven’t entirely eliminated my biases or weaknesses, but by telling my audience who I am and where I potentially stand, they can take account of those biases and weaknesses in their reading of my findings. Letting them know that I wore pink when talking with older men because that made them more likely to be kind to me (a strategy acknowledged by Posselt [ 2016 ]) helps them understand the interview context. In other words, my research becomes more reliable when my own social position and the strategies I used are communicated.

Some people think being reflective is just another form of narcissistic navel-gazing. “The study is not about you!” they might cry. True, to some degree—but that also misses the point. All studies on the social world are inevitably about us as well because we are part of that social world. It is actually more dangerous to pretend that we are neutral observers, outside what we are observing. Pierre Bourdieu makes this point several times, and I think it is worth quoting him here: “The idea of a neutral science is fiction, an interested fiction which enables its authors to present a version of the dominant representation of the social world, naturalized and euphemized into a particularly misrecognizable and symbolically, therefore, particularly effective form, and to call it scientific” (quoted in Lemert 1981:278 ).

Bourdieu ( 1984 ) argues that reflective analysis is “not an epistemological scruple” but rather “an indispensable pre-condition of scientific knowledge of the object” ( 92 ). It would be narcissistic to present findings without reflection, as that would give much more weight to any findings or insights that emerge than is due.

The critics are right about one thing, however. Putting oneself at the center of the research is also inappropriate. [2] The focus should be on what is being researched, and the reflexivity is there to advance the study, not to push it aside. This issue has emerged at times when researchers from dominant social positions reflect upon their social locations vis-à-vis study participants from marginalized locations. A researcher who studies how low-income women of color experience unemployment might need to address her White, upper-class, fully employed social location, but not at the cost of crowding out the stories, lived experiences, and understandings of the women she has interviewed. This can sometimes be a delicate balance, and not everyone will agree that a person has walked it correctly.

Examples of Reflexivity in Practice

Most qualitative researchers include a positionality statement in any “methods section” of their publications. This allows readers to understand the location of the researcher, which is often helpful for gauging reliability . Many journals now require brief positionality statements as well. Here are a few examples of such statements.

The first is from an ethnographic study of elite golfers. Ceron-Anaya ( 2017 ) writes about his class, race, and gender and how these aspects of his identity and social location affected his interactions with research participants:

My own class origins, situated near the intersection between the middle and the lower-middle class, hindered cooperation in some cases. For example, the amiable interaction with one club member changed toward the end of the interview when he realized that I commonly moved about in the city by public transportation (which is a strong class indicator). He was not rude but stopped elaborating on the answers as he had been doing up to that point.…Bodily confidence is a privilege of the privileged. My subordinate position, vis-à-vis golfers, was ameliorated by my possession of cultural capital, objectified in my status of researcher/student in a western university. However, my cultural capital dwindled in its value at the invisible but firm boundary between the upper-middle and the upper class. The few contacts I made with members of the upper class produced no connections with other members of the same group, illustrating how the research process is also inserted in the symbolic and material dynamics that shape the field. ( 288 )

What did you learn from Ceron-Anaya’s reflection? If he hadn’t told you about his background, would this have made a difference in reading about elite golfers? Would the findings be different had Ceron-Anaya driven up to the club in a limousine? Is it helpful to know he came by bus?

The second example is from a study on first-generation college students. Hinz ( 2016 ) discusses both differences and similarities between herself and those she interviewed and how both could have affected the study:

I endeavored to avoid researcher bias by allowing the data to speak for itself, but my own habitus as a White, female, middle-class second-generation college student with a few years of association with Selective State [elite university] may have influenced my interpretation. Being a Selective State student at the time of the interviews provided a familiarity with the environment in which the participants were living, and an ease of communication facilitated by a shared institutional culture. And yet, not being a first-gen myself, it seemed as if I were standing on the periphery of their experience, looking in. ( 289–290 )

Note that Hinz cannot change who she is, nor should she. Being aware (reflective) that she may “stand on the periphery” of the experience of those she interviews has probably helped her listen more closely rather than assume she understands what is really going on. Do you find her more reliable given this?

These statements can be quite long, especially when found in methodological appendixes in books rather than short statements in articles. This last lengthy example comes from my own work. I try to place myself, explaining the motivations for the research I conducted at small liberal arts colleges:

I began this project out of a deep curiosity about how college graduates today were faring in an increasingly debt-ridden and unequal labor market. I was working at a small liberal arts college when I began thinking about this project and was poised to take a job at another one. During my interview for the new job, I was told that I was a good fit, because I had attended Barnard College, so I knew what the point of a liberal arts college was. I did. A small liberal arts college was a magical place. You could study anything you wanted, for no reason at all, simply for the love of it. And people would like you for it. You were surrounded by readers, by people who liked to dress up in costume and recite Shakespeare, by people who would talk deep into the night about the meaning of life or whether “beauty” existed out there, in nature, or was simply a projection of our own circumstances. My own experience at Barnard had been somewhat like that. I studied Ancient Greek and Latin, wrote an undergraduate thesis on the legal standing of Vestal Virgins in Ancient Rome, and took frequent subway rides to the Cloisters, the medieval annex of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I sketched the courtyard and stared at unicorn tapestries. But I also worked full-time, as a waitress at a series of hectic and demanding restaurants around the city, as a security guard for the dorm, as a babysitter for some pretty privileged professors who lived in doorman buildings along Riverside Park, and at the library (the best job by far). I also constantly worried I would not be able to finish my degree, as every year I was unsure how I would come up with the money to pay for costs of college above and beyond the tuition (which, happily, was covered by the college given my family’s low income). Indeed, the primary reason I studied the Classics was because all the books were freely available in the library. There are no modern textbooks—you just find a copy of the Iliad. There are a lot of those in a city like New York. Due to my fears, I pushed to graduate one year early, taking a degree in “Ancient Studies” instead of “Classics,” which could have led on to graduate training. From there, I went to law school, which seemed like a safe choice. I do not remember ever having a conversation with anyone about how to find a job or what kinds of job one could do with a degree in Ancient Studies. I had little to no social networks, as I had spent my time studying and working. And I was very lucky, because I graduated with almost zero debt. For years, until that job interview, I hadn’t really thought my Barnard experience had been that great or unusual. But now it was directly helping me get a job, about fifteen years after graduation. And it probably had made me a better person, whatever that means. Had I graduated with debt, however, I am not so sure that it would have been worth it. Was it, on balance, a real opportunity and benefit for poor students like me? Even now? I had a hunch of what I might find if I looked: small liberal arts colleges were unique places of opportunity for low-income first-generation working-class students who somehow managed to find and get in to one of them (no easy task). I thought that, because of their ethos, their smallness, the fact that one could not hide from professors, these colleges would do a fair job equalizing opportunities and experiences for all their students. I wanted to tell this story. But that is not the story that I found, or not entirely. While everyone benefits from the kind of education a small liberal arts college can offer, because students begin and continue so differently burdened and privileged, the advantages of the already-advantaged are amplified, potentially increasing rather than decreasing initial inequalities. That is not really a surprising story, but it is an important one to tell and to remember. Education doesn’t reduce inequality. Going to a good college doesn’t level the playing field for low-income, first-generation, working-class students. But perhaps it can help them write a book about that. ( Hurst 2019:259–261 )

What do you think? Did you learn something about the author that would help you, as a reader, understand the reasons and context for the study? Would you trust the researcher? If you said yes, why?

How to Do It

How does one become a reflective researcher? Practice! Nearly every great qualitative researcher maintains a reflexive journal (there are exceptions that prove the rule), a type of diary where they record their thinking on the research process itself. This might include writing about the research design (chapter 2), plotting out strategies for sample selection (chapter 6), or talking through what one believes can be known (chapter 3). During analysis, this journal is a place to record ideas and insights and pose questions for further reflection or follow-up studies. This journal should be highly personal. It is a place to record fears, concerns, and hopes as well. Why are you studying what you are studying? What is really motivating you? Being clear with yourself and being able to put it down in words are invaluable to the research process.

Today, there are many blogs out there on writing reflective journals, with helpful suggestions and examples. Although you may want to take a look at some of these, the form of your own journal will probably be unique. This is you, the researcher, on the page. Each of us looks different. Use the journal to interrogate your decisions and clarify your intent. If you find something during the study of note, you might want to ask yourself what led you to note that. Why do you think this “thing” is a “thing”? What about your own position, background, or researcher status that makes you take note? And asking yourself this question might lead you to think about what you did not notice. Other questions to ask yourself include the following: How do I know “that thing” I noted? So what? What does it mean? What are the implications? Who cares about this and why? Remember that doing qualitative research well is recursive , meaning that we may begin with a research design, but the steps of doing the research often loop back to the beginning. By keeping a reflective journal, you allow yourself to circle back to the beginning, to make changes to the study to keep it in line with what you are really interested in knowing.

One might also consider designing research that includes multiple investigators, particularly those who may not share your preconceptions about the study. For example, if you are studying conservative students on campus, and you yourself thoroughly identify as liberal, you might want to pair up with a researcher interested in the topic who grew up in a conservative household. If you are studying racial regimes, consider creating a racially diverse team of researchers. Or you might include in your research design a component of participatory research wherein members of the community of interest become coresearchers. Even if you can’t form a research team, you can reach out to others for feedback as you move along. Doing research can be a lonely enterprise, so finding people who will listen to you and nudge you to clarify your thinking where necessary or move you to consider an aspect you have missed is invaluable.

Finally, make it a regular part of your practice to write a paragraph reporting your perspectives, positions, values, and beliefs and how these may have influenced the research. This paragraph may be included in publications upon request.

Internal Validity

Being reflexive can help ensure that our studies are internally valid. All research must be valid to be helpful. We say a study’s findings are externally valid when they are equally true of other times, places, people. Quantitative researchers often spend a lot of time grappling with external validity , as they are often trying to demonstrate that their sample is representative of a larger population. Although we do not do that in qualitative research, we do sometimes make claims that the processes and mechanisms we uncover here, in this particular setting, are likely to be equally active in that setting over there, although there may be (will be!) contextual differences as well. Internal validity is more peculiar to qualitative research. Is your finding an accurate representation of what you are studying? Are you describing the people you are observing or interviewing as they really are? This is internal validity , and you should be able to see how this connects with the requirement of reflexivity. To the extent that you leave unexamined your own biases or preconceptions, you will fail at accurately representing those people and processes you study. Remember that “bias” here is not a moral failing in the way we commonly use bias in the nonresearch world but an inevitable product of our being social beings who inhabit social worlds, with all the various complexities surrounding that. Because of things that have happened to you, certain things (concepts, quotes, activities) might jump out at you as being particularly important. Being reflexive allows you to take a step back and grapple with the larger picture, reflecting on why you might be seeing X (which is present) but also missing Y (which is also present). It also allows you to consider what effect/impact your presence has on what you are observing or being told and to make any adjustments necessary to minimize your impact or, at the very least, to be aware of these effects and talk about them in any descriptions or presentations you make. There are other ways of ensuring internal validity (e.g., member checking , triangulation ), but being reflective is an essential component.

Advanced: Bourdieu on Reflexivity

One researcher who really tackled the issue of reflexivity was Pierre Bourdieu. [3] Known in the US primarily as a theorist, Bourdieu was a very capable and thorough researcher, who employed a variety of methods in his wide-ranging studies. Originally trained as an anthropologist, he became uncomfortable with the unreflective “outsider perspective” he was taught to follow. How was he supposed to observe and write about the various customs and rules of the people he was studying if he did not take into account his own supposedly neutral position in the observations? And even more interestingly, how could he write about customs and rules as if they were lifted from but outside of the understandings and practice of the people following them? When you say “God bless you” to someone who sneezes, are you really following a social custom that requires the prevention of illness through some performative verbal ritual of protection, or are you saying words out of reflex and habit? Bourdieu wondered what it meant that anthropologists were so ready to attribute meaning to actions that, to those performing them, were probably unconsidered. This caused him to ponder those deep epistemological questions about the possibilities of knowledge, particularly what we can know and truly understand about others. Throughout the following decades, as he developed his theories about the social world out of the deep and various studies he engaged in, he thought about the relationship between the researcher and the researched. He came to several conclusions about this relationship.

First, he argued that researchers needed to be reflective about their position vis-à-vis the object of study. The very fact that there is a subject and an object needs to be accounted for. Too often, he argued, the researcher forgets that part of the relationship, bracketing out the researcher entirely, as if what is being observed or studied exists entirely independently of the study. This can lead to false reports, as in the case where a blind man grasps the trunk of the elephant and claims the elephant is cylindrical, not having recognized how his own limitations of sight reduced the elephant to only one of its parts.

As mentioned previously, Bourdieu ( 1984 ) argued that “reflective analysis of the tools of analysis is not an epistemological scruple but an indispensable precondition of scientific knowledge of the object” ( 92 ). It is not that researchers are inherently biased—they are—but rather that the relationship between researcher and researched is an unnatural one that needs to be accounted for in the analysis. True and total objectivity is impossible, as researchers are human subjects themselves, called to research what interests them (or what interests their supervisors) and also inhabiting the social world. The solution to this problem is to be reflective and to account for these aspects in the analysis itself. Here is how Bourdieu explains this charge:

To adopt the viewpoint of REFLEXIVITY is not to renounce objectivity but to question the privilege of the knowing subject, which the antigenetic vision arbitrarily frees, as purely noetic, from the labor of objectification. To adopt this viewpoint is to strive to account for the empirical “subject” in the very terms of the objectivity constructed by the scientific subject (notably by situating it in a determined place in social space-time) and thereby to give oneself awareness and (possible) mastery of the constraints which may be exercised on the scientific subject via all the ties which attach it to the empirical “subject,” to its interests, motives, assumptions, beliefs, its doxa, and which it must break in order to constitute itself . ( 1996:207 ; emphases added)

Reflexivity, for Bourdieu, was a trained state of mind for the researcher, essential for proper knowledge production. Let’s use a story from Hans Christian Andersen to illustrate this point. If you remember this story from your childhood, it goes something like this: Two con artists show up in a town in which its chief monarch spends a lot of money on expensive clothes and splashy displays. They sense an opportunity to make some money out of this situation and pretend they are talented weavers from afar. They tell the vain emperor that they can make the most magnificent clothes anyone has ever seen (or not seen, as the case may be!). Because what they really do is “pretend” to weave and sew and hand the emperor thin air, which they then help him to put on in an elaborate joke. They tell him that only the very stupid and lowborn will be unable to see the magnificent clothes. Embarrassed that he can’t see them either, he pretends he can. Everyone pretends they can see clothes, when really the emperor walks around in his bare nakedness. As he parades through town, people redden and bow their heads, but no one says a thing. That is, until one child looks at the naked emperor and starts to laugh. His laughter breaks the spell, and everyone realizes the “naked truth.”

Now let us add a new thread to this story. The boy did not laugh. Years go by, and the emperor continues to wear his new clothes. At the start of every day, his aides carefully drape the “new clothes” around his naked body. Decades go by, and this is all “normal.” People don’t even see a naked emperor but a fully robed leader of the free world. A researcher, raised in this milieu, visits the palace to observe court habits. She observes the aides draping the emperor. She describes the care they take in doing so. She nowhere reports that the clothes are nonexistent because she herself has been trained to see them . She thus misses a very important fact—that there are no clothes at all! Note that it is not her individual “biases” that are getting in the way but her unreflective acceptance of the reality she inhabits that binds her to report things less accurately than she might.

In his later years, Bourdieu turned his attention to science itself and argued that the promise of modern science required reflectivity among scientists. We need to develop our reflexivity as we develop other muscles, through constant practice. Bourdieu ( 2004 ) urged researchers “to convert reflexivity into a disposition, constitutive of their scientific habitus, a reflexivity reflex , capable of acting not ex poste , on the opus operatum , but a priori , on the modus operandi ” ( 89 ). In other words, we need to build into our research design an appreciation of the relationship between researcher and researched.

To do science properly is to be reflective, to be aware of the social waters in which one swims and to turn one’s researching gaze on oneself and one’s researcher position as well as on the object of the research. Above all, doing science properly requires one to acknowledge science as a social process. We are not omniscient gods, lurking above the humans we observe and talk to. We are human too.

Reflexivity in Qualitative Research

Affiliation.

1 1 Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO, USA.
PMID: 30849272
DOI: 10.1177/0890334419830990

All qualitative research is contextual; it occurs within a specific time and place between two or more people. If a researcher clearly describes the contextual intersecting relationships between the participants and themselves (reflexivity), it not only increases the creditability of the findings but also deepens our understanding of the work. The issues surrounding the researchers' reflexivity are many and complex; however, journal space for discussing them may be very limited. Therefore the researcher has the responsibility of succinctly and clearly addressing these issues, so the reader can evaluate the research. Some of the ways that researchers can address reflexivity are discussed.

Keywords: Breastfeeding; health services research; qualitative methods.

Breast Feeding*
Health Services Research / standards
Qualitative Research*
Research Design / standards*

Reflexivity and Positionality in Qualitative Research: On Being an Outsider in the Field

First Online: 29 November 2023

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reflexivity in qualitative research example

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Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attention to the impact of researchers’ multiple identities on research findings and knowledge production. They have also highlighted the intersectional, fluid, and context-dependent nature of positionality. In dialogue with this literature, this chapter acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding the insider/outsider dichotomy and focuses on being an “outsider”—as an ideal-typical category—when conducting ethnographic field research. Building on the author’s research experience among Kurdish religious elites in Southeastern Anatolia, where she was an outsider on many levels, it inquires about the challenges and advantages of the “outsider” position. Through vignettes and dialogues from the field it provides insight into how to navigate the fragile ground of such a position.

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“Kurdish movement” includes the complex set of legal and illegal Kurdish organizations associated with the Kurdish struggle for greater political and cultural rights and political autonomy. It comprises the illegal PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan/Kürdistan İşçi Partisi/Kurdistan Workers’ Party), and TAK (Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan/Kurdistan Özgürlük Şahinleri/ Kurdistan Freedom Hawks), a PKK offshoot, and the legal HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi/Peoples’ Democratic Party), DBP (Demokratik Bölgeler Partisi/Democratic Regions Party), DTK (Demokratik Toplum Kongresi/Democratic Society Congress), and HDK (Halkların Demokratik Kongresi/Peoples’ Democratic Congress). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the government of Turkey, the USA, EU and NATO.

My field research encompassed three cities in total: Diyarbakır, Batman, and İstanbul. However, for the purposes of this piece, I will be focusing only on my time and experiences in the former two (especially in Diyarbakır), as I did not occupy the same “outsider” position in İstanbul

Note, however, that there were also Kurdish revolts in the Ottoman Empire, which took place as early as the nineteenth century, mostly against the centralizing reforms of the empire at the time (see Chailand, 1993 ).

See details at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/turkeys-pkk-conflict-visualexplainer . Accessed January 10, 2020.

There is no official ban on Kurdish language in Turkey but Kurdish has been de facto criminalized since the very early days of the Republic. (The speaking of Kurdish in public was outlawed between 1983 and 1991.) The current constitution, penned in 1980, recognizes only Turkish as the country’s official language and article 42 of the constitution states that no language other than Turkish can be taught as a native tongue to Turkish citizens. Moreover, since the coup attempt in 2016, scores of Kurdish-language TVs, newspapers, and Kurdish-language courses have been closed down by emergency decrees.

While Kurds call Southeastern Anatolia “Northern Kurdistan” (Bakur), the Turkish media and politicians have, for a long time, called it “the region.”

Not connected to the Lebanese Hizbullah, the Kurdish Hizbullah was engaged in armed conflict with the PKK throughout the 1990s. In 2000, the leader of the organization, Hüseyin Velioğlu, was killed in a police raid in İstanbul and hundreds of Hizbullah members were detained. They have managed to survive as an underground organization and in 2013 founded an Islamist political party with the name of Hür Dava Partisi (Free Cause Party).

The Adıyaman-based Menzil has its roots in the Naqshbandi-Khalidi order and is currently one of the most influential religious orders in Turkish politics, with extensive networks all over the country.

Sohbet means conversation in Turkish. In this context, it refers to pious reading circles where informal conversations with religious overtones take place.

Established in the 1970s by Fethullah Gülen, a preacher in self-exile in the US since 1999 (due to charges of engaging in anti-secular activities), the Gülen movement used to be the largest religious network in Turkey. Called Hizmet (Service) by its followers, Cemaat (Jamaat) by some journalists and researchers, and Fethullah Terör Örgütü (Fethullah Terrorist Organization), FETÖ, by the government, the movement follows the teachings of Said-i Nursi, a Kurdish Sunni Muslim theologian who lived at the turn of the twentieth century. Between 2002 and 2012 they allied with the AKP to facilitate the latter’s takeover of key political institutions. At the time, the movement was accused of and criticized for using wiretapping, blackmail and fraud in eliminating rivals. The alliance started to crack in 2011 and reached a climax in 2016 when a clique in the Turkish Armed Forces attempted to undertake a coup to topple the government. Accusing Gülen for masterminding the coup the AKP has since started an all-out-war against Gülenists; thousands have been imprisoned and exiled, and the assets of Gülenist companies have been confiscated.

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Türkmen, G. (2023). Reflexivity and Positionality in Qualitative Research: On Being an Outsider in the Field. In: Şen, E., Sandal Önal, E., Sefa Uysal, M., Acar, Y.G. (eds) The Political Psychology of Kurds in Turkey. Palgrave Studies in Political Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33291-3_8

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The Ultimate Guide to Qualitative Research - Part 1: The Basics

Introduction and overview
What is qualitative research?
What is qualitative data?
Examples of qualitative data
Qualitative vs. quantitative research
Mixed methods
Qualitative research preparation
Theoretical perspective
Theoretical framework
Literature reviews
Research question
Conceptual framework
Conceptual vs. theoretical framework
Data collection
Qualitative research methods
Focus groups
Observational research
Case studies
Ethnographical research
Ethical considerations
Confidentiality and privacy
Power dynamics

Basic overview of reflexivity

Types of reflexivity, techniques for practicing reflexivity, reflexivity.

When conducting qualitative research that involves humans as a source of data and a tool for data analysis , researchers should be particularly mindful of subjectivity in research . Moreover, your audience expects you to demonstrate this mindfulness when you communicate rigorous qualitative research. As a result, reflexivity is an essential component in qualitative methods. Reflexive practices are necessary to ensure that the data and findings are trustworthy, both from the qualitative researcher's standpoint and the audience’s standpoint.

Reflexivity, in the context of qualitative research , refers to the process of continually reflecting upon the researcher's role, biases, values, and relationships, both with the research subject and the data collection and analysis processes. This concept is rooted in the recognition that researchers are not passive, objective observers.

Instead, they actively construct knowledge and are intrinsically linked to the research they conduct. This is, of course, also true in the physical and natural sciences and any discipline that employs quantitative research . In a way, understanding concepts such as gravity and speed can also be subjectively influenced by people's knowledge and perspectives of the world around them. That said, reflexivity is a key research practice in the social sciences and in any discipline that employs qualitative research methods , particularly when such disciplines deal with concepts and theories of social interaction, interpersonal relations, and cultural practices.

What is reflexivity?

Reflexivity is the practice of self-awareness in research as researchers critically examine their influence on the construction and interpretation of knowledge. The researcher's social background, assumptions, positioning, and behavior can all shape various stages of research, including data collection, analysis, and interpretation . Reflexivity, therefore, asks researchers to become aware of and articulate their perspectives, assumptions, and influences on the research. Reflexivity involves two primary components: personal reflexivity and epistemological reflexivity. Personal reflexivity relates to how the researcher's values, experiences, interests, beliefs, political commitments, wider aims in life, and social identities have shaped the research. It includes reflection on how the research may affect and transform the researcher over time. Epistemological reflexivity, on the other hand, refers to how aspects of the research process and methodology, such as the research question , data collection instruments, or underlying epistemological assumptions, might be shaping the data and analysis that is produced.

Reflexivity is critical in qualitative research for several reasons. Firstly, it enhances the credibility and accountability of the research. By being transparent about their views and assumptions, researchers can allow the audience to understand their perspective and the potential influence it may have on the research findings. Secondly, reflexivity is a tool for ethical research conduct. It ensures that researchers are cognizant of their power dynamics with participants and mindful of their responsibility and potential influence. This reflection can help prevent exploitation or harm and promote respect for participants' rights and dignity. Lastly, reflexivity can enrich research processes. It encourages researchers to question their own assumptions, leading to more thoughtful, nuanced, and critical interpretations of the data. This self-reflection can also lead to new research questions, improving the depth and breadth of the inquiry.

What is an example of reflexivity?

For an example of reflexivity in qualitative research, let’s consider a sociologist studying poverty in their own community. Their personal experiences and preconceptions about the community can impact how they approach the research, the questions they ask, and how they interpret the data. In any qualitative research project, the researcher often acknowledges their personal connections and beliefs about the community. They could recognize that their experiences might lead them to overemphasize certain aspects and overlook others. During data collection, they might reflect on how their presence and identity impact the participants' responses.

When analyzing the data, researchers could question their interpretations and challenge their assumptions. In management research, for example, does the researcher have a solid grasp of the relationships in the workplace, given the power dynamics present between individuals? In mental health research, do the researcher's interactions with clinical patients involve the necessary care and respect while collecting data? A researcher might also consider how their position of privilege as a researcher affects their relationship with the participants and the research process. Finally, in presenting their findings, they might discuss these reflexive considerations, providing the audience with a clearer understanding of the context and interpretation of the data. In this way, reflexivity becomes a continuous, integral part of the research process, enhancing its credibility, ethical conduct, and depth of inquiry.

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Reflexivity in qualitative research is multifaceted and can be categorized into two primary types: personal reflexivity and epistemological reflexivity. Each of these types plays a unique role in research and offers different lenses through which the researcher can examine their influence on the research.

Personal reflexivity or researcher reflexivity involves the researcher reflecting on the ways in which their personal characteristics, experiences, values, and beliefs shape the research and outcomes. Qualitative researchers incorporate their personal histories, identities, and worldviews into the research. This approach can subtly or overtly influence every aspect of the study, from the selection of the topic to the formulation of research questions , to the interpretation of findings . For instance, a researcher's cultural background can influence their understanding and interpretation of participants' experiences. A researcher who has experienced poverty might bring unique insights to a study on socioeconomic inequalities but may also hold certain biases or preconceptions that must be acknowledged. Personal reflexivity also involves reflecting on the researcher's emotions and how they might affect the research. It is not uncommon for researchers to experience a range of emotions during the research process. These emotions can impact how the researcher interacts with participants, collects and interprets data, and presents the research findings .

Epistemological reflexivity, on the other hand, involves reflecting on the assumptions and knowledge claims made in the research. This type of reflexivity requires researchers to question the paradigms, methods, and theories they adopt in their research and to consider how these choices shape the knowledge they construct. For example, a researcher conducting a phenomenological study might reflect on their assumption that individuals' lived experiences can provide valuable insights into a phenomenon. They might also consider how their choice of phenomenology influences the research, such as how they collect and interpret data and how they present their findings. Epistemological reflexivity also involves considering the limitations of the research. Every research approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledging these can enhance the credibility of the research. For instance, a researcher might reflect on how their choice of a particular method could have led to the omission of certain perspectives or the overemphasis of others.

Practicing reflexivity requires intentional and systematic efforts from the researcher. Here, we'll explore three techniques that can help qualitative researchers carefully engage in reflexive research: keeping a reflexive journal, conducting peer debriefing , and engaging in critical self-reflection.

One effective way to practice reflexivity is by keeping a reflexive journal. This is a personal record where the researcher can document thoughts, feelings, observations, and reflections throughout the research process. The journal can include reflections on interactions with research participants, decisions about data collection and analysis , interpretations of findings , and the researcher's emotional reactions to the research. For example, after each interview , the researcher might write about how they felt during the interaction, how they think their behavior or identity might have influenced the participant's responses, and any assumptions or biases they noticed in their questions or reactions. They might also reflect on how their interpretations of the data are influenced by their personal experiences or theoretical leanings. A reflexive journal not only facilitates reflexivity during the research process but also serves as a valuable record that can be shared with the research audience, enhancing the transparency and credibility of the research.

Peer debriefing is another useful technique for practicing reflexivity. This involves conducting research dissemination with colleagues or mentors who can provide an outside perspective. These discussions can help reflexive researchers identify potential biases, challenge their interpretations, and consider alternative explanations. For instance, a researcher might share their interview transcripts and preliminary analyses with a colleague. The colleague might question the researcher's interpretations, point out potential biases in the coding process, or suggest additional themes that the researcher might have overlooked. These conversations can enhance the rigor and credibility of the research by ensuring that the findings are grounded in the data and relevant literature rather than solely being based on the researcher's personal perspective.

Finally, engaging in critical self-reflection is a fundamental aspect of reflexivity. This involves the researcher critically examining their assumptions, values, and worldviews. The researcher then considers how these elements might influence the research. Critical self-reflection can take many forms. For example, the researcher might reflect on their personal experiences and how these might relate to the research topic. They might consider their positionality concerning the participants and reflect on the power dynamics that this might entail. They might also question their theoretical assumptions and consider how these shape their research questions, methods, and interpretations. Self-reflection requires openness, honesty, and courage. It's not always comfortable to confront one's biases or to acknowledge the limitations of one's research. However, this discomfort is a crucial part of reflexivity, leading to greater self-awareness, ethical conduct, and research rigor. In summary, keeping a reflexive journal, conducting peer debriefing, and engaging in critical self-reflection are three practical techniques for practicing reflexivity. These techniques can help researchers self-consciously critique themselves and their methods so they can be more mindful of their role and influence in the research process, enhancing the credibility, ethics, and depth of their qualitative inquiry.

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This is the end of Part 1 of The Ultimate Guide to Qualitative Research. For Part 2 click here

Know Thyself: How to Write a Reflexivity Statement

More self-awareness will help you on your path to being a better psychologist..

Posted May 22, 2018 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

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Physicists have known for decades that the process of observing and measuring phenomena changes those very phenomena—the so-called “observer effect." It does not even matter whether the “observer” is a human or some mechanical apparatus—there is an unavoidable impact on what is being measured, even at the quantum level. Further, the more watching, the greater the effect.

Social scientists know that researchers can affect outcomes too. This is the reason for double-blind studies because it turns out that experimenters can unconsciously give cues to participants and bias study results. This is one way to create a placebo effect .

Really, despite how incredibly well-known these researcher effects are, it’s kind of remarkable the extent to which social scientists still adopt the cloak of objectivity. The cloak of objectivity basically involves pretending that pure, objective reason guides every aspect of psychological research—the choice of topic, the research questions, the measures, the analyses, the interpretation.

In some circles, it is so important to maintain this charade of impartiality that we even avoid using pronouns in our sentences. We say things such as “the surveys were administered” in a way that suggests that humans were not the actors passing out the surveys. (As an aside, disguising the role of researchers through the extensive use of passive tense is also one reason why so many research articles are so difficult and dull to read.)

In research on social problems, we can be particularly sensitive about the issue of neutrality. “Advocacy research” is hurled like a slur at people who study violence, who—shocking!—are openly against violence.

I’ve always found this to be especially ridiculous. Researchers are not typically neutral about their topics. The cancer researcher is not neutral about whether a new drug makes a tumor shrink or grow. The rocket scientist is not neutral about whether the rocket reaches the moon.

We need to abandon the cloak of objectivity. Social scientists are part of the social contexts that they study. A physicist may create an artificial vacuum in the lab (and still not be fully immune from the observer effect), but social science has never and will never exist in a vacuum.

Social scientists cannot step outside of culture, nor their place in history. We cannot get “outside” of the phenomena we are attempting to study. Or, more pithily, “wherever you go, there you are.” 1 Awareness of your place in the social-cultural context can help keep you from inadvertently reinforcing harmful hierarchies or social dynamics.

However, lack of objectivity is not just a problem, it is also an opportunity. For decades, feminist and post-modern scholars have encouraged researchers to acknowledge their cultural, political and social context, and to “reflect on” (hence the term “reflexivity”) the ways that these contexts influence research and scholarship.

One way to do that is by preparing and disseminating a reflexivity statement (also sometimes called a positionality statement ). Reflexivity statements are becoming more common. My team and I were required to prepare a reflexivity statement for a recent foundation grant, and I was recently encouraged to include one in a peer-reviewed journal article.

In addition to the influence of your social position with respect to gender, race, age, sexual orientation and other characteristics, your own values, ethics , and training affect how you conduct research as well.

All of these can be strengths—they may give you unique insights that others do not have and are part of what you have to contribute as a scientist or scholar. However, they can be weaknesses as well, and you may be making assumptions or not noticing aspects of the phenomenon you are studying. More awareness can help you make use of the strengths and minimize weaknesses.

Although you may want to prepare a reflexivity statement that is customized for every project (for example, here’s one I prepared for a project that focused on boys and men or color) , it can also be helpful to have a more general one that reflects who you are as a researcher.

Key Questions

The personal characteristics that define your social position.

Start with the basics. In a lot of mainstream professional settings, it can feel pretty radical just to acknowledge your basic social position, such as something like “I am a white, upper-middle class, cisgender, straight, non-disabled female.”

If that feels like an incredibly strong statement to include in a research article, then you have had your first glimpse of how bound you are by professional conventions. As the saying goes, “This is water.” You are swimming in social conventions all the time, even when you are conducting science, and it can be hard to realize that.

Once you have acknowledged these characteristics, you can start to ponder their meaning for your work. How are your personal characteristics sources of power and privilege, or, alternatively, marginalization and disadvantage?

Many of us have a mix of characteristics, some of which confer privilege, others marginalization. What does the recognition of the power that you have mean for your work? How can you take steps to make sure that you don’t reinforce the social context from which you come in your work?

Ask yourself: What characteristics orient you in society? Age, gender, race (as a social construct), sexual orientation, gender identity , social class, and health status are some of the key characteristics that will situate almost everyone in their broader social context.

How do you define yourself? Has that changed over time? Has your awareness of the impact of these characteristics changed over time? Think about how your characteristics may confer power, privilege, or marginalization and ways characteristics can “intersect” with each other to create your unique viewpoint.

The settings where you grew up and relevant family information.

For me, it feels a little easier to acknowledge some historical facts about my upbringing, perhaps because these are more commonly discussed in casual conversation between acquaintances. These are also important to understand as sources of potential insights and potential blindspots.

In my case, I grew up in the south, have been living in Appalachia for 10 years, and have multi-generational roots in Appalachia and in the southern U.S. more broadly. I have spent most of my adult life living in rural areas and small towns. My father went to college on the GI bill and became the first person in his family to get a college education . I was the first person to get a graduate degree (my sister was the second).

I think this history is one of the reasons that I have focused a lot of my work on marginalized and disadvantaged communities. My background has also given me “code-switching” skills—or the ability to shift language, dialect, or other communication features from one setting to another, as I learned to navigate the working-class Southern culture of my extended family and the professional classes of the Washington, D.C .suburbs where I grew up after my father’s engineering degree took him to NASA.

Code-switching is an under-appreciated skill and one that I have used to try to bring the perspectives of marginalized people to a more prominent place in research. See for example, this article on Appalachian resistance to modern technology.

More recently, but no less significantly, becoming a parent had a profound impact on the ways that I see many aspects of dealing with adversity and navigating social services.

For example, when I first started working in domestic violence , many shelters did not take male children, even as young as age 6. Adolescent sons are still not welcome in some settings. Still, I used to encourage women to consider these options, for their own safety.

However, now, as the mother of an adolescent son, I realize I would never leave him alone in a dangerous environment. When I was a young professional without a family of my own, I had a blind spot about parenthood that I had not recognized. Becoming a parent has fundamentally changed the ways that I think about many aspects of coping with family violence.

Ask yourself: How did your early childhood experiences affect your career choices? Your scholarship choices? How has your upbringing and positionality influenced the opportunities available to you? As you think about your own course of development over the lifespan, have these impacts changed as you have moved through adolescence , young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood?

The frame offered by your discipline or institution.

Whenever I go to the American Psychological Association convention, I have the constant experience of thinking I see someone I know out of the corner of my eye. I have many colleagues outside of psychology and consider my work multidisciplinary, but these trips to APA always remind me of how much of a psychologist I am. Or, even more specifically, a clinical psychologist.

My colleagues and I have manners of dressing, walking, and expressing ourselves that reflect our training as clinicians. More cardigans than blazers, and those cardigans reflect a worldview as much as a sartorial choice.

On the positive side, my clinical training helps keep me focused on application of research. How can people use the latest scientific findings? What do providers need to know? On the negative side, psychology has a tendency to be too focused on individuals and not social systems, and I still struggle with having to remind myself to look at systems and not just people.

Recognizing and acknowledging the professional lens through which you approach any given research question is also part of self-awareness.

Related to this will be the specifics of any given project. Did you choose qualitative or quantitative methods (or both)? Are you relying on self-report, observation, official records, medical tests, or other measures? Are you focusing on a specific age group or another subgroup in the population?

All of these choices will affect the kind of information you obtain and what you end up thinking are the answers to your research questions. Qualitative researchers are used to justifying their approach in papers, but it is something that all researchers could benefit from.

Ask yourself: What does it mean to see your research questions through the lens of your discipline, whether it be psychology, social work, public health, medicine, law, criminal justice, or something else? Are there ways that your research or scholarship methods affect the information that you gain or create potential blind spots in your work? How are these conventions upholding the status quo or reinforcing the privileges of people in positions of power and influence? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these professional lenses?

Professional Spaces Versus Therapeutic Spaces

Finally, one last issue to consider is navigating the boundary between professional and therapeutic spaces and deciding how personal to get.

The most important thing to remember is that you are entitled to control your own narrative. You are not obligated to make any disclosures you do not want to make, nor are you obligated to keep silent about issues that you want to address.

In reflexivity or positionality statements, people often mention where they grew up, but seldom go into details about their parents’ divorce . There’s a balance there. You do not have to sacrifice your professional persona in order to be reflective about what you are bringing to the work as a real-life person.

It is also important that you not use these statements as a substitute for any healing that you need—these are for research, not therapy .

As a poly -victimization researcher, I have learned that virtually everyone who survives to adulthood will eventually experience adversity. In our samples, it typically runs 98 to 100 percent of the sample reporting at least one significant adversity, and more than 8 out of 10 report some form of victimization, especially when one includes childhood bullying , property crime , and other widespread offenses.

There is also the very real issue of stigma , and it is important to be intentional about the choices you make regarding disclosing potentially stigmatizing information, such as a history of trauma . As we have recently seen in the #metoo movement and also others before it, it can be powerful to disclose, especially with others’ support, but it can also be risky.

For example, some of my recent work focuses explicitly on Appalachia, and I have experienced a lot more stereotyping when I talk about having roots in that community—from questions about my lack of accent (see the code-switching skills noted above) to one professor’s total surprise that I had (of all things) the same Fitbit as her (as if people from Appalachia can’t access or afford modern technology).

Most reflexivity statements focus on more public sorts of information—the sort of information that many of your acquaintances or casual friends might know about you. However, that can depend on the setting. In Indian country, for example, where I have worked some, more personal disclosures are the norm and I often disclose a lot more about the details of my own history in those settings than I do elsewhere.

Ask yourself: How do you want to control your narrative? What would you like people to know about you? What are the advantages and disadvantages around particular disclosures? Are there different settings where different levels of disclosure make sense? (Be aware that your choices for disclosure may not work for someone else, even in the same setting.) Are there ways that you can use your social capital and/or professional privilege to help you navigate disclosures about adversity or marginalization? This is how I see my current work in Appalachia—as a chance to use my professional privilege to push back against common stereotypes. (On a somewhat different topic, it is also worth thinking about ways that you can use your own social capital or professional privilege to help others who are more marginalized or disadvantaged.)

Conclusions and Implications

It can be a very powerful experience to prepare a reflexivity (aka positionality) statement—one that tells your professional autobiography and how you came to be the researcher you are today. A longer statement, of approximately three to five pages, can give you space to really explore some of these issues.

I have personally found it to be a powerful professional and personal exercise to write a detailed reflexivity statement. Sometimes, only a brief reflexivity statement is warranted in the space available. An example of a shorter one is below.

Once you have written it, there are several steps you can take to put it to use. In addition to simple acknowledgment, the statement might give you ideas about alternative research questions or measures.

Consider research methods, such as community-based participatory research (CBPR) that include the voices of participants as stakeholders and more explicitly recognize researchers as part of the context of any project. Reach out to colleagues who have a range of characteristics, and make sure you do not unintentionally only find yourself collaborating with people who are very similar to you in key personal, social, or educational characteristics.

Examples and Resources

Here’s a recent example of a brief reflexivity statement included in a peer-reviewed article in a prominent communications journal .

This research is based in the Appalachian Center for Resilience Research (ACRR), which seeks to improve the study of this unique region of the country. Not only is Appalachia understudied, but much of its portrayal is still governed by stereotypes. The ACRR mission is to present a more evidence-based portrayal of the region. The first three authors were residents of the community when the study was conducted. S.H. has multigenerational roots in Appalachia. She has spent most of her adult life in rural communities and has lived on the Cumberland Plateau, in the southernmost region of Appalachia, for nine years. E.T. and A.S. are newer residents of the area, who came for work and school (respectively). E.T. had lived in the area for two years and A.S. for four years at the time of the study. Both were raised in the southern United States. K.M. and L.J. are experts in online behavior and are from New England. This is their first study based in Appalachia.

Thanks to Martha Dinwiddie for her comments on an earlier draft of this article.

1 The origin of the quote “Wherever you go, there you are” is much debated online, with a popular reference in the cult classic movie Buckaroo Banzai getting many mentions, but the original source appears to be Thomas à Kempis, ca 1420, in the devotional entitled The Imitation of Christ . A best seller for six centuries, it has numerous passages that can appeal to many people seeking insight and wisdom, whether or not they are particularly religious. (p 49, William Creasy translation, Mercer University Press, 1989/2007).

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a good website with an overview of reflexivity . Here’s another example that is not behind a paywall.

In an early article on reflexivity , Sue Wilkinson (1988) described three types: personal, functional, and disciplinary. Each of these entails analyzing the particular lens that is brought to a problem. Personal reflexivity explores the lens related to the identity and experiences of the researcher. Functional reflexivity explores how the form and nature of the specific study impacts the knowledge that is obtained, while “disciplinary” reflexivity explores the impact of approaching an issue from a specific field of inquiry.

Sherry Hamby, Ph.D. , is a research professor of psychology at Sewanee, the University of the South.

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Birks Y, Harrison R, Bosanquet K, et al. An exploration of the implementation of open disclosure of adverse events in the UK: a scoping review and qualitative exploration. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2014 Jul. (Health Services and Delivery Research, No. 2.20.)

An exploration of the implementation of open disclosure of adverse events in the UK: a scoping review and qualitative exploration.

Appendix 8 detailed statement for reflexivity.

Team data analysis

At significant points during the process of data analysis, the researchers most closely involved in data collection and the early stages of analysis (YB, RH, KB) met with members of the wider research team with extensive qualitative (VE) and clinical (IW) experience, to discuss emerging codes and categories, the interpretation of key texts and potential new lines of enquiry, thereby drawing on the combined insights of those ‘handling’ the data closely and members of the team with a wider perspective of methodological and open disclosure issues.

Reliability of coding

Towards the end of the analysis of the qualitative data, a member of the wider research team (VE) examined five transcripts which had been coded by the members of the team most closely involved in data collection and analysis (YB, RH, KB), as an independent check on the assignment of codes to data.

Comparison of data within and across cases in the data set

This was facilitated by the use of the analytic matrix which forms the basis of the framework approach. Comparing data within cases allowed for the exploration of contextual meaning, while comparing cases across the data set facilitated the search for regularities (key themes) and exceptions (negative cases).

Use of memos

The careful use of memos (by the prime analysts) during initial stages of analysis provided a visible ‘audit trail’ as the analysis moved from ‘raw’ data, through interpretation, to the production of findings.

Attention to ‘negative’ cases

Analysis included a search across the data set for ‘negative’ cases (evidence that contradicts, or appears to contradict, the explanations being developed) and alternative ways of explaining the data were considered. Systematic searching for negative cases or ‘outliers’ can help illuminate the connections that link the other cases together.

Reflexivity

Reflexivity relates to sensitivity to the ways in which the researcher and the research process may shape the data collected, including the role of prior assumptions and experience.

Prior assumptions and experience

Within the context of the current study, the members of the research team involved in face-to-face contact with study participants needed to consider the ways in which their interactions with participants might be influenced by their own professional background, experiences and prior assumptions. The two interviewers (RH and KB) were both academic research fellows from non-clinical backgrounds. An important question we needed to address in drawing conclusions from the data concerned whether or not knowing about our professional background could have impacted on participants’ willingness to talk openly about experiences, or how this knowledge might have shaped what was said.

Awareness of social setting and the social ‘distance’ between the researcher and the researched

The majority of interviews were conducted in participants’ workplaces or homes (for patients), either face to face or over the telephone, as this was usually more convenient for them. Although we were invited in as researchers, we were also mindful that we were guests in the participants’ work or living spaces; respondents were therefore given the lead in ‘setting the pace’ of the interview. By deliberately adopting a ‘back seat’ approach in setting the scene for the interview to take place, the researchers hoped that participants would feel they were exercising a measure of control over the interview process.

Fair dealing

Dingwall 247 has suggested that one way of reducing bias in qualitative research is to ensure that the research design explicitly incorporates a wide range of different perspectives, so that the viewpoint of one group is never presented as if representing the sole truth about any situation, an analytic technique he has referred to as ‘fair dealing’.

Our study was designed to elicit contributions from a broad range of stakeholders in open disclosure. During the analytic process no particular group’s views were ‘privileged’ over those of others; that is to say, data analysis included a process of constant comparison between accounts of each group of participants, to uncover similarities and differences, which were subsequently highlighted (for example, health professionals identified a lack of certainty around what should be disclosed to a patient or carer, more so than other participants).

A main goal of data analysis was the identification of common themes that emerged from comparison across cases (individual interviews). However, equal importance was attached to focusing on the minutiae of individuals’ accounts relating to specific incidents of disclosure; in the analysis, we sought to identify the views and experiences of individuals, as well as the majority, where these were divulged.

Awareness of wider social and political context

As a research team, we discussed the fact that participants recruited from a policy level, professional organisation or national ‘consumer’ group might show a strong commitment to a particular personal or political agenda, or wish to raise particular issues during group discussions which may relate only tangentially, or not at all, to the main purpose of the discussion. We discussed how we might handle this situation if it arose and decided to emphasise the purpose of the research prior to interview and through the questions and probes used. This strategy appeared to be successful in keeping participants engaged in the research process.

The role of the research team as collaborators in knowledge production

Collaborative research is highly valued for its ability to bring together multiple researchers with distinctive and specialist perspectives to tackle large or complex research problems, though frequently the ‘putting together’ of multiple perspectives in the construction of knowledge is not described. 248

Within the Being Open research team, there was a strong commitment from the outset to work collaboratively in the collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting of the qualitative data, though individual involvement with the various stages of the research process necessarily varied. The three team members most closely involved in fieldwork (YB, RH, KB) met frequently (on average at least once per week) to discuss the progress of fieldwork and reflect on data collection; meetings intensified during the early stages of analysis, when themes and codes were beginning to be identified. At this crucial stage, input was sought from other members of the research team with extensive experience of qualitative research and a broad knowledge of patient safety research (VE, IW) to assist with ‘firming up’ the coding framework. During the early stages of analysis, an all-day meeting was convened in a location away from the interruptions of the office environment, which served as a kind of ‘interpretative retreat’. Throughout the day, we explored a sample of transcripts to gain a sense of the data that were emerging, the effectiveness of the topic guides and whether or not there may be additional participants who we wanted to invite to take part. A more intense focus on a subset of transcripts (which had been sent to VE in advance) in a further half-day analysis session was used to draw up the coding framework that would serve to underpin the analysis (and interpretation) of all the interview data. This endeavour resulted in an analytic strategy that was informed by insights from team members with a broad understanding of the research field and methodological issues, and those with field-based contextual and experiential understanding.

Potential for psychological harm

Members of the research team involved in fieldwork (RH, KB) were acutely sensitive to the possibility that focusing on the research topic could potentially provoke anxiety in the research participants concerning the disclosure of adverse events. At the end of each interview, researchers took time to ensure that participants were not feeling distressed by their participation; in these interviews, none of the participants expressed such concerns or appeared to be distressed or uneasy.

Included under terms of UK Non-commercial Government License .

Cite this Page Birks Y, Harrison R, Bosanquet K, et al. An exploration of the implementation of open disclosure of adverse events in the UK: a scoping review and qualitative exploration. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2014 Jul. (Health Services and Delivery Research, No. 2.20.) Appendix 8, Detailed statement for reflexivity.
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