Lilly is a clinical faculty member in social psychology. She is currently exploring social phenomena at the intersection of faith identity, race, and gender. Her current study explores the experiences of African American women who identify as Muslim, which is also an experience she shares. Her primary data collection, which included interviews, is now over. As a part of her phenomenological design, Lilly incorporated a member check process in which she will share initial results with her participants to garner their feedback and negotiate her conclusions.
As Lilly presents her findings, several of her participants share their disconnection and dissatisfaction with Lilly’s conclusions and subsequent theoretical framework. The same participants articulate that they do not feel heard and comment to Lilly that during the interview process, she inaccurately rephrased or reworded or misattributed their contributions.
As her participants challenge her findings, Lilly becomes defensive. Lilly contends that as a person who shares the participant’s identities, she understands how to make meaning of their contributions, and further adds as a social scientist, she is uniquely trained to make meaning of social phenomena. One participant challenges Lilly’s confidence in their shared experience and offers that Lilly’s socio-economic status (having grown up with more than enough resources) is complicating her understanding of their experience.
Feeling confounded, Lilly reaches out to a colleague in her department to process and seek additional feedback. Lilly works with her colleague to explore patterns of confirmation bias in her study and considers how she may re-analyze her data in a way that centers and honors the contributions of her participants. Lilly engages in reviewing the data again and prepares a new member check process with her participants.
- The Issue: Lilly discovers in the member check process of her phenomenological study that her research conclusions are not congruent with her participants’ experiences. Further, there are concerns that she may have projected her own experiences in the administration of her interviews and through her interpretation of the data.
- The Deliberation: Lilly challenges herself to sit with critique from her research participants, and subsequently seeks guidance from a colleague. With her colleague, she considers how she may be experiencing confirmation bias.
- The Growth: Lilly recognizes her power and influence in her study outcomes and agrees to re-engage her data with a new analytical framework and to revisit her participants with another member check to improve the efficacy of her results.