Another very inspiring session. Another session that generated (at least for me) more questions. Another instance where I started off thinking answers would be straight forward, but I soon realised the plethora of points of view and approaches made it rather the opposite.
Insider research.
Naively I thought it would of course be a grand idea to research your own institution: taking one for the team, finding the problems and solving them for everyone else!
In fact I have been through this exact scenario during my MBA for my final research project.
Following Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Experience Sampling Method (ESM) I conducted a research on work motivation at the institution I used to work for. As part of the team, I had sensed we had some problems and thought it’d be interesting and useful to identify which problems we had and how to solve them or at least move forward.
During yesterday’s session I realised that it’s not as simple as that (and already conducting a research project, especially an ESM one, is no easy thing)…
There are of course positive aspects. Being aware of a malaise and understanding the mechanics and politics of the institution can be an advantage. As it can be very useful if one is a well received team member: one could be more easily given consent and participation (paramount in my instance) could be greater if the participants trust the researcher to be on their side.
Unfortunately there are many not-so positive factors that can actually get in the way of the research and its success. For one of course if the researcher is not well received or perhaps the boss is the team being researched, participation and consent may lack.
More importantly thought factors such as bias and being too immersed in the politics of the institution could influence the researcher in their method and interpretation of findings.
Still, the idea of being able to improve aspects of one’s own institution appeals to me and perhaps I need to reflect on how I could set up my methodology to make it water tight against the negatively influencing factors, should this be even possible.
Food for thought.
The second part of the session also raised many questions, in particular when analysing the scenario our group was tasked with, scenario 1:
“In your observations you’ve come across practices that you believe may be under-serving some students (you are uncertain)”.
The discussion was very interesting, especially since another group had the same scenario and their approach was completely different.
In essence this scenario was tackled from two points of view: the more impartial researcher with a specific mandate approach and the more ethically influenced one where the researcher is trying to sustain social justice.
The first instance makes the approach to the scenario much more complex and almost without an answer: would intervene be relevant to the research, would we have a mandate to do that, would we have the authority, who could we ask permission to?
The second instance makes it slightly easier: is the under-serving a breach to ethical duties, such as ensuring equality? If so it has to be addressed and possibly done so independently from the research. But does it?
The question of bias comes back here and with it the need to set up that water tight methodology that can navigate independently from it.
More food for thought…
Bibliography:
Csikszentmihalyi, M., Schmidt, J.A., Hektner, J.M. (2007) Experience Sampling Method. Measuring the Quality of Everyday Life London: Sage