Question: What is the name of the process through which an interviewer can consider any personal biases?
Answer: self-disclosure
As a reminder, one of the most used ways that information is gathered in qualitative research is through an interview process. This process can be either structured or unstructured, but either way personal biases of the interviewer needs to remain in check. Since every single person on this planet has their own set of personal biases, there needs to be a process in place to keep those biases in check when it comes to research. This process is known as self-disclosure when it comes to qualitative research. Through this process, the interviewer will set aside time before creating interview questions or conducting any interviews and think about what biases they could possibly have toward the subject they are researching or the individuals they are going to interview. After giving much though, the interviewer will create interview questions while trying to mitigate those biases to the best of their ability. The goal is to make yourself aware of what biases you may have so you can attempt to work around them and leave them out of your research. One other option that some researchers chose to do is to have a summary written in their published reports where they detail out their self-disclosures in order to make them known to those reading the study.
I feel the concept of self-disclosure and adding a summary into the published reports is a very beneficial concept that only helps researchers in delivering a well grounded product. It lets the reader know what other factors might have played into the results, but also minimizes the effects of those factors since they were thought about ahead of time and the research was accomplished with them in mind and mitigated to the best of their abilities.
Hi Samuel. I read your discussion question and post. I think you did a great job explaining how researchers should go about gathering qualitative data via interviews. I also think it takes many years of conducting research in order to learn how to not be bias. I think not being bias is definitely a learned skill. I’m working on our course assigned proposal assignment and have already found myself being bias in many of the data I gathered and plan to use in my paper. I believe it’s almost impossible not to bias but I’m beginning to think it’s best not to research ideas or items we had personal experiences with. For example doing research on the divorce rate in the US when the researcher has been married and divorce many times would be almost impossible for that researcher not to be bias.
Your assessment of self-disclosure as a way to reduce the effects of personal bias on interviews and qualitative research is excellent, Samuel. Your description of summaries added to the published report which lists the personal biases of the researcher is thought-provoking. I’ve never read such a summary in a research report, and I think it would make the findings more convincing.
Sometimes we can perceive bias if we read a report in its entirety. I remember a study that claimed that the consumption of alcohol reduces depression seemed to have conclusive incontrovertible results. However, at the very end of the document, I found that the research was funded by a beer company. Obviously, there was no self-disclosure of bias in the report, yet the research clearly aimed to support the goals of the company that provided the funding for the project. Research is unreliable if bias remains unchecked, and unreliable research damages the credibility of all research. A self-disclosure, as you have suggested, is an effective method of ensuring that the findings are as accurate as possible, and convincing the reader to consider the fact presented in decision-making.