Perception and Objectivity as a Researcher

My perception and objectivity as a researcher was another design issue I had to contend with. This is because humans are “inference machines” that construct the world and our experiences related to that world through what is implied through those experiences (Roediger et al., 2002, p. 12). Following this reasoning, my perceptions of the world of the part-time MBA student have been somewhat shaped by my own experiences as a part-time MBA student. These experiences have also shaped the way I teach, focusing on what I considered as effective teaching and leaving out what I thought not. I also acknowledge that my experiences and perceptions might inevitably influence the findings based on my views of what is considered good or bad teaching.

Hence, objectivity as a researcher continued to be a key area of concern, as I needed to be aware of my own biases, as a researcher, and conscious of not imposing those biases on the research (Brinkmann, 2007; Eisner, 1992).

My status in the research as an ‘insider’ was also potential source of bias. Although I am only a part-time faculty of the University of Strathclyde, I have been an actor in teaching and learning interactions that I have been researching, and therefore have experiences related to that context. Such a position both disadvantaged as well as advantaged the research. On one hand, I had concerns, and legitimately so, on the level of impartiality that I have exercised in the research interviews as well as the analysis process (Darra, 2008). On the other hand, my understanding of organisational culture, as well as the disposition of the students in the study, allowed me to interpret the findings from a very unique perspective, which meant that my findings are grounded on “messy and difficult to access multiple realities of organisational life” (Smyth & Holian, 2008, pp. 36-37).

In theory, objectivity required me to make a succinct distinction between being objective versus striving to do so but in reality it was not that simple (Eisner, 1992). Concepts of objectivity and impartiality are learned as we mature morally as individuals, way before we actually become researchers, hence objectivity is in itself an ethical concept (Brinkmann, 2007; MacIntyre, 1978). It is not an ‘if’ but a ‘must’. Objectivity also meant that as a researcher I had to step outside the data, viewing the data as a third party would, and yet my own experiences challenged my ability “to skip between the worlds of interest and disinterest” (Linsteadl, 1994, p. 1322). I

realised that these worlds were somewhat inseparable, which added to the challenge of maintaining objectivity.

Madill, Jordan, and Shirley (2000) argue that objectivity in educational research has frequently been challenged as being unable to produce knowledge that is objective or reliable. This is because the subjectivity of knowledge will likely to be seen as being influenced by the participants’ understanding of the questions raised during the research interview, my own interpretation of the data, and the cultural context and nuances that were prevalent in that research relationship. The influence of cultural artefacts such as the roles, rules and expectations in an interview between the participants and myself cannot be understated where “contextual cues automatically and non-consciously activate the relevant cultural mind-set” which shaped perception, reasoning, and response (Oyserman, 2011, p. 165). Hence, I acknowledge that any form of knowledge produced, such as my cognition of the categories of description and the outcome space, was inherently subjective, although I have made every attempt to ensure that these knowledge products were grounded in data from the participants’ interviews.

To stretch the argument further, objectivity, as Eisner (1992, p. 14) suggests, could also be described as an “unrealisable ideal”, as there is no such things as pure objectivity because even an outsider conducting research carries some type of bias. The reality is that there is no single way of looking at and making sense of a phenomenon. The knowledge created as a result of my interaction with the participants through the interviews could never be absolutely objective. Bearing this

assumption in mind, I felt that it was probably more pragmatic to embrace the fact that the multiple voices in the interviews provided multiple perspectives, and my voice and perception as a researcher, which was translated during the analysis, just added richness to the eventual outcome (Berger, 2015; Dowling, 2006).

I acknowledge, therefore, that central to good qualitative research is the practice of reflexivity, which was about exercising awareness of how my own position influenced the knowledge created from the research. Reflexivity allowed me to remain in an objective space through an iterative and continual process of reflection on the research, the research process, and outcomes. This rigorous process provided me the framework to manage the tensions that arose from my positional transitions between insider and outsider. To facilitate this I kept a research diary that articulated my research journey and recorded my decisions, and the rationale for those decisions (Berger, 2015; Dowling, 2006; Newton, Rothlingova, Gutteridge, LeMarchand, & Raphael, 2011).

I had considered respondent validation of analysis as a possible way of maintaining objectivity, as that would mitigate possible errors in my interpretation of participants’ views. My challenge, however, was that the analysis was targeted at a larger audience rather than the specific concerns or area of interest of the specific respondents. Therefore, I adopted a middle ground of sorts by allowing the respondents to view and edit their transcripts to ensure that their world view has been captured accurately (Mays & Pope, 2000; Rodriguez, 1999).