Embracing Emergent Research Design: Or When Participants Refuse Your Research Plan

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Methodologies and Ethics Poster Session

Abstract

Post qualitative studies encourage an emergent design in which the study evolves with the desires of the participants. This paper explores what happened in a study when the participants were allowed to take the study in an unexpected direction and the difficulty I as the researcher had in letting go of total control. I argue that creating a study with an emergent design and allowing the participants to make decisions about the direction of the research is a part of our ethical obligation to participants.

Author

• Kirsten Robbins, Indiana University - IUPUI