Reflection/Commentary on a Past Article: “Reconceptualizing the Member Check Interview”

How Did This Publication Fit Into Your Career Path?

This article was inspired by work I completed throughout my graduate education at Miami University, USA. I first became curious about the member check process when I included it as a step while completing my master’s thesis. At that time, I was primarily seeking what Cho and Trent (2006) describe as transactional validity (i.e., accuracy and consistency), and while this seemed like a very important goal at the time, I was surprised by the some of the responses I received from my participants. In short, it took me more than a year to analyze my interview data and produce the documents I wanted to present to my participants for member checking, and by the time we met, many of my participants did not quite remember the nuances of the interview (or even the stories they had presented). “Kira,” the participant I described in the article, did not seem concerned about this; she trusted my version of the story and believed that she was the one who had changed. This seemed reasonable to me, especially given that my participants were college-aged and in a period of intense growth.

Based on this experience, I built a member check step into my dissertation, but this time, I was looking for more than just an accuracy check from my participants. I wondered whether/how their stories had changed, and I also thought of the interview itself as a potential agent of that change. When I wrote my dissertation (see Koelsch, 2008), I included some information about the member check process, but I put much more focus on other aspects of the method and the content of the interview. I then graduated with my PhD in clinical psychology from Miami University in 2008.

However, I always had my experience with the member check process in the back of my mind, and I continued to think about it as I began my career as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Duquesne University. Around that time, I also encountered Cho and Trent’s (2006) article, which gave me a useful framework to think about my experience with the member check process. I was then ready to write the article that was eventually published in International Journal of Qualitative Methods. The article (and the citations it had already received) became part of my tenure application packet, and I was approved for tenure and promotion in early 2016. My work in this area also inspired a collaboration; after reading an earlier draft of the article, a senior colleague invited me to join him on a manuscript in progress, which was also published (Walsh & Koelsch, 2012). That article took a more broad view of qualitative inquiry but is in the same spirit as this article.

How Did This Publication Impact Your Work?

In addition to the collaboration I mentioned above, this article furthered my thinking about qualitative inquiry in general and validity in particular. While I have not published on the member check process since, I continue to be inspired by my work in that area. For example, one way that I have continued to question and challenge the notion of validity in research is to further explore poetic research (e.g., Koelsch, 2015). In addition, I recently became involved in research produced through the community engaged teaching of a colleague (see Koelsch, Bennett, & Goldberg, 2017), and this has been informed by my belief that participants can and should be involved at multiple stages in the research process.

In addition to my research, my work in this area has direcly inspired my teaching. I routinely teach a graduate-level course titled “Introduction to Qualitative and Interpretative Research,” which is a required course for all of our clinical psychology PhD students. While the course does include some general “how to” information and an introduction to various qualitative methods, much of the course is focused on big picture epistemological questions including those surrounding notions of validity and data ownership in research.

How Did This Publication Impact the Field?

While I have not read all of the works that cite my article, I have noticed that it is taken up in different ways. Many seem to cite it as rationale for conducting a member check. I am pleased that other researchers are utilizing member checks and that this process has been used in many disciplines. Other authors have cited my work to continue to think creatively about qualitative inquiry. I also noticed that a large number of citations are from dissertations, which I will explore further in the next response.

Were the Any Surprises That Came From This Publication?

One of the surprise impacts of this work is its use by students, which delights me since teaching is such a fundamental part of my professional identity. I am continually surprised by the number of dissertations that cite this article. I hope that my work informs and inspires multiple generations of students as they conduct qualitative research in a variety of disciplines. In short, I am glad to see students utilize this publication as they craft their dissertations, and I did not anticipate this outcome while writing the article.

What Is the One Thing That Has Changed in This Area Since You Published This Manuscript?

Looking at this question from a zoomed-out perspective and from my position as a psychologist working in the United States, I am most struck by the growth of qualitative inquiry in the field of psychology. Psychology has been decades behind other fields in terms of accepting any form of qualitative research, and there has been significant progress in the past decade or so. The popularity of mixed-methods research (e.g., Creswell & Clark, 2007), for example, has perhaps provided a bridge for acceptance of some forms of qualitative research. In addition, qualitative research itself now has clear representation in the American Psychological Association (APA), which is the primarily professional organization for psychologists in the United States. The Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (http://www.qualpsych.org) became an official subdivision of the APA in 2011, and its journal, Qualitative Psychology, launched in 2013. In addition, researchers have continued to explore creative ways of engaging in research and have continued to struggle with developing criteria for evaluating this form of research. Findings of a recent task force, for example, emphasized fidelity to the subject matter and utility in achieving research goals as principles to guide those who design and review qualitative studies (e.g., Levitt, Motulsky, Wertz, Morrow, & Ponterotto 2017). The member check process is one way researchers can strive to meet these aspirations.