RMC, W6

Question 1

Qualitative research principles

Answer 1

• fundamentally concerned with the moving away from the numerical organisation and interpretation of human behaviour to focussing on the words, experiences and sensemaking, researchers are interested in exploring participants talk
• The focus in on exploring phenomena through language
○ The what, the how, and the why
• Meaning is constructed through interactions between human beings within their social world
• primarily qualitative psychology, assumes that meaning is constructed through interactions between human beings within their social world.
• These meanings are transmitted within a social context (e.g. relationships, media and government)
• There is no true or valid interpretation, but competing ones
• assumed that we can engage in understanding the process of meaning making and understanding how people come to make sense of their social world.
• Within this, can focus on everyday experiences > for example, people’s experiences of using cars as well as looking at experiences of transitional, unusual or times of crises such as how people understand being diagnosed with a life limiting condition.
• Smaller sample sizes = richer data and insights > can explore people’s experiences in more depth
The function of qual research identifies the more and less useful and liberating interpretations

Question 2

History of qualitative research (Willig, & Stainton-Rogers, 2013)

Answer 2

• Positivism: was a shift away from religion as the dominant way of understanding the world and the movement towards measurement, objectivity and the search for the truth. This has roots in the scientific enterprise.
• Empiricism: focussed on gathering, analysing, interpreting and reporting data and moved on from positivism with a series of
○ standardised expectations and approaches to the systematic study of human nature.
○ Primarily, there was a focus on reducing complex phenomenon into more simple underlying factors
• Turn to language: William James, founding father of psych, wrote quantitatively + qualitatively about the turn back to language
○ Turn happened in 1970s just after emancipatory movements in the 1960s
○ It represented a limitation of positivist understandings of humans and the social world and pushed towards a questioning of taken for granted knowledge.
○ this meant that language was considered essential to the understanding of human experience and a focus on deconstructing how constructs came to be.
Turn to interpretation: represents a shift in qualitative methods as a way to re-represent meaning and a general question of positivist approaches.

Question 3

Qualitative research approaches: Critical psychology (Fox & Prilleltesky, 1997)

Answer 3

• Psychology is not neutral
• Research is influenced by power and power structures
• Research is a social endeavour so there is a social impact and has real consequences > have to consider populations you work with
• Consequently, researchers should take responsibility for the moral, social, and political implications of research

Question 4

Qualitative research approaches: Feminist psychology Keller (1985)

Answer 4

• there is a question of taken for granted knowledge, but instead the core focus is on patriarchy.
• Psychology prefers patriarchal approaches to research
• Feminist psychologists may argue that positivist methods are dominant in psychology, and these approaches tend to prefer patriarchal approaches to research, meaning that there is a tendency to privilege those in positions of power.
• Typically privileges those in positions of power, i.e. white, straight, middle class men
• Typically disregards the complex cultural situation of those not in positions of power
○ Feminist psychologists want to centralise these issues
Researchers should take responsibility to acknowledge the social position of those not in positions of power and support their voices

Question 5

Interpretation

Answer 5

• Qualitative research is associated with an interpretive approach to social enquiry
• Fundamental to the approach of qualitative researchers in the interpretive tradition and which leads them to use qualitative methodologies and methods.
• The focus here is on a researcher position or attempt to enter the everyday social world. This is to better understand, describe, make sense of, and develop into theories the socially constructed meanings employed by people in day to day life.

Question 6

Reflexivity

Answer 6

• Unlike quantitative approaches which value objectivity, qualitative approaches value subjectivity, accepting the role of the researcher on the research process.
• Reflexivity is the process of critically reflecting on our role in the knowledge we produce and is an essential requirement for good quality qualitative research
• Reflections are not equitable to biases
○ Not adequate to say that ‘biases’ were identified and therefore that diminishes their influence on the research process.
You cannot ‘explain away’ your involvement as a researcher .

Question 7

Different reflections: Functional reflections

Answer 7

○ How your methodological approach to the data may have affected some of the production and analysis of data
○ e.g. data collection and analytic methods, recruitment strategy, your epistemological and ontological position
i.e. some themes may very clearly demonstrate a constructionist or positivist approach to the data that someone else may see differently should they come from a different perspective

Question 8

Different reflections: Personal reflexivity

Answer 8

○ Making yourself visible in the research process
○ Positioning yourself in relation to the research
○ i.e. Are you considered to be an outsider to the experiences of the participants, an insider, or something in-between?
○ You also need to think about how has the research affected you
○ i.e. what have you learnt about yourself during this process?
Reflexivity is embedded in qualitative research and we bring things to it. We also take things away. We learn about ourselves through this process.

Question 9

Different reflections: Critical language awareness

Answer 9

○ You want to ensure that your language does not diminish or stigmatise those that you are focussing on
○ May not apply to all research, but some subjects in Psychology the use of language and stigma is incredibly important,
i.e. ‘fat’ in research looking at obesity

Question 10

What do we mean by theory?

Answer 10

• Qualitative researchers are concerned with two philosophical components aka epistemology and ontology
• Ontology = nature of reality > what can be known? Is there multiple or 1 reality? Can we ever really come to know a participant reality either directly or through their account, or does their account represent one of many realities?
○ we are interested in whether the nature of a person’s reality can ever be known or to what extent it can be known.
- Epistemology = nature of knowledge > researchers are concerned with identifying and outlining their views on what is known and how it is knowable.

Question 11

Ontological approaches:

Answer 11

• Realism: a pre-social reality exists so there is one universal truth for all which we can access through research
• Critical realism: pre-social reality does exist but we cannot necessarily know it’s true nature, instead, participants accounts may give us a limited insight into the nature of that reality. (like if you attach a lens to this account where you are only seeing a small part)
- Relativism: there is no one reality, multiple realities + participant accounts are accounts of the reality which they live but not reality itself

Question 12

Epistemological approaches:

Answer 12

• Positivism (aligns w/ realism): human experiences are knowable, universal + objective > research thus acts to find the truth
○ there exists a direct relationship between human perception and the true nature of the object.
○ knowledge is inert and impartial. There are no issues with power under this approach.
• Contextualism (aligns w/ critical realism): knowledge is seen to be a consequence of context + accounts providing some insight into the nature of the truth of the phenomenon.
• Social constructionism (aligns w/ relativism): Language of participants is a product of social, historical and cultural factors, and research acts as a way to explore an account of the social world > has no bearing on the actuality of that social world.
○ instead there is a prioritising on questioning the taken for granted knowledge that we have as human beings > why do people use language in a certain way? what function might it have, what participants trying to do when they use in this language?
○ Knowledge is not considered to be passive or inert > knowledge is something that shifts and changes over time and has a real impact > means something to people + has consequences
• TA = more researcher-led, your theoretical orientations led the analyses
• IPA & DA = more theory-led, they have are more fixed theoretical positions embedded into the approach
There is a need to describe, explain, and apply the theoretical underpinnings of DA & IPA.

Question 13

Why is theory important?

Answer 13

• the way we think about reality and knowledge is integral to how we conceptualise and understand the voices of participants
- Qualitative researchers need to have a good understanding about how they think about these issues and how the theories they take up and use conceptualise these issues in order to ensure rigour and transparency of subsequent interpretation and writing of the results. > these positions are also held by quantitative researchers but are rarely stated in methods

Question 14

Importance of language

Answer 14

• Qualitative research is primarily interested in the study of language > interested in what language does to:
○ constitute the participants
○ the phenomenon
○ populations
○ the society and the culture.
• Therefore, how we as researchers communicate, disseminate information is incredibly important.
○ How we discuss our insights and interpretations > represents our positionality as researchers
- For example, a discourse analysis does not address the notion that person’s internal world can be explored, but rather we focus on their talk, tells us about how the social object is constituted
- Unlikely to see a discourse analysis that refers to internal processes or functions such as thoughts, ideas or feelings, rather, that they would use language like discourse, accounts or talk.
○ How we discuss the research process

Question 15

Theory research questions:

Answer 15

• Theory underpins all elements of Qualitative research, and this means that we need to think of the types of questions we ask of the research
• If you have the topic of spinal injury, you can explore and question these differently
○ Thematic analysis would be concerned with what is happening and wants to identify factors or relevant info + can also explore experiences or perceptions > looks for WHAT is going on WHAT is it
○ Discourse analysis questions the data in terms of how the knowledge is constructed and represented > is looking at this in a deeper level than TA, rather than looking at WHAT it is, we are looking at HOW and HOW language constitutes these experiences
○ IPA focuses on personal meaning making and sense-making > deeper than TA > “make sense” is often used in IPA because it is about how the ppt creates their own meaning
- IPA tends to focus on the process, change + looking where people may be going through a certain experience + how this feels for the ppt and how they attach meanings to this
• Different approaches require different research questions because different approaches have different focuses

Question 16

Preparing for qualitative interviewing: Mason (2018)

Answer 16

• How does the research question lead to qualitative interviewing? First stage is to prepare
• Need to have an understanding of what you were looking to find out > Is it why, how or what or which? And then you essentially break these down into many research questions > these can help refine your focus and give it a clearer picture of what it is you’re wanting to explore.
• Research qs can also help develop interview qs + need to make clear what the link is between the interview qs and the research qs > do they focus on different elements of the same topic? For example, knowing about self harm in a friend, has a focus on the friend, whereas what impact does knowing about self harm have on their friendship? Instead this has a focus on the friendship and possible changes to it.
• These questions may be converted into ideas for the interview > an example is like what is the impact of knowing about the self harm? As a friend, you may wish to explore this using and asking participants about how they found out about self harm. How do they respond to finding out about the self harm and did they notice any changes in their own behaviour?
• Or if you ask “what is the impact of having known about your friend self-harming had on your friendship” > may draw on shared experiences before/after finding out, finding differences/similarities
Such questions could be formed by drawing on themes found in previous literature

Question 17

Reflection

Answer 17

• Once you have a list of questions you need to reflect on whether the questions actually relate to the research question + identify qs which are repetitive or don’t fit (sometimes that may be quite useful. Should participants struggle to understand the initial questions so don’t necessarily move repetitive ones completely)
• Once the questions have been checked, the questions that need to be organised in a logical flow that will enable discussion and allows for flexibility, sometimes topics or issues may be less prescriptive that allow for other topics to be and issues to be raised and explored.
• Often the best approach is in encouraging the participants to draw on examples and tell storied accounts and think about whether there are any questions that may flow while between topic questioning
• Once structured you then need to decide on which questions to ask. > may wish to want specific questions asked, but not all of them. There may be some demographics you need to ask some more questions + whether this should come at the beginning of the end of the interview.
• will also need to provide a standardised information. So i.e. ethical outlines. This may be addressed in the information sheet, but you also may wish to include it in the preamble.
• next step is to cross-check and look for any gaps and pay attention to any issues you feel should be covered that aren’t. You may also wish to check these with your collaborators or any advisory groups that provide feedback on the work as they may have some different ideas or thoughts about ways of addressing these issues.
• researchers should avoid being too rigid because people say peculiar things in interviews and often do not follow a strict process in their responses, your schedule should be amenable to this. It should naturally follow the flow of conversation.

Question 18

Constructing interview schedules

Answer 18

• Should begin broadly > encourages an open narrative and encourages the participants to discuss their experience and experiences using their own terms and language
○ E.g. You’ve agreed to take part in this study because you know someone who has anxiety – Can you talk me through this? > talk through after opening qs (establishes rapport)
• Next move onto pre-established qs which come from lit review but also follow points the ppt has raised
• You then also gives the opportunity to allow the participant to identify areas or issues that need further expansion. For example, is there anything that you wish to talk about that you don’t feel have covered?
• Finally, it is helpful to get the take home messages > can help solidify what is central to the participants experiences or perceptions.
○ E.g. what you believe is the most important aspect of your experiences that you think I should know about.

Question 19

Phrasing interview questions

Answer 19

• Interview schedule or interview guide: List of questions to ask in the interview- ensures interview stays on topic and all areas of research interest covered
• Semi-structured interviews- flexible use of interview guide > can use follow-up qs which can be adapted based on prior interviews or ideas
• Schedule is For YOU but also for THE PARTICIPANT- write with them in mind (ethically and practically)
• Goal is: Exploration - not interrogation! It’s about thinking through what they think about the issue that their views, their experiences, their ideas
• Preamble at the beginning- outlines study, introductory text as a lead into the questions - opener to get comfy
• Questions need to follow a logical order and cluster into topic-based sections > important for longer interviews
• Funnel: general (gentle) to specific (and/or sensitive)

Question 20

Phrasing interview questions - Types of qs:

Answer 20

• Ask open ended questions > ‘Can you tell me about? ‘How do you feel about?’ ‘What do you think about?’ > allows ppt to narrate their own experience using their voice
• Ask non-leading questions > Avoid putting words in their mouths > Instead use hypothetical questions or imagined scenarios e.g. ‘some people think that…’, useful for controversial topics
• Ask clear, short and singular questions > Long and questions that ask multiple things can be confusing > Avoid ambiguity- don’t assume people will understand psychology specific terms (could a 12 year old understand you?)
- Use prompts > Follow ups to a question e.g. if someone answers yes/no or if you need expansion

Question 21

Research qs are NOT interviews qs

Answer 21

• The research q should not appear in the interview > the interview qs inform the research qs
• Research question: what this research is attempting to answer > Guides the study as a whole
• Interview questions: ways of gaining information to answer the research question > What we specifically ask participants in research interviews?
• Research question: ‘How do students describe their experiences of being a university student?’
• Example interview questions: ‘What is your friendship group like here at university?’, ‘Can you tell me a bit about your course?’, ‘What’s the most enjoyable thing you’ve done so far at university?’
- You infer from the interview qs to answer the research qs > taps into different experiences at university to come up with a whole

Question 22

Reviewing and refining your guide

Answer 22

• Evaluate your guide by asking questions:
○ What are you trying to find out with this question?
○ Will it generate that information?
○ Is it meaningful for participants?
○ How would it feel if you were asked that question?
○ What about asking a friend for advice on what qs work and don’t?
• Test the guide!- technical term- Pilot > May need minor revisions, reflect between interviews

Question 23

Piloting and feedback

Answer 23

• Some projects are difficult to pilot, but you could ask a trusted friend or colleague to test the questions on and encourage them to think about whether the questions are easy to understand. Are there any repetitive questions? Is it worth thinking about whether they answer the questions in the way that you expect? And do you notice whether some questions need further, further clarification or additional questions?
• This can help identify where the interview schedule works well and where there is scope for further refining.
• Some projects may benefit from discussion with communities or organisations to ensure appropriate questioning and use of language
• You may have an advisory group that can help adapt the language or style taken in the interview to ensure it will not offend or confuse participants.
Feedback is a positive process + improves quality

Question 24

Introducing IPA

Answer 24

• IPA has an Idiographic approach
○ Most of psychology is nomothetic (making claims at a group or population level)
○ Focus on the particular through detailed analysis by understanding how the phenomenon has been understood from particular people or contexts > not necessarily one person
○ There’s a recognition that experience is a body situated, but experience is also worldly and relational phenomenon. > relates to others + individual is not a discrete actor
• IPA is underpinned by Critical Realist ontology
○ The real world “sits behind” (p. 28) the subjective knowledge that the researcher can explore and understand
○ meaning that there is a reality concerning the phenomenon through that this reality can only be partly accessible and we can come to know some of it, in part through participants accounts
○ Using language in IPA, assumes you can get at the conscious processes that participants engage in
We can understand part of the phenomenon through accounts though there is an appreciation for the way the culture and language shape the reality experienced by participants.

Question 25

Theoretical origins of IPA

Answer 25

• Phenomenology: Detailed examination of an individuals lived experience (Smith & Osborn, 2015)
• Hermeneutics: The analysis/interpretation of experiences/messages
- Symbolic interactionism: Argument that the mind and self emerge from social interactions, and the meaning that these have (Howitt, 2010)

Question 26

When to use IPA

Answer 26

• When you’re interested in examining, in-depth, individual and personal lived experiences > when you can about individual meaning-making and sense-making
• Focus on examining how a small number of participants make sense of their personal and social worlds > uses small samples because you focus on them in a lot of detail
• Works well for social, health, and clinical topics because there’s a particular need to understand how people make sense of and perceive experiences > e.g. if someone is diagnosed w/ a new health condition + you want to explore their process of sense-making from diagnosis to treatment > IPA allows for this (processed elements of sense-making)
• When you have assumptions of talk as having a link to their thinking and emotional state, but this is link is imperfect & researcher needs to employ an interpretative lens to delve further
• IPA is contingent upon assumptions that align with critical realism, for example, and that talk has this link between their thinking and emotional state, and that you can understand that through talk.
○ This link is considered imperfect > consequently researchers need to use an interpretive lens to explore this further
○ So it’s the idea that whilst talk can represent internal states, the talk may be inhibited in certain ways or it might not tell the full story and it you as a researcher that needs to explore that element in a bit more detail (relies on YOUR own interpretations + your motivations for doing this) you can use psychological literature to help you understand and contextualise and interpret some of these more personal experiences and processes of meaning-making

Question 27

Applying this to research questions

Answer 27

• Key principles of IPA
○ In-depth exploration of personal, lived experiences
○ Concerned with questions that hold considerable meaning for the participants
○ Can be specific questions or broader
○ Importantly, engage in topics that are current, emotive, and may even be conflicting
○ these usually quite poignant experiences and the research questions and IPA seek to explore those from the personal perspective of the participants
• Examples of research questions:
• How does a woman’s sense of identity change during the transition to motherhood? (Smith, 1999) > exploration of identity, something current + emotive and conflicting
• How do young people with psychosis experience and interpret personal romantic relationships (Shinebourne & Smith, 2009) > quite specific (personal romantic relationships + young people with psychosis), has considerable meaning + weight for the ppts > likely to be emotive + conflicting
What is the experience of deciding whether to take a genetic test or not? (Smith et al., 2013) > very conflicting topic + emotive

Question 28

Introducing discourse analysis (DA)

Answer 28

• DA is thought of as a whole approach to Psychology and knowledge
• Critical of the underpinnings of traditional Social Psychology (driven by positivist cognitivist approach > interested in measuring cognitive processes but in social circumstances) and proposed an alternative approach to understanding Social Psychology
• Traditional social psych cares about what happens in people’s heads so processes and functions that work in our social words > DA instead cares more about the outside of the person aka their talk (similar to behaviourism > doesn’t ever assume they can understand what’s going on in the internal processes + brain but uses behaviour + looks to adapt EV to alter behaviour
• Similarly, DA assumes that we can’t understand internal motivations and processes + instead look at language
• Inside people’s heads à outside the person
○ E.g. inside peoples head would focus on motivations for being drunk: sadness over being dumped vs. outside peoples head focusing on social normative way to manage emotions (social norms (being drunk) inform the way language is used)
• Ultimately, DA is interested in and explores phenomenon like identity, prejudice, or emotion (usually considered in Psychology to be internal), but DA sees this as social processes having consequences + motivations (there is a function for how language is used > there are social consequences

Question 29

Underpinning theory for discourse analysis

Answer 29

• Based on social constructionism & relativism
• DA involves a “strong” social constructionist view of the social world + aligned with relativism
• DA assumes language is constructive and active - it does things at the social (and individual) level > what we mean by this is that things are created through language, chiefly because this is our main form of communication. Language provides us with ways of being. So, for example, the law, these are just words, but they have real consequences
• All these are ‘just words’, but they constitute something very real
• language also promotes individual interests > Language has a purpose and often that works in favour of particular group interests and coming to understand how language constructs things, we need to understand the utility of social constructionism.
• We have access to shared linguistic and cultural resources
- Words have meanings and those meanings construct versions of reality
○ Also means we produce and reproduce these pockets of meanings > This also means that knowledge doesn’t just exist or is invented. Rather, they are a product of historical and cultural antecedents that have over time been reproduced and even at times recreated.
• We use language as a means to achieve certain ends, or to position ourselves and others (language allows you to blame, justify, describe or make things vague)
• E.g. I’m not sexist but….’ > For example, people may use disclaimers before making racist or sexist comments for the purpose of this is to manage others impressions of them, to make their comments appear to be non-discriminatory and building credibility because they are aware they may be criticised which decreases potential criticism
- DA is primarily underpinned by social constructionism + relativism and social constructionism is primarily underpinned by the concept of language as constructive (language builds how we think about the world + sense of reality)

Question 30

When to use DA

Answer 30

• When you’re interested in looking at how broader social norms and values are produced and reproduced in participant’s talk
• Can situate the phenomenon in everyday talk (micro) or situate the phenomenon in its broader context (macro
○ Helps to raise awareness to overlooked phenomenon/populations, usually those who are at the end point of oppressive language and practices too
• Questions tacit knowledge and can be researched in many topics (DA can have a number of functions + can be applied in many contexts)
• For example,
○ Health topics, i.e. sexually transmitted diseases
○ Social topics, i.e. poverty and access to healthcare
○ Political and economic topics, i.e. language of nominalisation
○ Crime and punishment, i.e. Foucault and the panopticon
Clinical settings, i.e. doctor-patient interactions + how power is negotiated in these interactions

Question 31

Applying DA to research questions

Answer 31

Key principles of DA
○ Research questions focus on construction, rhetoric, ideology, and action
○ Movement to the function and action of language
• Example research questions
• How are ME/CFS (and other labels) constructed as illness categories by GPs? (Horton-Salway, 2007) > “constructed” aka what discourses are being used by GP’s
• How is evidence of serious adverse effects from SSRIs is managed by those who have a professional stake in using or promoting the drugs? (Libert & Gavey, 2009) > thinking about ideology + rhetoric around professional conflict so those who are involved in promoting drugs in a professional capacity and how do they negotiate something that perhaps challenges their interests in using and promoting drugs?
• How do young adults talk about and produce meanings and understandings of immigration, immigrants and cultural diversity? (Lyons et al., 2011) > looking at how they discuss and produce meaning because this is likely something people have strong perspectives on so why do they construct and use language in a certain way

Question 32

Example of when research was not anonymised

Answer 32

• Scheper-Hughes (1979): Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland
• (Scheper-Hughes 2000)
• Did ethnographic research of village in rural Ireland > Argued cultural and environmental context and familial relations may have contributed to mental illness in community members
• Another journalist identified the village in question from book + published it in Irish Times
• Scheper-Hughes returns 1999 to the village and received hostility, expelled from village
This raises questions: anonymity, privacy, accuracy, fairness

Question 33

Marginalised voices

Answer 33

• Marginalised voices = voices which are often not heard
• Subjects where there is an increased risk of harm
  
  • Triggering and distress (trauma) + could lead to re-victimisation
• Potential social harm through disclosure > some ppts may open up to you whilst others may not feel the same
• BUT need to think broadly, some topics may be sensitive but need to be explored > religious beliefs, political issues, research in organisations
• ‘High risk’ projects > lengthier and more detailed ethical review + Deeper thought and concern around ethical issues ensuring sensitivity to topic + ppts
• Addressed through methods, involvement of advisory groups + avoiding stigmatising language.
• These ethical concerns can be addressed in a number of ways, such as using participatory action research methods which aim to empower the participants, including participants in the research process, such as transcript checking
• it is wise to involve stakeholders as well as key informants in sensitive topics as they can advise and guide on social mores and identify some of the core concerns of a group. > Specifically, they could be particularly helpful and therefore avoidance of stigmatising terminology chiefly.
• There is a need to think holistically about the project and ensure that your participants are central to any decision making.

Question 34

Marginalised voices: vulnerable populations

Answer 34

• Groups with high levels of physical, psychological or social risk
• Persons who can not provide valid consent
• Coercion, unequal relationships or inability to understand
• E.g. children, clinical populations, homeless, people with learning disabilities, etc.
• Same ethical concerns: but more stringently considered + raises further ethical questions: E.g. financial renumeration interviews with those reliant on drugs
NHS ethics- rigorous and lengthy process (up to a year)

Question 35

Voice and representation: equality and diversity in research activity

Answer 35

• BPS ethical guidelines argue for diverse and inclusive approach to research, psychologists should be aware of and take consideration for potential effects of a number of characteristics, including age, disability, ethnicity, gender, language, sexual orientation + familial status
• Braun & Clarke (2012) Often (but not always) a political dimension to qualitative research
• Goal to reduce inclusion of assumptions about way psychological world is from dominant groups in society: e.g. sexism, heteronormativity
• Need to be ethically aware of how research decisions shape subject and participants > E.g. research with ‘parents’- what’s implied? What’s excluded? Do you mean just heterosexual parents or also, gay and lesbian parents?
Ethical advice on non-discriminatory practices in research produced by BPS and APA

Question 36

Voice and representation: Power

Answer 36

• Power relations between the interviewer + interviewee could have problems
• the researcher is the powerful one within the interview as they direct the flow of conversation and topic
• research that has considered the role of power within interviews is focussed on two broad areas
• populations that are disempowered due to their position within society
• populations that are disempowered within the interview setting due to the status of the research
• the participant rapport building has been identified as the main route through which issues of power can be mediated.
• Brinkman and Kvale (2017)
  
  • Participants sharing intimate aspects of lives
  • Detailed data from individuals
• Interviewer engaging in interaction with pretty one sided probing of personal issues
• Approach-increase empowerment
• Rapport building (Braun & Clarke, 2013) by being sensitive to their experience and making them feel as comfortable as possible
• Emphasising they are the experts of their experiences (Russell, 2000) > ensuring they know that this is about THEIR experience so THEY know best > helps them feel eased discussing their experiences
• Approach-‘out-number’ the researcher > if there are more people in a focus group e.g. than the researchers present so that ppts feel more eased + can discuss more taboo topics > presence of others may encourage quiet ppts to speak up (especially if experiences are similar)
• Participatory Action Research
• Focus Groups (Kitzinger, 1995)

Question 37

Voice and representation: ‘Role’ of qualitative researcher

Answer 37

• What is the role of the qualitative researcher, especially working in sensitive areas/with vulnerable populations?
• Understanding the experiences of others
• Voice-giver to those who may ordinarily not have it > but is this really something we can give? This exacerbates the power difference between the researcher and ppt (gifting voice to ppt?)
• Vehicle for change?
• Empoweree? Is it the researchers job to empower ppts and enact change in the ppts life? But whose changes this? Who deems it in need of change and support and who isn’t? And who decides what that change should look like?
• Some approach situates the participants at the centre of the research. They’re called participatory approaches, and they work to empower the disempowered, giving voice to them.
• How do we manage researcher wellbeing?
• This is important because as you are a researcher, you are coming to understand the experiences of others who had difficult stories. You see distress and you see people making sense of these issues. This can also be very positive experiences as well.
In short, you were going on this journey with your participants, sometimes potentially even shape in that sense making and process of understanding.

Question 38

Addressing these concerns: Voice and representation - ‘Role’ of qualitative researcher

Answer 38

Oakley, Fenge, and Taylor (2020) addressed this concerns when they interviewed 10 researchers exploring sensitive topics
• Feeling a sense of responsibility, power and privilege, though this was very complex
• found the researchers are deeply reflective about their own positions of power and privilege associated with these.
• careful consideration of adopting methodologies that sought to redress power in the research process, such as rapport building and deeper relationships.
• The interviews also demonstrated the desire of many qualitative researchers working with sensitive topics on marginalised groups that the research should promote some personal or social change.
• Finding methods to help redress power imbalance
• Wanting to see change
• Identifying themselves as also vulnerable in the process. > Researchers themselves may feel vulnerable in the process and feeling responsibility towards the well-being of participants and listen to stories.
• Researchers were more aware of the challenges faced by these participants.

Question 39

Ethics in the “room”: interviewing + managing rapport

Answer 39

• This goes beyond the usual ethical considerations of sensitive questioning
• Rapport is an integral part of qualitative research, encourages participants to feel comfortable discussing their experiences + can make a difference in interview quality and depth of insight
• Duncombe & Jessop (2002) argued that we how we build rapport is often is also an ethical issue. > Managing rapport- how we do being friendly, empathetic etc. in interviews
• Ethical question: researchers can sometimes ‘fake’ friendships to get answers to questions - manipulative
• Researchers often walk a very fine line between research and faking friendships to get answers, and this could be a manipulative behaviour.
Need to maintain professional distance and be aware of ethical implications + treat participant as person but keep purpose of interaction in mind

Question 40

Ethics in the “room”: disclosure

Answer 40

• Interviews are built on the foundation of disclosure > we want ppts to talk
• Interviews are spaces where participants are also coming to understand their experience
• Some may never have spoken to anyone before
  
  • They may start to disclose personal experiences
  • Challenges faced for research accuracy
  • Participant may reveal something about themselves and their experiences
  • E.g. Interviewing friends of those who self-harm & they disclose they also have self-harmed
• Ethical challenges
• If harm to self or others, or criminal behaviour-may need to beak confidence
• This is something that you should always speak to somebody else about, usually supervisor, as this is something that may come across more likely in your later experiences of study such as your project or if you go on to further education.
• If ppts disclose illegal behaviours then your data may be sub-poenaed

Question 41

Ethics in the “room”: maintaining boundaries

Answer 41

• It is ok to show concern for your ppt but it should be kept professional + you should not later check on them > you should refer them to someone for support if you think they need it using distress protocols > e.g do not call them later to check on them
• It is the participant’s space to speak, not a chance for you to
• Qualitative interviewing IS NOT like therapy or counselling > Very different specialist skills
• Can be difficult when addressing emotive or sensitive issues but can do more harm than good if blur lines
• Good practice
• Inform participant before they take part it’s research only
• Include info on appropriate psychological support
- Draw on distress protocols (Dempsey et al., 2016; Draucker et al.. 2009; Haigh and Witham, 2013)

Question 42

Ethics in the “room”: Researcher self-disclosure

Answer 42

• Researcher disclosure roles hold a contentious role in qualitative research (Pezella et al., 2012) > the researchers may share something about themselves, such as to share characteristics or experience. The efficaciousness of this has been debated.
• Some argue it may inhibit disclosure (troubles who is the expert + may unsettle some ppts)
• May facilitate disclosure (empathy + increased rapport building)
• Tricky ethical perspective for both inhibiting and facilitating disclosure
• Inhibit-is it what the participant signed up for? Is it wasting their time? Is it appropriate to tell them something about you when the focus should be on their experiences?
• Facilitate-is this manipulation. Is this manipulation of participants encouraging them to say something that they may not have otherwise disclosed?
• Response is not clear-cut!
• Can you even hold this back if this is part of your normal forms of interaction?
• Should you be passing personal information to participants?
• There needs to be maintenance of some level of distance and professional boundaries.

Question 43

Honesty in practice: deception

Answer 43

• Deception is uncommon + unusual in qualitative research > usually direct about what is being investigated but sometimes needs to use deception
• Classic example: Festinger (1956), When Prophecy Fails
• Researchers infiltrated doomsday cult by posing as members + wrote about observations and conversations > ppts didn’t know this was happening
• If deception used
• Needs strong ethical justification
• Fully debriefing the participant debrief is ESSENTIAL
Researchers responsibility to ensure this happens

Question 44

Honesty in practice: faking data

Answer 44

• Another aspect to ensuring honesty and qualitative research is ensuring that data is faithfully represented.
• Psychology has been hit with issues concerning the replication crisis and falsification of data in qualitative research.
• There’s also a concern about the representation of participants voices. Faking data and misrepresenting participants accounts is deeply unethical and can lead to issues of academic malpractice and has serious consequences for those who have been found to do this.
• Data-faking and mis-representing participants accounts is DEEPLY unethical
• Issue of academic malpractice- serious consequences
• In qual research, this is important for why verbatim transcription used, messy but is transparent + gives transparency
• clarity when editing and using transcripts > using line numbers, clearly demarcated breaks etc. > sometimes submission of all data too
• Open data, open science is seeing a surge in psychology whereby cities are preregistered and data is made open, allowing for transparency in the analysis and conclusions drawn in qualitative research. And we need we need to think cautiously about whether we make data open access. These are participant stories not datapoints
• we need to think carefully about how we think about balancing transparency against privacy.

Question 45

Internet mediated qualitative research

Answer 45

• Not all qualitative research is conducted face to face > can be done online like foreign data, IM’s and social media
• Ethical concerns on use of qualitative data forum data, IM’s, and social media sites
• How will you ensure anonymity? If you google a comment will it trace back to the person?
• Some have argued that direct quotes are to be avoided, are instead paraphrased that this may impacts on the transparency and quality of interpretation.
• What about informed consent? Are the ‘participants’ aware that their responses could be used in this way?
• some researchers will request the moderators permission to use the data or have specific spaces set up that people can post to knowing it is for research
• Many of the same principals apply but in digital context
• Need to consider who participates in and is a gatekeeper to online environments
BPS gives a guideline on how to conduct qual research online.