Reflexivity and the Researcher's Position
One sentence in the study notes carries the whole of this topic's account of reflexivity. It states a requirement and supplies no method for meeting it, so most of this page is a map of what you will have to source elsewhere.
The one sentence the material gives you
The sentence is unusually dense for its length. It asserts a scope (every stage), an object (three things about the researcher), a standard (clearly evident), a beneficiary (the reader) and a purpose (interpreting overall validity). Each of those is worth separating, because the strength of the requirement varies sharply between them.
THE REFLEXIVITY SENTENCE, CLAUSE BY CLAUSE
| Clause | What it commits you to | What the source supplies |
|---|---|---|
| There is a reflexive process | Reflexivity is asserted as a fact about qualitative studies, not offered as an option | No definition of what the process consists of |
| underpinning every stage | It is continuous, not a section written at the end | No list of stages, and no model of the research process is reproduced anywhere in the material |
| researcher biases, presuppositions, and interpretations | Three distinct objects of disclosure, not one | The three nouns only. None is defined, and none is distinguished from the others |
| are clearly evident | A visibility standard — evident to someone, in something readable | No format, no location, no test of what counts as clearly evident |
| the reader is better able to interpret | The audience is the reader of the finished work, not the researcher | The purpose statement, and nothing about what the reader should do with the disclosure |
| the overall validity of the research | Reflexivity is instrumental to validity — it exists in order to support a validity judgement | Four validity criteria on later slides, which the notes never connect to this sentence |
Marked cells record silences in the supplied material, not gaps in the concept.
The method the source does not give
A requirement that biases must be made clearly evident is only actionable if something tells you how. Nothing does.
The nearest procedural content in the whole topic sits three sections away, on the confirmability slide, and the notes never link the two. It is offered in the modal can throughout — these are options the researcher may take, not requirements the source imposes.
The three confirmability procedures — the closest the material comes to a method
Document the checking procedures
The researcher can document the procedures for checking and rechecking the data throughout the study. No format is given for that documentation, and no statement of what checking consists of.
Search for negative instances
The researcher can actively search for and describe negative instances that disagree with prior observations. The technique is named in one clause and never developed. The slide's own wording carries a text error at this point.
Conduct a data audit
The researcher can conduct a data audit examining the data collection and analysis procedures and make judgements about the potential for bias or distortion. Who conducts it, and against what standard, is not stated.
Borrowing these three for a reflexivity section is a reasonable move, but it is your move and not the source's. The material attaches them to confirmability, one of four alternative validity criteria set out on validity criteria for qualitative research, and never mentions reflexivity in connection with any of them.
The instrument has a history
The reason reflexivity matters in qualitative work is stated elsewhere in the notes, in a subordinate clause the material never returns to: qualitative researchers are described as the primary instrument of investigation. The clause sits inside the second of only two stated limitations — see strengths and limitations. If the researcher is the instrument, everything a methods chapter would normally say about instrument calibration has to be said about a person.
What the deck asks of the researcher
- The best way to understand what's going on is to be immersed in the context
- ‘Move into organization and experience what it is like to be a part of it’
- For a phenomenon to be observed as natural, the researcher needs to become accepted as ‘one of us’
- Qualitative research depends on the researcher's subjective interpretation — stated as a neutral property of the approach
What the notes warn about
- As the primary instrument of investigation, qualitative researchers are often embedded in the cultures and experiences of others
- Being culturally embedded increases the opportunity for bias to enter
- Bias enters at three points: the way data is gathered, interpreted and reported
- Researcher-introduced bias is one of only two limitations the notes state
There is a further consequence the material does not draw. The topic states an objective of designing appropriate research tools, and that objective is recorded as undelivered. If the researcher is the instrument, tool design would have to include something about preparing and disclosing the researcher — and nothing in the material does. Say that once in your own methods chapter and move on; it is a fact about the supplied material, not about the field. The consolidated record is on what this material does not teach.
Reflexivity, validity, and the conflict you must state
The reflexivity sentence exists, on its own account, so that a reader can interpret the overall validity of the research. That places it squarely inside a dispute the supplied material never acknowledges.
TWO SUPPLIED DOCUMENTS, TWO POSITIONS ON VALIDITY
| The study notes | The slide deck |
|---|---|
| The reflexive process exists so that the reader is better able to interpret the overall validity of the research | There is no point in trying to establish ‘validity’ in any external or objective sense |
| Validity is one of the five components of a qualitative research design | Three consecutive slides titled ‘Validity in qualitative research’ set out four alternative criteria and define all four |
| Validity is treated as a property a reader assesses from what the researcher has disclosed | Confirmability is defined as the degree to which results can be confirmed or substantiated by others |
The deck holds both positions internally. The notes hold only the first. No document in the supplied material notes the disagreement.
For a reflexivity section this matters practically rather than philosophically. If validity is pointless, disclosing your presuppositions serves no stated purpose; if validity is a design component, disclosure is load-bearing. The material asserts both, so state which one your study proceeds on. The component account is set out on the five components of a qualitative design.
Building a position statement from what is actually here
You still have to write something. The arrangement below uses only elements the supplied material contains — the three objects of disclosure, the three stages at which bias is said to enter, and the stated purpose of helping a reader judge validity. The arrangement itself is not in the source. It is offered as a way of using what is there, not as an instruction the material gives.
An arrangement built only from supplied elements — not a source-prescribed format
State your presuppositions about the setting before you entered it
Presuppositions is one of the three nouns the sentence names. In a delivery context this usually means what you already believed about why the programme was behaving as it was.
State your relationship to the people and the organisation
The notes make embeddedness the principal bias risk and the deck makes it a methodological requirement. Whichever applies to you, the reader needs it in order to weigh what follows.
Say what you did at each of the three bias points
Gathering, interpretation, reporting. This is the only structure the material offers for talking about bias, and it maps cleanly onto a methods chapter.
Say which validity account you are working under
Either the four alternative criteria, or the position that external validity is not the right test. Do not use both, and do not use the criteria silently after quoting the denial.
Attribute the format to whatever text you took it from
Since the supplied material prescribes none, any format you use came from somewhere else. Name that source rather than leaving the impression the teaching material supplied it.
What to carry forward
- Reflexivity is one sentence in the supplied material: biases, presuppositions and interpretations made clearly evident, at every stage, so a reader can judge validity.
- No method, format, location or example is given for doing it. That gap is real and you will need a second source to close it.
- The researcher is asserted to be the primary instrument of investigation — once, in a subordinate clause, and never developed.
- The deck prescribes the embeddedness the notes identify as the principal source of bias, and offers no mitigation for the conflict.
- The three bias points the material names — gathering, interpretation, reporting — are the most usable structure it gives you for the section.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does the supplied material say reflexivity is?
One sentence: that a reflexive process underpins every stage of a qualitative study to ensure researcher biases, presuppositions and interpretations are clearly evident, so that the reader is better able to interpret the overall validity of the research. Nothing else in either supplied document develops, defines or exemplifies it.
Does the material tell me how to write a position statement?
No. No reflexive journal, position statement, audit trail or disclosure format is described, and nothing is said about where such a statement belongs or how long it should be. If you use a format, it came from another source and you should cite that source rather than this material.
Where should a position statement sit in a thesis?
The supplied material does not say. It states that the reflexive process underpins every stage, which argues against a single retrospective paragraph, but it gives no placement rule. Conventions differ between qualitative traditions, so take the placement from the tradition you are writing in and say so.
If the researcher is the instrument, what does instrument design mean?
The material raises the question and does not answer it. The claim appears once, in a subordinate clause in the limitations paragraph. The topic's stated objective of designing appropriate research tools is recorded as undelivered, and nothing in it connects tool design to preparing or disclosing the researcher.
The deck says validity is pointless. Should I still disclose my biases?
The material takes both sides and does not choose. The notes tie disclosure directly to a reader's judgement of overall validity; one slide holds that pursuing validity in an external or objective sense is pointless; three later slides teach four validity criteria. Decide which account your study runs on, state it, and note that the material contains both.
References and source attribution
- A 2009 work on qualitative research design, cited in the supplied notes for the five components. The notes give a surname and a year only, and the work does not appear in the topic's reference list.
- Merriam, S 2009, Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
- Patton, M 2002, Qualitative research and evaluation methods, 3rd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks.
- Trochim, W M K 2006, Research Methods Knowledge Base. (The deck attributes its alternative validity criteria to an online research-methods knowledge base page on qualitative validity.)
- The supplied teaching source: the study notes and slide deck on the nature of qualitative research.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Quote everything the supplied material says about reflexivity.
- What does the material give me for making researcher bias visible, and what does it leave out?
- Draft a position statement for a project manager researching handover practice in their own organisation.
- Where does the material contradict itself on whether validity applies to qualitative work?
- Which parts of a reflexivity section would I have to source from outside this material?