Objectivity When You Are Both Teacher and Researcher
Objectivity as Teacher and Researcher
- Full neutrality is not possible. The teacher is involved.
- Five practices reduce bias: triangulation, reflexive journal, critical friends, openness to disconfirming evidence, honest reporting.
- Triangulation is the strongest single protection.
- Test: ask after every reflection, “what did I find that I did not expect?”
Objectivity When You Are Both Teacher and Researcher
How can you be objective when you are studying your own classroom?
There is no perfect answer. The teacher is involved, biased, hopeful, and tired. The pretense of full neutrality would be dishonest. But there are five real things a teacher can do to push closer to objectivity.
1. Triangulation
The full chapter on triangulation lives earlier in the guide (Module 5, Triangulation and Tips); the short version applied here is to use multiple data sources. If three different methods point to the same finding, the finding is not just your imagination. Triangulation is one of the strongest protections against teacher bias.
A teacher who relies only on her own subjective impression will see what she wants to see. A teacher who has tally sheets, quiz scores, student questionnaires, and interview quotes is constantly being tested against the evidence.
2. A reflexive journal
A reflexive journal is a notebook in which the teacher records her own assumptions, hopes, frustrations, and biases as they happen. Not just observations about the students. Observations about her own thinking.
“Today I really wanted the intervention to work. Three students did not engage. I noticed I was tempted to dismiss them as having a bad day, but maybe the intervention itself does not suit them. Need to look at this more carefully.”
That kind of writing is the discipline of self-awareness. It makes hidden bias visible. The teacher can read it later and notice patterns in her own thinking that she did not see in the moment.
3. Critical friends
A critical friend is a colleague who is willing to look at your data and challenge your conclusions. Not a friend who agrees with everything. A friend who pushes back.
You share your data with a colleague. She asks hard questions. “Are you sure that pattern is real? Could it be explained by something else? Why did you ignore those three students who did not improve?”
This outside view catches biases the teacher cannot see alone. It is one of the most useful disciplines in action research.
4. Stay open to disconfirming evidence
A biased researcher dismisses data that contradicts her hopes. A disciplined researcher seeks out the contradicting data and takes it seriously.
If twenty students improved and four did not, do not skip over the four. Find out why. The four are often more informative than the twenty.
The simplest test: at the end of every reflection session, ask yourself what did I find that I did not expect? If the answer is nothing, you are probably not looking hard enough.
5. Honest reporting
The final defense against bias is the discipline of writing honestly. Report what happened, including what failed, what surprised you, and what you cannot explain. Do not write a sales pitch for the intervention.
An examiner can tell the difference between an honest report and a flattering one. So can a thoughtful colleague. The honest report is harder to write and worth more.
The short rule: full objectivity is not possible when the researcher is also the teacher. Bias can be reduced through triangulation, a reflexive journal, critical friends, openness to disconfirming evidence, and honest reporting. Disciplined reflection makes the findings trustworthy.
One more card to lock in the role of the colleague you bring into the work.
