Everybody has biases, but how often do we take the time to reflect and identify them? In this blog, Amelia reflects on how reflexivity in the design thinking process can reveal hidden biases, foster empathy, and create change to uncover student needs and get to the root of complex problems.
Written by Amelia Di Meo, Research Coordinator, Master of Health Science, Translational Research
I’m a believer that the strongest research – whether qualitative or quantitative – is objective in nature. This means making an effort to minimize bias as much as possible when analyzing data. Minimizing bias is especially important when analyzing qualitative research because the data involved is highly subjective. Over my time at the Innovation Hub, I’ve learned that engaging in reflexive exercises before reading qualitative data or conducting feedback sessions is key to ensuring that we interpret and collect data holistically and objectively. Below, I reflect on why it is important to practice reflexivity before analyzing qualitative data, drawing from my experiences working on design research projects at the iHub.
Surfacing our Biases
As researchers at the Innovation Hub, we work closely with qualitative data in the form of real human stories that we collect during feedback sessions and interviews with students at U of T. We learn to conduct sessions, to gather data, and to process it. However, as humans, we all bring our own subconscious biases and assessments into our roles as researchers, based on our own experiences and assumptions of the world around us. To ensure that we illustrate students’ stories as authentically and fairly as possible, we need to ensure that our own biases are not skewing the story. To do this, we like to ask ourselves a series of reflection questions before we analyze the data in an exercise known as a “bias check.”
Bias checks can help us uncover any hidden biases we may have that could influence how we interpret another person’s story when reading through qualitative data. During the “bias check,” we reflect on how our own lived experiences as students influence the way we perceive, understand, and interpret other students’ stories. We write down the beliefs we already hold about U of T and the prevailing narratives about the university that we have heard from others, trying to bring our hidden biases to the front of our minds. As a team, we’ll discuss our reflections candidly, reminding each other that there is safety in reflection and vulnerability. We try to note both positive and negative experiences that we’ve had to ensure that we are not viewing student stories from a lens that is either too positive or too negative. In doing this exercise together, we can learn from each other’s reflections and remind ourselves about the importance of checking our own biases throughout the research process.
I learned that, through these bias checks, we can shift into a more neutral and curious mindset, encouraging us to interpret data holistically and authentically. Taking a moment to pause and reflect on our lived experiences keeps them in our awareness and, more importantly, helps surface our biases, some that we may not even know we had. This process helps us understand human stories for what they are. Every project at the iHub offers an opportunity to embrace reflexivity and self-reflection and to take ourselves out of the data, and center it around the real stories that were shared by students at U of T.
Empathy through Self-Awareness
When we engage in reflexive thinking, we put aside our thoughts, feelings, and experiences to understand the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others. For me, it is about being honest with myself about the beliefs I hold and how that has manifested in my assumptions. I must be open to challenging my assumptions. I’ve learned to deeply value this type of intimate introspection that happens during reflexivity – the honest conversations that I have with myself that keep me self-aware.
When we are reflective as researchers, we acknowledge our experiences and limitations and understand ourselves a little bit better. This helps us become more willing to understand where others come from. This willingness to understand others without judgement is empathy. I’ve realized that self-awareness helps us to lower the volume on our own stories so we can turn up the volume to listen to others!
In design thinking, being empathetic is key to helping us understand the experiences of students so that we can develop ideas and solutions that are best tailored to their needs. Empathy enables us to go beyond what students share with us on the surface to discover what truly drives students and how they feel. When we are empathetic, we can design with the perspective of the end user in mind. And reflexivity is the key that can unlock this!
Tackling Complex Problems
An important element of reflexivity is being open to and feeling comfortable with having our biases and assumptions challenged. This is not only important for unlocking empathy to understand end-user needs, but also to challenge the status quo to create change. Reflexivity can act as a pathway to impart change because it encourages us to take a step back and critically examine why we hold the biases and assumptions that we do, while examining the existing systems and processes at play that may also contribute to these assumptions.
Reflexivity is especially helpful when we are tackling problems that are complex, ambiguous, or may seem impossible to address. For example, we can apply reflexivity to wicked problems – large, complex, and ambiguous systemic issues with no single solution, such as climate change – because it helps us to critically analyze all the factors at play. We need to push ourselves to think about our understanding of the problem (and ourselves) from multiple perspectives. We can use reflexivity as a starting point to inspire us to think about complex problems in new ways – and we may even uncover new problems along the way, too.
Reflexivity is a pathway to imparting change because it encourages us to take a step back and reflect, ask questions, and reframe problems. Reflexivity is an important tool that we can use to navigate uncertainty or understand complexities to get to the root of the problem and create innovative and impactful solutions.
Implementing Bias Checks
Practicing reflexivity by implementing bias checks will make you a design researcher who is self-aware, empathetic, and a critical thinker. Before analyzing qualitative data, try to do your own bias check! Some questions to ask yourselves are:
- What are current biases I hold about this particular topic?
- What are some other stories I’ve heard about the research project topic from friends and families?
- What are some specific positive or negative experiences I’ve had with this research project topic?
When asking these questions, you may notice that you will be interpreting data more holistically and objectively. You may also notice that your critical thinking and empathy-based skills will grow. With this in mind, we can grow into the best versions of ourselves, unlocking new pathways to change along the way!
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