Team Reflection: Qualitative Data Archivists – Understanding the Human Experience

In this blog post, the Qualitative Data Archivist (QDA) Team reflects on how they experienced human moments in their work, despite not interacting directly with study participants. The team discusses how relating to their work kept them motivated, the importance of making participants feel safe to be vulnerable, and how being a part of the team has helped them develop skills needed for their future careers.

Written by the Qualitative Data Archivist Team

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As the Qualitative Data Archivist (QDA) team, we supported the Innovation Hub’s research and design thinking projects. Through facilitating data analysis, we helped other teams transcribe, de-identify, and anonymize participant data, applying our qualitative coding skills to maintain a database of stories. Throughout this experience, we have felt inspired by real human stories, encouraging us to reflect and empathize with student experiences we are grateful to hear about from our participants.

The ‘Human Experience:’ Safety in Vulnerability

A large part of the team’s work as Qualitative Data Archivists relied on handling data – the raw, unprocessed results of research projects. We managed an archive of real, human stories that we collected from students who come from a wide variety of academic backgrounds. Although we did not directly interact with research participants during our day-to-day tasks, it was very important to never lose sight of the big picture – that our data is not just ‘data,’ but are real human stories. We have come to appreciate the humanness of archival work.  

Daivi: The most enriching aspect about working at the iHub was that we got to learn a lot about data mining and data coding. A lot of it, as analytical as it is, is just as human, and that is one of my favorite parts. Especially because it connects to storytelling and analyzing these stories, and that’s the most important part for me. 

Through reading interview transcripts, we also noticed that members of the research teams who facilitated the interviews really made an effort to create a safe and welcoming environment for their participants. Creating a warm and inviting tone during the session helped participants feel comfortable enough to share their stories with us and made the session feel more ‘human’.  

Maryam: The fact that the participants were willing to share such deep, personal things is really important and moving in a lot of ways. I thought it was really incredible how interviewers and facilitators were able to create such a trusting space where people felt safe to do that. It demonstrated that it is doable, and you can make people feel welcomed enough to be honest and open. Centering humanity and accessibility in all research processes, from recruitment, data collection, coding, to insight development, keeps us grounded and provides an avenue for everyone involved to empathize with the real stories shared. 

Through our data management and transcription work, we have learned how interviewers can really set the tone of the session to make participants feel safe to be vulnerable in sharing their experiences. We’ve also appreciated how reading student stories helped us reflect on the importance of creating a culture of safety that makes all participants feel comfortable when sharing their experiences.

Camaraderie in Student Stories

When reading through student stories in the transcripts, we found ourselves relating to what some participants were going through as students. Below, Daivi and Abby reflect on how reading through student data during the archival process helped her realize that student stories have the power to be relatable to other students which can foster a sense of camaraderie. 

Daivi: The kind of connection I have felt with other students – I never knew that there were people going through worse things or similar things. I think that helps a lot as a student, because U of T is just so big.

Abby: At the baseline, I hope it just makes students feel less alone. If students can read our reports and just connect in any way, I think that is a good takeaway. 

We took great pride in being able to offer students the opportunity to see themselves reflected in our research reports, but we never expected that we, too, would see reflections of ourselves in others’ experiences. We hope that those who read the reports will be able to see themselves in the stories we present, finding that they are not alone. And for those stories that students shared that were different from our own, we acknowledged that what they experienced today could be something we encounter tomorrow.  

Growing as Students and Professionals

In particular, the student stories we related to most were about work-life balance. Other students’ recollections of busy schedules and high-frequency deadlines reminded us of our own balancing act of trying to juggle classes, assignments, job schedules, and our personal responsibilities. The research has taught us the importance of time management and its impact on mental health as students strive to find a sense of balance between their responsibilities. Katrina reflects on her growth as a leader below. 

Katrina: I learnt a lot about time management. I’m usually very focused on my academics, so having an obligation outside of school made me focus, because I have to take care of myself more. Having this second responsibility also made me realize that I cannot focus on just one thing—especially when the nature of QDA is doing multiple things at once. When a lot of things are coming at you, it is important to be organized and stayed prepared. 

For our team, an important part of balancing a busy schedule as students, along with managing multiple research transcripts at work, is learning to plan ahead and time-block. In doing so, we were able to better manage our responsibilities and build workplace competencies that will help prepare us for future experiences as students and professionals. Beatrice shares how she stayed organized this year below. 

Beatrice: I’ve learned to utilize my outlook calendar and visualize my timetable with color coding. I put all my working hours, deadlines and classes there, so I space my time according to my commitments. I’ve also learned to leave some leeway between commitments, which has made me less anxious about forgetting minor things. Building these professional skills has made me less overwhelmed when I have my week planned, which has helped me tremendously. 

By planning ahead and time-blocking activities that are important to us, we learned how to prioritize balance as a key element of student life. It was because of these changes in our attitude that we recognized the importance of creating a schedule, especially to take care of our mental health as busy students with multiple roles. We are excited to take these organization and time management skills into future roles as students and professionals.

Impact Through Empathy

Overall, this experience taught us about the different ways to help students and learn from them, even if we only work with them indirectly. Reading students stories through transcripts and journals helped us realize the importance of humanizing our data practices. We learned that we don’t need to be interviewees to relate and empathize with the powerful stories of members of the U of T community. As students, we can generate impact as researchers and data archivists, and the best way to do so is to approach data with empathy and trust.

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