Enhanced member checks: Reflections and insights from a participant-researcher collaboration

Abstract

This paper shares the process of an enhanced member check in a qualitative study about the schooling experiences of teenage mothers. The process of co-creating a participant narrative is presented as an alternative to traditional methods of member checking and data analysis. In the collaborative process presented in this article, the researcher and participant worked together to develop interpretations of interview data and to collaborate on a final narrative. The author developed a member checking process that included iterative rounds of collaboration in the liminal space between raw data and final narrative. This paper provides an example of evaluating and augmenting the role of the participant in the process of inquiry. This process offers possibilities for enhanced member checks that interrupt the traditional power dynamics in participant-researcher relationships. This paper ends with an exploration of issues of power that arose in the researcher-participant relationship and an examination of how alternative forms of member checks can provide room for new understandings of participant experiences.