Reflexivity is the act of examining one's own assumption, belief, and judgement systems, and thinking carefully and critically about how these influence the research process. The practice of reflexivity confronts and questions who we are as researchers and how this guides our work. 

The goal of this memo is to help you examine your goals, experiences, assumptions, feelings, and values as they relate to your research, and to discover what resources and potential concerns your identity and experience may create. What prior connections (social and intellectual) do you have to the topics, people, and settings you plan to study? How do you think and feel about these topics, people, or settings? What assumptions are you making, consciously or unconsciously, about these? What do you want to accomplish or learn by doing this study?

The purpose is not to write a general account of your goals, background, and experiences. Instead, describe specifically those experiences, and the beliefs, goals, and expectations that emerged from them, that are most directly relevant to your planned research project, and reflect on how these have informed and influenced your research.  See examples 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 in this chapter about reflexivity in the research process for some of the things you can do with such a memo – not as models to mechanically follow, but as illustrations of the kind of thinking that this memo requires. If you are just starting your project, you can’t be as detailed or confident in your conclusions as some of these researchers were, but try to aim for this sort of exploration of how your identity and goals could affect your study.

This memo is intended to be mainly for your benefit, not for communicating to someone else; try to avoid substituting presentation for reflection and analysis. I suggest that you begin working on this memo by brainstorming whatever comes to mind when you think about your prior experiences that may relate to your site or topic, and jot these down without immediately trying to organize or analyze them. Then, try to identify the issues most likely to be important in your research, think of the implications of these, and organize your reflections.

Next are two broad sets of questions that are productive to reflect on in this memo. In your answers to these, try to be as specific as you can.

1. What prior experiences have you had that are relevant to your topic or setting? What beliefs and assumptions about your topic or setting have resulted from these experiences? What goals have emerged from these, or have otherwise become important for your research? How have these experiences, assumptions, and goals shaped your decision to choose this topic, and the way you are approaching this project?

2. What potential advantages do you think the goals, beliefs, and experiences that you described have for your study? What potential disadvantages do you think these may create for you, and how might you deal with these?

Adapted from Maxwell, J.A. 2013. Qualitative Research Design: an Interactive Approach Third Edition. Chapter 2. Goals: Why are you Doing this Study?. Pgs. 34-35. Applied Social Research Methods Series.