Practicing Reflexivity

Introduction

Reflexivity should be practised at every stage of the research process. During the data collection stage, reflexivity can help researchers reflect on:

how their positionality might be influencing the data collected.
how their positionality might be shaping their interactions with participants, colleagues, or collaborators.
how the data collection process is affecting others involved in the work (participants, colleagues, collaborators).
how the data collection process itself is impacting the researcher.

Reflecting on these aspects can help researchers recognise when unconscious (or conscious!) cognitive biases are influencing data collection. It also serves as a reminder to consider the impact of the research on all those involved—from participants to collaborators.

By building in a daily habit of reflexive practice, we can become more attuned to how our research evolves and the impact it has on those around us.

Activity

Reflexivity Journal

See page 38 of the workbook.

Use the questions below to keep a reflexive research journal for the next five days. Once you have done this, think about continuing this practice for a longer time period. You could complete a short entry every day, or a longer reflection once a week.

Reflexive Journal Prompts

What research tasks did you complete today?
What research decisions did you make today?
How have your perceptions/thinking about your research changed today.
How do you feel today?
How did the way you feel impact the research you did today?

Practical Steps and Tools

Re-familiarise yourself with the concept of Reflexivity and its importance in research.

Keep a reflexive research journal. Use the activity to help develop a habit of recording the following:

Day-to-day procedures.
Methodological decision points.
Evolving perceptions.
Daily personal reflections, including:
- emotional check-in: how are you feeling today?
- how did your emotions and feelings influence your data collection?
- how did your assumptions affect your data collection?

Do you know who you can go to if you have been emotionally affected by something that has occurred during your research? If not, find out and share this information with others.

Contribution Submission

The Hub is a living resource. As such, we welcome critical feedback and contributions of all kinds. In particular, we invite feedback on:

Concepts or practices we may have missed or under-explained

Our use of language, and how it could be clarified or made more inclusive

The organisation and presentation of information and resources

We would especially appreciate suggestions for subject-specific case-studies that are relevant to the various sections of the Hub.

Collecting Data

Introduction

Activity

Reflexivity Journal

Practical Steps and Tools

Contribute to the Hub

Contribution Submission

Section 1

Supportive Data Collection

Section 2

Practicing Reflexivity

Contextualising Research

Research does not happen in isolation. It is important to engage with social and philosophical foundations of research by considering things like the purpose of research, what makes research valid (or not), why research is the way it is, and who research is for.

Forming a Research Question

All research starts with a question, but there are an infinite number of questions we could ask… It is important to think about why we choose the questions we do, what shapes our thinking about these questions, and what constrains our approach to answering them.

Designing a Research Project

Project design is crucial to being able to answer your research question accurately. Researchers must make hundreds of decisions when they design a research project. Each of these decisions will shape how inclusive, or exclusionary, the research ultimately becomes.

Collecting Data

Data collection is a fundamental part of any research project. Although it can look very different depending on the kind of research being done, it is always important to consider how we can be inclusive during this part of the process.

Analysing and Interpreting Data

Once data is collected, we need to make meaning from that data. The analysis of data and interpretation of results involves hundreds of decisions, each of which can carry human bias.

Communicating Results

The way we communicate the outcome of our research can have huge consequences, both on wider society and the research that gets done in the future. It is important to consider how the communication choices we make can exclude people and harm our research.