20.2 Ethical responsibility and cultural respectfulness

The two concepts of rigor and ethics in qualitative research are closely intertwined. It is a commitment to ethical research that leads us to conduct research in rigorous ways, so as not to put forth research that is of poor quality, misleading, or altogether false. Furthermore, the tools that demonstrate rigor in our research are reinforced by solid ethical practices. For instance, as we build a rigorous protocol for collecting interview data, part of this protocol must include a well-executed, ethical informed consent process; otherwise, we hold little hope that our efforts will lead to trustworthy data. Both ethics and rigor shine a light on our behaviors as researchers. These concepts offer standards by which others can critique our commitment to quality in the research we produce. They are both tools for accountability in the practice of research.

Related to this idea of accountability, rigor requires that we promote a sense of transparency in the qualitative research process. We will talk extensively in this chapter about tools to help support this sense of transparency, but first, I want to explore why transparency is so important for ethical qualitative research. As social workers, our own knowledge, skills, and abilities to help serve our clients are our tools. Similarly, qualitative research demands the social work researcher be an actively involved human instrument in the research process.

While quantitative researchers also makes a commitment to transparency, they may have an easier job of demonstrating it. Let’s just think about the data analysis stage of research. The quantitative researcher has a data set, and based on that data set there are certain tests that they can run. Those tests are mathematically defined and computed by statistical software packages and we have established guidelines for interpreting the results and reporting the findings. There is most certainly tremendous skill and knowledge exhibited in the many decisions that go into this analysis process; however, the rules and requirements that lay the foundation for these mathematical tests mean that much of this process is prescribed for us. The prescribed procedures offer quantitative researchers a shorthand for talking about their transparency.

In comparison, the qualitative researcher, sitting down with their data for analysis will engage in a process that will require them to make hundreds or thousands of decisions about what pieces of data mean, what label they should have, how they relate to other ideas, what the larger significance is as it relates to their final results. That isn’t to say that we don’t have procedures and processes as qualitative researchers, we just can’t rely on mathematics to make these decisions precise and clear. We have to rely on ourselves as human instruments. Adopting a commitment to transparency in our research as qualitative researchers means that we are actively describing for our audience the role we have as human instruments and we consider how this is shaping the research process. This allows us to avoid unethically representing what we did in our research process and what we found.

I think that as researchers we can sometimes think of data as an object that is not inherently valuable, but rather a means to an end. But if we see qualitative data as part of sacred stories that are being shared with us, doesn’t it feel like a more precious resource? Something worthy of thoughtfully and even gently gathering, something that needs protecting and safe-keeping. Adhering to a rigorous research process can help to honor these commitments and avoid the misuse of data as a precious resource. Thinking like this will hopefully help us to demonstrate greater cultural humility as social work researchers.