To avoid bias in researchers’ thinking…

Lots of discussion this week about how researchers are often unclear about the purpose of involvement in the context of their own research, and so remain uncertain about what to do and how to do it.

I think this might be because the purpose of involvement – the reasons for doing it – are often described in very general terms. Firstly some people say it’s the right thing to do. There is a moral purpose in enabling patients, carers and the public to have their say in research decisions that will have impact on their lives. The problem with this, is that it doesn’t say who needs to be involved and what they should do – so it does leave researchers uncertain about the ‘how’.

Another common reason for involvement is that it will improve the quality of research by making it more relevant and genuinely useful to the end users. This puts an emphasis on the end goal, and again researchers can remain unclear about precisely how to achieve that. Current guidance and best practice advice tends to suggest that patients/ the public should be involved at all stages of research. It describes the impacts involvement can have at each stage, but doesn’t always say how that needs to look in practice.

I’d like to suggest another purpose for involvement which may help with the ‘how’. It’s for researchers to learn from other people’s experiential knowledge and avoid bias in their own thinking. With this understanding, researchers should be checking in with patients/ the public in every decision they make about their research, to ask ‘Am I missing anything? Have I assumed anything? Am I on the right lines?’

Researchers do this all the time in the conversations they have continually with their peers. They know how to sound out new ideas in an informal chat over coffee. They know how to hold formal meetings to make major decisions. So I’d argue researchers do know ‘how’ to do involvement – it’s just more of the same. I think they’re not making the connection between learning from conversations with patients/ the public and what they do already. If the purpose of involvement is simply to have a conversation, learn from each other and make a joint decision – how many ways are there to do that?

Blog post #1: PPI. Learning it is. What can Yoda teach us about involvement in research?

Blog post #2: Researchers and the public as ‘thinking partners’. Why there’s no ‘method’ for involvement.

Blog post #3: Conflict as thinking. The challenge in working with different kinds of ‘thinking partners’.