Government funders increasingly encourage interdisciplinary mixed methods research projects that include qualitative methods. For qualitative methodologists, the opportunity to collaborate on interdisciplinary research teams may come at a cost when their expertise is marginalized relative to quantitative designs. Drawing on concepts from critical pragmatism and an ethics of care, we reflect on ethical tensions in our experiences as qualitative methodologists on government funded interdisciplinary research teams. Driven by an intersubjective and justice-oriented view of knowledge development and care as interdependence, we offer our thoughts, experiences, and guidance under four orienting concepts: collaboration, education, critique, and critical reflexivity. We culminate our reflection by offering a practical and responsible way forward for qualitative methodologists who accept grant work invitations, a way that holds promise for advancing interdisciplinary, critical, and care-based action in funded research.
Federally funded research in the United States and other countries is mainly quantitative, delimited by narrow definitions of science (Koro-Ljungberg, 2014). Informed by the legacy of logical positivism, government funding agencies prioritize evidence generated from ‘rigorous’ designs for causal explanation (e.g., randomized controlled trials) (Christ, 2014). At the same time, government funders across the globe recognize the complexity of social problems and thus, often encourage team-based interdisciplinary projects (Evis, 2021; Gengnagel et al., 2019; Giliberto & Labadi, 2022; Grieve & Mitchell, 2020; Haapakoski & Pashby, 2017; Hesse-Biber, 2016; Khoo et al., 2019). Increasingly, these funders encourage mixed methods designs to enrich quantitative data and provide “insight that cannot be gained from quantitative research alone” (Alfred & Larson, 2015, para. 1). Along with other indicators, such as the release of guidelines for reviewing qualitative grant proposals (Lamont & White, 2005), the acceptance and desirability for qualitative methods across diverse government funding mechanisms such as the European Research Council, the Global Challenges Research Fund and the National Health Service within the United Kingdom, and the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Institute of Education Sciences in the United States appear to be growing (Cheek, 2008; Daza, 2012; 2013; Gengnagel et al., 2019; Grieve & Mitchell, 2020; Guetterman et al., 2019; Padgett & Henwood, 2009). O’Caithan et al. (2018), for example, provided 10 reasons why qualitative methods should be used when conducting randomized controlled trials.
The centralization of interdisciplinary funded research and incorporation of mixed methods presents new opportunities for qualitative methodologists (Eakin, 2016). As Trussell et al., (2017) argue, within interdisciplinary projects, qualitative research holds the “potential to reimagine and expand the disciplinary boundaries that exist between fields of social inquiry, and consequently, the underpinnings of the very creation of knowledge” (p. 2).
However, these opportunities may also come at a disciplinary and personal cost. At times, the methodologies, expertise, and theoretical orientations of qualitative research and researchers are marginalized relative to quantitative designs (Eakin, 2016). Rather than synergistic, qualitative components may be compartmentalized and devalued, reducing the proportion of funds and control of the project allocated to the qualitative methodologist (Cheek, 2008).
Qualitative methodologists working with(in) predominantly quantitative research teams may face paradigmatic challenges as well. What is deemed rigorous in qualitative work, such as surfacing positionality and explicating epistemology, can appear strangely subjective or extraneous to quantitative researchers. The demands of proposal-writing and the team’s concerns may lead qualitative methodologists to eschew methodological rigor in the name of collaboration (Kontos & Grigorovich, 2018). Yet, oversimplifying qualitative research risks perpetuating notions that it is easy, inexpensive, and, thus, of little value (Koro-Ljungberg, 2014). When viewed as an “add on,” qualitative methods are often reduced to their technicalities, rather than understood as elements of a rich methodological tradition (Cheek, 2008).
While the small body of literature on qualitative inquiry in government funded interdisciplinary projects outlines multiple challenges, all is not grim. There are genuine possibilities for dynamic and generative interdisciplinary research that addresses real, entrenched, and highly complex problems in education, human, and health sciences. Additionally, some qualitative methodologists view interdisciplinary projects as ripe opportunities to infiltrate grants-culture from the inside out (Daza, 2012). Given funding bodies shape and enforce particular constructions of what science is, qualitative methodologists may be well positioned to challenge a closed-loop of evidence-based practice (Gilgun, 2002). The recent focus on interdisciplinary and mixed methods research certainly suggests qualitative researchers can expect more opportunities to participate in and perhaps exert some influence on government funding priorities.
Offering Guidance from (Reflected) Experience
As qualitative methodologists are increasingly asked to join government funded grant teams, they may be unsure how to respond. They may be unaware of required tasks and other expectations, given limited prior involvement or lack of mentoring in grant funded, interdisciplinary research. They may be (often rightly) worried their methodological expertise and contributions will not be understood or valued. Participating may be seen as compromising deeply held commitments to social justice and to interpretivist, constructivist, critical and other orientations to social science. These are certainly concerns that arose for us as we worked on (or considered working on) grant applications and projects with colleagues.
In this paper, we share and reflect on our grant work experiences to advance an ethic of responding affirmatively to the invitation, “Will you be our qualitative methodologist?” To be clear, our overall tack is optimistic. While we could certainly produce a manuscript on the marginalizations, devaluations, and injustices of government funded grant work, we think such a critique is readily available in other excellent sources (e.g., Cheek, 2008; Kontos & Grigorovich, 2018). What we offer is what we struggled to find as we began working on grant teams – a supportive mentor text with a more hopeful account, one that might help us think through our possible roles and responsibilities. Like many others (e.g., Guyotte & Wolgemuth, 2022), we believe relational and deeply thought mentorship in qualitative research is vital to the ongoing flourishing of our discipline. As a mentor text, we hope this manuscript will be read as practical, helpful, supportive, relational, thought-provoking, generative, and other valuable things. Perhaps our manuscript will inspire relationships, events, collaborations we cannot yet envision. We invite readers to contact us.
We, Jenni and Lorien, are two qualitative methodologists who share similar faculty positions and experiences at two different R1 universities in the United States. We are white, female appearing (if sometimes differently identifying) Assistant and Associate professors of qualitative research, situated in educational research methods programs. We are both the most junior tenure track faculty members in our programs and the only qualitative methodologists among faculty member colleagues with expertise in measurement, assessment, statistics, and program evaluation. We met over a year ago, through an American Educational Research Association faculty mentoring program, and our striking commonalities kept us in frequent contact and conversation, finding kinship and validation in one other’s experiences particularly helpful during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our recorded monthly discussions and email exchanges covered many topics, but grant work was one we returned to time and again. Drawing on our review and interpretations of these exchanges, we blend our experiences, hesitations, and reflections, to address questions about what qualitative methodologists might anticipate and consider when joining interdisciplinary, mixed methods grant teams. We share the pushback we received (and gave) and the ideas we exchanged, to think through how we built/d generative interdisciplinary relationships that move beyond technical assistance. Finally, we challenge ourselves and others to think about how we can advocate for our expertise as qualitative methodologists while enacting our responsibilities.
Theoretical Foundations: Critical Pragmatism
This article has an admittedly practical goal, to prepare qualitative methodologists to respond to invitations to join grant teams, through the sharing of our reflective experience. The practicality of this goal led us to reflect on our theoretical orientations and the value of theorizing our participation in grant work through critical pragmatism (Feinberg, 2012). Critical pragmatists suggest that Deweyan pragmatism and critical theory can coalesce to practically redress inequalities and work towards social change. Deweyan pragmatism denies there is absolute truth and rejects universalism, to instead, suggest knowledge is built through reflective, intersubjective experience and an aesthetic ethics (West, 1989). However, Dewey has been critiqued for holding a naive and neglectful stance on hegemony and power in his quest for true democracy (West, 1989). Critical pragmatists seek to remedy this (perceived or warranted) naivete by foregrounding issues of power, oppression, and justice (Feinberg, 2012; Forester, 2013). Pragmatism is foremost concerned with conducting an inquiry to solve problematic situations (West, 1989). Critical pragmatism suggests each problematic situation must also be understood in terms of the needs and silences resulting from oppression (Feinberg, 2012), lest the solution to problems will be incomplete and reproductive of inequity. Within grant teams, the focus on power is significant from both a process and outcome perspective. In terms of outcome, we seek to work on teams that recognize the ways that inquiry can silence and harm communities, while in terms of process, we seek to understand how certain methodologies, epistemologies, and processes can be disempowered during grant work.
Forester (2013) outlined five attributes of a critically pragmatic orientation that we find particularly useful as we consider grant-team collaborations. First is the assumption that inquiry cannot be unilateral but requires negotiations of co-generation and co-construction, focused on both process and outcome. Second, we center an appreciation for multiple, evolving, and local ways of knowing that engage ambiguity critically and perceptively. Third, we consider how power performances complicate the deliberative process during debate, dialogue, and negotiation. Fourth, we recognize that knowledge development is complex, ambiguous, and fluid and remain open to inventive, creative, and playful processes. Fifth, we shift from "deconstructive skepticism" to "reconstructive imagination" in co-generative problem-solving (Forester, 2013, p. 6).
In grant teams, while assisting and performing the technical aspects of qualitative research (e.g., designing and conducting focus groups, analyzing interview data), a critically pragmatic methodologist is also responsible for sustaining an activist stance toward social change (e.g., points out stigmatizing language and oppressive ideologies) (see also, Kuntz, 2016 for a similar, but differently theorized account of methodological responsibility). By attending to power, we also foreground an ethics of care to engage the generative aims of collaborative, interdisciplinary work. Pragmatism is uninterested in individualized solitary science but promotes a community of inquiry bound by ethical deliberation (Seigfried, 1996). Within this community, we believe care is vital to both process and outcome. The care we conceptualize is not just between individuals but is extensive and capacious informed, for example, through the work of The Care Collective (2020); care is caring for, about, and with (Tronto, 2013). As qualitative researchers work on grant teams, they balance care for and about team members, participants, stakeholders, and project officers, alongside caring with grant actors who mobilize collectively to effect positive social change.
Qualitative Responsibilities
Bringing a critically pragmatic orientation and ethics of care to our grant experiences, we surface four interrelated concepts that orient our engagement as qualitative methodologists in grant-funded interdisciplinary research teams: collaboration, education, critique, and critical reflexivity. By ‘surfaced’ we mean we arrived at these theme-like concepts (Wolgemuth, Guyotte, & Shelton, forthcoming) as we listened, shared, reflected on, interpreted, and collaboratively wrote about our grant experiences. The concepts were also enabled by our engagements with critical pragmatism and ethics of care. For example, our ethic of ‘collaboration’ on grant teams derived in part from Frost’s (2013) articulation of pragmatic inquiry as co-generated and co-constructed. We share the grant work experiences we associate with these concepts, reflecting on the tensions we experienced and describing how (we wish) we navigated them. We offer theoretical and practical advice for qualitative methodologists like us who wonder about the ethics of their methodological roles in grant work.
Be Prepared to Collaborate
Under collaboration we emphasize the importance of active involvement within and between the broader research team. Despite the ways interdisciplinary projects adopt discourses of collaboration, our experience is that grant work also (sometimes, often) advances as a series of individual and discrete efforts with limited opportunities for generative dialogue (e.g., Wolgemuth et al., 2022). Superficial collaborations can leave qualitative researchers feeling unappreciated and undervalued. The Care Collective (2020), asks, “What… would happen if we were to begin instead to put care at the very center of life?” One of the consequences of centering care is “recognizing and embracing our interdependencies” (p. 5, emphasis original). Pragmatists regard the intersubjective web of relationships as significant for knowledge development, relationships that hinge on the ability for dialogue and negotiation across standpoints (Keith, 1999).
Leaning on relational care as a pivotal connection for collaboration, we aim for an interdisciplinarity that privileges intersubjectivity. By valuing active, agentic, and mutually dependent relationships, grant teams can support and cultivate each other, and in the process, resist attempts and desires to silo qualitative methods, methodologies, and methodologists. Below, Lorien offers a bleak example, what can happen when qualitative methodologists and methodologies are amputated from the broader project, while Jenni reflects on why and how they (attempt to) foster interdependence from the outset.
Lorien
: During the first semester, as an assistant professor of qualitative methodology, I was introduced to a junior faculty member achieving robust grantmaking success. The colleague hoped to incorporate qualitative methods into their projects to increase NIH funding possibilities. Due to my own perception of (real) external pressures to collaborate, I agreed to join their NIH-funded biomedical randomized control trial. I hoped to gain new learnings in what was (still is?) the mysterious world of NIH grantmaking. Utopian visions of a collaborative and educational relationship melted away as the "teamwork" unfolded as a series of emails, confused Zoom meetings between myself and the PI, and access to the Box account with biomedical tests and measures. Rather than becoming integrated, qualitative research (and thus, the researcher) existed as an after-thought. Requests rolled in. From developing an interview guide on a topic I did not know, to being told I should run the focus groups because it is too complex and time-consuming to train the paid graduate assistants--- I resented the state of my (non)involvement. At the same time, I was told by the PI that I would be the PI (a term that loosely floated in the air between us) of the qualitative study, and all publications resulting would be mine. I was met with confusion when I suggested that publishing on this topic would not advance my agenda and program of research and that I could not do it alone. I left that project feeling worked over. Had I really listened to my colleague I would have heard her desire to integrate qualitative methods (to enhance funding possibilities) as one which does not align with my goals (to develop meaningful knowledge). Looking back on this experience, there are many things I would do differently. Foremost, centering the possibilities of interdependence and care I would enter the potential relationship with clarity on what I will and will not compromise, recognizing that true collaboration is working with-not alone. The care that can be fostered is a care for the self, recognizing each team member’s value, while not devaluing your own. To create this space of value, before agreeing to work on a team, I have intentional conversations centered on understanding how, what, and why they want to work with a qualitative methodologist, attending to the message and the subtext as we each describe our visions of collaboration.
Jenni:
One of my favorite things about being a qualitative methodologist is that I get to work on and with a wide variety of topics, colleagues, and disciplines. In a single day I might analyze focus groups with colleagues in Behavior Science, assist a faculty member in Business to develop an interview guide for a study on personal finance, and co-author a grant proposal using performance ethnography to illuminate community leaders’ experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The more I collaborate with others, learn about the theories, concepts, and purposes of their projects, the better I am at advising on qualitative methods and methodologies. This collaboration is vital – anyone who has conducted a qualitative study quickly understands that methods, methodologies, and study content must be considered together – they are interdependent. For example, a study (with a qualitative component) that seeks to improve school-based interventions for Autistic youth will need to use methods best suited to meaningfully elicit the perspectives of Autistic youth; methods that theoretically align with the project’s assumptions about what it means to be, teach, and support Autistic youth; methods that are practicable within the study context and resourcing. Developing a good, valid, qualitative study means leveraging the individual-collective knowledge of the grant team. It may be tempting for PIs and grant teams to assign (away) qualitative designs and methods to a methodologist, but for all the reasons above, and more, siloing qualitative methodologists and methods reflects a kind of uncaring, both for people and for the broader inquiry. Isolated qualitative research is more likely to yield decontextualized findings, tangential interpretations, and conclusions and recommendations orthogonal to study aims. I’ve found that being direct with project PIs (and other grant team members) about the importance of their involvement in the ongoing qualitative design and positioning myself as a facilitator, coach, or mentor of qualitative research are helpful. Together they can contribute to or even foster interdependence on grant writing teams that I believe is vital to conducting good (ethical and valid) (grant funded) qualitative research.
From our experiences, grant writing teams are often most familiar with methodologists who work independently: the ‘stat person’ who receives and analyzes data, the ‘external evaluator’ who produces unbiased appraisals, the contracted ‘lone’ qualitative researcher who conducts interviews, analyzes data, and writes-up findings for PI review. These methodological roles and activities invariably separate the subject(s) from the process of inquiry, which we both experience as antithetical to conducting useful and valid qualitative research. Qualitative research requires knowledge of content areas, contexts, and methods – they are mutually informed and sometimes practically indistinguishable. The intersubjective (qualitative) methodologist is at their best when they can collaborate. To prioritize inquiry that is co-constructed and co-generative, we suggest qualitative methodologists encourage collaboration from the outset, to work with and within a (caring) team to design, conduct, analyze, interpret, and write-up findings.
We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know: Be Prepared to Educate
Critical pragmatists prioritize critical and perceptive engagement with ambiguity, to learn through deliberative processes. With education we reflect on ‘teachable moments,’ those moments of deliberation where interdisciplinary researchers meet and, at times, conflict in grant work. Often interdisciplinary team members are new to qualitative research and may genuinely experience ignorance, excitement, and wonder (and discomfort and skepticism). They may want to learn from qualitative methodologists and may also need reassurance and patience as they begin to rethink their (disciplinary) assumptions about the nature and role of science and evidence. Grant teams accustomed to more quantitative methods may, for example, view interruptions in research (like the pandemic) as negative problems or delays. But in qualitative research, designs are rarely carried out as planned. Qualitative methodologists know to expect this, even view interruptions as characteristic of the emergent nature of qualitative inquiry and may need to educate and reassure grant teams to appreciate the unanticipated. In contrast, grant team members may hold unfairly negative and uninformed views of qualitative research. In a funding application meeting, for example, a Project Officer (paternally) explained to Jenni that, “Qualitative research can be rigorous as long as inter-coder agreement exceeds 0.8.” Qualitative methodologists sometimes learn to bite their tongues. Not every salient moment is a teachable one.
Education is, of course, multi-directional. Qualitative methodologists should also be open to learning as grant team members bring their disciplinary knowledge and what they know and are learning about qualitative research to discussions. In this way qualitative methodologists might enact what The Care Collective (2020) describes as ‘caring across difference’ – caring in recognition that qualitative research (and the qualitative methodologist) is, in part, constituted in relationship to being different from quantitative research (and the quantitative methodologist). As such, qualitative methodologists (and everyone) are ethically obligated to extend care to those ‘others’ who make them. Below, Lorien and Jenni describe tensions in educational moments that arose in grant teams and the benefits of engaging in caring as a capacity and willingness to learn from others.
Lorien:
I was recently a part of a proposal process for an NIH grant that required building teams between junior and senior scholars to develop junior investigators' grantmaking abilities. Working closely together, five junior investigators proposed their projects under the mentorship of the senior investigators. In this effort, I experienced moments of disruption. For example, when discussing the analytic method for my proposed project (situational analysis), I was interrupted by a mentor, who asked, "but, will you do an analysis?" At that moment, other similar missed-understandings between myself and the team came to mind. I began to recognize that as a qualitative methodologist, my excitement for theory and methods could precede my consideration of the qualitative understandings of the team. I learned to slow down, consider my approach, screen for the essential knowledge, and filter out what might be tangential to what is needed. At the same time, in these groups, I had access to senior scholars who have worked on social media research ethics (something of interest to me). They connected me to scholars in bioethics, and I learned how public health and epidemiology researchers are shaping and thinking about ethics in digital spaces and how these scholars approached qualitative methods. This proposal process became an experience of bidirectional education, where we worked through the missed communications inherent in what I consider the "language barriers" of interdisciplinary grant teams. I now appreciate that there can be more similarities in processes and goals than I initially thought, which can create a springboard for working through and educating each other through the differences.
Jenni:
A few years ago, I worked with colleagues in behavioral sciences on an IES grant application. I’d drafted the Year 1 research plan (the qualitative methods are almost always in Year 1) and sent it off to the PIs for review.
PI: The analysis plan sounds a lot like CQR. I’ve seen that pop up a lot in Psychology journals. Is that what we’re doing?
Me, to self: What the hell is CQR?
[Spend next week reading up on Consensual Qualitative Research (e.g.,
Hill et al., 1997
)]
Me, to PI: I think it very well could be! I’ll revise the methods section to reflect and align with CQR processes, if that makes sense to you. At the very least I think we can say we are employing some elements of the CQR approach. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
[A few iterations later]
PI: Thanks for adding in the CQR approach revisions! I am wondering about our analysis. I think we should have multiple coders and establish interrater reliability. Won’t this make our qualitative findings more valid?
Me: We could do that, but then I think we would need to explain how that fits within a CQR approach. CQR is about consensus – it is about bringing diverse team members and their perspectives together to yield rich discoveries and interpretations of data (
Hill et al., 1997
). Our analytic process as it stands now is consensual, conducted under what qualitative researchers call an ‘interpretivist’ approach. If we were to change our approach to independent coding and calculate reliability, then this would be more like quantitative research, or what is sometimes called a ‘post-positivist’ approach. I am fine either way (but I do think CQR makes more sense given our project’s emphasis on working collaboratively with school communities). Happy to discuss more if you want!
Qualitative methodologists will probably be called on or compelled to help others on grant writing teams to understand qualitative research. When misunderstandings or interruptions (inevitably arise) grant teams may experience varying degrees of (dis)comfort. Qualitative researchers can educate and also reassure that ambiguity is part of the process. At best, misunderstandings and discomforts present opportunities to teach, share, and dialogue. From our experience, the qualitative methodologist’s patience and care in teaching and supporting teams is typically rewarded later in the inquiry process. Research teams often become excited when they engage collected qualitative data and as their analytic engagements and interpretations cumulate into findings: “This is so interesting,” “We wouldn’t have known that if we hadn’t asked!” At the same time qualitative methodologists should be prepared to be educated as part of (or as enacting) caring interdependence.
Social Justice: Be Prepared to Critique
As qualitative methodologists collaborate and educate on grants, we emphasize the importance of persistent critique. To understand critique, we rely on critical pragmatists’ recognition that power dynamics are enfolding into the problematic situation of study and that any process, finding, or outcome must gear toward social transformation. As a reviewer of an earlier version of our manuscript rightly noted, granting agencies across the globe demand that the research they fund make a positive social impact, which from a critical pragmatist perspective cannot be achieved without clear intention to redress inequities that undergird so many social and educational problems. Therefore, the insights of social justice through critique are necessarily brought to bear on grant conversations and activities. The Care Collective too advocates a ‘caring politics’ – a broad “feminist, queer, anti-racist and eco-socialist” ethic that extends care to the socio-political conditions under which people live and are subjugated. Justice and caring politicking may necessitate advocating for the role of critical theory in the first instance. It may mean explaining and demonstrating what critical insights offer the grant project as the team, for example, develops and tests interventions that often target marginalized populations. Critique also involves articulating the ways that methods, methodologies, studied constructs, and the language used to describe them all matter or in Haraway’s (2016) terms, “it matters what matters we use to think other matters with” (p. 12). Both Lorien and Jenni describe how they’ve brought critical perspectives to grant teams and the personal and practical impacts of doing so.
Lorien
: To critique is, for me, the ability to challenge teams to think through the propositions and intentions of the grant, situating the possibility that a researcher's goals and methods might reproduce disenfranchising and pathologizing outcomes. I do this through questioning methods, reasons for including specific communities, arguing against terminology, and introducing literature that has addressed these issues. I orient these critiques through my knowledge and experience with critical theorizing. Critical theory holds central importance in my work and is an embodied experience that challenges and invites growth: the reorientation of what I know and how I know it. Yet, on grants I work on (mainly in the medical and public health fields), I am confronted by researchers who aver that there is no real-world purpose or solution that springs from critical theory, positioning it as speculative philosophical tedium. The tensions I experience in advocating for justice in research, and the dismissal of critical theory have produced in me at times a paralysis - the stifling uncertainty of how to progress. At the same time, I have sought out the work of biomedical scholars who address these ideas to learn how they language the intersecting axes of oppression, both in theory and research practice. Gaining a deeper understanding of this work has stimulated how I address issues of (in)justice with grant teams.
Jenni
: I always know I’m getting somewhere when someone says, “It’s just semantics.” It’s my favorite opening for a conversation that connects (good) qualitative inquiry to the study of language and as founded on the assumption (axiom) that language matters. “Saying it’s just semantics would be like me saying of survey results, ‘It’s just numbers.’” There are many ways to advocate for and center social justice as a qualitative methodologist on research teams. Most often, my way starts with language – pointing out how the way we talk about the concepts, contexts, and people we study participates (us) in oppressive systems. [Grant work in and of itself, of course, is often complicit]. Recently I worked on a grant to improve classroom instruction of students with EBD. The first-year objectives were to create instructional materials and to get feedback from teachers, administrators, and students on them. At one of our bi-weekly meetings, I pointed out that the interview guides referred to students with EBD in largely deficit terms like “unable to concentrate,” “angry outbursts,” “challenging,” and so on, which prompted a discussion of the importance of language (see above) and the extent to which a more balanced or strengths-based focus would be appropriate. This conversation led to another team member to observe, “Aren’t most of the EBD students racial or ethnic minorities? Should we be asking questions about their backgrounds and cultures, their experiences with racism?” Our conversation continued over the next several months and led to changes not “just in language,” but in the instructional materials and design: the team revised instructional materials to include information about working with students of different (and marginalized) races and expanded focus groups to include questions specific to ‘culturally responsive teaching.’
Qualitative methodologists on grant writing teams are likely well-positioned to focus attention on social justice, to facilitate conversations that ideally lead to grant processes and products that redress inequities, foster positive social change. At times the qualitative methodologist may need to be the gadfly, annoying enough in persistent critique to spur action. Critique may not always be welcome, wanted, or even acknowledged. From our experience it is important to carefully choose when, where, and how to voice criticism that advances social justices and to be prepared to offer examples from within the grant teams’ disciplines. For us, bringing a critical perspective to grant work is not just part of what we consider our responsibility, it is next to impossible to set-aside – our identities as methodologists (and people) are considerably wrapped-up in critical traditions and ethics. As such, we have also learned (and sometimes the hard way) to walk away – figuratively and literally – when we do not feel we can make a difference. That is, we have both responded negatively to the question, “Will you be our methodologist?”
Reflexivity: Be Prepared to Question Your Own Assumptions, You Might Remake the World!
Deweyan pragmatism centers lived experience, rather than theory, as the starting point for any investigation. Furthermore, Dewey (1933) suggested that it is not experience, but our reflections on that experience that catalyze inquiry, which require, “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it” (p. 118). For critical pragmatists, Dewey’s reflective experience is akin to praxis, the spiral of critical reflection, theory, and action for social change (e.g., Kadlec, 2006). In this spirit, we advocate critical reflexivity on the part of the qualitative methodologist throughout their involvement in grant work. Participating in grant teams has taught us that our own assumptions about behavioral and health science, single-case research, statistics, educational psychology, and so on are often as exaggerated as they are narrow. When we risk our own epistemological boundaries, embrace epistemological transgressions, we become open to new possibilities for knowing and being in the world, open to new possibilities for expanding our own disciplinary boundaries. This, we think, is the payoff of working with(in) an ethic of interdependence, caring across differences and politics. We share examples of how working on collaborative grant teams challenged our assumptions about inquiry and our work as methodologists. We note the benefits of embracing these challenges as opportunities for critical reflexivity and imagining inquiry differently.
Lorien
: In one way or another, each of the above concepts has garnered reflexivity of my being in research, especially within interdisciplinary grant teams. I have learned to be more intentional and vocal about my intentions, drawing boundaries to define who I am in these projects and my goals for the research. However, while firm, these boundaries are permeable, as critical reflexivity invites me to challenge my way of thinking about the value of projects and methods. I have held assumptions about quantitative grant work that delimit the possibilities therein. I've come to recognize that these assumptions are distinctly tied to the assumptions I believe quantitative scientists hold about qualitative research's worth. In some cases, these assumptions are grounded in the experiential reality wherein I am told that qualitative research is "just journalism," without the ability to "make change" and other dismissive, divisive, and derisive comments. At the same time, I can (perhaps defensively) overly adopt the framework that quantitative methods flatten multiple realities-- disconnecting lived experience from social identities, cultural contexts, and power dynamics, and attempting to create a one-size-fits-all approach to research and outcomes. Yet, I have to recognize that I agree to be on these teams, and ask myself why? To answer these questions and maintain a critically reflexive lens, I lean on the pragmatist idea of the community of inquiry, which requires intersubjective agreement in the process of inquiry. Approaching teams with this in mind, I encourage their reflexivity as well as my own, as we work to fuse our disciplinary, theoretical, and subjective selves in knowledge development.
Jenni:
Over the last two or three years I’ve collaborated with behavior analytic scholars on grant-funded and other (unfunded) projects. Behaviorism and post-positivism frame these projects’ content (how do we get children to behave better?) and methodologies (what reliable and valid methods can be used to measure behavior change over time?). Designs often used by behavior analysts are single-subject (e.g., multiple baseline, ABAB) and involve working one-on- one with participants (subjects) to extinguish unwanted or to reinforce desired behavior. My perception was that single-subject designs are intentionally rigid and inflexible. One day a colleague in Psychology suggested otherwise…
Colleague: It’s so important to understand what the behavior analyst does when working with the student. They have guides and instructions on the treatment protocol that need to be followed. But in practice every behavior analyst implements treatments differently, and often changes implementation over time. These changes should, of course, be noted and incorporated into the protocol, but the point is that change and judgment are always involved. They are part of, as opposed to “extraneous” to the process.
Me (a bit skeptical): Really? Is it just you who thinks that?
[Colleague emails me excerpts from a classic text (
Sidman, 1960
) on single-case experimental research]
Colleague: Here are some excerpts from my favorite text on single-case experimentation:
“…the assessment of reliability and generality requires mature judgment. There are, however, many psychologists who insist that reliability and generality be evaluated on a purely impersonal basis…” (Sidman, 1960, p. 43)
“A more disturbing possibility is that the examples [of different research designs and methods] may be accepted as constituting a set of rules that must be followed in the design of experiments. I cannot emphasize too strongly that this would be disastrous. I could make the trite statement that every rule has its exception, but this is not strong enough. Nor is the more relaxed statement that the rules of experimental design are flexible, to be employed only where appropriate. The fact is that there are no rules of experimental design.” (Sidman, 1960, p. 214, emphasis original)
These quotes surprised me. They sounded like something I would read in a qualitative or action- research textbook instead of one on experimental design. I wondered then about my (many) assumptions about quantitative research. So much of my recent engagement with quantitative research had been through qualitative texts – which noted the many failures of quantitative research, particularly as a convenient contrast to demark a methodological space for qualitative inquiry (quant = objective, qual = subjective). I wondered what social science inquiry – beyond, betwixt, or between the quant, qual, mixed trifecta – might emerge from the perspective that all social inquiry requires judgment and has no rules. Or, at least, how might disciplinary boundaries around methodologies be playfully redrawn?
Me: I know! We should form a new alliance between qualitative and single-case design researchers against group-design experimentalists under banners, “Judgements are not Facts!” and “Research has no Rules!”
In Conclusion…
Given recent trends in funding priorities in the United States and other countries, qualitative methodologists can anticipate more invitations to work on federally funded interdisciplinary, mixed methods research grants. Under critical pragmatism and an ethics of care (e.g., Care Collective, 2020), we view these invitations as opportunities for generative interdependence, even as possibilities for reimagining social science. Yet, we are well-aware (from experience) that qualitative researchers and methodologies are often marginalized and devalued in grant work (Eakin, 2016). This is not a minor consideration. Qualitative researchers occupy and negotiate varying (dis)empowered positions in the academy associated with their ranks, program areas, genders, races and ethnicities, and so on. Some earlier career qualitative researchers, like Lorien, may feel they have little choice to participate in interdisciplinary grant teams in the first instance – tenure and promotion guidelines may require applying for and securing external funding. The humble aim of our paper is to supply a rationale and ethic (and example practices) for qualitative researchers who join grant teams, a rationale and ethic beyond those associated with administrative pressure and criteria for advancement and promotion. As such, and based on our experiences to date, we conclude with practical suggestions we generated for ourselves related to our four orienting concepts. We find them helpful guides as we navigate our roles and responsibilities on interdisciplinary grant teams and important considerations for deciding whether and how to collaborate in grant work. That is, they are some of the things we consider when faced with the question, “Will you be our qualitative methodologist?”
(Qualitative Methodologist) Considerations for Practicing Responsibility and Care (in Grant Funded Research)
• Be prepared to explain the interdependence of content, context, and methods in qualitative research. (Collaboration, Education)
• Strive for interdependent and educative roles (e.g., mentor, coach, consultant, collaborator) as opposed to isolated ones. (Collaboration, Education)
• Take opportunities to explain the dynamic, iterative, and emergent nature of much qualitative research. (Education)
• Actively solicit PI and other grant team members’ thoughts and feedback on the design and interpretations. (Collaboration)
• Remain open to (new) learning. (Reflexivity)
• Offer critical perspectives on the concepts, aims, designs, participants, and… of research projects. (Critique)
• Bring to the grant team’s explicit awareness the ways language, including the words used to describe participants and problems, can marginalize and denigrate. (Critique)
• Facilitate conversations around social justice. (Critique)
• Seek out disciplinary colleagues and literature that adopt social justice frameworks and perspectives as examples and support. A good example from a well-regarded journal in a team member’s discipline can often shift thinking, inspire dialogue. (Education, Critique)
• Remain open to thinking differently, including seeking out conversations and information that challenge (own and others’) assumptions. (Collaboration, Reflexivity)
• Watch out for expectations to work independently. Warning signs may be requests to draft a qualitative research plan without consultation with the PI(s), grant plans that do not include bi-weekly or monthly meetings, and expectations that the methodologist will (independently) analyze data. (Collaboration)
• Watch out for colleagues and language dismissive of qualitative research, critical theory, and social justice aims. While dismissive language can be an opening for education and dialogue, it can also be paralyzing. Learning about colleagues prior to joining teams and sharing with them what you can offer are both important to deciding whether to join a grant team in the first instance. (Collaboration, Critique)
• Consider seriously whether you might be better off not being someone’s qualitative methodologist. (All of the Above)
