As researchers, we have an ethical responsibility to recognise the potential impact our background and beliefs have on the decisions we make when conducting research. As early career researchers (ECRs) and postgraduate researchers (PGRs), we feel that reflexivity and awareness of positionality in our research are vital to research integrity. In this blog post, we consider the importance of reflexivity and positionality in research and aim to provide some useful advice for ECRs.
Reflexivity can be defined as the ongoing examination of how the researcher’s identity potentially impacts research design, methods, analysis, ontology and epistemology (Basit, 2013). The goal of reflexivity is to improve the quality and validity of the research while recognising the limitations of the knowledge produced. Employing reflexivity throughout the research process involves the researcher being aware of how their perspective and identity might influence all aspects of the process and assessing the impact on the research (Hamdan, 2009). Being reflexive allows a researcher to build awareness of ethical issues and issues related to knowledge creation (Berger, 2013).
