Neutrality in Qualitative Research

In research, the term neutrality implies that an inquiry is free of bias or is separated from the researcher's perspectives, background, position, or conditioning circumstances. When a researcher or the research is said to be neutral, the inquiry is also implied to be trustworthy and legitimate. Although legitimacy and trustworthiness are important values in qualitative research, neutrality is often seen as an impossible goal. This entry explains why neutrality is less useful as a term to judge qualitative inquiry and suggests ways to achieve legitimacy and trustworthiness while acknowledging researcher bias.

Neutrality is a term that is often attached to research to demonstrate that it provides an objective and unbiased view of the object under study. Procedures are developed to ensure data are valid and reliable and imply that the results are trustworthy and important. The objective worldview assumes that reality can be understood, that it never changes, and that the researcher can observe the reality without affecting it. In this way, any other neutral researcher will obtain identical results if replicating the research. This view places the researcher at a distance from the research and assumes there is no investment in or influence on a given outcome.

Worldviews have shifted, especially in the social sciences. In social science research, knowledge is viewed as constructed rather than seen as some unchanging reality. The approach to research has also shifted. Researchers using qualitative approaches in social science inquiries recognize that the objects of their study cannot be fully understood in an objective and unbiased way; they are too complex and changing. Even the term object is less useful in qualitative inquiry. No longer is the researcher separated from the research. The relationship between the observers and the observed is a critical part of the research. The relationship affects what is observed, how observations are interpreted, and eventually how interpretations are reported.

The nature of these relationships means that the researcher is part of the inquiry rather than separated from it. The various methods of data collection in qualitative research provide a sense of how close or distant the researcher is from whom or what is being observed. Qualitative data arise from interviews, observations, reflection, dialogue, and interpretation and provide perspective on a research problem in rich, real-world, descriptive terms. Interpretation and understanding of the data will necessarily depend on the patterns of interactions, the kinds of questions asked, and the experiences and perspectives the researcher holds. The researcher approaches the research problem with a background and a set of experiences that cannot be turned off. However, the relationships between researcher and the observed may vary greatly.

Inside the social sciences, there is a range of qualitative research methodologies that stretch from post- positivist inquiry to autoethnography. Postpositivist qualitative approaches might use a consistent set of survey-like questions in interviews; the process varies little with the expectation that the findings will be minimally affected by the researcher's relationship with the informant. However, even postpositivist approaches recognize that contexts affect findings and that complete neutrality is impossible. On the other hand, in autoethnography, the researchers tell their own personal stories and reflections to provide insights on the meaning of an experience so that the reader might understand it in a new way. The storytelling is intended to explain reality from a distinct point of view, as in a woman's view of a workplace promotional experience. Some qualitative approaches, such as action research, are intentionally biased. The researcher is attempting to change the situation under study—hardly a neutral position.

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