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Article Excerpt
An important skill we need to develop as researchers is an ability to reflect on, to understand, to evaluate, and to see the interrelationships among the deep assumptions that underlie our work. If my own experience is any indication, it is a skill that does not come easily. We first need to acquire knowledge that is both broad and deep--knowledge that allows us to understand paradoxically what we know and what we don't know. We then need to have the discipline and courage to stare at the underbelly of our research--to scrutinize it ruthlessly so we can learn more about our subject matter, the strengths and limitations of our research, and more broadly ourselves as researchers and our place within a community of scholars. Being able to reflect deeply on our research is a skill that is difficult to master and sustain. We must hone it assiduously throughout our careers.
In these editorial comments, I address the topic of reflexivity in research. I will first explain what I mean by reflexivity. I will then attempt to show how reflexivity can help us in the conduct of our research. Finally, I will examine some pitfalls of being a reflexive researcher. My motivation is to try to encourage more discussion about and greater engagement in research reflexivity within our discipline. To forestall any accusation that I am throwing stones from a glass house, I admit readily that unfortunately much of my own work reflects that I am not a consummate practitioner of research reflexivity.
At the outset, let me hasten to indicate that this editorial is not another piece of rhetoric on the merits of positivism versus interpretivism. For a start, I find much of the debate about positivism versus interpretivism to be vacuous (a topic for another editorial!). In any event, reflexivity in research has a broader gamut than the hoary old chestnut of positivism versus interpretivism. True, it is informed by this debate, but it is not captured by it.
What Is Reflexivity?
When we reflect on some topic, we try to understand it more deeply. We consider matters like context, assumptions, cultural biases, political influences, and so on. Reflection is difficult. We have to step outside ourselves and look on ourselves as another person might. We have to try to understand ourselves as sentient, social beings and to come to grips with the ways we construct our understanding of the world. The quality of our reflection will depend on the breadth and depth of the knowledge we possess, Absent knowledge, we cannot reflect. We have no basis for gleaning self-insight and enriching our understanding of the world.
Reflection also requires that we stop or at least pause in our research endeavors. It is not hard to understand why scholars racing against a tenure clock might view reflection as a palsy they should avoid at all costs (or perhaps more positively, a luxury they cannot afford). It is sad, however, if we become senior, established scholars and shun reflection--if we are driven by a research and publication agenda that brooks no time for reflection about the long-term value of the research we are undertaking.
Reflexivity (as opposed to reflection) is an even more-difficult affair. It involves seeing the interrelationships between the sets of assumptions, biases, and perspectives that underpin different facets of the research we undertake. In some cases, a dominant worldview may permeate all aspects of our research--for example, a belief that as researchers we have the most-informed, authoritative "voice" to describe the phenomena that are our focus. In other cases, different sets of assumptions might guide the way we conceptualize our research problem, the way we frame our theory, the way we conduct our empirical work, and the way we interpret the empirical materials we gather. Some assumptions may be congruent; others may be contradictory. For instance, we may be seeking to understand how the employees in an organization perceive the threats posed by the implementation of an information system--in other words, we believe they should have the authoritative voice. Unwittingly, however, we then employ a research method that inhibits their freely expressing their concerns and which, instead, foregrounds our own beliefs about what is happening.
In short, when we try to understand the assumptions, biases, and perspectives that underlie one component of our research (e.g., the way we have constructed our theory), we are being reflective. Insofar as we try to understand the assumptions, biases, and perspectives that underlie all components of our research and, in particular, the interrelationships among them, we are being reflexive. As reflexive researchers, we first try to reach a deep understanding of the individual components of our research--our theories, our research methods, our interpretations, and so on. We then try to understand our research as a whole--how the different components fit together and whether the individual components make sense in terms of the whole. We then return to the components and try to reach a deeper understanding of them in light of our understanding of the...
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