Understanding Participant Experiences: Reflections of a Novice Research Participant

There is very little empirical work on the experiences research participants have engaging in qualitative inquiry; yet, qualitative researchers often think of themselves as forging critical relationships with their participants. It seems that perhaps the actual experiences of participants in the research process are being taken largely for granted. I want to problematize research participants being taken for granted. In this article, I analyze the existing literature and report on insights from my own experience as a participant in two interview studies. The article offers insights regarding participant experiences that are not well captured in the existing literature.