Reflections on reflexivity

The first point that I want to reflect is the positionality and reflexivity. Qualitative researchers need to be reflexive. This is the biggest up-take I got from this class. Before taking this class, I had the problem of whether my standpoints were objective. We discussed this in our small group discussion. I brought up the question of doing the case study. Picking up an appropriate case from a pile of data is really hard. I was wondering whether I was biased by the opinions from other researchers who had been in the classroom and had created a rapport relationship with the student.Rebecca provided me with a good answer that the purpose of a case study was to highlight the ideal case rather than have a representative case. Therefore, it is ok to pick up the case based on the observations of classrooms.

The conversation I had in the group connected with my question at the beginning of the class: the relationship between positionality and reflexivity. Positionality means multiple identities are shaping our view of the world. It is not stationary. Reflexivity is the process that articulate our view of the world. It shapes our views of the world continually around the positionality we held. Thus, it is important for qualitative researchers being reflexive since qualitative researche is always descriptive. For qualitative researchers, it appears that there is no need to pursue the stage of being objective. Descriptions of the world can't be same from person to person. It is ok for researchers to start from their "bias". Reflexive provides a way of articulating the "bias". 

 

I like Jessica's reply of my last blog post. people performing is definitely be a standalone issue in online research community. in face-to-face research, people would also perform in order not to be embarrassed. This also happens on using questionnaire  as the major data source. Resolutions I could think of is to triangulate data and improve the validity of questionnaire and interview questions.