"Be reflexive, be be reflexive" (Braun & Clarke, 2021)*

Although 'it's hard' was my third point, I want to emphasise that it's a serious roadblock for many people, and that's entirely understandable. It's challenging to think critically and in depth about our own views, beliefs, and expectations. They're often quite abstract and nebulous, therefore hard to pin down (which is one of the reasons I picked the image above). We also take our own views for granted and may not be able to even recognise that we have a particular perspective or set of beliefs.

I think some students worry that just stating a certain opinion or stance will be seen negatively by supervisors or examiners (linking back to the lingering influence of traditional views on the nature and pursuit of knowledge). Students may also not know what to do with the information.

I want to present a few ideas to help you. I hope that these might help you engage more confidently with what is a difficult process. My focus here is on things to do, rather than telling you more about reflexivity - there is plenty out there written on the subject, and what is often challenging is turning that into a practical process.

Learn more

This does rather contradict my last point, but an important starting point for anything is to learn more about it. You don't have to draw opinions or make decisions; just read and think about what you've read.

The extent to which you should learn the background about reflexivity is going to depend on your level of study and the nature of the work you're doing. If you're an undergraduate doing a small project for an assessment, you don't need to know as much as a doctoral student writing their thesis. If you are an undergraduate, I recommend starting with the resources provided to you in your course or module. As many undergraduate psychology programmes teach the reflexive version of thematic analysis as a foundational qualitative method, and you likely have Braun and Clarke's "Thematic analysis: a practical guide" in your institutional library, which gives a good starting point. They deal with reflexivity fairly extensively on pages 13-22, touching on many different perspectives about reflexivity, including power dynamics, social identity and the way that our discipline itself shapes our beliefs and perspectives about research. 

If you're a doctoral student, you can also follow up and read some of the sources they cite. Aim for a sense of what is meant by reflexivity, the different types of things that influence our choices and perspectives, and the recommendations for how reflexive practice should be incorporated into your work.

Look at examples

One of the hardest elements I've found in teaching reflexivity is that it's often not mentioned in published research, meaning there are no models or guides to show students what it might look like to report it and the kinds of things researchers consider. Of course, there is even less showing the process of being reflexive deep within a research project and demonstrating how reflexive processes influences research.

I have a few suggestions to overcome this:

The Braun and Clarke pages mentioned above have extracts from a reflexive journal and the types of observations that have been made.

A useful IPA-specific paper is Rachel Shaw's (2010) paper where she presents an example from her own research in some detail. What I like about this is that Shaw demonstrates the learning process that she went through. We don't usually see this type of thing in the literature, which can leave the impression that everything must always go perfectly or that errors are failings, rather than places to learn. This work shows both the power of reflexivity in a researcher's growth and journey, and the ways it helped Shaw better understand her participant (and her own position). 

A third example is another IPA-specific paper by Goldspink and Engward (2019), where the authors explain and explore some of the ways that 'echoes' that Goldspink noticed during her research helped develop her awareness about the topic and the depth of analysis and interpretation.

The latter two are useful because they show real examples with commentary and are just about reflexivity, rather than being a statement or two in the midst of a full research paper. You can get a sense of the types of things these researchers observed and how they used that information in their research. Modelling specific examples is a good starting point for your own learning. Try applying those to your work (which will likely inspire other ideas you can think about).

Keep a reflexive journal

I always keep a journal when I'm doing research, and I make notes each time I work on my project. I often suggest an analytic journal (what you did with your data) and a reflexive journal (my own observations about myself, my responses to the data/participants' accounts, etc.), but they don't have to be two separate documents or notebooks; you can and should make notes regularly. Make sure you also read those over regularly to note any interesting developments, inconsistencies or gaps.

It's important to keep these notes because our understanding and perspectives evolve as research progresses and as we engage with our developing data and understanding of the topic. It's hard to keep track of these - we tend to incorporate our new ideas and lose track of how we got there. A journal captures these ideas. (You can also refer to the idea of 'horizons' here, which is our sphere of understanding of a topic). 

Again, it can be difficult to know how to do this. What is important to write down? What kinds of questions should you be considering? Here are some resources:

Although it's a resource for reflexive TA rather than IPA, Braun and Clarke provide a downloadable document with a raft of prompting questions to encourage reflexivity on the companion website for their book. 

Although with IPA we don't aim to bracket off our own perspectives, I've always found the list of questions provided by Ahern (1999) to be helpful prompts for encouraging reflection on various stages of research.

Lastly, a recent paper by Taylor (2025) outlines a different kind of process to create and respond to reflections about the researcher's interaction with their research.

You might not be able to answer some questions at some points, so it's useful to also go back and see where you can fill in more later. A reflexive journal can help you report your work later, but noting areas you struggled with or wondered about, or simply couldn't answer at the time can all be useful ways to look at your data and developing analysis again. The key is that you do this regularly and, if you're struggling to think of what to write, you find some thought-provoking questions to get started (see above). 

Find a critical friend

It's hard to look at ourselves critically - both in becoming more aware of our perspectives and often knowing what and how to pay attention to what we've noted, seen or found. Unsurprisingly, we're often unaware of our own views, and that's why one of the most helpful steps can be having a critical friend look over your work and ask questions. 

The idea of having someone 'critical' might sound scary, but remember that's combined with 'friend' (so they're on your side). Costa and Kallick (1993) explain that a critical friend should take the time to understand the work and the outcomes and "advocate for the success of the work" (p. 50) - ideal, right? They explain the term 'critical' to remove the sting of negativity, explaining that they might:

• ask provocative questions

• suggest an alternative lens

• offer friendly guidance to progress the work

Summing up

The most important thing is that you start trying to incorporate some element of reflexivity. Don't worry about if it's right or perfect. Get comfortable with the ideas I mentioned above and do something, and keep whatever kind of reminder works well for you to come back to this often, whether that's a daily journal that you remember to add to daily or a weekly reminder on your to do list. Like anything, you'll get better and more comfortable with the concept as you do it more (although whether reflexivity should actually be comfortable is a different question!). 

Seek the kind of help you need, knowing yourself. Perhaps that's to keep reading background material and find your own inspiration, or seeking out a critical friend who can support and scaffold you.

References

Ahern, K. J. (1999). Ten tips for reflexive bracketing. Qualitative Health Research, 9(3), 407–411.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). Teaching, supervising and examining for quality thematic analysis. In Thematic analysis: A practical guide (p. Additional chapter). Sage. https://study.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/additional_chapter_-_teaching_supervising_assessing_and_examining_ta.pdf

Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (1993). Through the Lens of a Critical Friend. Educational Leadership, 51(2), 49–51.

Goldspink, S., & Engward, H. (2019). Booming clangs and whispering ghosts: Attending to the reflexive echoes in IPA research. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 16(2), 291–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2018.1543111

Shaw, R. (2010). Embedding reflexivity within experiential qualitative psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 7(3), 233. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780880802699092

Taylor, W. (2025). CLEAR Mapping: A Meta-Cognitive Framework for Transparent, Reflexive, and Evidence-Aware Qualitative Analysis. Social Sciences, 14(6), 610–621. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20251406.15