Accountability in Research

Amber Domingue, MA | Research & Evaluation Manager

As an undergrad research student at Xavier University of Louisiana and during my research training under Dr. Sherina Feliciano-Santos in my anthropology doctoral program, one of the first lessons I learned was to put myself in the shoes of my participants to imagine what it would feel like to read, hear, and respond to someone else’s questions about my own experiences and perspectives. Along with this lesson, I was taught about the history of abuse subjugated people, particularly Black people, have faced in the name of “research.” With this knowledge, two concepts have followed me throughout my career from student to now community-engaged qualitative researcher:

1. We as researchers have great power to impact people’s lives with the work that we do; and

2. We as researchers have a great responsibility to do ethical research in service of those who have been historically and intentionally misunderstood, forgotten, and mistreated in the name of science, knowledge, and progress.

How we reflect on and use our power to be accountable to others throughout the research process is the key to performing ethical research that ideally does more good than harm.

Throughout the qualitative research process, it's important to think about those who the research will impact and how we relate to them. When collecting the data, that means the participants who share their stories, perspectives, or opinions that will later be considered data. When analyzing the data, that means our team who is helping us make sense of what people have shared relative to the original research question and overall purpose of the project. When reporting out, that means an imagined audience who will be impacted in some way by what we’ve said or written. Considering the feelings, life experiences, and points of view each of these groups (i.e. participants, team members, and an imagined audience) hold is an integral part of the research process because they all contribute expertise that can and should guide our research in a meaningful way. 

We should consider how we are accountable to those who are most vulnerable during the data collection process, and how we can protect people, as well. So what makes someone vulnerable? Regardless of the research team’s best intentions, our research participants are made vulnerable when we:

• ask them to participate in a study which may reveal sensitive information about them based on the study inclusion criteria, and that others could find out if the person is identified as a research participant;

• ask them to share personal details about their lives which may be uncomfortable, retraumatizing, or emotionally difficult to remember or tell someone; 

• synthesize their responses, which could be misinterpreted or misrepresented by the research team; and

• disseminate the information they’ve shared as findings, which could reveal personal information that if identified with the participant could lead to unintended consequences ranging from social stigma to job loss. 

It’s important to remember that as researchers, we often benefit more from the knowledge gained from interviews than participants do from participating.

This means we have a responsibility to minimize harm and protect those that are helping us get a deeper understanding of an issue, make new discoveries, and contribute to our fields of study. 

⮕ Paying attention to signs that participants may not want to respond to certain questions — even if they don’t say so explicitly — and acting accordingly

⮕ Giving participants time to think about their responses, even if it means you won’t have time to ask all of your questions

⮕ Sharing data back with participants to give them the opportunity to confirm it

⮕ Reciprocating vulnerability by sharing relevant and genuine details about yourself throughout an interview 

⮕ Reminding participants at the beginning, middle, and end of their right to withdraw from the study or skip questions 

⮕ Giving space for participants to share insights in areas that may not seem immediately relevant to the project

⮕ Believing participant experiences and taking seriously what they share with confidence 

• Submitting a mandatory Institutional Review Board (IRB) application to ensure research is ethically sound

• Making responses anonymous and/or aggregating responses

• Putting myself in the shoes of the participants to imagine what it might feel like to answer the research questions

• Having diverse perspectives on the research team to ensure participants' best interests are considered from different angles

• Pausing for questions and answering with transparency 

• Compensating participants for their time

At IWES, our research participants are often residents of the Greater New Orleans Area who have unique experiences because of our complicated history with colonization; our legacy of slavery; the political positionality in Louisiana and the broader U.S. South; a fraught relationship with land, minerals, and water; New Orleans’ vulnerability as a port city; and our economic dependence on tourism as modern-day minstrelsy. We as researchers are responsible for understanding the sociocultural context in which people’s lived experiences are situated, synthesizing their experiences, and communicating those experiences to a wider audience. Through qualitative data analysis, a team of researchers has the duty of thoughtfully representing a whole group of participants, while simultaneously including each participant’s unique viewpoints. This kind of collaborative data analysis requires humility, empathy, and creativity from the researchers. Being from New Orleans myself, I can often put myself in the shoes of our participants, and I always strive to consider their best interests. However, it also means that I have my own biases (for better or worse) about how certain experiences look and feel throughout the city and surrounding areas. Working as part of a team helps me check any existing biases and ensures that we analyze the data from a wide range of perspectives.

⮕ Sharing back details of data collection events, especially if I think I made a mistake

⮕ Seeking out, listening to, and including lived experiences that may be different from my own

⮕ Seeking advice from more experienced team members and trusting their judgment

⮕ Questioning and explaining how interpretations and conclusions were reached 

⮕ Talking out findings that are unclear to someone else on the team

⮕ Using tools to engage with and simplify complex topics, such as a dry erase board, sticky notes, pen and paper, and impromptu meetings

⮕ Revisiting settled topics if someone has a new thought

⮕ Creating and maintaining a clear data management system that works for everyone

⮕ Validating the team’s findings by presenting initial findings to a new group for feedback before finalizing the results

⮕ Allowing myself and others to change their minds 

⮕ Allowing others to check my biases and challenge my ideologies as appropriate 

⮕ Allowing space for contradictions in participant responses and working as a team to creatively and clearly honor multiple perspectives

⮕ Letting the process be as messy as it needs to be

⮕ Asking questions, asking more questions, and asking even more questions

Lastly, we are accountable to our imagined audience, which is probably the most difficult group to address because we may know some of them, but not all of them. From the start of the project, we should be thinking about who we want to see or hear about our work, as this shapes how we collect, analyze, and present the data. However, once the product of research (such as a presentation, report, manuscript, etc.) is shared, the researcher often cannot control who sees or hears about our work or how it is used by others. Since we never know how our imagined audience might use our research, especially as a tool to exert power over others (positively or negatively), it is crucial to remember that the people who are vulnerable to the impacts of that power are the ones to whom we are the most accountable and should be the most considerate. Therefore, it’s critical to take the time to do good research - ethically, thoughtfully, and responsibly - because doing good research is the best way to protect against inappropriate uses of our work. I use a combination of several strategies to make sure I’m doing the best research I can. 

My strategies for doing good research include:

• Time to consider the context in which people share their stories

• Iterative practices, thoughts, and processes

• Reflection on my own positionality in the work to check for any excessive bias

• Empathy that connects us to the communities at risk of harm from what we produce

• Multiple and nuanced perspectives throughout the research process 

• Collaboration that ensures diverse voices are included and heard 

• Prioritizing the feelings of others over the purpose of the research (seems counterintuitive but it is actually just self-fulfilling)

• Vulnerability that puts ideas out that may not work out

• Humility to accept that not all of our ideas are winners

• Patience with ourselves, the participants, and our team members

• Open and honest peer checks that may ask someone to take a step back and another to take a step up

• Trust in the process that if you work diligently and intentionally to produce good research, then you will produce good research 

Accountability in qualitative research to me means that we prioritize the well-being of the people involved in the research process as we collect information, analyze data, and present our findings.

It means that we make every attempt to protect participants as they share parts of their lives with us and we embrace the complexity (or “mess”) of the collaborative process, as it is an essential part. This process requires continuous dialogue and the consideration of diverse perspectives. We must do our best to produce quality research products that are shaped by both internal and external insights. Accountability in research is an ongoing process and looks different for everyone. Who are you accountable to in your research?