Reflexive Lens#
My first class for my MLIS was research methods at the University of Washington iSchool. It remains one of my all-time favorite classes, and has some of my best memories from grad school. I reference the textbook regularly - even suggesting it to classmates in the LT program at UNT. I have taken experiences I had there and brought them to the elementary level (design thinking, specifically the Stanford d school model). One of the moment, at the start of the semester, made it into my cache of stories I tell about grad school.
In class, we were learning about the concept of reflexive lens, and how qualitative researchers have to put on the lens of the people they are trying to understand and see the world through their eyes. This made total sense to me, but many of the people in the class struggled. These were lovely classmates, many with very strong ideals that they would vehemently stand up for. This, however, was a problem for this particular learning objective.
The class discussion on this was difficult, as people who firmly believe that there is a universal right and, at times, a universal wrong, were defending their position, and providing what they felt were objective examples of “it’s just wrong.” The professor was doing a great job of treating it as a lively class discussion, but one particular student was having a harder time with accepting the concept, and was pushing the edges of the argument further out to find what she thought would be the point that nobody in the class would say “they thought they were doing the right thing.” The student provided what she considered the mic drop moment, the moment nobody would say the thing. She mentioned the Rwandan genocide.
The thing is… she was wrong. A student in the class did, after a significant pause to go “Is nobody else going to say it?” push back. After the “Some of them did think they were doing the right thing” statement, the struggling student sat down.
Yes, dear readers. It was me. I was the person who had to look at her classmates, another emerging researcher, and say the uncomfortable thing. And it WAS uncomfortable. For the record: I do not agree with the people who committed genocide. It doesn’t matter what I think, or how I believe though. If we want to understand how something like that happens, then we have to listen and not judge. The goal is to get to the root truth of things, which is different for different groups. If we want to understand, grow, and maybe making things better in the future, that means listening and understanding - especially when that is hard.
Qualitative Data Considerations#
The perceptions and values of the researcher inform how data is collected, analyzed, and disseminated. This is true for both quantitative and qualitative research, but the nature of data collected in qualitative research requires dedicated consideration while coding, analyzing, and disseminating knowledge.
While the above conversation was uncomfortable, it provided a valuable lesson in truly stopping to go “What is another side of this” when considering the perspectives of others. One way to ensure we are engaging in conversations with peers, colleagues, friends or professors who can provide insight and question our thinking as we go through the iterations of data collection, analysis, and dissemination. These critical friends can also provide an opportunity to triangulate the methodologies, analysis, and findings from the research process. Another option for triangulation is to include the research participants in the analysis of the data.
Researchers should always be reflective on their positionality and how the values of their culture, the hegemonic systems they exist within. These systems influence both the narrative of the world we are exposed to every day, they create the core beliefs that are so embedded in our existence they can be more second nature rather than consciously considered morality. These embedded societal codes impact how we perceive and understand things when not critically acknowledge and considered during the data collection & analysis process. (This is what was happening in the above story.)
These biases can be minimized by carefully considering what your personal beliefs are, and what the beliefs are within the larger society. Having a network of critical partners from a variety of intersectionalities provides valuable opportunity to have additional perspectives given on your own views, values, and how those are potentially impacting the research process.
At my job, we were given the phrase “What is the story I’m telling myself?” when we start getting in our own head about things. It is not a silver bullet, but it provides a starting point for the research conversations, especially once you start considering what the other stories could be.
What is the story I’m telling myself about the data? Is that what another researcher would see? Is that what my participants would see?