When participants do not agree: member checking and challenges to epistemic authority in participatory research
Abstract
Transactional validity, a common approach in participatory research, is attained when preliminary analyses of research results are discussed with research participants and their feedback is incorporated in the analysis. Member checking is one way of achieving transactional validity, which has been heralded as a stronger version of validity reached through triangulation. Through member checking, we engaged with participants to ensure mutual agreement and understanding on the accounts and analysis to be published. Attaining methodological rigor and reliability is based on shared analytical understanding between researchers and research participants. However, this shared understanding does not always materialize. Participants do not always agree with researchers or with each other. As a result, efforts to increase validity created moments of conflict and challenged epistemic authority. This article provides detailed accounts of these conflicts and challenges and their eventual, even if problematic, resolution in the context of broader approaches in participatory research. The importance of a dialogical and recursive research process with participant communities, which cannot be assumed to be homogeneous, is underscored.
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Emotions can inform transactional validity reached through triangulation between what children report and their intense emotions.
“Emotions can inform transactional validity reached through triangulation 60 between what children report and their intense emotions. 19”
From New methodological directions for involving children in past life memories research (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
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- Authors
- Caretta, M. A., & Pérez, M. A.
- Affiliations
- West Virginia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Pérez, María Alejandra
- Venue
- Field Methods
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-08-06
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 359-374
- ISSN
- 1064-8631 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-822X
- 1552-3969
- OpenAlex
- W2966527438
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 9.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Field Methods (publishedVersion)
- Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Participatory Visual Research Methods
- Social Sciences › Education › Qualitative Research Methods and Applications
- Keywords
- member checking, participatory research, epistemic authority, participant feedback, triangulation, dialogical research, participant heterogeneity, methodological quality
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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