Evidence from researcher interactions with human participants

This document is the report of Qualitative Transparency Deliberations (QTD) Working Group II.2 on Evidence from Researcher Interactions with Human Participants. We examine how transparency is understood by scholars who regularly engage with human subjects; assess the benefits and costs of transparency practices for evidence from research with human participants; and present practical recommendations for researchers, editors, reviewers, and funders. Our findings draw on contributions posted to the QTD online forum, offline consultations with scholars from across the discipline, and related published materials. We find broad support for the principle of transparency among scholars working with human research participants, but our consultations also make clear that the meaning of transparency should be understood as part of research integrity writ large. The scholars we consulted were nearly unanimous in emphasizing the importance of openness and explicitness – e.g., by specifying how information from human subjects research is collected and analyzed or interpreted – for the integrity of the research enterprise. Transparency requirements must be weighed against the ethical obligation to protect human subjects, the epistemological diversity within the discipline, and the workload imposed on researchers using qualitative data

Summary : evidence from research with human participants

This is the summary of Qualitative Transparency Deliberations Final Report on Evidence from Research with Human Participants, Working Group number II.2

The qualitative transparency deliberations: insights and implications

In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked serious concern within qualitative research communities and raised fundamental questions about the meaning, value, costs, and intellectual relevance of transparency for qualitative inquiry. In this Perspectives Reflection, we crystallize the central findings of a three-year deliberative process—the Qualitative Transparency Deliberations (QTD)—involving hundreds of political scientists in a broad discussion of these issues. Following an overview of the process and the key insights that emerged, we present summaries of the QTD Working Groups’ final reports. Drawing on a series of public, online conversations that unfolded at www.qualtd.net, the reports unpack transparency’s promise, practicalities, risks, and limitations in relation to different qualitative methodologies, forms of evidence, and research contexts. Taken as a whole, these reports—the full versions of which can be found in the Supplementary Materials—offer practical guidance to scholars designing and implementing qualitative research, and to editors, reviewers, and funders seeking to develop criteria of evaluation that are appropriate—as understood by relevant research communities—to the forms of inquiry being assessed. We dedicate this Reflection to the memory of our coauthor and QTD working group leader Kendra Koivu