Reflection and bias

Reflection

You will be encouraged throughout this module to reflect on your progress. Reflection is the process of looking back and analysing an event, idea, object or experience. Practising reflection during this module should provide you with the skills for the remainder of this module and future studies.

A common tool used is a reflective diary. You can use this to record your thoughts, ideas, key experiences, key feelings and intentions. It will help you develop your research skills through a problem solving and reflective approach to your learning.

The Open University have produced a section on keeping a reflective learning journal (scroll to the bottom of this page), have a look and see how a journal could work for you. Take time to look at our LibGuide on Critical Thinking, there are a set of questions which can also help frame your reflections.

Not all learners are the same and a reflective diary may not be suitable for you. Visual learners may wish to produce flow charts or mind maps. Aural learners may wish to record their thoughts using audio tools. Learners with a reading/writing preference may choose to use bullet points, or record their ideas and thoughts by writing notes on documents. Kinesthetic learners would much prefer to be doing and not reflecting, so their reflections may be very brief as they want to get on with the task in hand. It is likely that you, as a learner, will have different styles and may wish to experiment with different ways to reflect and record.

Take a look at the blog post Set goals and create mind maps: how it can change your life, scroll down and look at the mind map on this page. This gives you a good visual understanding of how to mind map your reflections and ideas. If you are new to mind mapping and would like to give it a try download the Mind Mappers Toolkit.

Bias

Whether we are aware of it or not, we all operate on a belief system. Sometimes we are able to articulate this, but most of the time it is hidden to us. In research your unconscious bias refers to a bias that you are unaware of, and which happens outside of your control. It is a bias that happens automatically and is triggered by your brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, influenced by your background, cultural environment and personal experiences

Fake news can also create a bias by deliberately spreading false information, often via the Internet. Most fake news will have an element of truth which can sway our opinion, especially if this fake news matches our existing biases.

Bias in your research data can take many forms – some intentional and some not. Some of the more common types are:

Insufficient sample

A generalisation or conclusion is made from too small a sample size.
Observer bias

One observer consistently over or under records data values.
Cherry picking

The deliberate choice of the data or scientific studies that support your view, while ignoring the data or studies that oppose your view.
Confirmation bias

People tend to remember things that confirm their beliefs and forget things that do not. For example they will more frequently remember times they made a correct prediction than times they were wrong and they will tend to look for information that confirms their established views rather than information that contradicts them.
Recall bias

Subjects forget details of their past history. For example, patients with needing replacement knees may remember earlier injuries to that joint. People without problems in their knees may not remember such incidents, particularly if they were minor inconveniences or a long time ago.
Timing bias

The timing of an experiment can affect the results you get.
Assessment bias

This can occur when people are aware of the thing being studied. This is a particular problem where you are looking for a subjective response for instance, double blinding (where neither the experimenter nor the subject knows whether they are in the control group or not) can help to alleviate this.
Omitted evidence

Leaving out evidence that would weaken or even cause the average reader to dismiss the claim.
Student bias

This occurs when all your participants are students.

Bias may not necessarily impact your research negatively. Being aware of your biases you can consciously correct them and reflect on what you could do differently. Remaining unaware, or denying biases, may mean they have a greater impact on your research and the results that come from this.

This completes the researcher section. Move on to the Your Research module.

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