Researcher Sensitivity

Using qualitative methods successfully requires researcher sensitivity. Researcher sensitivity refers to a host of skills that the qualitative researcher employs throughout all phases of the research cycle. For instance, the researcher needs to be sensitive to the impact that gender or class has on recruitment, data collection, and data analysis. The researcher also needs to be sensitive to issues of cultural and language differences. For example, the researcher needs to be aware that Muslim women are unlikely to participate in interviews with a male researcher and that in research with Aboriginal students, sensitivity regarding issues of cultural assimilation is a necessity.

The qualitative researcher also needs to be sensitive to nonverbal cues, such as changes in body language in interview contexts, and to informant interaction in focus groups. Likewise, the researcher needs to develop theoretical sensitivity—the ability to know when theoretical saturation has been reached. Theoretical saturation is the point in qualitative research where no new insights are likely to result from continued data collection and where data analysis accounts for differences as well as commonalities in the research findings.

Research with informants with Parkinson's disease provides further illustration of the use of researcher sensitivity in qualitative research. For example, an informant with Parkinson's disease copes with a variety of symptoms that may include exhaustion, muscular rigidity, and communication difficulties, all of which the researcher must be sensitive to and must account for in recruitment, data collection, and analysis. For instance, the qualitative researcher must understand that low response rates may mean that potential informants decline to participate in a qualitative study because qualitative research typically requires more energy from informants than do other types of research designs. Furthermore, the researcher must pay attention to the fact that increasing fatigue or muscle rigidity brought on by an informant's medication wearing off means that shorter interview times need to be scheduled and more follow-up interviews need to be conducted.

In addition, the qualitative researcher needs to be prepared for possible communication problems and may need to include family members or caregivers as participants in the interview. As a consequence, the researcher also needs to be sensitive to the impact of a third-party presence in the interview. Furthermore, the researcher needs to deal with the consequences of indecipherable audiotape recordings, large chunks of missing data, and very brief informant responses in research where there are communication difficulties. Moreover, researcher sensitivity in this case means an understanding of the interview as an interactive event where both the researcher and the informant are jointly responsible for any communication problems that may arise. The informant's speech should not be characterized as a “problem” that the “expert” researcher fixes; rather, researcher sensitivity allows one to see that problematic communication is something that is mutually resolved through the use of the communication skills held by both the informant and the researcher.

In addition to being sensitive regarding communication problems, conducting research with people living with illness means that the qualitative researcher must be sensitive to the meaning of silences in interviewing. Kathy Charmaz, a major figure in the area of qualitative research into chronic illness and disability, reminded us that what people do not say is as important as what they do say. Silence might mean that a topic is too painful to discuss and that the interview needs to move in a different direction. Alternatively, silence might mean that an informant is getting tired and that the interview should be discontinued. A period [Page 780]of silence during the interview might even mean that it has become necessary to reconfirm informed consent before proceeding with the interview.

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