Dealing with Bias in Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Dealing with Research Bias with Smiles

This blog post discusses one of the most complex and intimidating areas of research: Researcher’s bias, and how to handle it. The purpose of this post is to communicate to the reader (and novice researchers) that:

• Understanding bias is not a herculean task; 
• Defining it in your research study is also quite systematic; and
• Some useful strategies can be effectively adopted to address/reduce bias in research. 

We may define bias as an “unknown or unacknowledged error created during the design, measurement, sampling, procedure, or choice of problem studied”. More errors lead to less reliability of a study and vice versa. Thus, bias and reliability are mutually-exclusive. Your job is to work toward eliminating one (bias) to strengthen the other (reliability). (For a detailed discussion of bias in quantitative research, see: Research Bias.

In extant empirical literature, bias has long been recognized as a critical factor that can hamper a carefully designed research study. Although there are quite a few commonalities shared by positivists (quantitative researchers) and interpretivists (qualitative researchers) in relation to addressing bias in research, primarily, the two broad paradigms take different positions on not only defining what it means to be biased and neutral/objective in a research effort but also in attempts to devise strategies to address bias in a research endeavor.

First off, it is important to understand that the concept of bias has been extensively studied in different domains: social, management, and natural sciences, and other fields of inquiry such as management information systems. Today, it is seen as one of the most abused and misused concept not only in the production of research but also in the publication of it. Read more.

I will now very briefly review some major areas within the two paradigms on the concept of bias. This understanding alone will take away half of your fear and pain regarding bias and how to address it.

Bias in Quantitative Research

In quantitative research, bias is more relevant to the overall research design. Although it is present and discussed in the later stages as well, the emphasis is placed on the initial stages when a study is being planned. The position of this school of thought is that it is the way you plan your research design, instruments or research tools (e.g. questionnaire) that decides whether the study is reliable or not.

Therefore, for quantitative research studies, your conceptualization and the research design (sampling, instruments, tests, etc.) play an important role. A carefully designed study can lead to more rigorous conclusions. Strategies to address bias:

• Rigorous literature review

• Conceptualization of the problem, hypotheses, and propositions

• Choosing the most appropriate tools and strategies for data collection

• Using the most appropriate data analysis procedures

• Peer-review of the research plan

• Pilot study

 

Bias in Qualitative Research

In qualitative research studies, however, bias takes a somehow different meaning: something that has caused ongoing debates and heated arguments among qualitative researchers alone! Read more.

In simple words, qualitative research is more a matter of investigating people’s lived experiences. One of the most important sources of data comes in the form of words. Thus, there are as many theories of interpreting these words and lived experiences of people as, perhaps, there are scholars!

Overall, the basic meaning of ‘error’ is also relevant here. However, it is much more than this: It is about social issues, gender, ethnicities, background (and what not!) of people that may lead them to be biased toward some particular group and individuals.

For instance, a researcher, while studying a different ethnic community, may not be welcomed into an indigenous community as warmly as a person from their own community. This creates problems. How to address this issue and many more relevant to such a context?

Fortunately, to date, quite a few useful strategies and guidelines have been proposed; following these strategies can lead you to form a better and valid research report that can be trusted and admired. I list some major strategies that are recommended by most of the qualitative research scholars today:

• Write clearly ‘everything’ in the research report, from A to Z: your problems, the many issues you confronted during the research (at any phase), and so on…

• Confront your biases: acknowledge your background, ethnicity, language, beliefs, and so on.

• Take a position on a social issue and investigate it through that perspective, i.e., feminist, Marxist, pragmatist approach, etc.

• Maintain confidentiality and anonymity of the research participants (a very complex area).

There are some other important things to consider but there are some very useful strategies. Now, if you follow these strategies, what would be the result? It would be a research report that is honestly communicating to the reader all that the researcher thought, perceived, explored, and found out. 

This way, your study is an open book to your reader. For instance, you might state that, “I didn’t feel comfortable in that community because of my different ethnic background; however, I discussed this issue openly with these people, and we came up to a mutual acceptance – at least for the period of research! 

The reader would certainly acknowledge your truthfulness. Such a confrontation and reporting would also ensure them that you’ve been unbiased in your judgments: you didn’t say anything stereotypical about that particular community. Instead, you acknowledged your limitations and moved on to explore the social issue from the particular position you could naturally have in that research context.

Reading, writing, and reflection on these strategies are undoubtedly important activities that can help you refine your study. You might want to look at a very good article here.

Last word, be as systematic for validity in quantitative research, and be as detailed in your description as you can. This is your route to a reliable research study in qualitative domain, something that can convince others of your hard work.

Start working NOW!