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 During the fifth phase, the personal relationships superseded the research relationships and there was a feeling of a true partnership.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.