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Session Title: Ethics and Qualitative Evaluation Methods: A Complex Intersection
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Panel Session 410 to be held in Mineral Hall Section G on Thursday, Nov 6, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
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Sponsored by the Qualitative Methods TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Jennifer Greene,
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,
jcgreene@uiuc.edu
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| Discussant(s):
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| Rodney Hopson,
Duquesne University,
hopson@duq.edu
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| Abstract:
While in broad outline qualitative and quantitative evaluation research methods share similar concerns with each other and with other types of social research, qualitative evaluation entails particular attention to interpersonal relationships within the evaluation team and between evaluators and participants. This is because the evaluator's primary tool in the process of observation and interview is the ability to form trusting and trustworthy relationships. As self-understanding is at the basis of ethical, effective relationship development, the first paper in the session addresses the importance of ongoing self-calibration as the foundation for relating authentically to others across barriers posed by culture, gender, age, abilities, social class and so on. The second presenter explores self and other within the setting of ethnography with extended and evolving relationships between researcher and informant while the final paper brings notions of ethics as they pertain to self-in-relationship-with-other in the specific sensitive research topic of sexual orientation.
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Cultivating Self as Responsive Instrument for Excellence and Ethical Practice in Evaluation
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| Hazel Symonette,
University of Wisconsin Madison,
symonette@bascom.wisc.edu
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Evaluators are privileged authorities with social powers to define reality and make impactful judgments about others. Yet, from our privileged standpoints, we often look but still do not see, listen but do not hear, touch but do not feel. Such limitations handicap our truth-discerning and judging capacities. When we fail to systematically address the ways our sociocultural lenses, filters and frames may obscure or distort more than they illuminate, we do violence to others' truths and erode validity. To address these issues, we must constantly expand our understandings of self in dynamically diverse contexts within power and privilege hierarchies and our understandings of the contexts embodied in the self. This paper explores the need for calibrating and cultivating our most valuable instrument--the SELF--as an open and expansively learning-centered, responsive instrument. This is an ethical responsibility as well as an essential pathway for professional excellence.
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Ethnography: The Dialectic between Poles: Informing as an Inter-subjective Process
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| Anne Ryen,
Agder University,
anne.ryen@uia.no
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My focus is on the researcher-informant relationship in ethnography when using an ethno-informed approach. I claim that field-relations interact with our data, and that we need to explore the finely grained aspects of how such complex field relations evolve across time and contexts while still avoiding the potential pitfalls of subjective reflexivity. Rather, an inter-subjective perspective highlights informing as an interpersonal process with emotions as well as eruptions, as core aspects of this kind of inquiry.
The importance of this focus is at least twofold. First, the interconnectedness leads to reflections on self and other enabling us to resist 'Othering' as the classic colonial twist of much cross-cultural work. Second, this then leads to credible and legitimate qualitative evaluation by our analyses being firmly based on detailed, natural occurring data. My discussion draws on my research on Asian business in East-Africa.
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LGBTQ Issues: Protecting Vulnerable Subjects in ALL Evaluations
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| SJ Dodd,
City University of New York,
sdodd@hunter.cuny.edu
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The purpose of this presentation is to explore the issue of ethical evaluation practice from the perspective of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals. It also highlights the particular ways in which standard aspects of ethical evaluation practice, such as informed consent, confidentiality and protection from harm may vary for LGBTQ individuals.
This presentation draws attention to areas where LGBTQ persons may be especially vulnerable in evaluation situations and where careful consideration by the evaluator is essential to protecting the human subjects involved. Statistically, it is likely that any evaluation may include some subjects who overtly or covertly identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Therefore, the presentation culminates with suggestions for best practices to consider when conducting evaluations involving human subjects regardless of the particular focus of the evaluation.
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