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Researcher–Participant Relationships
A significant portion of qualitative research involves collecting data from research participants. The kinds of information that participants disclose in a research setting depend in part on the nature and quality of their relationship with the researcher. Researcher–participant relationships may fall anywhere along a continuum from distant, detached, and impersonal to close, collaborative, and friendly. The relationship between a researcher and participants may evolve and change over the course of a research project, especially if that research project progresses over an extended period of time, as is common in many forms of qualitative research. Important methodological and ethical considerations arise from the nature and quality of researcher–participant relationships.
Range of Researcher–Participant Relationships
In traditional positivist research, researchers present themselves as detached objective reporters and attempt to gather data that are standardized and narrowly constrained. Quantitative researchers strive to treat each participant identically as part of their attempts to maintain experimental control. Limited interactions between participants and researchers keep the research focused and reduce the chance of introducing confounding variables.
In contrast, in qualitative research traditions, researchers tend to gather wide-ranging and open-ended data through personal interactions with research participants. In the process of data collection, qualitative researchers and research participants develop relationships that can shift and change over the life of a research project. Margaret Jane Pitts and Michelle Miller-Day investigated turning points in researchers' relationships with participants. Through open-ended surveys and detailed interviews with field researchers, they identified five possible phases in researcher–participant relationships. During the first phase, researchers emphasized their concerns with meeting the needs of participants with respect to the research, helping them to feel comfortable as research participants. During the second phase, researchers and participants began to consider their partnerships in the research and their interrelationships with each other. More personal relationships began to develop during the third phase, which involved connections in public or professional spheres outside of the research project. The fourth phase was characterized by close interpersonal relationships that were most often described as friendships. During the fifth phase, the personal relationships superseded the research relationships and there was a feeling of a true partnership. Researchers are not expected to progress through all five relationship phases in each research project or with every participant. The first phase is typically the only phase evident in research conducted over a short duration or involving few interactions with participants. Other research projects might involve movement toward increasingly closer relationships as evidenced by the other identified phases, but very few researcher–participant relationships ever achieve the level of true partnership evidenced during the fifth phase. A closer relationship is not a sign of a better research relationship or better research.
Researcher–Participant Relationships and Qualitative Research Traditions
To a certain extent, the nature and evolution of researcher–participant relationships are informed by the qualitative research traditions that inform the research.
Ethnographic Research
Ethnographic researchers often begin a research project by attempting to get a feel for a particular research setting by easing themselves into the situation, observing from a distance, and getting to know some prospective research participants. A research project emerges and takes shape as the researchers gain familiarity with the research setting and interact with research participants over time. Ethnographic researchers establish close relationships with key informants who provide introductions to activities, events, and other people in the research setting. Over time, key informants become important confidants to, and often friends with, researchers. Ethnographic research is commonly associated with prolonged engagement in the field, which provides opportunities for researchers to develop close relationships with one or more members of the studied community. In community settings where ethnographic research is undertaken, a researcher's relationships with one participant may positively or negatively influence relationships with other participants. Lisa Russell provided an informative analysis of the challenges of establishing and maintaining relationships with both students and teachers in her ethnographic classroom research. To investigate student resistance to schooling, she needed to establish strong trusting relationships with students. At the same time, she also needed to establish collegial relationships with the teachers to secure their commitment to the research without negatively influencing the delicate relationships that she was building with the adolescent students.
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