Ask Us!: ATA

Dr. Robin Throne's webinar: Researcher positionality is essential for valuable self-examination of new doctoral researchers, especially those who desire to focus on a dissertation research problem from professional practice or as a member within a specific community. Researcher positionality is often considered a necessary process of the principal investigator for critical self-reflection and a determination of self within the social constructs, biases, contexts, layers, power structures, identities, transparency, objectivity and subjectivities for the viewpoint assumed within the research. Explication of a researcher's positionality articulates the social identities to fully self-identity their place and position within the scholarship of the field or discipline, and especially to define a clear viewpoint in drawing conclusions and implications from the results of any inquiry. This articulation of researcher positionality can also offer a transparency necessary to the perspectives brought to the inquiry especially for qualitative researchers. This webinar helps prepare doctoral candidates to: • Understand various definitions of researcher positionality • Explore a mechanism to consider a self-as-researcher identity • Examine how explication of researcher positionality can avoid bias via reflexivity • Construct a narrative that describes a self-as-researcher identity to evolve along the dissertation journey