IB Psychology SLTopic 5 — Research DesignPaper 1 & 2Core idea~9 min read
Reflexivity: The Researcher in the Research
A quantitative researcher tries to remove themselves from the study. A qualitative researcher cannot, because they are the one asking the questions and deciding what the answers mean. Reflexivity is what they do instead: examine their own influence openly, and write it down where the reader can see it.
📘 What you need to know
Reflexivity is a strategy used mainly by qualitative researchers to examine how their own subjectivity shapes the findings.
The aim is to increase credibility, not to pretend the researcher had no effect.
Personal reflexivity: examining your own values, experiences, beliefs and reactions.
Epistemological reflexivity: examining how the knowledge itself was produced by the choices you made.
A field diary or research journal is the usual tool for both.
Reflections normally appear in the discussion section, covering strengths and weaknesses honestly.
Failing to be reflexive threatens the validity of the research.
Why this exists at all
In an experiment, you can standardise the instructions and keep the researcher out of the way. In an interview study you cannot. The researcher chose the topic, wrote the opening question, decided which answers to follow up, and later decided which quotes mattered and what themes they formed. Their fingerprints are on every stage.
Pretending otherwise would be dishonest. So instead of claiming to be invisible, the researcher makes their influence visible. That is the whole idea, and it is why reflexivity belongs in this topic next to bias.
The shift in thinking
Quantitative: remove the researcher’s influence. Qualitative: declare it, so the reader can judge it.
Two kinds of reflexivity
Both are done throughout the study, not bolted on at the end. A researcher who only reflects once the results are in has already made the choices they should have been examining.
Personal reflexivity
This is the researcher turning the attention onto themselves as a person.
Values, experiences and beliefs. A researcher who has lived through the experience they are studying brings insight and expectation in equal measure.
Personal impact. Some topics affect the researcher emotionally. Reflexivity asks whether that has started to intrude into professional judgement.
A journal or field diary. Written alongside the data, recording what the researcher noticed, assumed and felt at the time, so their thinking is documented rather than reconstructed later.
Why the diary is more than admin: memory is reconstructive. A note written on the day captures a hunch the researcher had before they knew the outcome. Written six months later, the same note would be shaped by what they eventually found.
Epistemological reflexivity
The word sounds heavy, but it is a plain question: how did the design of the study produce the knowledge it produced?
Why were these methods chosen, and what would a different method have shown instead?
What assumptions were built into the questions before anyone answered them?
Did those assumptions undermine the academic integrity of the work?
What are the strengths and limitations of the approach, stated openly?
If a researcher only asked closed questions, the participants could only give short answers, and the conclusion that “participants gave little detail” says more about the method than the people. That is epistemological reflexivity in one example.
Reflexivity is what makes an account credible
The last box is the payoff. Findings read as a product of the participants’ words rather than the researcher’s expectations, which is exactly what credibility means.
🤔 Why owning up makes a study stronger, not weaker
It feels backwards. Surely admitting you had preconceptions damages your case? In qualitative work it does the opposite. A researcher who states their position lets the reader account for it and judge the interpretation for themselves. A researcher who says nothing has not removed their influence — they have just hidden it, and the reader has no way of correcting for something they cannot see.
If a question asks how a qualitative study could be improved, reflexivity is a strong answer, but be concrete. Say what would be reflected on and where it would be written, not just that “the researcher should be reflexive”.
Worked examples
WORKED EXAMPLE
Apply reflexivity to a study
A researcher who was bullied at school interviews twelve teenagers about their experiences of bullying. Explain how reflexivity would be used in this study. [4]
Personal reflexivity first
She examines how her own experience may shape which answers she notices and follows up. Her history is an asset and a risk at once.Keep a record as she goes
A field diary of her reactions after each interview, written before she analyses anything.
Epistemological reflexivity
Why semi-structured interviews, what her questions assumed, and what a different method might have surfaced.
Make it public
All of this stated in the discussion section, alongside strengths and limitations.
Declared influence, so the reader can weigh itsay the purpose out loud: this increases credibility, it does not remove the influence
WORKED EXAMPLE
Explain the consequence of skipping it
A qualitative study reports its themes with no reflection on how they were reached. Explain one problem this creates. [3]
Step 1: Ask what the reader can check
Nothing. The route from transcripts to themes is invisible.
Step 2: Name the riskThe themes may reflect the researcher’s expectations rather than the participants’ accounts.Step 3: State the consequence
The findings cannot be judged as credible, and the validity of the interpretation is in doubt.
Credibility is weakeneda fix worth adding: a second researcher independently codes the same transcripts
💡 Exam tip
Say which reflexivity you mean — personal or epistemological — and give an example of each.
Link reflexivity to credibility. That is the term it belongs with.
Mention the field diary and the discussion section. They are the concrete parts.
Reflexivity is a qualitative tool. Do not offer it as a fix for a lab experiment.
Frame it as managing subjectivity, never as removing it. Removal is not on the table.
It pairs naturally with triangulation. Both are ways of checking one person’s interpretation.
⚠️ Common mix-up
Reflexivity and reflection. Reflection is thinking about the study; reflexivity is examining your own effect on it.
Thinking it eliminates bias. It makes bias visible so it can be accounted for.
Confusing it with a debrief. A debrief is for the participant; reflexivity is about the researcher.
Saying it is just an opinion section. It is a documented, systematic part of the method.
Applying it to quantitative studies. Those use blind procedures and standardisation instead.
Leaving it to the end. It runs through the whole project, from the first question onwards.
Up next: Credibility and Transferability — the words qualitative research uses where quantitative research says reliability and generalisability.
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