Reflexivity
Reflexivity is a qualitative researcher's ongoing examination of how their own background, assumptions, position and choices shape the research, from the questions asked to the interpretation of the data, made transparent in how the study is reported.
How it works
Qualitative researchers are part of the data they collect: the way they ask, what they notice and how they interpret all reflect who they are. Reflexivity means acknowledging that influence rather than pretending to be neutral. Practices include keeping a reflexive journal, noting reactions to interviews, discussing interpretations with colleagues, and stating positionality, the researcher's relationship to the topic and participants.
In business research, reflexivity guards against teams finding what they hoped to find. A product manager interviewing users about their own feature, for example, needs to be aware of that stake and check interpretations with someone without it. Reviewers can then weigh a finding knowing who produced it and how.
A worked example
A researcher at a fintech company, a former banker, notices in her journal that she keeps coding complaints about fees as "price sensitivity". A colleague reviewing 10 transcripts reads the same passages as distrust of the bank. The team revises the code, and distrust becomes the study's lead finding.
Related
Automate this in Pulse
A human interviewer's warmth or impatience shapes answers in ways reflexivity asks a researcher to record, and in Pulse one guide sets the questions for every conversation, which moves the reflexive work onto the brief and the reading.