Gaining wisdom through experience
Editor’s note: Sam Myers is the lead insights strategist at Sympler.
We often think about expertise as the accumulation of professional experience. And certainly, qualitative researchers are experts in their field, honing their skills through years of experience designing and conducting research and deftly analyzing results. But this is not the only kind of expertise in qualitative research. We miss an opportunity when we don’t consider respondents to be experts in their own right – experts of their own lives and experiences, which surpasses our understanding or knowledge of the intricacies of how they navigate the world.
What does it truly mean to have expertise in a more expansive sense? To be an expert is to be “wise through experience.” By approaching qualitative research through the lens of autoethnography, we invite our participants to become "ethnographers of the self." They don’t just share their life experiences; they actively reflect on and analyze them. After all, no one understands their own history, relationships, joys and traumas better than they do.
How could our qualitative research evolve – becoming deeper, more robust and more nuanced – if we embraced our participants as true experts, wise through their own lived experiences? Wisdom is not merely gained through formal knowledge; it accumulates over years. It emerges in the small, everyday moments and the transformative, life-altering events. Wisdom is relational, shaped and deepened through close interactions with others. The lived wisdom of everyday people can be just as valuable – if not more so – than the formal expertise we bring as researchers.
So, how can we redefine expertise in our research, and what practical steps can we take to encourage participants to share their wisdom – their form of expertise?
Be humble and open to participant responses
As researchers with more formal forms of expertise, sometimes we can let our ego and specialized training get in the way of really hearing the at-times subtle ways of knowing that flow from our participants’ responses. When we’ve gotten to where we think of ourselves as “experts,” we need to pause and remember we might know very little in the vast scheme of possible knowledge-making. By embracing humility and maintaining an open mind in our research, we create the space for participants' expertise to emerge through their stories, their reflections and the subtle nuances of their everyday speech. This approach often reveals a quiet yet profound brilliance at the heart of their experiences.
Communicate with participants as experts
Sometimes it’s as simple as saying: “No one knows you and your life as well as you do. You are the expert on your own life.” This affirmation of respect not only honors their knowledge and struggles but paves the way for deeper, more open communication. It opens their minds and hearts in a way that makes them more comfortable sharing. As researchers, we exercise our blossoming humility. We turn upside down conventional ideas of expertise, handing over the mantle of expertise to those we’re talking to and learning from. The results are always surprising and unexpected and often more meaningful than anything we could have come up with on our own.
Give respondents the opportunity to know themselves better
Aristotle once said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” In the rush of life, many of us rarely pause to reflect on our true selves. This deep self-awareness is one of life’s greatest gifts. While a single qualitative study cannot provide the time needed for profound introspection, we can create an opening for it.
By inviting participants to pause, take a breath, close their eyes and delve into their inner selves, sharing aspects of their identity that others might not see or understand, we often inspire gratitude and insight. These moments of self-discovery enrich the research process and yield more meaningful, heartfelt responses.