Positionality and Reflexivity in Qualitative Evaluation

What Are Positionality and Reflexivity?

Positionality describes where the evaluator stands: relationship to the program and its funder, language, gender, age, professional background, prior views, and any shared or unshared experience with participants. Reflexivity is the continuing practice of asking how that position affects who speaks, what they say, what you notice and how you interpret it. Olmos-Vega and colleagues define reflexivity as continuous, collaborative and multifaceted practices through which researchers critique and evaluate how their subjectivity and context influence the research process.

Berger discusses how a researcher's position affects reflexivity in three situations: sharing the participants' experience, moving from outsider to insider during a study, and having no personal familiarity with the subject. Each carries benefits and risks. Familiarity can open doors and also lead you to assume you already know.

Decision This Supports

Reflexive practice helps decide how much weight a reader should put on the findings, and what to change in fieldwork. If participants are likely to tell a program officer what they think she wants to hear, the team may change who interviews, where, and how the purpose is explained. It does not remove influence; it makes it open to scrutiny.

Before You Start

• List who is on the team and how each person relates to the program.
• Decide who will interview whom and what participants will be told about the interviewer's role.
• Plan reflexive memos from the start. See analytic memos.
• Review ethics in M&E and do no harm for the risks that position creates.

What to Record

A Small Worked Example

This example is fictional.

The interviewer in a hypothetical study is a former facilitator of the program. Her reflexive memo after the fourth interview reads: "P4 described the walk home in the dark. I noticed I moved on quickly, because I was thinking about the timing issue we expected. I went back and asked a follow-up in the next interview. Check whether other transcripts have passages I passed over." The memo leads to the code "Travel Safety After Dark" and to a note in the report that the interviewer's earlier role may have made participants less willing to criticize facilitators. The note is not an apology. It tells the reader what to weigh.

Limits and Cautions

• A positionality statement is not a cure for bias. A paragraph listing identity features without any link to decisions made does little. Tie each point to a choice in fieldwork or analysis.
• Not every approach uses the language of positionality the same way. Constructivist and interpretive approaches treat it as central; others emphasize procedures. State which you follow.
• Reflexive notes can be sensitive. Store them under the project's data management rules.
• A reflexive statement does not make a weak finding sound. Combine it with negative case analysis.
• Reporting checklists such as COREQ ask about the research team and reflexivity. They help report; they do not decide whether the work was good.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should Every Evaluation Include a Positionality Statement?

Include one when it helps readers weigh the evidence, especially for interviews, focus groups and interpretive analysis. Keep it specific.

Can an Insider Be Objective?

No evaluator is free of position. The question is whether the position is examined, recorded and checked against the data.