What is Bracketing in Qualitative Research?
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For qualitative researchers, bracketing is the setting aside of one’s own beliefs and a priori assumptions in order to avoid misrepresenting a subject’s intended meaning, perception, or experience.
Simply put, bracketing helps you recognize—and temporarily suspend—your personal judgments and biases on a subject while conducting qualitative analysis that is focused on that topic.
Keep reading to find three bracketing methods you can easily apply to your own research process.
Why is bracketing important in qualitative research?
Qualitative research material is often derived from interviews, first-person observation, and research-lived experiences of human beings that focus on how they see and interact with the world.
As the conduit for what is gleaned from these materials, your biases can understandably spill over into your analysis of them. Bracketing is important because it is difficult to recognize if this “spill-over” has influenced your results—especially when examining sensitive research topics and questions.
For instance, phenomenological and ethnographic research methods derive meaning from direct interaction with respondents. Conversely, both of these approaches are inherently subjective processes where the researcher is the “instrument for analysis across all phases of a qualitative research project” (Starks and Trinidad, 2007).[1] Therein lies the challenge of bracketing: to act as the conduit that transmits meaning from other people’s words or actions without injecting one’s own biases into the process.
Given the sometimes close relationship between the researcher and the research topic that may both precede and develop during research, bracketing also becomes a method to protect the researcher from the effects of examining what may be emotionally challenging material.[2]
So, at its core, bracketing makes it easier to identify and temporarily separate yourself from any prejudice you may hold in order to present the most unbiased possible results.
When to use bracketing in your research
Qualitative analysis is an inherently subjective process. This can never be entirely avoided. The best we can do is to understand our own subjectivity and how it influences our research through bracketing.
After all, qualitative researchers are also human with the instinctual inclination to interpret (or misinterpret), assign value, or assess experiences in order to understand what the world presents to them—harking back to the paradoxical relationship between research and researcher explained earlier.
Understanding this, Creswell and Miller (2000) state that the researcher can use bracketing early in their research process—and then reflexively as they proceed—in order to “suspend those researcher biases … [and] reflect on the social, cultural, and historical forces that shape their interpretation”.[3]
In essence, bracketing becomes a means of validating your research process and results. The temporary suspension of one’s own beliefs, biases, and subjective interpretations ensures the participant's beliefs and the research material are not obfuscated or distorted through a lens of our own predispositions or biases.
Therefore, bracketing can be used to validate your qualitative analysis, which is invariably difficult to verify objectively. Mainly, because the results are qualitative (based on feeling or perception) and yet inherently require human analysis—a conduit— in order to offer a final conclusive analysis.
Is bracketing always necessary?
The short answer is no. However, if you are conducting research for an academic journal or for a grant proposal, for example, bracketing notes are often required. At the very least, you may be asked to describe the bracketing process you employed as part of your final write-up or results.
A formal essay to explain your bracketing process can also improve trust in regard to your research by reinforcing the final conclusion of your study with further explanation of your approach.
Methods of bracketing in qualitative analysis
As stated, bracketing helps you (the researcher) approach material and participants at arm’s length without infusing personal beliefs into your findings. We have already covered why this is a difficult but also necessary process to remove doubt or questions as to how your study was conducted.
With no single accepted standard for bracketing, Tufford and Newman offer three methods to consider:
Examples of bracketing methods
Write analytical memos - Writing analytical memos both before and during the research process is a way to engage with your research. Think of memos as your “notes to self” to record your train of thought, and to keep a record of your reflections as you work towards your final thesis. In terms of bracketing, memos can record any biases or contradicting information you come across in your work.
Bracketing interviews - Before you interview subjects or start your study, ask someone with experience in qualitative analysis to interview you. “Bracketing interviews” can increase your clarity and engagement with participants’ experiences by unearthing forgotten personal experiences. It also can help you discuss emotionally charged research topics with your participants and materials in a calm way—and simultaneously develop your capacity to understand the phenomena in question (Rolls and Relf, 2006).[4]
Reflexive journaling - Here, you begin journaling before you have an overall research question for your study. Then, as you proceed through your research, there is a reflexive process of examining what you uncover. Similar to memos, the journal should include your reasons for undertaking the research; assumptions regarding gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status; your place in the power hierarchy of the research itself; and your own personal value system (Hanson, 1994).[5]
Determine what type of bracketing is an appropriate method for you. Try to be as explicit as possible about your preconceptions both before and during the research process. You may also employ multiple methods of bracketing that may complement one another and lend further credence to your findings.
The challenges of bracketing
While not always required for all qualitative studies, bracketing remains a valuable method of checks and balances for the researcher—but with specific challenges.
Here are some of those challenges that are important to keep in mind:
There is no accepted standard or process for bracketing in qualitative analysis.
Similarly, the definition of bracketing is somewhat nebulous and vague.
Bracketing should be explained to the reader—requiring further time commitment on your part.
Maintaining pure bracketing can be challenging for the researcher for the reasons discussed.
Bracketing may be daunting and time-consuming. However, you can simplify the process by using the “code description” feature included with Delve’s qualitative data analysis tool.
How To Use Code Descriptions
If you currently keep your synthesis, memos, and notes on post-it notes, it can be hard to trace them back to the moment in research that inspired you to write them down in the first place.
With code descriptions, you can jot down thoughts directly within each code detail page, which then acts as a time-stamped ledger of your code and thought process at the time. All of your quotes and codes are then in chronological context with bracketing notes that you can reflexively record as you progress. As an additional bonus, you can easily and automatically track the frequency of the codes you use.
The code description tool can also supplement your reflexive journal or any of the other bracketing methods. Though sticky-notes may get lost, your code descriptions are always safe and sound!
And with Delve’s sharing functionality, share your code and code descriptions with colleagues for an informal peer debriefing to further enhance the validity and reliability of your research.
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References
Starks, H. and Trinidad, S.B. (2007) Choose Your Method: A Comparison of Phenomenology, Discourse Analysis, and Grounded Theory. Qualitative health research, 17, 1372-1380.
Tufford, Lea & Newman, Peter. (2010). Bracketing in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Social Work. 11. 80-96.
Creswell, J.W. and Miller, D.L. (2000) Determining Validity in Qualitative Inquiry. Theory into Practice, 39, 124-130.
Rolls, L., & Relf, M. (2006). Bracketing interviews: Addressing methodological challenges in qualitative interviewing in bereavement and palliative care. Mortality, 11(3), 286–305.
Hanson EJ. Issues concerning the familiarity of researchers with the research setting. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 1994 Nov;20(5):940-942