Research in areas affected by armed conflict presents many challenges beyond those normally encountered by social scientists. This enhanced complexity hasresulted in the conventional academic view that serious quantitative field research has to wait until the fighting stops. Those studies that were conductedin a conflict area fail to discuss how insecurity affects the methodological sideof the research process. In this article, the authors argue that valid and reliable quantitative fieldwork is possible even in the most dangerous contexts, but it requires some methodological flexibility. In discussing this flexibility, theauthors devote attention to two major components of quantitative survey research: the sampling process and the data collection. In doing so, this article focuses in particular on face-to-face interviews as the mode of data collection.
The paper raises difficulties for causation and causal inferences in social research, including counterfactuals, transitivity, inference in probabilistic causa-tion, and manipulating and controlling variables. It suggests limits to causal modelling in understanding causality and causal processes in social research.Problems with randomization in social research are raised. Causal modelling,premised on a simplistic and linear view of causation, sits uncomfortably with asocial world that is complex and non-linear and in which causal processes replace input–output models. The paper suggests that complexity theory opens up new approaches to causality, regarding the social world holistically, with multi-directional causality and feedback in unpredictable contexts, and with webs and networks of non-linear causality rather than causal lines, chains and simple linearity. The paper identifies and exemplifies approaches to understand-ing and researching causation in complexity-theory-based social research.
This paper describes aflexible, multi-stage, non probability sampling processused in a study of persons recently diagnosed as HIV-positive (PRDH). From July 2007 to June 2008, we used venue and chain-referral sampling strategies to recruit PRDH in the US. We sought equal distributions (n= 20) of eligible PRDH from four self-identified subgroups: gay or bisexual men (GBM), hetero-sexual men (HM), heterosexual women (HW), and male-to-female transgender women (TGW). We categorized 30 sampling venues as websites, health clinics,or other networks. For 359 volunteer respondents, website venues proved more productive compared to health clinics and other sources. Website venues were most efficient for sampling recently diagnosed GBM and HW. Passive sampling methods were less effective in recruiting HM and TGW. Sampling approaches should be flexible and tailored to reach sub-categories within hidden popula-tions. The sampling process itself produced valuable knowledge about social networks of hidden HIV populations
A central ethical issue confronting researchers using visual methods is how tomanage the use of identifiable images. Photographic and other visual materials canmake the anonymisation of individuals problematic; at the same time manyresearchers, as well as research participants, view image manipulation asundesirable. Anonymisation is one of a range of ethical concerns that needconsideration in relation to the use of identifiable images. Other concerns includethe contexts in which images were produced and through which they may beconsumed, the longevity of images in the public domain and the potential forfuture uses and secondary analysis of images. This paper explores some of theways in which researchers specifically approach anonymisation in relation tovisual methods, drawing on a qualitative study of ethical issues in visual research.Focus group discussions and interviews with researchers who use visual methodsrevealed the ongoing challenges of identification and anonymisation. Whiledecisions about visual identification are inevitably complex and situated, ourexplorations revealed ongoing tensions between, on the one hand, researchparticipants’ rights and researchers’ desire for participants to be seenas well asheard and, on the other hand, researchers’ real and perceived ethical responsibilityto safeguard participants.
This article aims to contribute to debates about the current orthodoxy in relationto involving young people as participants in social research. This article willreflect on the increasing trend of including young people to greater degrees insocial science research and questions whether ‘user involvement’ necessarilybenefits the users or produces ‘better’ research. The dilemmas encountered inestablishing and working with a Young People’s Advisory Group for a researchproject on young people’s experiences of violence in their intimate relationshipsare discussed in a way that illustrates the complexity of achieving benefits both forthe young people and for the research.
As social reality is quite elusive, even regarding seemingly well-recognizedeveryday concepts and objects, there are always methodological challengesunderlying assessments and evaluations of implementation policies. The presentarticle addresses this area of concern by presenting the results of a rereading ofan empirical study of elderly home care services. Our results reveal the emer-gence of a dissolution of common and professional key concepts and objects inthese welfare services to a degree that challenges both the implementation pol-icy and the evaluation of policy. We claim that this has methodological implica-tions for evaluation of implementation policies in general
Photography is an increasingly popular research method, used to explore a num-ber of topics with a wide range of social groups, including children and youngpeople. Drawing upon two UK research projects, focused onfirstly childcareand secondly children’s mobility, this paper critically considers photography asa research method with children and young people. Firstly, we consider the pro-duction of photographs and the need to look behind the lens since this influ-ences thefinal photographic product. Secondly, we argue that the interpretationof photographs should be undertaken with children to ensure we explore theirintending meaning rather than interpretive meanings given by adult researchers.Thirdly, we discuss some of the different ways in which researchers have attrib-uted ownership to photographs published in research publications. In doing so,we contribute to debates regarding photographic methods for research not onlywith children and young people, but also with other social groups.
This paper contributes to the body of work within the social studies of child-hood on creative visual methods and the emerging critique on the participatoryassumptions of child-centred creative visual methodology. Drawing on ethno-graphically informed research with a group of children aged 8–12 years whichutilised a range of creative methods including child-led video and photography,the paper provides a methodological focus on the children’s interactions withthe adult research team, each other and with the children whom theyfilmed,interviewed and photographed. The paper suggests that attention to the dynam-ics between children as researchers and participants is essential for understand-ing how children’s voices are made (and diminished) in child-led creative visualmethods. Methodological attention to the ways in which children’s voices aredifferently (and unequally) heard in the research encounter is essential for evalu-ating what such methods bring to research with children and challenges theori-sations of a singular children’s voice suggested in the literature.
The past two decades have been an exciting and productive time for researchwith children and teenagers, with many studies at the forefront of developingresearch practices infused with creativity and innovation. Such approaches areoften participatory, using methods that draw upon and incorporate children andteenagers’diverse skills and interests to foster active participation in theresearch process. Similarly, innovation and adaptation feature as trademarks ofmuch qualitative longitudinal research that is, by its very nature, dynamic andevolving. Utilising personal reflection and participant feedback, this paper drawson an ongoing qualitative longitudinal study with over 50 children and teenagersto contemplate the potentials and pitfalls involved in the long-term use of crea-tive methods and approaches. In doing so, it focuses on three elements of theresearch process, namely participant involvement, data collection and analysisand dissemination, to explore the evolving nature of creativity in qualitative lon-gitudinal research.
This paper examines the use of visual methods during research encounters withchildren and young people when investigating their perspectives and feelingstowards their home and school life. By revealing the advantages and constraints ofthree visual approaches, including Lego Duplo, rainbows and clouds and mood-boards, the paper contributes to the range of techniques available when conductingresearch with children and young people. In conclusion, the paper highlights thedepth of information which can be elicited from visual techniques as well as theoral data which can be obtained through the utilisation of visual methods.
This paper looks at the use of participatory arts-based methods with pre-teen chil-dren, of Bangladeshi heritage, within a school context. The paper addresses therelationship between how childhood is conceptualised and the methodologicalissues arising. In particular, the paper focuses on the use of participatory and crea-tive child-centred practices that seek to include children’s‘voices’. Through anaccount of producing artwork for an exhibition, based on the research, the paperaddresses issues concerning power in the representation of children’s‘voices’
This paper gives a personalised account of our attempts to develop creative par-ticipatory methods with challenging pupils within the context of ethnographicresearch carried out in UK inner city secondary schools. During the course ofourfieldwork, we drew on a variety of innovative and arts-based activities,designed to help us build relationships with the pupils and gain an understand-ing of their experience from their perspectives. We discuss the ways in whichthe emergent methodology facilitated this process but also some of the complex-ities and issues that arise in relation to conducting creative participatoryresearch.
The paper reviews different approaches to, and current knowledge of the mea-surement of occupational segregation, using the case of gender segregation. Itshows that most popular segregation‘indices’are actually statistics of associa-tion in a 2x2 table, often with distorting weightings. The dimensions of segrega-tion comprise a vertical dimension measuring inequality and an orthogonalhorizontal one measuring difference without inequality. Together, the dimensionsmake up segregation as generally understood; so segregation and its dimensionsrequire consistent measurements. Conditions for suitable measures are consid-ered, and the limitations of the various measures noted. The alternative concep-tion of segregation, where all occupations are treated as though they were thesame size, is shown to be seriouslyflawed. The most useful measures areselected and shown to be related as Lorenz curves. Since all segregation mea-sures vary with the number of occupations considered, standardisation on 200occupations is introduced for the chosen measures.
In this article, I will show how groups with low human and social capital areless likely to volunteer to participate in research, if participation entails no directpersonal benefits for respondents. Consequently, if our research was to be basedsolely on volunteers, our knowledge of social practices would be biased. Thisbias would often be in favour of groups with high human and social capital,who are also more likely to have their voices heard in other arenas; while moremarginalised groups remain unheard. In order to get access to all respondentgroups, various forms and degrees of institutional, economic and emotionalpressure are widely used to recruit respondents for interviews. Although suchpractices are common, it is still taboo in many research communities toacknowledge that pressure is applied. I argue that it can be defended to applypressure in some instances, even if this reduces the respondents’opportunity tofreely consent. However, if pressure is applied, it becomes increasingly impor-tant to ensure that respondents are not put at any risk of harm. To facilitateresearch that is ethically sound, research communities could benefit from widen-ing their focus, from one strongly focussed on informed consent to a widerawareness of factors that can entail risk of harm for participants.
There is considerable debate around the application of ethical principles and thenotion of risk in qualitative research, and as such it is becoming increasinglyimportant that we have empirical evidence to draw upon to contribute to thesearguments. In this article, we use discourse analysis to look at what Child andAdolescent Mental Health Service users think about the role of anonymity inresearch. We consider the viewpoints of children and their parents to look athow necessary this ethic is and whether there is a possibility that a choice couldor should be offered to those participating. Ourfindings demonstrate variabilityin perspectives and differences between parent and child views. Ourfindingshighlight that a single approach to qualitative research ethics does notfit allpeople, and we consider the wider implications of offering choices in researchcontexts
Nurseries play a major role in the lives of many families. This paper argues forthe value of psychoanalytic methods of observation as a research tool to exploreyoung children’s interactions and emotional experience in nurseries. The paperreviews what has been learned already about early development using suchmethods. The second part of the paper illustrates observation data gatheredusing psychoanalytic methods in nursery research, through the observations ofan 18-month-old boy. It uses these data to show the potential of the method inaccessing what young children communicate about their nursery experience andin exploring current questions of nursery policy and practice.
Involvement of people who use health services as researchers is increasinglywidely practised internationally, but methodological enquiry into how involve-ment impacts on researchfindings is lacking. A qualitative study of the experi-ences of people detained under the UK Mental Health Act (1983) usedsecondary analysis to explore the extent to which mental health service userresearchers produced different interpretive narratives to conventional universityresearchers working on the same research team, and the potential to coproduceintegrated analytical narrative to inform service improvement. We found wewere able to articulate a range of situated analytical narratives on the detainedpatient experience and, through negotiating what each narrative meant in rela-tion to the others, to coproduce an integrated analytical narrative that movedbeyond what was already known about the detained patient experience. We con-cluded that research involving mental health service user researchers can copro-duce new knowledge that might usefully inform service improvement
The dilemmas faced by institutions in archiving contemporary materials areexemplified by current practices at the British Library. With a growing collec-tion aiming to be comprehensive and of use to researchers, tensions betweenselectivity and universality in acquisition are soon brought to the fore. Similarly,a sensible collection strategy must balance the demands of openness against theneeds for privacy.
The Internet has changed the nature of the archive from a paper-based treasuretrove overseen by the trained archivist to one of an open, multi-vocal, demo-cratic source with no one in control. New forms of archives have emerged–forexample, the haphazard collection of ephemeral–and they now exist alongsidethe formal public record that has more traditionally been understood as thearchive. This article analyses what these changes mean to social scientists work-ing with data that emerge from or are stored on the Internet. Using a small casestudy based on our own research, we consider ways of thinking through andmanaging this challenge. We suggest this shift from the institutional to the inti-mate, from the state to the individual, from the public to the private has changedthe way scholars access and interact with data.
Recent developments in archiving have built on a 50 year foundation of sharingsocial survey data and are enabling the take-up of data curation practices on awider scale. Advances in data archiving have been driven by the quest for com-parable and harmonised data sources and mandates from sponsors of research tomake data accessible–to provide both transparency and to maximise re-usevalue. In this paper, I discuss four recent developments that are bringing chal-lenges for social science data archives: methods for archiving qualitative data;providing safe access to disclosive data; institutional data archiving initiatives;and dealing with the emergence of‘new’data types
This paper explores the contrasts and complementarities of two different sets ofarchived data, life history interviews and diaries. Both are well-tried methods ofdata collection in the social sciences, but little attention has been given to waysof using them in combination. We begin with an outline of how we went aboutcollecting data for archiving: recruiting 12 families, interviewing people aged 75and over, and collecting diaries from other family members. We go onto presentexamples of the data from one particular family. We then compare what theinterviews and diaries, analysed in combination, contributed to our understand-ing of time, concluding with comments on the relevance of different temporali-ties to current debates on family and intergenerational relationships. Thearchived data offer researchers interested in qualitative longitudinal investiga-tions a complex and many-faceted understanding of temporality.
This article reflects on the experience of working with archived data in theLiv-ing and Working on Sheppeyproject which revisited material from Ray Pahl’sresearch on the Isle of Sheppey, published in the modern sociological classic,Divisions of Labour(1984). The article considers the reasons for revisitingarchived material and some of the opportunities and challenges of working witharchived material. For this discussion, we focus on one particular element of theoriginal research: a collection of essays written by school leavers in 1978, andthe archived notes from Pahl’s preliminary analysis of these data. We also drawon interviews with Pahl about this aspect of his research, and our experience ofrepeating the essay-writing exercise. We conclude with some comments on thedynamic character of the archive.
The use of secondary data in sociological research has attracted much critique.For some commentators, problems are so severe that the use of secondary datais greatly compromised, perhaps best avoided. For others, these issues do notseem particularly severe and, sometimes, the objections seem misplaced. Ireview these problems and their resolutions, illustrated by my own research onpersonal life in 1949/1950–which I undertook to assess the assumption of‘tra-ditional society’made by individualisation theory. I conclude that the problemsidentified in using secondary data are actually problems inherent in any use ofdata. While these problems may be (but are not necessarily) more troublesomein secondary use, they can usually be overcome or accommodated. Instead ofseeing secondary use of data as a problem in itself, we should rather evaluatehow we can use data from any source, what they offer and how we can usethem to answer particular research questions.
This article addresses the ways that working with archived classic family andcommunities studies from the 1960s can throw a different light on past andpresent research conventions around acceptable research practice. We considerthe constitution of‘good’methodological conduct through looking at the natureof data and acknowledgement of who generates it, culminating in a focus on theimplications of acceptable and unacceptable researcher accounts. Past conven-tions raise questions about the merging of primary data and context alongsidewhich is active in the researchfield, while present understandings of‘good’eth-ical practice become a suspect narrative.
Anonymity is often taken-for-granted as an ethical necessity. Discussions aroundreuse of qualitative data have added further weight to its importance for protect-ing research participants from unknown future use of data. Yet, anonymisationalso compromises the possibilities of future reuse. This paper argues that defaultanonymisation forecloses discussion of the ethics of naming; it calls for a reori-entation of debate, away from an assumption of the universal/ist ethical good ofanonymity, towards a politics and ethics of thequestionof naming. Rather thana slide from an ethic of avoiding harm to a paternalistic notion of protection, Isuggest that questions of naming in research, and avoidance of harm, could pro-ductively be approached through a feminist ethics of care.
This paper will examine the practicalities and the ethics of using archived quali-tative data for teaching. Practicalities focus on the basic infrastructure andresources: where data can be obtained, what supporting contextual materialsexist, and the provision of customised teaching resources ready for classroomuse. The remainder of the paper addresses the ethics of reusing data,first withan overview and then with a closer look at ethical challenges in reusing data forteaching. A symmetry in the roles of researchers and teachers frames this dis-cussion. Researchers collect data from participants for deposit to an archive;teachers access data from an archive on behalf of their students. Both research-ers and teachers are acting on behalf of others in their relationships with thearchive, and this mediation has ethical consequences. The reuse debate has lar-gely focused on risks to participants, notably possible violations of their privacy,but reusing data for teaching foregrounds new issues: the potential benefit fordata to enhance learning, equitable access to data and autonomy of bothresearch participants and students, thus enriching the ethical debate aboutarchiving data.
Access Grid (AG) is a state-of-the-art video conferencing system that operatesover computer networks such as the Internet. In the research sphere it has prin-cipally been used to conduct meetings of natural scientists in large internationalcollaborations, such as physicists collaborating over the Large Hadron Collider.Social scientists have recently begun exploring the use of AG to conduct‘vir-tualfieldwork’where researchers carry out interviews or moderate group discus-sions involving participants at remote sites. There have also been experiments inusing AG to deliver social research methods training and to facilitate meetingsbetween social researchers and government researchers who are collaborating onresearch projects. This article provides a quantitative analysis of the experiencesof a sample of participants in such AG sessions. Itfinds a high degree of satis-faction with the technical affordances of the medium, and identifies differencesin perspective according to whether a session is research-oriented or has a‘realworld’purpose
Ensuring retention in longitudinal studies of individuals with substance use disorders (SUD) is a continual challenge for researchers. This study made several modifications to a highly intensive follow-up protocol, originally designed for adults with SUD, in order to adapt it to a group of adolescents in low intensity outpatient SUD treatment (N = 127, M age 16.7 years) and to accommodate limitations in the financial resources available for study staffing and transportation. In the present sample, adolescent participants generally found it unreasonable for study staff to request to contact people outside their immediate family in order to locate them and to attempt to schedule interviews 3–6 months in advance, as specified in the original protocol. Changes were made to accommodate these concerns and follow-up rates remained high (85–91%). Even though this study is limited by its non-experimental nature, it provides a replicable example of a scaled-down, less costly version of a highly intensive follow-up protocol that can be used to achieve high follow-up rates in studies of adolescents with SUD. We hope this will be encouraging for researchers and program evaluators who have limited resources or who work with participants who express concerns about privacy or study burden.
As the volume of UK social research addressing ethnicity grows, so too do con-cerns regarding the ethical and scientific rigour of this research domain and itspotential to do more harm than good. The establishment of standards and princi-ples and the introduction of guidance documents at critical points within theresearch cycle might be one way to enhance the quality of such research. Thisarticle reports thefindings from the piloting of a guidance document within theresearch commissioning process of a major funder of UK social research. Theguidance document was positively received by researchers, the majority ofwhom reported it to be comprehensible, relevant and potentially useful inimproving the quality of research proposals. However, a review of the submittedproposals suggested the guidance had had little impact on practice. While guid-ance may have a role to play, it will need to be strongly promoted by commis-sioners and other gatekeepers. Findings also suggest the possibility thatguidance may discourage some researchers from engaging with ethnicity if itraises problems without solutions; highlighting the need for complementaryinvestments in research capacity development in this area.
Negotiating access to participants poses challenges for all social research, butthis can be particularly exacting in ethnographic projects which require partici-pants to consent to prolonged research encounters that can be invasive or dis-ruptive of their social lives. The process is more difficult still when accessingsocial groups that are already heavily scrutinised, and associated with practicesthat are viewed as socially problematic. In such cases, traditional forms of vol-untary participation and/or informed consent may be difficult to obtain inadvance. This paper addresses recent debates about the ethical dilemmas andchallenges involved in social science research, drawing on thefirst author’sexperiences in three studies involving young people in the 18–25 age group.These projects focused on car modifiers (aka‘boy racers’), young people’sdrinking cultures and Free Parties, and potential participants were initially reluc-tant to get involved in all three studies. In this paper the authors use theseexamples to explore the possibility that researchers might engage in forms of‘methodological grooming’to recruit participants, in an attempt to comply withtraditional notions of informed consent. The authors end by advocating a moreflexible approach to research ethics in such cases, based on gaining the trust ofpotential participants,finding common ground between researchers and partici-pants, and negotiating conditional access and bounded consent
This paper addresses some important differences between Grounded TheoryMethod (GTM) and the Abductive Research Strategy (ARS). The early parts ofthe paper review Grounded Theory Method–both Glaser and Strauss’s (Cor-bin’s) Objectivist Grounded Theory Method (OGTM) and Charmaz’s Construc-tivist Grounded Theory Method (CGTM)–and Blaikie’s Abductive ResearchStrategy (ARS). It then discusses three distinctive differences between GTM(OGTM and, in particular, CGTM) and the ARS. While thefirstdifference dealswith the ontological and epistemological assumptions adopted, theseconddis-cusses the issues of scientific accounts and everyday accounts, and thethirdisabout the problems of technical language and lay language. The aim of thepaper is to reduce possible misunderstandings about the relationship betweenGTM, in particular, CGTM and the ARS.
Reflexivity in qualitative and ethnographic social science research can provide arich source of data, especially regarding the affective, performative and relationalaspects of interviews with research subjects. This paper explores by means ofthree case examples different ways of accessing and using such reflexivity. Theexamples are drawn from an empirical psycho-social study into the identity tran-sitions offirst-time mothers in an inner-city multicultural environment. Fieldnotesand supervision were used to engage with researcher subjectivity, to enhance theproductive use of reflexivity and to address the emotional work of research. Themethodology of the supervision was psychoanalytic, in its use of a boundariedframe and of psychoanalytic forms of noticing oneself, of staying engaged emo-tionally as well as creating a reflective distance. The examples illustrate how thiscan enhance the knowledge gained about the research subjects
Do electronic newspaper databases contain all of the stories that appear in theprint edition? And does this depend on the database used? To explore thesequestions, we collected print copies of newspapers from cities across the USAand Canada. We compared coverage of two topics in these newspapers with thecoverage obtained from keyword searches in three electronic newspaper dat-abases. We conclude that the stories obtained through electronic searches areconsistent across databases but can vary from the print source. Importantly,national and international coverage is more likely to be missing than local orstatewide/provincial coverage.
Lately, social researchers have become increasingly interested and involved incomparative and cross-national research. In part this reflects a growing realisa-tion that key social, economic and political processes are not merely‘domestic’but are common across countries and cultures. Although numerous good qualitydata sets now exist (e.g. the European Social Survey or International Social Sur-vey Programme), in many instances researchers need to design their ownbespoke comparative surveys. Such surveys require careful design if they are toproduce meaningful data. Herein we introduce, outline and report on one tech-nique which may usefully be employed in order to design better survey itemsfor use in cross-national surveys
Little is known about health and social care experiences of patients with rarelong-term neurological conditions. Furthermore, black and minority ethnic(BME) service users are often perceived to be under-represented in health ser-vices research. BME service users have been described as‘hard to reach’in thepast. However, evidence suggests that a variety of recruitment methods need tobe used in order to increase recruitment. We employed a range of recruitmentstrategies shown to be effective in recruiting BME patients, to recruit patients toparticipate in one-to-one interviews to establish experiences of health and socialcare. Strategies included community and clinically based strategies. In total werecruited 15 participants through these recruitment methods, with all recruitsultimately coming from neurology clinics and disease-specific charities. Despitecommunity-based strategies generating interest and a willingness to be involved,the rare nature of these conditions resulted in a lack of recruits from these strat-egies. Consequently we conclude that researchers need to plan and prioritisestrategies carefully in order to maximise recruitment and utilise resources effi-ciently dependent on the nature of the research.
The social sciences are witnessing a growing body of multilevel theories anddebates about the proper methodological tools for the analysis of multileveldata. In a recent contribution to this journal, multilevelQualitative ComparativeAnalysis(QCA) was proposed as a new methodological tool for discerning set-relational patterns in multilevel data. I argue that the presentation of multilevelQCA is erroneous in two respects. First, multilevel QCA ignores the fact thatequifinal solutions entaildiversityand therefore leads one to overestimate thecomplexity of QCA solutions. Second, the ordinary minimization procedure oftruth tables that contain multilevel data yields the same solutions as multilevelQCA, but is much easier to implement. I conclude that the established inventoryof QCA does not need to be extended by a special multilevel approach.
This article presents the new method of self-interviewing as an empirical toolspecifically for use in memory studies research. The article traces some of theempirical limitations specific to thefield of memory studies and reviews theexisting tools used in this area. It particularly focuses on some of the limitationsof qualitative interviewing, the memory work method and diary methods in gen-erating data on the processes of vernacular remembering at the same time asmaking visible the meaning that remembering has for participants in their every-day lives. We propose the self-interview as a method which addresses some ofthese limitations. In elaborating the value of the self-interview, we draw exten-sively onfieldwork that we have conducted using this method. Although theself-interview does not divest memory studies of the need for a range of othermethods, the self-interview is an important addition to its currently rather sparsemethodological tool kit.
Social researchers often apply qualitative research methods to study groups andtheir communications artifacts. The use of computer-mediated communicationshas dramatically increased the volume of text available, but coding such textrequires considerable manual effort. We discuss how systems that process textin human languages (i.e. natural language processing [NLP]) might partiallyautomate content analysis by extracting theoretical evidence. We present a casestudy of the use of NLP for qualitative analysis in which the NLP rules showedgood performance on a number of codes. With the current level of performance,use of an NLP system could reduce the amount of text to be examined by ahuman coder by an order of magnitude or more, potentially increasing the speedof coding by a comparable degree. The paper is significant as it is one of thefirst to demonstrate the use of high-level NLP techniques for qualitative dataanalysis.
Survey researchers have reported differing results on frequency distributions whenthe same item is delivered via an interactive voice response (IVR) system versusthe web. The current paper expands such research into the organizational researchfield and evaluated the hypothesis that respondent motivation affects theoccurrence of mode differences. In this study, personnel selection instrumentsusing five-point Likert scales were administered to job applicants and jobincumbents. Data were collected via IVR or via the web. With job incumbents, themode effect observed was similar in magnitude to that observed in the surveyresearch literature. However, with job applicants the mode effect was smaller.
Issues of time and change are foregrounded in qualitative longitudinal research(QLL1) and are considered here in the context of contemporary fatherhood. Froma wider sample of 46 men interviewed as part of the QLL Timescapes network, wedraw on two case studies of men who became fathers for the first time in 2000.This paper considers the men’s relationship to involvement and the linkedconcepts of exclusion and redundancy, terms which emerged from the data andchanged over time in the men’s accounts. We seek to emphasise the value of QLLmethods for providing a more complex understanding of the lived experience oflife transitions and their longer-term implications, contrasting this with existingstudies offering a ‘snapshot’ approach.
The paper undertakes a comparison of Ragin’s fuzzy set Qualitative ComparativeAnalysiswith cluster analysis. After describing key features of both methods, ituses a simple invented example to illustrate an important algorithmic difference inthe way in which these methods classify cases. It then examines the consequencesof this difference via analyses of data previously calibrated as fuzzy sets. The data,taken from the National Child Development Study, concern educationalachievement, social class, ability and gender. The classifications produced byfsQCA and fuzzy cluster analysis (FCA) are compared and the reasons for theobserved differences between them are discussed. The predictive power of bothmethods is also compared, employing both correlational and set theoreticcomparisons, using highest qualification achieved as the outcome. In the main,using the real data, the two methods are found to produce similar results. A finaldiscussion considers the generalisability or otherwise of this finding.
This paper draws upon our experiences as non-Muslim researchers working ontwo local studies with Muslim communities in North London. The paper aimsfirstly, to consider issues of access and trust in the context of the current politicalclimate, secondly, to critically explore the relationship between academics andcommunity organisations, and thirdly, to discuss the opportunities and challengesinvolved in employing peer researchers. Our discussion utilises the concept ofpositionality to analyse the insider/outsider status of researchers (both peerresearchers and academics) and its impact on the research process. In so doing, weanalyse the complexity and multiplicity of identities and positionings and suggestthe ways in which religion, ethnicity, gender and age may impact on the researchprocess.
n the research project, ‘Trauma and Resilience: A Refugee Perspective’,1threesamples of adult survivors of the Khmer rouge period who are doing remarkablywell are asked ‘the salutogenetic question’: not why are they sick, but why are theyhealthy? The samples are chosen among those who (1) were exposed to the kindof events for which the Khmer Rouge period is known, but (2) did not develop adisabling post-traumatic stress disorder. Analyses of the research participants’biographical accounts seek to uncover, understand and explain mechanisms thatthese successful survivors found instrumental for their survival, in order tocontribute to the study of resilience and the practice of psychosocial rehabilitationof survivors. After a discussion of methodological challenges, the article charts theroute – from biographical data, through preliminary conceptual work usinggrounded theory microanalysis, an exegetical treatment of Khmer terms and anabductive reinterpretation – from findings to conclusions.
This study explores research methodology courses and their potential impact onthe doctoral process in one university in Spain. Specifically, it analyses the roleand usefulness of research methodologies courses for students as they prepare fortheir dissertation work. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with11 students. Syllabi from five different doctoral programmes and 54 educationalresearch projects conducted by students were also analysed. Contrary to priorresearch, our results indicate that students are motivated and interested inmethodological matters. These courses are a valuable component to the doctoralprogramme providing general orientation to inquiry and aiding students inbecoming educational researchers. Furthermore, we found that methodologicalpluralism was adopted and used by students in their research projects when thissame pluralism was covered in their coursework. Implications for teachingresearch methodology courses are included.
As an academic subject of study, death has come under increasing scrutiny in recentyears. Yet unlike other topics in the social sciences, death occupies a rather uniquestatus as a research topic. A universal concern that affects everyone, this paper askswhether it is therefore everpossible to achieve a scholarly ‘critical distance’ fromstudying a place or people associated with death. Drawing on the author’sexperience of undertaking an ethnographic study of a London cemetery, the paperreflexively recounts the ways in which the author managed their own criticaldistance both in and outside of the field. The paper concludes that it is somewhatunrealistic to suggest that a scholar researching death can maintain a complete senseof detachment in light of their awareness of the mortal human condition.
For those employing grounded theory as a research methodology, the issue of howand when to engage with existing literature is often problematic, especially forPhD students. With this in mind, the current article seeks to offer some clarity onthe topic and provide novice grounded theory researchers in particular with adviceon how to approach the issue of the literature review in grounded theory. This isdone by reviewing the origins of grounded theory, exploring the original stancetaken by the founders of the methodology with regard to the literature review,tracking how this position has changed over time, outlining the rationaleassociated with specific positions and discussing ideas for reconciling opposingperspectives. Coupled with this, the author draws on his own experience of usinggrounded theory for his PhD research to explain how extant literature may be usedand discusses how the nature of engagement with existing literature may impactupon the overall written presentation of a grounded theory study
This short research note discusses some of the challenges involved whenundertaking qualitative research with ‘young offenders’, a neglected area withinthe methodological literature. By drawing on previous research with ‘youngoffenders’, the authors discuss how the use of traditional face-to-face interviewsproduced a number of research challenges which are specific to the psychosocial,biographical and institutional context of this particular population. In attemptingto overcome some of these challenges in their current research, the authorsdeveloped a specific research tool – the assisted questionnaire (AQ)– and theremainder of this article describes how its use with ‘young offenders’ helped toovercome some of the methodological challenges which had earlier been identified.
In this article, I describe multi-context engaged learning– a research methodologythat I developed in response to the challenge of conducting intimate and engagedfieldwork within a highly complex and shifting milieu typical of those faced bymany researchers today. Moreover, I argue that it is the ethnographer’s ‘presence’in terms of her accountabilityand membershipwithin a shared contextthat shouldideally constitute the site of research, and that this in turn demands an honest andforthright approach to the issues of exchange that are at the heart of most fieldresearch.
All research can be considered a form of story-telling, a narrative that begins witha set of questions and assumptions and then follows a convention, based on theresearcher’s epistemological and methodological stance, in how the findings arepresented and interpreted. Stories also have long history of use in research, astherapy, testament, testimony, data and aesthetic expression. One particular formof the use of stories is a ‘story-dialogue’ method. This method was first developedto assist community health practitioners in analyzing and theorizing their ownpractice in order to capture and generalize knowledge about changes in the social/power relations that comprise an important dimension of their work poorly (or notat all) documented through more conventional methods. The story-dialogue methodderives from theoretical roots in international development, feminism, criticalpedagogy and critical social science. It is premised on first-person practice ‘stories’drafted around a generative theme that are then interrogated in a group process, withquestioning deliberately structured to move from description (what?) to explanation(why?), synthesis (so what?) and action (now what?). This article’s reflection ofthe method incorporates examples of its use and commentaries from practitionersengaged with it. It concludes with a discussion of the methods strengths,weaknesses and potential use within social health research more generally.
This article discusses the origins of video-based approaches to social research andtheir continuation up to the present moment. It begins by considering early studiesemploying silent cinema film and audio recording, followed by the unification ofaudio and visual recording in sound cinema film. Special emphasis is placed onthe perspectives and methods initiated by the ‘Natural History of an Interview’research group; the first systematic study of verbal and nonverbal behaviortogether, as these occur in immediate social interaction in face-to-face encounters.The discussion then continues autobiographically as I recount my own earlyresearch experience of the development of video-based research approaches. Thisis followed by an overview of current work to show the wide range of contemporaryresearch that uses video. The article concludes with a few speculations concerninglikely futures for video-based approaches in social research.
With the increasing use of video recording in social research methodologicalquestions about multimodal transcription are more timely than ever before. Howdo researchers transcribe gesture, for instance, or gaze, and how can they show toreaders of their transcripts how such modes operate in social interaction alongsidespeech? Should researchers bother transcribing these modes of communication atall? How do they define a ‘good’ transcript? In this paper we begin to develop asocial semioticframework to account for transcripts as artefacts, treating them asempirical material through which transcription as a social, meaning makingpractice can be reconstructed. We look at some multimodal transcripts producedin conversation analysis, discourse analysis, social semiotics and micro-ethnography, drawing attention to the meaning-making principles applied by thetranscribers. We argue that there are significant representational differencesbetween multimodal transcripts, reflecting differences in the professional practicesand the rhetorical and analytical purposes of their makers.
Drawing on an ethnomethodological study of work practices in optometry, thispaper provides an illustration of the processes involved in the analysis of videorecordings of naturalistic data. The analytic perspective outlined here involvesattempting to reconstruct the sense-making resources that are used by participantsin real-world settings to constitute the environments they operate within. In thispaper, we present a preliminary examination of the ways in which participants inone-to-one optometry consultations interactionally establish the readiness of aDistance Vision Test. This analysis is intended to offer an example of how theconcern with the sequential organisation of action can be developed into a seriesof observations for further analysis in relation to a broader data corpus. Thediscussion that follows provides an overview of the perspective ofethnomethodology and a description of the strategies of analysis used in ourproject. In these ways, this paper aims to highlight the importance of video as amechanism to the microanalysis of social praxis.
This paper explores the nature of layering noisy and moving features in video tobetter understand how the movement of people, their ideas, and their texts areshifting functions of design and circulation within digital contexts. Drawing fromvideo collected as part of an ethnography of digital literacies in urban contexts,features of textual design in a music video will be examined to demonstrate howyouth today produce and circulate digital products as an expression of their diversesocial identities. I sketch an approach for analyzing design as embedded in thelayering of image, language, gesture, color, visual, and sound effects in aparticipant’s music video.
This paper examines the value of participatory video (PV) for exploringchildhood and children’s experiences within the context of a larger researchproject which sought to examine the everyday lives of residents in aneighbourhood identified as ‘disadvantaged’. Participatory methods are oftenpremised on ameliorating the gap between the concepts and models of researchersand those of individuals and communities. However, within PV, there has beenmuch less focus on the process of participation and its implications for researchoutcomes. This paper addresses this gap in order to explore how the children,researchers and residents co-produced a visual narrative about life in theneighbourhood, and in particular, how a methodological focus on PV as processmakes visible its potential to offer valuable insights not only into children’s socialconnectivities, relationships and friendships but also into the theorising ofchildren’s identities and childhoods.
This review paper presents a case study of using Transana to assist the qualitativeanalysis of data from students interaction with an exploratory computer-basedlearning environment. After presenting our particular use case, the paperdemonstrates how Transana enablesa thorough and indepth analysis and concludeswith some insights and lessons learned about the usage of CAQDAS forinvestigating computer-mediated interactions.
This paper demonstrates how systematic observation software, such as TheObserver XT, can be used to organise and manage large video corpora, assist incase selection, and facilitate comparability and cross referencing with a corpus.While this software has conventionally been used to produce quantitative resultsthat can be subjected to statistical analyses, it will be argued that it can also assistin complementary qualitative analyses. Drawing upon data from a recent study ofclassroom discourse, the paper shows how a combination of systematicquantitative analysis and micro-ethnographic analysis can lead to a productivecycle of generating and testing hypotheses, maintaining qualitative andethnographic insight while producing findings of a more generalisable kind.
Although information communication technology (ICT) appears to be extendinginto many areas of research, this paper maintains that the potential of such technologyto convey important information with ethical dimensions to potential participantshas not been exploited. In this regard, the paper explores the development and theuse of short movie clips labelled participant information clips (PICs) as a way oftransmitting such information within a contextualised research example. Thepotentials and limitations of using PICs are considered in line with research ethics,risk and the need to constantly reflect on meaningful ways of gaining consent andkeeping participants informed throughout the research process. We conclude thatPICs are easily constructed and offer a valuable route to providing information.
Two styles of cognitive interviewing exist, thinking aloud (TA) and verbalprobing (VP), but there have been few studies undertaken which compare the two.This paper reports on such a comparison, which was undertaken in order tounderstand the merits and drawbacks of each approach. VP finds more problemsthan TA. TA appears to be better at examining respondents’ understandings of theunderlying concepts behind each question; VP is better for exploring specificterms in each question. TA interviews appeared to generate more informationabout how respondents used information from their past experiences to selectcodes in closed-ended questions. However, in terms of the eventual redrafting ofthe questions respondents were asked about, there was very little differencebetween the VP and TA interviews.
This paper describes the process of recruiting participants for a qualitativeinterview-based study by leafleting and door knocking. It is argued that doorknocking can enrich and thicken research that usually takes place ‘behind closeddoors’, enabling researchers to engage their ethnographic imaginations byobserving neighbourhood interactions, familiarising themselves with the placestheir participants inhabit and through the embodied, sensory experience ofwalking itself. By treating the recruitment process as data, it is suggested that thedoor knocking researcher can ensure his/her individual participants are understoodas connected to the wider social, physical and sensory environment they inhabit.Door knocking is also seen as enabling researchers to find interest in an elementof the research process often viewed as a somewhat irksome means to an end.
Participant observation is now increasingly used within qualitative health researchand has been found to offer opportunities for the collection and synthesis of richdata about health and illness experience. This method, often used over an extendedperiod, enables the researcher to build an in-depth understanding of the researchcontext and can be the basis for the development of relationships between theresearcher and the ‘researched’. Researcher familiarity in the field, however, cangive rise to ethical and practical tensions. This article reports on the ethical andpractical challenges of participant observation at a cancer drop-in centre focusingon issues connected to the dual role of the researcher as both volunteer andresearcher. It highlights the methodological practice of reflexivity as one way ofthe researcher maintaining an ongoing ethically engaged presence in the field.
This discussion proposes an expansion of indigenous research to reflect some ofthe distinctive epistemological aspects of indigenous ways of knowing. Arguingthat indigenous research methodologies can and should go beyond the currenthermeneutic borders of conventional qualitative research to embrace moreappropriate epistemological and axiological assumptions, it suggests a mixedmethods approach as a vehicle for doing so. The contention here is that, bycombining current qualitative research practices with the specific aspirations ofindigenous communities in a mixed method strategy, it may be possible to buildappropriate theoretical tools and ethical practices for indigenous research.Furthermore, this mixed method strategy is framed within the cultural–historicactivity theory principles of expansive learning so that the incrementaldevelopment of practical, philosophical and value-appropriate indigenous researchmethods is driven by the change-seeking activity generated by contradictorydimensions of western and indigenous research ideals
Collaborative and participatory research methods reflect ideals to undertakeresearch in consultation and partnership with communities and to advancecommunity empowerment and capacity. They offer ethical and practical approachesfor conducting research addressing socioeconomic and health disparitiesparticularly in marginalised or vulnerable communities. Peer-interviewing is onesuch participatory strategy employed in studies involving hard-to-reachpopulations. However, while the value of peer-interviewing for researchers is notedin the methodological literature, there are few discussions that critically examinethe benefits and challenges of using peer-researcher approaches, either for theinterviewers themselves or the communities they represent. This study reports thefindings from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of peer-interviewerswho were involved in undertaking community surveys of residents in thesocioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods in which they lived. We discussthe benefits and challenges that participants reported from their involvement.
This paper explores the inclusive potential of computer-mediated communication(CMC) for a ‘hard to reach’ group of research participants, specifically people atthe higher functioning end of the autistic spectrum. Drawing on the literaturepertaining to the fields of autism, CMC and research methods, as well as the firstauthor’s experience of using email as a means of conducting interviews, the paperwill discuss the epistemological, methodological and practical issues raised by theuse of this method of collecting data from higher functioning autistic people, aswell as its suitability in the context of a study guided by grounded theory
This article draws on a lead researcher’s observations about participatory researchcollaboration within a qualitative research project involving teachers, pupils andmembers of the communities surrounding schools. It presents a practical accountof research processes aimed at uncovering to how pupils, teachers and communitymembers in economically and socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods perceivedtheir own roles in relation to creative activity with groups of children, who hadbeen identified by their schools as being in need of help to engage in learning. Theactivities were led by artists who would not normally be involved in schools.Social constructionist frameworks for evaluation are combined with the literatureon participatory appraisal, in order to suggest a politically sensitive course ofaction by which practitioners and peer interviewers could be involved moreusefully in the future, through direct collaboration on the planning tasks to revealrarely articulated pupil attitudes.
This article notes the increasing attention given to research ethics in recent yearsand focuses on two of the reasons for this: the growth in ethical regulation and theemergence of some kinds of qualitative research that foreground ethical ideals. Itis argued that both involve forms of moralism or ethicism, in other words ‘the viceof overdoing morality’: they treat values that are external to the task of research asif they were central to it; and/or they require that researchers observe ‘the highestethical standards’. The misconceptions and dangers involved in each of these sortsof moralism are discussed
The rise of research governance structures in universities has created huge disquietamongst academic researchers. The unquestioning adoption of a medical model ofethical review based upon positivist methodological assumptions has created formany a mismatch between their own ongoing ethical research practice and theprocess of obtaining clearance from Research Ethics Committees (REC). Thispaper examines the issues that have contributed to dissatisfaction with the ethicalreview model that is prevalent within the modern university. Using examples fromthe authors’ own experiences, the dynamics of values, interests and power inresearch governance is examined from multiple perspectives including that ofREC member and applicant; lecturer/student supervisor; researcher; anduniversity administrator. The paper reveals a rift between the values andobjectives of the key players in research governance within the modern universityand concludes by asking whether differences can be resolved so that acollaborative approach to ethical review may be incorporated into a renewedacademic research culture. It is suggested that the alternative is increasingalienation from anything to do with ‘ethics’, with potentially serious consequencesfor the ethical standards of social research.
Europe and USA have been the cradle of methodology. Consequently most ofthe contemporary methodological knowledge has been invented by Western aca-demic culture. Throughout the twentieth century this indigenous culture hasbeen transformed into a type of general knowledge, and social science method-ology has become one of the most globalized knowledge. However the limits ofglobalization are evident in manyfields, from economy to politics, from market-ing to culture and social life. Methodology is not free from these limits. Thereis an emerging need forfinding postcolonial methodologies and making cultur-allyflexible contemporary research methods. The author explores the proposalfor a glocal methodology, the possibility of thinking (methodologically) globaland acting (methodologically) local, and its ambiguity. Finally, indigenous meth-odologies and participatory action research are questioned as effective ways outof methodological colonialism.
Europeanism, westernism and methodological imperialism all refer to the classiccriticism of Western research in non-Western contexts. Though I welcome thedebate, Ifind arguments based on simple binary oppositions and descriptions prob-lematic. This debate is better positioned as one about the quality of qualitativeresearch. With reference to the criticism I ask if contemporary qualitative researchis stuck in old problems. Based on my ethnographic data from East Africa I showthat the pitfalls of Western research that are pointed to in classic criticisms are theoutcome of old models and poor analytic work. I also show that contemporary‘Western’qualitative research offers analytic alternatives that better allow us tocapture local non-Western contexts. Nonetheless, I welcome new epistemologiesemerging from non-Western philosophies and practices not yet known in the hege-monic West.
Colonialism does not end with the withdrawal of colony from occupied territo-ries but it exists across time. There is a constant dialogue between colonial dom-ination and post-colonial transformation both in principle and practice. Doingethnographicfieldwork therefore involves justifiable positioning of researcher inthe interface between subjectivity and objectivity whilst ethnography itself isstruggling with the question of representation in connection with the colonialtradition of imaging anthropological object as‘uncivilised others’. There is anoverdue need of decolonising ethnography since Malinowski’sfield dairy waspublished. However, an ethnographer still encounters colonial ideology in thefield in making meaning of ethnographic data. How does an ethnographerencounter colonial inheritance in thefield? How does s/he position herself/him-self in the context of ethnographer’s supremacy in object’s world? These are thequestions the article explores with the personal experience of doing ethno-graphicfieldwork in the borderland of Bangladesh and Myanmar during 2005–2007.
Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) research techniques can contribute todecolonising methodologies by alerting participants to privilege and marginalisa-tion through encounters across difference. Consciousness of privileges is oftenobscured and naturalised as part of normative expectations of everyday living.This paper contends that no one is exempt from interrogating their positionalityand their beliefs, and that PLA research techniques can provide the means bywhich people can be confronted with privileges and marginality through encoun-tering the‘other’. A case study conducted across Higher Education Institutionsin South Africa is presented to show how PLA techniques can make a substan-tial contribution to processes of research. The case study shows how PLAresearch techniques make it possible to bring people together to confront differ-ential privileges, thus giving people the opportunity to become both insiders andcommitted outsiders in their interactions across differences
Past decades have witnessed significant expansion in the reach of public opinionsurveys. While the need for comparable data from increasingly heterogeneouscountries has led some to infer that survey practices must be centralized andidentical, the explicit inclusion of variation between countries may well improvethe enterprise of cross-national research. This paper examines some of the chal-lenges endemic to the continued global spread of cross-national research, bothat the level of cross-national survey bodies and the analyst using second-handdata. With regard to the former, we examine recent changes in the‘product’ofcomparative survey research, and the increasing recognition that improvementsin both survey quality and equivalence of meaning may come from localizedunderstandings and specifications. We also explore how individual analystsmight provide important substantive and methodological insights into thebroader enterprise of comparative work, further advancing decolonized method-ologies by devolving methodological innovation from survey developers locatedin prosperous countries to analysts with second-hand data spread across abroader geography.
This paper introduces and outlines a methodology that may be unfamiliar to somequalitative researchers: Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA). The firstsection of the paper explains the basic principles of MCA and why it is a validmethod for exploring the power of categorisations in texts and talk. Additionally,it explains why MCA differs from other forms of qualitative data analysis. Thesecond section begins with a discussion of why researchers might or might notuse Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) Software.Subsequently, a detailed description of how MCA was applied to qualitative datausing the CAQDAS software package NVivo is outlined. To provide examples,this paper draws on a project that used MCA to analyse the interview accounts of25 young people who had taken a Gap Year between leaving school andbeginning university. The paper concludes that qualitative researchers shouldconsider using MCA and that CAQDAS is a useful tool to aid its application.
There are numerous ways of displaying Likert-type scales but only a fewinvestigators have investigated these differences systematically. In this study wereport the results that we found when we compared four different layouts: scalesthat went numerically from ‘0’ to ‘10’, or from ‘10’ to ‘0’, and scales that wentverbally from ‘clear’ to ‘unclear’, or ‘unclear’ to ‘clear’. Over 450 participantsrated each of seven aspects of a structured abstract in a web-based study, with eachone using only one of the four scale formats listed above. The resulting datashowed that the scale ‘Clear – 10 ... 0 – Unclear’ consistently led to significantlyhigher ratings in all seven cases. Such findings have implications for the design ofLikert-type scales and for the data that are gathered from them.
This article presents a new methodology for multilevel analysis using a smallnumber of cases, named Comparative Multilevel Analysis (CMA). A classicproblem in comparative studies has been the presence of too many variables andtoo few cases. One traditional solution to this problem has been to studysubsystems within a system. However, the approach has fundamental limitations:it cannot analyse subsystems from different contexts, nor can it determine howconditions on the system level influence subsystems. By proposing four additionsto traditional methodology, this article offers a new method of comparingsubsystems from different contexts in order to analyse the effect of context onsubsystems. The author also illustrates how CMA can be combined withQualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy-set, thereby enabling these methodsto be used in the study of subsystem and context effects
Indicators-based projects are currently central to many local, city-wide, nationaland international sustainability initiatives. The quantitative basis of many suchprojects means that achieving sustainability through them is often undertaken as atechnical task. The size, scope and sheer number of indicators included withinmany such projects means that they are often unwieldy and resist effectiveimplementation. Arguably, the techno-scientific ‘edge’ inherent in them tends toblur the possibilities for bringing into question the structures of power and criteriaby which values are translated into practice. It limits the way that a communitymay use indicators to support sustainable practices or to challenge unsustainablepractices. The article discusses some of the methodological issues that arise whensetting out to develop and implement qualitative indicators of sustainability thatincorporate some quantitative metrics. This alternative approach involves peoplein actively learning and negotiating over how best to put sustainability intopractice. The aim of such a research method is to engage citizens in the job ofachieving sustainability as a task of itself, undertaken on terms acceptable to themin the context of the communities in which they live.
This article examines the conceptualisation and use of memory in the socialsciences, both as a methodological tool and as an object of research. The articlesituates memory as a vast potential resource for the social sciences in theexploration of relations between public and private life, agency and power, and thepast, present and future. It goes on to recognise that the methodological issuessurrounding the use of memory have, with few exceptions, rarely receivedsustained attention. The article argues for, and moves towards, developing acoherent account of the variety of practical techniques of using memory in datacollection and analysis, and their appropriate use within a clear epistemologicalframework which distinguishes itself from conventional historiography and it’scriteria of validity. It is argued that without this attention to method, memory willremain on the margins of social science research
This paper explores the difficulties encountered by researchers attempting tomeasure the prevalence of negative workplace behaviours and how these might beovercome. Drawing on the first stage of a major ESRC-funded study of workplacebehaviours in Britain, we demonstrate the importance of improved sampling anddata collection methods. We show how judicious use of qualitative data derivedfrom cognitive testing of survey questions can improve substantially the reliabilityand validity of data. In particular, we explain how a battery of questions devisedby social psychologists and used as a standard measure in surveys was tested andrevised following a series of 60 in-depth interviews. These revisions ranged fromfairly minor changes in wording, in order to make questions better understood, tothe elimination of questions which our qualitative work persuaded us were notcapturing data in the way that other researchers might have assumed they did.
The use of attitude questions is very common in comparative surveys as it allowsresearchers to gauge the perspectives of respondents toward social issues andexplain cross-country differentials in attitudes. Comparative studies implicitlyassume that equivalently worded items are measuring the same construct indifferent settings. However, the results of these studies might be questionable ifthe measurement invariant assumption is violated and different groups ofrespondents do not have a shared understanding of the attitude items. This paperuses item response theory to compare the measurement of items and to testwhether equivalently worded attitude questions about family dissolution areunderstood in the same way across various communities in India, Malaysia,Pakistan and the Philippines. The paper also examines the interaction between therespondent’s gender, the sex of the spouse leaving the marriage and the responsesto the attitude questions about acceptability of family dissolution.
A central feature of the majority of qualitative research is the interactive nature ofdata collection which generally involves direct and meaningful communicationbetween the individuals conducting the research and the individuals participatingin the research. This core aspect of data collection, however, is frequently flaggedas the most concerning or potentially harmful aspect of qualitative bereavementresearch by research ethics boards. Further, there has been a tendency toconceptualize the bereaved as vulnerable and in need of protection in the researchprocess. Instead of thinking that a research interview which explores the complex,personal issues of grief would potentially harm participants, it may be seen aspotentially beneficial to participants when the therapeutic aspects of the intervieware considered. Participants’ responses to the interview process in twobereavement studies are offered as illustrations to complement the literature on thepotential for the researcher-participant relationship and the research interview tobe perceived as beneficial by bereavement research participants
The article discusses the increasing use of mixed methods designs in appliedresearch, particularly work commissioned by government. The roots of this trendare discussed in the UK and US context, drawing out particularly the implicationsfor qualitative methods, the role of benchmarks and quality standards, and theimplications for critical research. Examples from socio-legal research and researchon social aspects of health and illness illustrate the argument
The article discusses the development of social research in advanced economiesand relates the rise of qualitative research to social changes. The paper suggeststhat partly, qualitative research emerged because some of the articles formerlyclassified as ‘non-empirical’ or ‘theoretical’ gave way to an increasing share ofarticles classified as qualitative. In addition, the rise of qualitative inquiry meantthat the everyday reality which produces statistical relationships between thevariables of quantitative analysis is given more attention. Since the rise ofqualitative research has primarily taken place at the expense of non-empirical ortheoretical rather than quantitative articles, one can argue that it has contributed toan overall systematization of social research. Overall, qualitative inquiry simplycarries on one aspect of social science, the mission to study ‘the social body,’ thepractices that make up social institutions and produce the regularities reflected instatistical relations.
This paper provides a discussion on the utilisation of metaphor and dialogics asconceptual frameworks which can be applied to visual and literary forms of dataas analytical tools and as an approach to reflection on professional practice.Drawing upon the work of writers such as Max Black, Charles Forceville, PaulRicouer and Mikhail Bakhtin to construct an approach to this process, an exampleof visual and literary data is used to explore how these ideas can be illustrated intheir use. The author argues that whilst metaphor and dialogics are essentiallyopposed conceptually, they can be used separately, alongside one another, orsynthesised as a method for deepening and multiplying the possibilities forknowledge and understanding within visual and literary forms of data.
With rapid growth in the global urban population over the next two decades,health will increasingly have an urban bias. The picture of public health isparticularly complex in African cities, where rates of urbanisation, poverty andinequity are high. This paper identifies the main data collection problemsencountered within a panel study in low-income areas of Johannesburg, withspecial emphasis on sampling, access and partnerships. The paper will be ofrelevance to anyone considering research in the cities of developing countries,especially in Africa.
This paper is a disciplinary analysis of demography that examines its lack ofengagement with feminist theory and the resulting lack of meaningfuldemographic research on gender. Its aim is to generate intellectual space forfeminist-demography and to advance research on gender within the field ofdemography. I first discuss benefits of feminist-demography to both fields andthen examine the reasons for the lack of feminist-demographic research to date bydescribing the epistemological tensions between the fields. I then analyze themethodological implications of feminist theory for demographic research, andespecially the requirements that researchers treat gender as a social constructionand attend to the politics of location. This analysis leads to general methodologicalprecepts for feminist-demographic research on gender.
If triangulation and its worth have long been contested amongst social scientists,historians have not discussed it. In this paper, a historical demographer practisesdata triangulation by combining qualitative and quantitative sources. The aim is toexplore how these sources identify nineteenth-century women’s occupations andthus challenge the gender bias found in population registers as they reportincomplete information on women’s work. This bias is acknowledged by feministhistorians and also evident in quantitative records in developing countries. Toexplain the outcome of dissonant data that this historical study shows and shareswith modern triangulation approaches, women’s ability to represent theiroccupational identities in the different sources is discussed. Some of theepistemological implications that arise from the triangulation of data that subsistsunder separate paradigms are also reflected upon. Although triangulation is farfrom infallible, it is argued that it helps to gain, view and question knowledge
This paper argues that concerns that the feminist agenda is better served byqualitative not quantitative methodology were based on a rather narrow definitionof feminism and a somewhat misleading portrayal of quantitative research. Usingexemplar studies undertaken as part of the ESRC Research Priority Network onGender Inequalities in Production and Reproduction (GeNet), I show howquantitative analysis can forward our understanding of the processes that underliegender inequalities. Quantitative approaches are essential to examine theprocesses of selection and exclusion that reflect and create gender inequalities asmanifest in changing lives and structures. Quantitative analysis of longitudinaldata is used for investigating dynamic processes and different patterns of genderedresource allocation in productive and reproductive activities; whereas in-depthqualitative analysis is used to unpick the different national policy contexts forwork-family balance. This can help inform how quantitative researchers (some ofwhom are feminists) interpret what they count.
Measuring equalities is important but contentious and challenging; matters ofdefinition, technical details and data availability, not least the selection ofappropriate measures, are complex. Yet the measuring of equalities is needed toaddress the needs of researchers as well as to aid policy development such as bythe Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). This paper discusses theissues involved in monitoring equalities across the full range of justicable strands(gender, ethnicity, disability, religion/belief, age and sexual orientation togetherwith social class) in the 10 domains of the EHRC Equality MeasurementFramework (longevity; physical security; health; education; standard of living;productive and valued activities; individual, family and social life; participation,influence and voice; identity, expression and self-respect; and legal security). Thepaper concludes by offering headline indicators for each of the 10 dimensions thatare relevant to the full range of equalities
The paper discusses the development and application of a survey questionnaire forresearching domestic violence in same sex relationships. A feministepistemological approach was used to construct an instrument geared to explorehow processes of gendering and power might operate in similar or different waysin abusive lesbian, gay male or heterosexual relationships, while taking intoaccount a range of domestically abusive behaviour, context and impact,experiences of abuse from partners and use of such behaviour against partners. Thesurvey was part of a detailed multi-method study of love and domestic violence byintimate partners in same sex and heterosexual relationships (funded by the ESRC,award RES-000-23-0650), and also included focus groups and interviews. Thepaper outlines the development of the survey methodology, the high degree ofreliability of the resulting instrument and shows the importance of the instrumentand approach in providing a means for assessing ‘severity of impact’.
This paper describes how the findings of two nationally representative Canadiansurveys on woman abuse were taken up by both academics and the media. It putsthe surveys in the context of debates about feminist epistemology andmeasurement. This context does now, however, fully account for the ways inwhich the findings were mobilized for apparently different purposes. Using agovernmentality perspective, the paper illustrates the parallels between the way inwhich anti-violence policies and the surveys have constituted the problem ofwoman abuse in ways that facilitate a particular form of governing gender. Thepaper argues that the wider shift to neo-liberal forms of governance must beconsidered by feminists who count woman abuse in order to avoid contributing tothis shift. The paper concludes with ways to undertake survey research on womanabuse.
This paper demonstrates how the software package QSR-NVivo can be used tofaciitate a grounded theory approach. Recent research evidence has questioned themethodological quality of many studies that claim to utilise grounded theory. Thispaper argues that qualitative data analysis software can be used to encourage goodquality grounded theory research by facilitating many of the key processes andcharacteristics associated with this approach. To achieve this, the paper identifiesa number of grounded theory characteristics, common to all revisions of themethodology. It then describes the development of a recent study, which examinedhow people successfully maintain long-term physical activity behaviour change.The purpose of this is to demonstrate how different functions of QSR-NVivo maybe used in conjunction with the key grounded theory characteristics. In summary,QSR-NVivo is a powerful tool that, if used appropriately, can facilitate manyaspects of the grounded theory process from the design and early samplingprocedures, through to the analysis of data, theoretical development andpresentation of findings.
In recent years, a growing amount of research has demonstrated that paralleldevelopment of different language versions of a survey instrument is a preferredmethod to enhance the collection of equivalent data across language groups. Thismethod involves the simultaneous development and pretesting of differentlanguage versions of a questionnaire in order to allow for two-way feedback andto maximize the likelihood that each version is culturally and linguisticallyappropriate for its target population. Unfortunately, it is common practice amongmany large survey organizations to pretest and finalize source language versionsof survey questions and other materials prior to having them translated. Pretestingof translations does not always take place and when it does, the source languagedocuments have often been finalized and the results of the translation pretestingcannot have any impact on further revisions to the source documents. This paperdescribes a methodological approach for the cognitive testing of a translation thatcan be used when pure parallel development of different language versions of asurvey instrument is not feasible. In short, we examine the advantages ofcognitively testing both source language materials and translations concurrently,even when source materials have already been finalized. Methodological, cost,and logistical implications are discussed.
This study examined the prevalence of mixed methods research published in 11prominent English-language international and U.S. national educational researchjournals from 1995 to 2005. A total of 2381 studies were reviewed by researchteams in four educational disciplines: literacy, mathematics, social studies, andscience. Of the articles examined, 332 (14%) were identified as using mixedmethods. Results suggest little variation across disciplines and across the years inthe number of studies using mixed methods. Further, mixed methods, althoughconsidered uniquely suited to examine complex educational issues, does not seemto be an increasingly popular research method. Issues in defining and identifyingmixed methods in educational research are discussed.
Case study is widely referred to and applied within social research, but its statusremains unclear. Is it a method, a methodology, a strategy, a design, an approachor what? What does its employment in social research signify? This articlecritically reviews both the generic social research methods literature, and the workof two of case study’s most fervent recent promoters, Stake and Yin, to seek someanswers to these questions. It concludes that case study is essentially a convenientlabel that can be applied to just about any social research project, especiallyperhaps when no other term seems available, and considers what might be doneinstead.
In this paper we discuss the unique influences of ethics assessment procedures oncomparative qualitative research. These influences are particularly pronouncedwhen researchers are from different disciplines and in different countries.Focusing on our experience conducting a study on the perceptions of young peopleregarding HIV/AIDS in two countries (Italy and Canada), we describe the impactof the ethics assessment procedures in our respective countries on recruitment,sampling and comparability of findings. We also raise issues related to differencesin ethics assessment processes from a disciplinary perspective. We conclude bysuggesting that our theory of technique approach, which focuses on studying howthe choices made in research implementation influence the study findings, shouldbe extended to include the impact of ethics assessment procedures.
The Hawthorne Effect is relatively common in community intervention trials. Yet,very little is known about it in developing countries where poverty may play animportant role in how and why people participate in studies. A quasi-experimentaltrial with a comparison group designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an indoorair pollution intervention showed evidence of reactivity in rural South Africa. Bydrawing on post-trial focus group discussions with members of the comparisongroup (n= 30), this paper explores the reasons why participants improved theirbehaviours despite not having received the intervention. Results suggest thatparticipants changed their behaviours for three reasons: expectations of gain,misunderstandings of the data collection equipment and a learning effect. Inaddition to highlighting the role of poverty and miscommunication in influencingreactivity, this paper also offers recommendations to reduce the Hawthorne Effectin impoverished contexts.
Local authorities are increasingly required to measure and monitor the well-beingof children. One key aspect of ensuring that these data on child well-being are robustis that they form an accurate and representative picture of that child population.Rather than being only the purview of researchers, the act of gathering outcomedata now falls within the remit of policymakers and practitioners. This articletherefore describes the principles and importance of solid sampling methodologiesto this audience and also considers the practical reasons as to why policymakersand practitioners may require larger samples than may be necessary for arepresentative picture of child well-being. These ideas are illustrated by one localauthority in the UK’s approach to measuring child well-being, using representativesampling techniques and the subsequent expansion of this sample. The consequencesof expanding the sample size are illustrated by examining the impact upon keyfindings related to child well-being. The potential benefits and limitations of largersamples are discussed, as are some practical solutions to the apparent impasse.
This article examines Q methodology as an empirical method for use in socialwork research. Q methodology applies statistical analysis to the qualitative studyof human subjectivity such as attitudes, beliefs, feelings and opinions. Qmethodology is effective for obtaining data from small samples, and it offersrespondents a concise and valid way of expressing their viewpoints with minimalresearcher interference. The article provides an overview of Q methodology andpresents an actual example of a small-scale Q study to facilitate a betterunderstanding of the method. We conclude that Q methodology is especiallysuitable in social work research with respondents who may have difficulties inexpressing themselves when more conventional research methods are used. Qmethodology is an efficient tool in research involving the exploration andcomparison of different points of view.
Qualitative tools are potentially powerful to gain understandings of the voluntarysector’s (VS) engagement with public service delivery. This is because of thestrengths associated with qualitative methods to gain specific information on anarea as diverse as the VS and the ability to carry out comparative analyses. Despitethis, research on the VS is dominated by work that uses quantitative tools. Usinga case study of research conducted on VS’ engagement with the government’swelfare-to-work programme, the New Deal for Young People, I discuss threeadvantages commonly associated with qualitative tools. These are the flexibilityof open-endedness and the importance of understanding processes and staff’sperspectives. I conclude that if the government wants to keep the VS engaged inthe delivery of public services, they need to understand what keeps the VSinvolved and that qualitative tools can make a substantial contribution towardsunderstanding this.
The enterprise of biography inhabits a liminal world at the intersections of fact andfiction, (social) science and art, objective narrative and personal life story. Whilesocial scientists write, use and are the subjects of, biographies, there is relativelylittle discussion in the methodological literature as to the nature of biography as aform of life-writing. This paper discusses some of the issues of method and of ethicsand reflexivity encountered during the research and writing of a biography of theprominent social scientist Barbara Wootton (1897–1988). It considers questions ofconsent and responsibility, the ‘triangulation’ of data derived from different sources(e.g. interviews, archives, autobiographical accounts; letters, published work andreferences to, and about, it), the relationship between biographer and biographee,the legitimacy of links between the private and the public, and issues of ‘bias’ andinterpretation in the production of biographical narrative.
It is not uncommon to explore the views of parents and children in qualitativeresearch with families. Yet the implications and challenges of a multipleperspective approach often remain at a relatively taken-for-granted level. In thisarticle we draw on our experience across a range of qualitative interview-basedprojects, focusing in particular on two case studies, to illustrate the practicalworking out of the challenges posed by multiple perspective research in families.The implications of research with parents and children are discussed in relation totwo themes – power and truth. This discussion reflects on the challenges andbenefits of multiple perspective research at different points in the research process.It is not the intention of this article to try to provide definitive ‘answers’ to someof the challenges posed. Rather we aim to open up discussion by reflecting on arange of scenarios, offering suggestions based on our experience, and so, allow thereader to reflect on the particularities of their own research
Understanding complex (social) phenomena benefits from combining different tools, perspectives, expertise, and experiences. Research designs that combine approaches are gaining in popularity. Carrying out research in interdisciplinary teams, however, is a challenging, high-investment activity. Unawareness of and reflecting on conflicting ways of seeing or studying the world may endanger project success. Agent-based modelling has proven instrumental in bringing together different approaches. Yet, this potential enabler remains an unusual combination partner: the additional prevalent lack of transparency about what is combined, and how, obstructs advancement. We therefore invite our readers behind the scenes of our multi-year research collaboration where we combine agentbased modelling with controlled behavioural experiments to advance the understanding of collective resource use in a common pool resource dilemma. The paper contributes by 1) being an example in sharing the processes of combining approaches, and by 2) highlighting the enabling role of ABM in combining research approaches.
In this paper, I introduce the notion of participative epistemology and 
discuss how it can contribute to make social data science more accountable. I do so by offering the case of a project where ethnographic, 
computational and sequence analysis methods have been used in combination. By presenting here in greater detail research design and pilot 
results of a project using professional networking data to understand 
the careers of IT industry analysts, I suggest a view on the collaboration 
between data science and social science as coordinated labour. The 
application of participative epistemology to social data science is articulated in three points: (1) a more tactical view on the partnerships with 
commercial data where shared value system is not a pre-requisite for 
coordinated knowledge production; (2) an appreciation for complementarities in perspective between phenomenological sociology, expertise in 
computer science associated to digitalisation and the narrative positivism 
linked with the use of statistics and (3) a view on social data science as 
contributing empirical sociology with new sensitizing concepts, taking 
ethnography to reflectively address its own presuppositions
This article focuses on an investigation of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher (de)motivation in Spain which underwent a methodological 
transformation from mixed methods to a qualitative approach. 
Unexpected statistical results from the questionnaire in the piloting 
phase led to the creation of interview prompts, a dynamic data collection 
instrument based on reliable items from the questionnaire which was 
disregarded from the main study at a later stage. The interview prompts 
provided a card-based data collection method which engaged participants in reflective and challenging tasks. This paper will discuss an unsettling challenge in the research process, how it was seized and the positive 
outcome which emerged from this unpredicted pitfall. A research breakdown welcomed a methodological turn enabled by the researcher’s 
reflection on the research dilemma. Authors are encouraged to defy and 
embrace research obstacles while learning from them and sharing the 
solutions with the research community.
The COVID-19 crisis has placed unique restrictions on social researchers in terms of how they conduct their research. It has also created opportunities for adaptation and critical reflection on methodological practice. This article considers how the unanticipated use of remote qualitative methods impacted processes of research connection and connectivity in qualitative (longitudinal) research. The reflections are based on fieldwork conducted for a qualitative longitudinal study about the parenting journeys and support needs of young fathers. We elaborate our key strategies and provide worked examples of how the research team modified their methods and responded in the crisis context. First, we consider questions of connection when seeking to (re)establish and retain connections with project stakeholders and marginalised participants through the pivot to remote methods. Second, we reflect on how processes of maintaining participation and interaction were impacted by practical and technological issues associated with the digitally mediated forms of connectivity available.
Public attitude surveys provide invaluable data for assessing perceptions, 
values, and attitudes across societies and over time. Ideally, respondents 
feel secure to disclose accurate information (avoiding reporting bias and 
item non-response) in the context of a face-to-face interview. Yet, survey 
research seldom accounts for peer effects caused by bystanders. The 
existing research focuses primarily on the effects of parents and spouses 
on self-reporting illicit activities or marriage-related issues. Using survey 
data from the Afrobarometer, this paper finds that bystanders, especially 
non-familial ones, substantially affect responses to an array of questions 
(some sensitive and some not), which are typically consistent with 
a socially desirable response. In parallel, both family and non-family 
bystanders also increase the rate of ‘don’t know’ responses relative to 
private interviews. These findings provide further support for designing 
new approaches to secure private interviews and implementing alternative techniques in face-to-face survey methods to limit bias and capture 
‘true’ opinions.
Humour and comedy have gained increased significance in academic research in recent years. This article examines the importance of humour and comedy as valuable tools in qualitative social science research methodology. It makes the original contribution of utilizing humour and comedy theory, and critical understandings of both their macro and micro mechanisms and functions, to argue that humour and comedy can accommodate, and indeed, expedite, social science research methodology in relation to two key principles: constructionism and reflexivity. This represents a significant and rigorous theoretical contribution to not just humour and comedy theory but the paradigm of qualitative social science methodology. Following a review of the benefits of using humour and comedy in qualitative research, the article considers how the broader theories and more intricate mechanics of humour and comedy can facilitate research into the social world, examining how humour and comedy can inform and develop constructionism and reflexivity.
Retaining participants in longitudinal studies is important but challenging when retracing them after a substantial gap between study phases. Utilising our nine year mixed-methods longitudinal study of 54 families affected by paternal imprisonment, we qualitatively analysed our processes and experiences of retracing participants after a seven year gap in contact. Paying attention to the spatio-temporal features that are traditionally an analytical focus of qualitative longitudinal research helped to enhance our retention rates, and our fieldwork strategies can be more deeply understood as part of the ‘timescape’ of qualitative longitudinal research. In this paper, we describe the spatio-temporal contours that shaped our efforts, successes and failures, and distil the material practices that they led to during our ‘tracking treks’ through the timescape of longitudinal fieldwork.
Selection of appropriate study design and analytical methods is critical for producing robust research, as the design and analytical approach used can ultimately shape results and their interpretation. The objective of this research was to examine how findings from a large repeat cross-sectional data system compare to those from a sample of longitudinal data nested within the same data system, using milk and milk alternative consumption as a case study. Overall, the repeat cross-sectional and longitudinal findings were consistent, and this article highlights the strengths and limitations of both methodologies under examination. Application to social research and public health and policy are discussed.
The main aim of this study is to build a new observational coding system for sibling interactions (Sistema de Codificación de Interacciones entre Hermanos – SCIH) and to analyze its psychometric properties and validity. First, this study offers the first Spanish adaptation of a self-report questionnaire to measure sibling relationships that replicate the original structure of the SRQ in a sample of 469 children and adolescents. Then, the study focused on the development of the SCIH, which analyzes siblings’ relationships by means of a system of live observation and it examined five dimensions: Warmth, Conflict, Dominance, Aggression, and Support in a sample of 50 pairs of siblings. The main contribution of this study is the description of the development of a new observational coding system for siblings and the confirmation of its inter-rater reliability. Limitations and future lines are discussed.
This article aims to present a Mixed Integrative Heuristic Approach (MIHA) for image studies based on textual content (media news) analysis. MIHA was developed during an exploratory study on the image of China and the Chinese in Zambia and Angola. The analyzed database was relatively small (2477 articles), and the material was very heterogeneous, because of the wide scope of topics covered by the texts and the fact that we analyzed content from both English- and Portuguese-language media. To obtain the best possible results, we decided to employ the mixed methods approach for a bottom-up created dictionary, and to design a set of sentiment indexes based on both automatic and manual coding. This paper focuses on the two most important steps of the method development: dictionary building and sentiment indexes design.
This article describes and justifies a reporting standard to improve data use documentation in Agent-Based Modelling. Following the development of reporting standards for models themselves, empirical modelling has now developed to the point where these standards need to take equally effective account of data use (which previously has tended to be an afterthought to model description). It is particularly important that a standard should allow the reporting of the different uses to which data may be put (specification, calibration and validation), but also that it should be compatible with the integration of different kinds of data (for example, survey, ethnographic and experimental) sometimes known as mixed methods research. The article motivates the need for standards generally, and positions the distinctive contribution of the RAT-RS reporting standard. It describes how the standard was developed to ensure its usability, presents and explains it, and describes possibilities for future development.
Technological advancements and changes in online survey participation pave the way for new data collection methods. Particularly, the increasing smartphone rate in online surveys facilitates a re-consideration of prevailing communication channels to, for instance, naturalize the communication process between researchers and respondents and to collect more in-depth and high-quality data. However, so far, there is a lack of information on whether respondents are willing to undergo a change in communication channels. In this study, I therefore investigate respondents’ willingness to participate in online surveys with a smartphone to have the survey questions read out loud (audio channel) and to give oral answers via voice input (voice channel). For this purpose, I employed two willingness questions – one on audio and one on voice channels – in the probability-based German Internet Panel (N = 4,426). The results reveal that a substantial minority of respondents is willing to participate in online surveys with a smartphone to have the survey questions read out loud and to give oral answers via voice input. They also show that the device used for survey participation and personality traits, such as conscientiousness and extraversion, play a role when it comes to respondents’ willingness.
GAM, combining games and agent-based models, shows potential for investigating complex social phenomena. Games offer engaging environments generating insights into social dynamics, perceptions, and behaviours, while agent-based models support the analysis of complexity. Games and agent-based models share the important ability both to input and output qualitative and quantitative data. Currently, there is no overview of GAM approaches. In a systematic literature review, we identified six research design types in empirical studies to date. The functional range of these design types is wide, with diverse application domains involving analogue, digital, and hybrid games. This makes GAM a highly versatile approach, appealing to researchers in both natural and social sciences, along with the gaming community itself. To consolidate the GAM field, we propose recording the design and implementation of studies that combine games and agent-based models by using a dedicated documentation scheme.
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in South Africa’s shelter-in-place lockdown. South Africa is vulnerable to the negative outcomes of COVID-19 due to health systems inequalities, high prevalence of human immunodeficiency viruses, tuberculosis and the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. Conducting scientifically validated research during lockdown, in a country that’s unequal, divided and resource poor, has resulted in researchers using diverse methodologies and innovative digital tools. These notes report on gathering data for two rapid socio-behavioural studies, conducted during the shelter-inplace lockdown, utilizing a cost-free online platform to administer quantitative questionnaires. It shows the lessons learned to improve survey uptake which include the use of paid for targeted social media boosted posts, the use of social media influencers to promote the surveys, translating the questionnaire into multiple languages and adding a home-based call centre to reach high-density communities.
The replication crisis in the social and psychological sciences is said to be 
due in part to publication bias and the resulting file drawer problem. 
Meta-analysis is often advocated as a means of resolving this crisis but is 
prone to the same publication bias and file drawer effects. A study of 23 
meta-analyses examined the consequences of correcting for these effects 
through the inclusion of unpublished research. Results indicated that the 
inclusion of unpublished data led to smaller meta-analytic means in some 
instances, consistent with the primary theorized effects of the file drawer 
problem and publication bias, but led to larger meta-analytic means in 
nearly as many instances, suggesting the presence and influence of other, 
unknown artifacts in unpublished research. These findings suggest that 
meta-analysis is limited in its ability to resolve the replication crisis and 
instead may introduce unexplained effects that render cumulative science 
problematic.
Qualitative researchers often turn to focus groups as an efficient and 
effective way to gather data in a collective context. A common critique 
is that they play into power dynamics present at the site, privileging 
dominant, high status, and more vocal participants. Traditional focus 
group structures also rely on participants to trust the interviewer, without 
building rapport or clarity about the research process itself. We describe 
an approach to focus groups that aims to circumvent traditional power 
dynamics while offering insight and transparency into the research process. Our Scaffolded Focus Group approach has three stages: individual 
surveys, small group discussions, and a large group discussion. It gives 
participants time to understand the research process while also building 
trust between the interviewer and participants, giving students voice, and 
providing participants greater transparency in the research process. In this 
way, participants become co-creators in the research endeavor.
Even though agent-based modelling is seen as committing to a mechanistic, generative type of causation, the methodology allows for representing many other types of causal explanations. Agent-based models are capable of integrating diverse causal relationships into coherent causal mechanisms. They mirror the crucial, multi-level component of emergent phenomena and recognize the important role of single-level causes without limiting the scope of the offered explana- tion. Implementing various types of causal relationships to complement the generative causation offers insight into how a multi-level phenomenon happens and allows for building more complete causal explanations. The capacity to work with multiple approaches to causality is crucial when tackling the complex problems of the modern world
Reflexivity is a practice through which researchers engage themselves fully in their studies. It opens up different aspects of research that can shed light on important accounts that may otherwise be dismissed. It was through reflexivity that I observed ethical concerns emerge during my fieldwork in Korea. Despite academic ethics being discussed frequently, ‘ethics in practice’ has received limited attention. Such ethics highlight the ethical dilemmas that researchers confront, which are often dismissed in procedural ethics. Ethics in practice are thus tied to researchers’ morals – the ongoing internal debate about whether something is right or wrong. Procedural ethics do not necessarily prepare researchers for unforeseen situations in fieldwork. In this paper, I examine the following two points related to ethics in practice based on my fieldwork in Korea: (1) the interviewing process within hierarchical relations – an academic interviewing students, and (2) the recruitment process when there is a hidden cultural code.
Context is a key concept in developing realist causal explanations but its conceptualisation has received comparatively less attention. We conducted a review to explore how context is conceptualised within realist reviews and evaluations. We purposively selected 40 studies to examine: How is context defined? And how is context operationalised in the findings? We identified two key ‘narratives’ in the way context was conceptualised: 1) Context as observable features (space, place, people, things) that triggered or blocked the intervention; assuming that context operates at one moment in time and sets in motion a chain reaction of events. 2) Context as the relational and dynamic features that shaped the mechanisms through which the intervention works; assuming that context operates in a dynamic, emergent way over time at multiple different levels of the social system. These two context narratives have different implications for the design, goals and impact of realist reviews and evaluations.
The capability approach has recently been recognised as a potential explanatory theory in disability research. However, to strengthen its explanatory power, it is argued that it should be grounded in a critical realist research paradigm. While critical realism is increasingly adopted in social inquiry, to date there remains little research that elaborates how a critical realist methodology is applied in capability and disability research, especially in the context of disasters. To bridge this gap, this study provides an empirical example of how a critical realist methodology can be used to explain the capabilities of people with disabilities to deal with disasters.
Humanitarian research with Syrian refugees can be difficult to conduct inperson, due to COVID-19 containment, security, and logistics issues. We assessed whether the online implementation of a brief, culturally grounded resilience measure would yield reliable responses for use with children and adolescents in the Middle East region. We implemented an online survey screening for socio-economic status, insecurity, prosocial behaviour, and resilience (using the Child Youth Resilience Measure, CYRM) with 119 Syrian refugees (14–18 years old; 74 male, 45 female) living in Jordan. Responses were compared with in-person data, available for a separate cohort of 324 Syrian refugees, previously sampled in Jordan with the same survey instruments. The online CYRM produced reliable and valid responses, as shown by analyses of internal reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and 7-day test-retest consistency. We reflect on logistic, ethical, and methodological challenges of online surveys, and suggest ways to plan and execute online research with hard-to-reach, crisis-affected communities.
The observations in this paper follow online focus group research involving mothers who play video games as a leisure pursuit. The study utilised an online focus group method within a custom online forum which split the forum into small virtual rooms, replicating small face-to-face focus groups in an online environment. The primary objective of this paper is to offer insights that can support other researchers in utilising the online forum based focus group methodology, by reflecting on the research process and detailing the lessons learned. Furthermore, the article contributes to methodological debate on the use of online alternatives, by reflecting on the potential pitfalls of using an online forum as a focus group and presenting the benefits of using the online forum format.
The Video Engagement Scale (VES) is a quality indicator to assess engagement in experimental video-vignette studies, but its measurement properties warrant improvement. Data from previous studies were combined (N = 2676) and split into three subsamples for a stepped analytical approach. We tested construct validity, criterion validity, reliability, and measurement invariance. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) reiterated poor fit of the previously suggested subscales. An alternative 2-factor structure is presented, which was cross-validated and further shortened (VES-sf). Reliability of both subscales (Immersion, Emotional Impact) was very high (α > .86). Multi-group CFAs demonstrated partial and complete measurement invariance among male/female and differently educated participants respectively. Invariance between healthy versus ill participants was not established, but CFAs supported the VES-sf structure in both groups separately. To conclude, we provide the VES-sf with sound measurement properties and demonstrated the appropriateness of comparing certain subgroups. Overall, we recommend the VES-sf to assess engagement/ecological validity in video-vignette research.
Social research is rich in methods for analysing societal differences. Yet, although qualitative characteristics are a key component to understanding such differences, the analysis of qualitative data remains a major methodological challenge in most social research, particularly when aiming to compare more than a few cases. The article proposes an innovative method for systematic comparison of qualitative data (SCQual), applying Weber’s original idea of ideal types as a tool to measure and compare societal differences. This method allows for the quantification of qualitative data, thereby enabling systematic analysis and repeatable comparison of the qualitative characteristics of societal differences for a relatively large number of cases. Developed for the comparative analysis of essential characteristics of social orders, particularly comparative welfare state analysis, SCQual may also be applicable to other areas of social research.
There is an urgent need to understand the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemics on older people’s lives. However, conducting qualitative research is challenging, because of the shortage of guidelines and methodological research on how to recruit and interview participants during biological disasters, such as pandemics. This paper documents the procedures we adopted to recruit and interview 40 older people living in a rural area of Northern Italy that was subject to the first full lockdown in Europe. Despite the challenges arising when qualitatively researching the old age population in pandemic times, our study has shown that it is feasible to recruit and interview older people remotely. Specifically, community engagement and tailoring videointerviews according to older people’s needs and ICT skills are the key aspects to consider when designing these types of studies.
Imputation or likelihood-based approaches to handle missing data assume the data are missing completely at random (MCAR) or missing at random (MAR). However, little research has examined the missingness pattern before using these imputation/likelihood methods. Three missingness mechanisms – MCAR, MAR, and not missing at random (NMAR) – can be tested using information on research design, disciplinary knowledge, and appropriate methods. This study summarized six commonly used statistical methods to test the missingness mechanism and discussed their application conditions. We further applied these methods to a two-wave longitudinal dataset from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 18,747). Health measures met the MAR assumptions although we could not completely rule out NMAR. Demographic variables provided auxiliary information. The logistic regression method demonstrated applicability to a wide range of scenarios. This study provides a useful guide to choose methods to test missingness mechanisms depending on the research goal and nature of the data.
This paper explores the concept of adaptive research design, in which topic, theoretical framing, method, and data are in principle open to adaptation during the research process. The main premise is that adaptations in one element of the research process can trigger changes in other elements. Both positive and negative reasons for adaptivity are discussed along with various valid reasons for limiting adaptivity in particular cases. Grasping the different couplings between concepts, theories and methods is useful to discern the possibilities and limits of adaptive methodology in situ. To deepen the understanding of the adaptive capacity of methodology, we broaden the discussion to look at the embedding of methodology in academia and its disciplines. In our perspective, methods appear as devices structuring thinking and observation and are well used and placed if they enhance and enable the continuation of observation and reflection and if they allow the researcher to remain open for alternative observations and interpretations.
This article aims to explore the methodological and analytical benefits of mobilizing field diaries when doing fieldwork research. Fieldwork necessitates spending months or years living and sharing the lives of those we are studying. It is thus about interactions and access, about emotions and power relations. Field diaries are particularly insightful in capturing the social interactions between the researcher and the informants, which inevitably impact fieldwork, data collection and the research results. In this paper, I argue that field diaries, if they provide opportunities for developing reflexive analysis, offer possibilities to incorporating participants’ points of view in our research process as well. They also constitute avenues to investigate the social structure of the community under study. The present reflection derives from the researcher experience of using field diaries when being back home from fieldwork.
Narrative interviews with young victims of crime can provide information regarding their unique situations and how the victimization has affected their lives. However, the method can be intrusive, and not all young people are able to safeguard their personal integrity. This research note offers reflections on the use of narrative interviews with young victims of crime, and on interview situations that raised ethical quandaries about whether to discontinue the interviews to reduce the risk of harm. The note starts with a brief description of research on sensitive topics, the study, and the narrative method. After that, I reflect upon some interview situations that have left me wondering what I could have done differently, resulting in suggestions on what could be changed.
Completing questionnaires is a complex task in which multiple cognitive processes play an important role. Despite critiques of the reliability of questionnaires, our research strived to gain more insight into the process of completing questionnaires by using eye-tracking. We investigated how both the question and the categories of answers were being processed and how processing the question influenced the processing of the categories of answers. We also considered the effects of participants’ personal characteristics, such as effort and ability. Results showed there were individual differences involved when respondents complete a questionnaire. The respondents spent different amounts of time reading and answering the items, and there were important differences in the quality of processing.
This article explores gendered power relations in studies of stigmatized sexual behavior, through a poststructuralist feminist theoretical perspective. Interviews conducted by a female interviewer with twenty men who pay for sex were analyzed using the interpretive constructivist method. We applied the concept defended subjects to suggest that the subjects – both interviewer and interviewees – defended themselves against three major threats that characterized the gendered power relations in the interviews: the threat of forced intimacy, the threat of deviancy, and the threat of objectification. We then propose a new heuristic concept – defensive interactions – to discuss these interview dynamics as they relate to three key aspects of gendered power relations in qualitative interviews: the establishment of intimacy, identity management, and objectification.
The Covid 19 pandemic illuminates the role data has in public policymaking, i.e. datafication of society, and the importance of exploring the local sources of data to reveal errors in what has assuredly been from the beginning an undercount of cases and deaths. I note four interrelated error sources. The first two are common to any quantitative data collection project: (1) representation, measurement, and data processing; and (2) problems of data standardization from unequally resourced local and national data providers. Covid 19 casts a special light on (3) the possibility of government intervention in at least the public presentation of these data; and (4) human errors in the data chain caused by a stressful data collection environment. To identify errors, we should look to national pressures and the local contexts from which these data are collected and the upstream reporting process.
A growing number of people live in apartments worldwide, and research into these contexts is key to the success of our cities. Recruiting apartment residents as research participants can be challenging, however, especially when using a case study approach. This research note outlines the participant recruitment method developed for case study research into large apartment complexes in Sydney, Australia, discussing the obstacles encountered and the strategies used to overcome them. Survey respondent and interviewee recruitment was challenging, needing several iterations of survey recruitment methodology and multiple strategies for interviewee recruitment (surveys, posters, ‘office hours’). Due to these measures, 21%-28% of households completed the survey, and between 14 and 17 resident interviewees were recruited for each case. The research note provides future researchers with guidance on successful strategies to recruit apartment residents.
The last decades have seen an enormous growth in published research and evaluations, which makes it difficult for a researcher to stay up-todate in their own field, let alone complement their knowledge with insights from other fields. In this paper we give an elaborate overview of a methodology that aims to tackle this task. It builds on the realist evaluation science approach and combines it with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), hence its name: the ResQ approach. Central to the approach are generative mechanisms that can be found across fields, domains, sectors and contexts. The approach sets out to synthesize the evidence on the circumstances linked to the triggering of these mechanisms. QCA is used to identify the most relevant conditions, leading to theories around these mechanisms, called ‘mechanism concepts’. New studies can test, and refine the mechanism concepts, setting up a continuous cycle of theory-building across disciplines enabling us to learn from other fields, disciplines and contexts in a systematic way.
Resilience is a burgeoning focus in health research; yet, researchers have varying conceptual and methodological approaches to understanding resilience across populations. Consequently, there is little consensus on the definition or operationalization of resilience. The objective of the present study was to conduct a scoping review of qualitative health research from the United States to connect methodological approaches with operationalization and definitions. From our initial database search of 2,142 articles, we reviewed 29 articles that met the criteria for assessment. Our review revealed: (1) definitions of resilience followed two main pathways pursuing broad or context-specific definitions and (2) operationalization originated from previous research or developed during data collection and/or analysis using emic approaches. We offer a conceptual mapping of resilience and argue that researchers should attend to the emergence of resilience in their study population and give greater consideration to the implications of methodologies for future research.
The interaction of quantitative and qualitative methodology in the mixed methods research (MMR) is analysed in a context of distinctions of the meanings between the terms typically used for description, combination, and integration. The interaction in the phases that precede the results, and their interpretation is considered. As an indicator of the quality of interaction, the identification of the two groups of procedures in the practice is used: procedures taken from quantitative and qualitative methodology and MMR-specific procedures. In total, 65 mixed methods articles (21 journals, 12 years) have been analysed. Results suggested that interactions that induce integration of quantitative and qualitative methodologies are more prevalent at the level of determination of the purpose and MMR model, than as a part of the research questions, and especially as a part of the research method. The findings are discussed in the context of the description and the possibility of improving the quality of interaction of the mentioned methodologies in MMR.
Researchers and evaluators increasingly use focus groups as a culturally responsive (CR) method to facilitate empowerment – especially among vulnerable groups. Yet, the expansion of this practice muddles the concept of empowerment and purposes for using focus groups for empowerment. Of particular need is a clear differentiation of the purposes for participant empowerment. In this article, we consider prevalent conceptualizations of empowerment and the CR practices used to support empowerment. Next, we clarify the purposes for using focus groups for participant empowerment. For this, we used the health field as a context and analyzed focus group studies. As a result, we identified three empowerment purposes – knowledge-exploration, action-oriented outcomes, community capacity-building – and the CR practices used to facilitate them. Last, we use an example to offer practice-oriented understandings of the three empowerment purposes. This article is important to guide CR focus group empowerment efforts.
Consisting of brief and evocative scenarios, vignettes effectively elicit stimulus responses, examine individual cognitions, and explore novel or sensitive topics. While information and communication technologies have expanded research methods, methodological and ethical considerations for design and implementation of digital vignettes necessitate further attention. This paper considers adaptation of the vignette method to internet-based data collection – particularly with stigmatized and digitally-engaged populations. Critical to vignettes is reproduction of stimuli to elicit realistic responses to particular conditions. For digital vignettes, this includes successful replication of the digital milieu. This paper presents an illustrative example of a digital vignette scenario simulating social media in a mixed-methods, online survey study with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and other sexual and/or gender minority (LGBTQIA+) youth (age 14–24). While digital vignettes may be an effective and appropriate social science research method, numerous methodological and ethical challenges must be considered prior to implementation.
Transcription is an integral part of much qualitative data analysis, yet rarely has it received close attention in debates over the use (or nonuse) of computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). This article draws upon a mixed-methods study that involved transcribing conversational interviews with carers, third sector practitioners and policy-makers, to explore how computer assisted transcription software (CATS) can affect data and its analysis in ways unanticipated at the outset by researchers. From an agential realist perspective, the article outlines three steps towards making principled choices over the use (or non-use) of CAQDAS in qualitative data analysis. These steps require navigating extremes associated with technological determinism; that we re-think our understandings of the software-data-researcher relationship; and that we move away from asking how well a given CAQDAS can ‘perform’ and towards exploring what a given CAQDAS can (and cannot) do.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for social research. However, little is known about the impact of social distancing measures on research with hard-to-reach populations. This paper provides methodological reflections on the efficacy of socially distanced recruitment and interviewing methods for research with disabled young people, drawing on our experience from the Educational Pathways and Work Outcomes longitudinal study, which started in March 2021 during the third national lockdown in England. We discuss difficulties in gaining access to disabled young people and argue that the pandemic has exacerbated longstanding barriers implicated in the recruitment of hard-toreach populations who are typically seen as vulnerable by gatekeepers. In contrast, our experience suggests that flexible online/virtual interviews can overcome pitfalls inherent in the face-to-face interviewing of disabled young people and could therefore be utilised to make their voices heard in a variety of contexts and scenarios after the end of the ongoing pandemic.
The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of different logistic regression estimators applied to RDS studies via simulation and the analysis of empirical data. Four simulated populations were created with different connectivity characteristics. Each simulated individual received two attributes, one of them associated to the infection process. RDS samples with different sizes were obtained. The observed coverage of three logistic regression estimators were applied to assess the association between the attributes and the infection status. In simulated datasets, unweighted logistic regression estimators emerged as the best option, although all estimators showed a fairly good performance. In the empirical dataset, the performance of weighted estimators presented an unexpected behavior, making them a risky option. The unweighted logistic regression estimator is a reliable option to be applied to RDS samples, with a performance roughly similar to random samples and, therefore, should be the preferred option.
This paper uses Individual Deprivation Measure data from Indonesia and South Africa to demonstrate the effects of coverage bias associated with mobile phone-based sampling and data collection approaches that restrict sampling frames to those who own or have access to a mobile phone – a increasingly common method. Analysis of this data demonstrates substantial differences across multiple living standards indicators and demographic characteristics between those who own a mobile phone, individuals with access to a phone and those who neither own nor access mobile phones. This paper highlights the implications of such sampling approaches, and calls for the explicit consideration of the limitations of inferences that can be drawn from qualitative and quantitative analyses because of these substantive differences.
For people with symptoms that could indicate cancer, prompt presentation to a health care practitioner facilitates early diagnosis, improves survival, and is encouraged by public health agencies and cancer charities. Nevertheless, time to presentation from symptom onset (the patient interval) is known to vary widely. We report findings from a mixedmethods study examining help-seeking among people with symptoms of lung or colorectal cancer. Patients referred for urgent investigation were invited to complete a questionnaire about their symptoms and helpseeking experiences; 26 of these participants then took part in a semistructured interview. Discrepant accounts of help-seeking were reported through the different research methods, with longer ‘patient intervals’ reported in interviews. We use the concept of ‘public and private accounts’ to reflect upon why socially conforming accounts of early presentation were presented in the questionnaires, whilst accounts of longer ‘patient intervals’ tended to be presented within an interview encounter
Convenience sampling dominates social science research. But there is a paucity of studies comparing the impact of sample source type based on composite-based theoretical model relationships. This study empirically tests four different sample sources (e.g. student, crowdsourced, professional panel, and respondent driven social network) to assess differences in construct measurement and structural models to determine how sample source can impact empirical results. Results show that in comparison to meta-analytic findings, there was no meaningful difference in either measurement or structural parameters between sample source groups. Further, results highlight the ability to pool the multiple sample sources into a single, more generalizable data set. We use the results to make a recommendation for data pooling from multiple sample sources after careful consideration of the population of interest. Insights from this study contribute to the debate on the impact sample sources have on empirical analyses of theoretical composites and their relationships.
This paper aims to critique approaches to qualitative coding that carry a bottom-up or inductive thinking. Despite the wide contributions of this epistemology to the social sciences, this paper contends that contemporary research and methodological debates have inadequately explored different epistemologies for coding. As such, this paper proposes and explores the concept of ‘reverse coding.’ In applying reverse coding to ethnographic data collected from observations of a multicultural language classroom, I demonstrate that reverse coding can explore intuitions or ‘hunches’ generated from the data that may not be supported by conventional qualitative coding. By finding such support through reverse coding, or the process of identifying preliminary propositions first and its constituent features afterward, this paper asserts that research employing multiple approaches to coding can extend its range of analysis to generate more robust findings.
Obtaining insights on the illicit consumption of endangered wildlife products is challenging, especially when the study objects are the super-rich. This research note draws upon my experience interviewing nearly 1,000 rhino horn consumers in Vietnam. Trust is crucial in such interactions. No interviews could have been conducted without good rapport between interviewers and respondents. Nonetheless, soliciting interviews requires skills that one cannot expect to teach enumerators in the short term. This includes a winning sense of humour, colourful life experience, and true grit. Once good rapport is established, the use of specialised questionning techniques or bias-mitigation tools becomes unnecessary. Instead I suggest a practical approach to study consumers of illegal and luxury wildlife products in an Asian context.
Questionnaire design choices, such as handling ‘do not know’ answers or using check all that apply questions may impact the level of item- and unit nonresponse. We used experimental data from an online panel and the questions of ESS to examine how applying forced answering, offering DK/ NA options and specific question formats (CATA vs. forced choice format) impact the level of nonresponse and how respondent characteristics correlate with these effects. The results suggest that neither forcing respondents nor offering an explicit NR option is advisable, as these options strongly increase nonresponse. Rather a skipping-allowed design is a more reasonable choice. Those who were interested in the topic of the survey were far less sensitive to NR handling. Developing adaptive questionnaire designs based on topic interest can be a promising direction for future research.
New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies, inviting scholars to rethink ethics in the practices of research with children. Participating in this rethinking, this study elaborates on ethical practices in creative research where new materialist and artsbased methodologies intra-act with children and the sensitivities of gender and power in young peer cultures. Drawing on experiences from the authors’ creative workshops, this paper investigates how new materialist creative practice allows children to explore and communicate their experiences of gender and power in safe and enabling ways. The authors suggest expanding their ethical practice by composing ethically sustainable encounters for children to engage with experiences of and visions for their peer cultures. They close by discussing practices for responding to the inherent un/safety of addressing gender and sexual abuses of power and for enabling microprocesses of change to – as a matter of sustainability – transform oppressive peer cultures towards social justice.
Literature reviews generally analyse and synthesis the evidence (or lack thereof) in a particular topic area and they are an increasingly popular form of scholarly activity. The scoping review is a popular literature review approach that has been adopted across the social and health sciences over the last fifteen years. With this upsurge in use, differences of opinion about how to analyse and report scoping reviews has also grown. Drawing on work carrying out a scoping review on oral health and child maltreatment, we put forward a structured approach to analysis and reporting of such reviews: the PAGER (Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice and Research recommendations) framework. In this article, we reflect on the strengths and limitations of the framework, drawing on examples, laying out the methodological processes, and making suggestions as to how it might improve reporting. The article makes a contribution to efforts that seek to improve the reporting and utility of scoping reviews in health and social research.
This article argues for a citizen social science methodology in which residents from the sites of inquiry play a central role in key activities of the research process and beyond: research design and data collection, presentation and publication of findings, and design and implementation of urban interventions that address challenges to quality of life. This is a way of democratising the research process through sustained engagement with communities and an emphasis on co-designing pathways to impact. The article draws on the authors’ experience of running a citizen social science project in Beirut, Lebanon, where citizen scientists, university academics, and NGOs have worked collaboratively to understand what prosperity means for local residents, develop context-specific measures of prosperity, and design and implement small-scale interventions for local challenges.
In this paper, we use research with Indigenous Māori women to explain the research interface to bring together Indigenous and Euro-Western ways of knowing. Our research required using an Indigenous research methodology that drew on traditional cultural knowledge with embedded critical and decolonisation theories to understand this often-marginalised group of Indigenous women. Constructivist grounded theory provided a systematic and rigorous approach to generating theory. Because of the unique histories of colonisation and contemporary realities resulting in Indigenous women’s marginalisation, globally, we argue research must be relevant, safe, and meaningful to those researched to produce transformative knowledge. Therefore, planning a research methodology to inform research with Indigenous women that counters current unhelpful constructions required careful consideration. We share how we used kaupapa Māori research methodology and constructivist grounded theory to generate an explanation of how Māori women keep safe in unsafe relationships.
Scale construction is a common technique in the behavioral and social sciences. There are various techniques researchers use to construct a scale such as the use of focus groups or modifying existing scales. These techniques are not without their challenges. One technique that is not as well discussed in the social science literature is the use of the literature to construct a scale. Using the literature to create a scale has fewer challenges than alternative techniques. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how existing literature can be used to construct a scale. Included is a specific example of how the literature was utilized to create a scale measuring students’ perceptions of the value of a methodology. The results conclude with six specific steps to develop a scale from existing literature. The paper also includes considerations and limitations for those who may consider using existing literature to construct a scale.
In the current era of more extreme political and religious views coming into the mainstream, this paper investigates whether party affiliation is associated with the concept of religious morality more than political ideology. To answer this research question, we construct an empirical scale of religious morality based on data from opinion polls, which remain among the most efficient and widespread survey methods to capture psycho-social data at large scales. Classification models, using ideology and religious morality as predictors, respectively, were compared on their performance in predicting party affiliation. Response data on just four questions from a national opinion poll were used to demonstrate the viability of constructing a parametric scale using item response modeling approaches. Results show that even with ‘small data’, a measurementbased and data-driven approach can produce classification models that are both statistically precise and accurate. Finally, we discuss the findings and the implications for both politics and psycho-social measurement.
The definition of what constitutes a conflict, in terms of both time and events, has been consistently debated in the historical study of social phenomena. What has become increasingly clear, however, is that the methods used to define it are generally biased as they are highly dependent on the perceptions of the researchers who establish them. Using Mexico as a case study, we tested a data-driven method for periodizing long-term homicide trends. We found structural break analysis and Markovswitching regression modelling to be useful methods for periodizing longterm time series data of homicide rates, without an a priori or skewed definition. We also found that the current trend of increasing homicidal violence may prove difficult to reverse given that historical structural shifts in Mexican homicidal violence are unlikely events in the long term.
In web questionnaires which are created in paging design where each question is on a separate page, a progress indicator is an element that should inform the respondent about their current position within the questionnaire. Linear progress indicators are commonly used, and sometimes fast-to-slow progress indicators are used for research purposes. In this paper, we programmed an individually adapted progress indicator which monitors respondents’ answers, validates them in real time and gives the respondent an additional motivational impulse (in the form of acceleration) only if necessary. We were interested to see how such a progress indicator affects the response quality and dropout rate of respondents in comparison with linear and fast-to-slow progress indicators. According to the results of this study it appears that individually adapted progress indicators increases a participant’s commitment to finish the survey, increases the time devoted to responding and the number of answers given.
The voices and opinions of people living with severe intellectual disability (ID) who are functionally nonverbal (FNV) and/or have complex communication needs (CCN) are often excluded from projects that concern them as well as from research projects about them. This research note details how one community-based research project included the opinions and voices of this cohort. It details the methodology and process, including its challenges and successes in the research and design of an adult-sized playground.
Systematic literature reviews are common in social research for integrating and synthesising existing research. This paper argues that the outcomes of such reviews are affected by the choice of bibliographic databases. It presents evidence of substantial variation across three large electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO) in a study on employee retention and staff turnover. It considers the specific articles, numbers returned, numbers shared across databases and perceived quality of journals hosting the retrieved articles. Results show that only 130 articles (5.7% of 2267 retrieved) were found common to all three databases, suggesting that decisions on how and where literature is retrieved can substantially affect the results of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The findings caution against the use of single databases and claiming comprehensiveness. The paper reflects on how additional literature search methods (e.g., contacting experts, citation indices) and their sequence of use can affect systematic review quality.
Research methods with roots in complexity science are increasingly popular in social research. However, they are not widespread and have potential to deliver value more fully and consistently to social research and methodology. One reason for this is that methods are often used alone, or only with traditional social research methods. We attempt to support and catalyse the use of complexity-framed methods in combination in social research, by systematically reviewing which methods framed in the language of complexity (not including traditional social research methods) have been combined, how, and why. We do this to make clear the state-of-the-art of combinations and to consider gaps and potential new combinations. We find many examples of different methods used together, with simulation methods well-represented. Most examples appear in recent years despite the methods, and interest in complexity, being around much longer. We identify four types of combination, seven purposes, and consider future directions.
The longitudinal Belfast Youth Development Study (BYDS) followed a group of young people from age 11 to 21 years (from 2001 to 2011), charting their experiences of substance use, offending, education, and peer and family relationships. This allowed the investigation of risk and protective factors associated with different types of behavioural patterns and outcomes in adolescence and emerging adulthood. A feasibility study was carried out from 2018 to 2019 to test the success rate of electronically tracing 4,195 participants after almost a decade, in anticipation of carrying out an additional wave of data collection. The projected trace rate obtained using standard and forensic electronic tracing methods was considerably higher (86%) than traditional tracing methods (10%) for getting up-to-date contact details on participants. The electronic tracing methods were also cheaper (£9.72 per person traced) than traditional tracing methods (£20.62 per person traced). These findings will help maximise the potential of longitudinal social research.
In this paper, we introduce a project on singles’ intimate practices conducted during COVID times as a case study of quantitative social research with a particular focus on qualitative reflections. We thematize the topic of self-reflexivity, which is considered an essential category in qualitative research but largely neglected in quantitative research. We discuss three methodological issues through the lens of self-reflection: ‘translation issues’; the problems of asking ‘sensitive’ and the ‘right’ questions; and the problematics of ‘the present’ in particularly fluid times. We show that this approach promotes contextualization of the measurement tool, the data and the findings and can be a way for doing quantitative research on intimacy outside the ‘standard’ nuclear family in pandemic times. Overall, this paper underscores the ways that scholars as individuals and teams are inextricable from our research site, as we navigate disruption even while seeking to understand its implications on our informants.
Qualitative research sample size determination has always been a contentious and confusing issue. Studies are often vague when explaining the processes and justifications that have been used to determine sample size and strategy. Some provide no mention of sampling at all, whilst others rely too heavily on the concept of saturation for determining an eventual sample size in qualitative studies. In consideration of the many real-world factors that often influence qualitative studies, this article contributes a strategic and holistic approach to a priori and ongoing mapping of sample size determination in qualitative research via an analytical tool termed DEJA. Utilising a four-step approach, DEJA guides users to articulate and understand the various considerations that influence sampling based on the unique characteristics of their study and research approach. Thus, DEJA begins to move beyond saturation alone by articulating the multiplicity of considerations in qualitative research sample size determination.
The Imitation Game is a new method and, as such, it is important to show that its results are plausible and replicable. We tested this by conducting Imitation Games on religion in a range of European countries, returning approximately 12 months later to repeat the research. The idea was that non-Christian members of strongly Christian countries would find it easy to pass as members of the practicing majority because Christian beliefs and practices would be ubiquitous. In more secular countries, the expectation was that non-Christians would find it harder to pass as Christian because religious practices are less visible. We show that, despite some anomalous results, the data are consistent with expectations derived from survey data and that the claim to have replicated the results can be supported. We also suggest that our experiences show that questions of replication in the social sciences cannot be resolved by statistical metaanalysis alone.
The impact of public participants in data analysis has been reported, but there is little research on public involvement of analysis of naturally occurring interactional data. Four video recordings of clinicians from out of hours primary care services visiting care home residents with dementia were analysed in data sessions involving 12 people with dementia, seven carers, and two Alzheimer’s Society group facilitators. Participants were able to apply conversation analysis practices in their observations of the data, grounding their comments in the transcripts and video recordings. They also provided contextual insights, comments on how to improve communication, and application to their own personal experience. The data sessions allowed reflection on what public involvement can add to interaction analysis, how to enable people with dementia to have a voice in research, and how best to balance the power between researchers and public contributors.
Answering questions completely, accurately and honestly is not always the top priority for survey respondents. How might researchers motivate respondents to be more conscientious? One possibility is to elicit agreement from respondents to work hard and provide complete and accurate information. In their pioneering work in the 1970s and 80s, Charles Cannell and his colleagues applied well-established research in sociology and social psychology to survey response behavior in Face-to-Face interviews and demonstrated the promise of directly asking respondents to commit to conscientious performance. The study reported here extends this approach to online surveys, specifically a German employment survey. The impact of respondent commitment on the quality of responses is assessed both indirectly and directly (by validating responses against administrative records). This study produced a number of promising effects for asking respondents to commit to providing complete, accurate, and honest answers, particularly for those who committed versus those who were invited to commit but did not.
Textual vignettes are a widely popular research tool, but they assume literacy and reading comprehension skills that limit their utility for both research with disadvantaged populations and cross-national research. We describe a new visual vignette approach, based on approaches used in studying populations with lower verbal ability, that avoids the issues raised by live actors while also reducing reliance on written language typical to textual vignettes. We examine the effectiveness of our new visual vignette using a survey experiment in which respondents were exposed to either a visual vignette, or a textual vignette, depicting the same interaction. We found that our visual vignette produced similar results when compared to traditional textual vignettes, confirming their utility. Additionally, we report on a pilot data collection using a crossnational sample, in which English literacy cannot be assumed. Our results indicate that our new method should improve research options both with low literacy populations and foreign language speakers.
Institutional ethnography (IE) is a feminist approach to research focusing on the organising power of texts and language. This paper explores how to analyse texts in IE while considering the importance of reflexivity and accountability to feminist research. Based on a five year study of UK university audit processes, I developed a three-part IE text analysis approach which sits on a spectrum of closeness to the text(s) under analysis: (i) text – close analysis of one text or a small array of texts; (ii) process – mapping across a textually-mediated process and (iii) discourse – identifying a textually mediated discourse. Additionally, I make three analytic points about how texts organise: the importance of reader interpretation (researchers and users of texts); the strategic multi-layered translation work done by readers to fit into institutions and anticipate readerships; and, the importance of non-readers who can make mythologised understandings of texts material through writing future texts.
Two studies were conducted to investigate how self-ratings on questionnaire items reflect the underlying real-scores. Participants gave numerical information about personal attributes (the real-scores), such as age, height, and weight, and subsequently rated themselves regarding these attributes. In Study 1, they rated themselves on a five-point Likert-type scale from three different perspectives, a personal, a general, and an outsiders’, inducing three different frames of reference. By regressing these ratings on the real-scores, it was shown that information about means of and differences between the real-scores were not readily reflected by the response scales. The outsiders’ perspective resulted in the most adequate representation of the real-score differences, indicated by the intervals between the categories estimated by the ordinal regression models. In Study 2, neutral item wording with a five-point Likerttype scale and a four-point Likert-type scale was used to rule out the effect of positive wording. This increased the adequacy of the representations just slightly. The findings indicate that, even on average, the investigated rating scales and items reflect the numeric realscores only limitedly and that self-ratings depend on the item phrasing instead of simply representing a coarse measure of the realscores. All data and analysis scripts are available at https://osf.io/ 4pcdb/.
Surveys continue to be a popular way of collecting data in the social sciences. But, despite their popularity they have a number of limitations including the possibility of changing the behaviour of respondents. Such mere-measure or question-behaviour effects can compromise the external validity of social data. In this article, we use digital trace data collected from PCs and mobile devices to investigate the effects of surveys on news and politics consumption. Using a non-probability panel of respondents in Germany we combine the digital trace data with that from three online surveys regarding the federal election. In contrast to our expectation, the participation in the survey does not influence online news and politics media consumption. Furthermore, we find weak evidence that respondents with previous high media consumption are less likely to be influenced by doing the survey compared to those with low media consumption.
In this study, we collected mixed method social network data alongside a survey of people who inject drugs (PWID) to assess key assumptions of respondent-driven sampling (RDS). We found adherence to some assumptions and non-adherence to others. Specifically, sampling did occur through a connected network of PWID and the reported degree size of survey participants did correlate with network degree and likelihood of recruitment. However, recruitment was significantly more likely via a multiplex relationship and recruitmen dyads were significantly more likely to live in the same geographical area. In addition, people actively injecting drugs, those with ‘two lives’ and ‘dealers’, may have been isolated from the survey. We believe this is the first mixed-method social network study to report an assessment of the assumptions of RDS. We highlight the potential value of network data in understanding the validity of population-level estimates in surveys using RDS.
This paper contributes to current debates on positionality by critically discussing and comparing three researchers’ experiences doing research involving Muslims. We introduce positionality meetings to enhance reflexivity in qualitative research projects. Based on empirical evidence from our independent projects and the positionality meetings, this paper illustrates how efforts to understanding each other’s perspectives and positions, which differ in identities and biographies, challenge our accounts of selfreflexivity. Due to their deliberative character, positionality meetings reveal new and sometimes uncomfortable insights into, for instance, insider and outsider relationships and our attitudes towards religion as a research subject in a particular political context. The paper highlights several stages of the meetings to demonstrate the deliberative practice’s value throughout the collective reflexive process. Serving to an interdisciplinary audience, we encourage qualitative researchers to engage in positionality meetings. Therefore, we conclude this paper by providing recommendations on how to organise such meetings.
Demographic data, such as highest level of education attained, are often assumed to be relatively free from measurement error. As part of an evaluation of an early childhood parenting intervention, 654 parents reported their highest level of education via telephone interview at baseline and selfdirected questionnaire at follow-up 5.7 years later. At follow-up, 14% reported a lower level of education compared to baseline, indicating measurement error in one of the data collections. Comparison with data collected by an external agency for a subsample of participants (n = 261) 3.2 years after baseline indicated error in both the baseline and follow-up data. Probable causes of error included respondent and interviewer confusion regarding the names of post-school qualifications and item construction incorrectly implying linear pathways through education. We make recommendations around question construction and data collection methods for reducing measurement error in self-reported educational attainment
The benefits of government administrative data are well-established, but research has not examined processes by which these data can be identified, organised and governed in line with ethical considerations. This is an important undertaking given the potential benefits of robust administrative data, especially at a time when the collection of primary data has been made more challenging due to COVID-19 restrictions. We use principles of Big Data to characterise a large operational data set comprised of responses from a prisoner survey about experiences of detainment in England and Wales. These findings are discussed in relation to future research with administrative data and the value that historical survey data can provide to various beneficiaries.
The rise of smartphone surveys, coupled with technological advancements, provide new ways for measuring respondents’ political attitudes. The use of open questions with requests for voice answers instead of text answers may simplify the answer process and provide nuanced information. So far, research comparing the measurement quality of text and voice answers is scarce. We therefore conducted an experiment in a smartphone survey (N = 2,402) to investigate the criterion validity of text and voice answers. Voice answers were collected using a JavaScriptand PHP-based voice recording tool that resembles the voice messaging function of Instant-Messaging Services. The results show that the open questions with requests for text and voice answers differ in terms of criterion validity. More specifically, the findings indicate that voice answers result in a somewhat higher criterion validity than their text counterparts. More refined research on the measurement quality of text and voice answers is required in order to draw robust conclusions.
In online surveys, the use of manipulation checks aimed at measuring respondents’ attentiveness has become common. More than being measures of attentiveness pertaining to a specific survey, instructional manipulation checks (IMC) could work as generic measures of the quality of the answers a person gives when completing a questionnaire. By using several waves of the ITANES (Italian National Election Study) – University of Milan online panel survey, the article shows that the outcome of an IMC predicts the quality of the answers a respondent gives in previous and subsequent waves of the panel. Moreover, through a survey experiment that randomizes the length of an IMC we show that, overall, the answers’ quality of ‘attentive’ respondents assigned to different IMCs do not substantially vary. Findings also show that IMCs are reliable measures, as the outcome of two IMCs placed in two consecutive waves proved to be highly associated.
We examine how the politics of knowledge production limit research on the relationship between immigration status and social inequality. We centre the practices of methodological nationalism in Canada, a traditional country of permanent immigration in which temporary migration has become a core feature of the immigration system. In this case, state classification and counting of populations, and the careful curation of data on nominally permanent and temporary migrants limits research on immigration status. We also document the research design process and survey instrument we developed to work towards methodological autonomy from the state categorization of people on the move. The research design included community consultations, democratization of the research process, and a commitment to experiential knowledge. The resulting survey offers a parsimonious instrument to study complex and indeterminate precarious legal status trajectories and their relationship to social inequality
Direct contacts with research participants in online ethnography are an important tool to better understand complex social dynamics in cyberspace. The current ethical approaches guiding academic research, however, can be problematic in this regard, creating unintended tensions leading to potential research biases as well as safety and wellbeing issues for researchers working on controversial and polarized topics. The onus, we argue, ends up being on academics to protect and separate the personal information available about them online from the professional, trying to overcome what seems to be an inevitable blurring of boundaries. In this research note, we present two case studies to highlight what we perceive as a loophole in current ethics guidelines.
Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) is becoming increasingly prevalent in the social and health sciences and an expected skill for many researchers. CAQDAS is much less structured than the use of quantitative analysis software. However, actual CAQDAS practices and challenges have been insufficiently studied, especially among graduate students. The study addresses this gap through analysis of 15 semi-structured interviews with graduate students from different fields in a Canadian university. Analysis was guided by concepts from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the CAQDAS Postgraduate Learning Model (CPLM). Findings suggest that graduate students held high expectations of the analytic affordances of CAQDAS, yet experienced significant challenges in actualizing those expectations, due to the perceived complexity of CAQDAS, coupled with insufficient training. In this context, students manifested two divergent modes of engagement in CAQDAS – focused or comprehensive – each of which entailed substantial implications for their education and practice as emerging qualitative researchers.
Previous research has shown that question characteristics, such as the shape of rating scales, can affect how respondents interpret and respond to questions. For example, earlier studies reported different response distributions for questions employing rating scales in the form of a ladder and in the form of a pyramid. The current experiment, implemented in a probability-based online panel (N = 4,377), re-visits and extends this research by examining how the two graphical layouts (ladder vs. pyramid) affect response behavior and data quality of a question on subjective social stratification. In line with the earlier results, we found that respondents rated their social status lower in the pyramid than in the ladder condition. No differences between the two layouts were found regarding response effort, however, the ladder layout was associated with higher criterion validity. Therefore, we recommend employing the ladder layout when measuring subjective social stratification.
Response rates in epidemiological studies have generally been decreasing over the past decades. However, when the target group consists of adolescents and young adults, school-based surveys have hitherto been able to mitigate this problem: This age group can be reached relatively easy in the school context (e.g., as compared to reaching them by phone) with very low refusal rates at the student level. However, the present study used a mixed-methods approach and suggests that schools at the organizational level have meanwhile become the problematic bottleneck for school-based surveys, as they increasingly reject requests for study participation. The current article provides insights into promising means for counteracting this trend. Researchers are advised to offer flexible timeframes for schools’ participation and to involve institutional gatekeepers who are endorsing their study. Furthermore, researchers, funding agencies, and schools would benefit from joint regional survey coordination systems. Such means will be crucial for the representativeness of future school-based epidemiological surveys.
Participatory Theme Elicitation (PTE) is a new approach to increasing userinvolvement in qualitative data analysis. In this five-step method, participants independently identify themes in the data using open card sorting, and are supported in their development of a set of themes that reflect all participant views. We describe and evaluate PTE with a case study, where nine lay researchers identified five core themes in qualitative data from an online intervention with depressed adults. Total participation time was approximately 6 hours. Evaluation data revealed high levels of satisfaction with the PTE process and the themes generated. The strong commitment to public engagement in social science research and limited guidance on methods for effective participatory analysis of qualitative data highlight the value and growing need for robust standardised approaches such as PTE.
In this paper we explore methodological considerations for recruiting stigmatised populations online. Advertising for research participants via social networking sites (SNS) has increasingly become a tool of choice for both quantitative and qualitative researchers. However, such recruitment practices pose a range of challenges for researchers, especially in handling negative commentary such as trolling and its potential negative impact on prospective research participants. Using a case study involving a project on the health and well-being of older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in Australia, we outline the types of commentary we received on our advertising campaign, as well as our strategies for managing such commentary. We seek to offer ways in which researchers working with stigmatised populations, as well as controversial issues that may attract hostile attention, can effectively manage participant recruitment as researchers increasingly utilise online technologies for recruitment advertising.
Historically, non-Indigenous researchers have contributed to colonisation by research based on Western positivistic philosophical frameworks. This approach led to disembodying knowledge from Indigenous people’s histories, worldviews, and cultural and social practices, thus perpetuating a deficit-based discourse which situates the responsibility of problems within Indigenous peoples and ignores the larger socio-economic and historical contexts in which problems are rooted. Rectifying this position requires decolonising Western positivistic research by shifting to basing research on social constructionist paradigms that lead to strength-based approaches. Based on our experiences gained exploring disaster risk reduction perspectives with two remote Indigenous communities in Australia and Pakistan, we suggest in this conceptual paper that a synergy of systems theory and symbolic interactionism offers an appropriate philosophical lens to non-Indigenous researchers for gaining a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of Indigenous holistic and relational perspectives, experiences, interpretations and actions/ interaction. Research based on these philosophical worldviews promotes a strength-based approach that aligns with and empowers Indigenous ways of facilitating health and wellbeing. We offer our experiences of utilising these two frameworks and of how they could assist other nonIndigenous researchers to discover valuable insights into Indigenous perspectives and interpretations that might otherwise be ignored or neglected.
Multiple-response questions are a common feature of survey-based research, as its advantages of information collection are well known. Statistical analysis of the responses, however, tends to be either one or two-dimensional, with the restrictions that this entails. This paper presents a multidimensional analysis protocol that provides the researcher with tools to identify more and better profiles about ‘who says what’. The strategy begins by coding the response options as a set of metric binary variables. The ideal methodological duo for the exploration of the resulting data is Principal Component Analysis coupled with an Ascending Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, incorporating, in addition, supplementary variables. When applied to the analysis of three different multipleresponse questions included in a Spanish National Survey, this proposal provides evidence not only of the interpretation potential of the coding/ analysis protocol but also of the limitations of some multiple-response question formats.
Studies of human spatial behavior increasingly rely on a combination of audiovisual and geospatial recordings. So far, however, few analytical environments have offered opportunities for integrated and expedient annotation and analysis of the two. Here we report the first study aimed at integrating geospatial data in an environment developed for timealigned annotation of audiovisual media. By calibrating the audiovisual and geospatial signals on the timeline and inserting the geo data as a tier in the annotation tool ELAN, we innovatively generate an environment in which time-aligned annotations of audiovisually observed behavior can be linked and explored in relation to the corresponding geographical coordinates. We illustrate the technique with cultural and linguistic behavior recorded on the move among indigenous communities in Southeast Asia. Our methodological principle is of potential interest to any study or discipline concerned with linking the location and properties of observable behavior.
While many studies examine tools and techniques to improve survey response rates, it remains unclear as to which are effective, and response rates continue to decline. In this study, we examine the effect of four variables expected to influence mail survey response rates: (1) the use of semi-transparent envelopes versus ordinary paper envelopes for delivery, (2) the level of content in the request letter (simple or detailed), (3) the length of the questionnaire, and (4) the survey schedule. We found that the total response rate was 45.4%, while those of the experimental conditions were as follows: (1) semi-transparent versus ordinary paper envelopes, 46.2% versus 44.7%; (2) simple versus detailed request letters, 44.7% versus 46.2%; (3) 4-page versus 8-page questionnaires, 46.0%versus 44.8%; and (4) holiday versus ordinary day, 45.6% versus 45.3%.We found no significant differences in response rates for any of the experimental variables; that is, the logistic regression analysis revealed no relationship between the four experimental conditions and the response rate.
In this research note, I use an autoethnographic approach to examine the challenges of qualitative research for queer scholars, and to bring the embodied, interactive, and gendered research experience to life. I compare and contrast how my queer embodiment and identity was received, or erased, in two different research contexts, both within the southeastern United States. The first study discussed involved in-person and phone interviews with Mississippi Christians about their views of gay and lesbian civil rights. The second study included phone interviews with trans men across the southeastern United States. I discuss my experiences as a queer qualitative researcher to demonstrate why self-reflection, reflexivity, and self-care are essential to queer, feminist, and critical methodologies across qualitative research. I analyze thoughts and feelings that arose when my interviewees challenged my feminist and queer commitment to social justice and reversed the expected power dynamics in a research relationship. The goal is to help prepare queer researchers for the emotional difficulties and trauma of qualitative research as they enter the qualitative research field.
heoretical frameworks add depth to research and increase the transferability of findings. Unfortunately, theory application within interprofessional research is often ad hoc, superficial and poorly reported. Consequently, there are limited examples for researchers in the field to draw on when selecting and applying theory. In this paper, we explore how a suite of sociomaterial, and sociological theories were selected to guide an ethnographic case study about interprofessional placements. Theory supported development of nuanced data collection tools. This facilitated comprehensive exploration of the factors impacting interprofessional placements, beyond those immediately visible. The use of a combination of theories was well suited to this complex phenomenon. We recommend research methodology training aims to develop researcher facility with theory and more consistent consideration of theory in reporting and quality appraisal tools. This may support more meaningful theory application, generating findings with deeply embedded theoretical foundations in interprofessional research.
This paper analyses the reliability and accuracy of the relationships between migration and employment status when estimated using a linked data set. The analysis will be carried out using a new source, the Labour and Geographical Mobility Statistics, which is provided by the Spanish Statistical Office. This statistic is constructed by an exact matching procedure, linking the Labour Force Survey with the Official Population Register. The findings reveal that in order to accurately study geographic labour mobility, timing and geographical coherence between the two data sets must exist. If this is not the case, causality relations between the labour market and geographical mobility cannot be properly analysed. Although our analysis refers to the microdata quality and internal coherence of this new Spanish statistic, our conclusion can be extended to any linked data set for studying geographic labour mobility, including the population censuses mainly based on administrative data.
Praxeological turn in social research resulted in many examples of empirical studies using the concept of social practice. They are mostly case studies of a single or clearly defined practices, such as cooking, dancing or energy consumption. There is a lack of studies employing this concept as a framework for research on complex, dynamic and empirically hard to reach socio-spatial phenomena, such as urban housing estates. Drawing from the experience of a 4-year research project in six housing estates in three Polish cities we present and debate methodological challenges in applying theories of practice to urban research. We discuss methodological implications of representational and heuristic models of explanation – which are being applied in practice-based research. We highlight the ambiguity of the notion of social practice in the existing literature and its troublesome ‘double nature’ – implying that social practices are both implicit and observable phenomena –which, although alluring in the stage of conceptualisation, poses challenges in the stage of data collection, analysis and interpretation.
One of the most commonly identified obstacles in the learning-teaching of quantitative material is statistics anxiety. Of the factors analysed in relation to statistics anxiety, age and gender have received a substantial proportion of the research focus. Yet there is limited work that systematically examines the possibility of an interrelationship, or interaction, between age and gender and reported statistics anxiety. This article aims to directly address this gap in the research by examining this interaction. A secondary analysis of data gathered from across 34 institutions in the UK is undertaken. The research presented is the first to examine this issue using a multivariate-modelling framework in a UK context. Although the international literature tends to indicate that women disproportionately experience statistics anxiety, the findings here show women have a moderate likelihood of reporting anxiety. There is a group of unworried young men who are likely to require pedagogical attention. Indeed, it may be that the existence a group of complacent young men have women seem anxious by comparison.
n this paper, I elaborate a realist post-disciplinary methodology. Its starting point are disciplines. Some features of disciplines are well understood. But the implications of their irreducibility to mechanical procedure is rarely acknowledged. Building on this observation this paper proceeds through investigating transdisciplinary methodologies. First science as usual in which disciplines are the building blocks of interdisciplinary science, additive in producing new approaches to the investigation of increasingly complex and broader issues. And then a pragmatic methodology in which knowledge is revised at the interface between the scientific community and a multitude of social actors with their competing demands and criteria of assessment. This investigation offers contrast that allows for the distinctive features of a post-disciplinary realist methodology to be identified; a narrative arc of inference to be described; and a call for a far more expansive and coherent post-disciplinary science.
The use of quantitative methods within realist methodologies are fairly rare. This is perhaps because a realist understanding of the social word as complex and dynamic (messy but not chaotic) does not sit well with traditional variable-based causal analysis which test specific theoretical assumptions, yet cannot account for interaction, moderation and emergence. In this paper, we explore the ontological challenges and epistemological issues which underpin the development of our complex realist approach to quantitative data analysis. We provide an example of its application to a large case-based time-ordered dataset and the resultant discovery of the deep patterns that underlie what happened to similar and different mentally disordered offenders as a consequence of the implementation of a new policy of custody diversion.
There have been several calls for more transparency in realist methods, particularly in the complex process of programme theory development and refinement. This paper will describe the way in which Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software, specifically, NUD*IST Vivo (NVivo), was used to build and refine programme theories (using literature and interview data) in a realist evaluation. This article presents the evolving and complex process of coding several data sources to nodes and child nodes, whilst writing ‘attached memos’ to highlight the process of theory generation. In this project, NVivo helped create an explicitly documented and evidenced audit trail of the process of programme theory refinement, answering to calls for further transparency in realist analysis. RAMESES I and II have provided a platform to improve transparency in reporting realist research, by developing consensus and evidence-based reporting guidelines. We propose that the use of NVivo in realist approaches can help structure the iterative and by nature ‘messy’ process of generating, refining and testing complex programme theories when drawing on multiple data sources simultaneously. This effectively creates a structured track record of the analytical process, which increases its rigour and transparency.
Participant attrition is a significant challenge for longitudinal studies, particularly those involving disadvantaged populations. We attempted to re-engage n = 990 families in a five-year follow-up of a randomised controlled trial of an early childhood parenting intervention. Tracing was attempted for n = 90/990 (9.1%) uncontactable participants. Evidence for the identification of a matching Facebook profile was classified as strong, moderate or weak. A private message was sent to those with strong evidence (n = 63/90, 70.0%), of which 32 responded, 22 agreed to participate and 19 provided data. Compared to participants engaged using traditional methods, those re-engaged through Facebook were more likely at initial recruitment to have a younger child (p =.02), to be a single parent (p =.04), less educated (p
In this paper I draw on my experiences of listening to migrant and refugee women’s stories of displacement and explore questions around discourses and practices of listening across borders and languages. In doing so, I particularly focus on the materiality of listening, the force of corporeal voices, the rhythms of oral narratives and their effects on understanding and making connections within the web of human relations. Following tracks and traces of a rich body of literature around sounds, voices and texts in narrative analytics and feminist theory, I have turned my attention to aurality and I have suggested narrative rhythmanalysis as a mode of understanding and as a method. What I argue is that turning our attention to listening practices as a neglected process in theoretical analysis illuminates the perspective of the storyteller, mobilizes affective forces in the milieu of relational narratives and enacts the materiality of knowledge through the intensity and uniqueness of the corporeal voice. What I finally suggest is that perhaps we should move beyond the imperatives of clarity and transparency in an attempt to be in the world with others. Here the sound of narratives could become a trope that can take us down the path of decolonizing our ways of knowing and understanding.
The growth of multimedia and increasing archival of this footage by public safety agencies presents as a watershed moment in converting this footage into actionable data that can inform and improve public safety practice. However, despite the considerable volume of archival footage, there remains a profound lack of research leveraging this data. While data access will always remain an issue to researchers, this article arguesthat a lack of tools and methodologies for working with this data remains a barrier. As such, this article introduces a technique blending the best practices of systematic social observation and event modeling for deconstructing body-worn cameras, or other recorded observational data. Incorporating an empirical example detailing the application of the technique, this article summarizes the value of this integrated technique, while providing guidance on different analytical approaches.
Survey interviews are conducted to produce objective, accurate information in which interviewers ask questions as worded and their discretionary speech is carefully managed. To limit interviewer influence over answers and reduce between-interviewer variance, Standardized Interviewing (SI) requires interviewers to administer nondirective probes – scripted utterances designed to elicit acceptable answers without leading respondents. To promote the intended interpretation of questions, and thus response accuracy, Conversational Interviewing (CI) authorizes interviewers to clarify questions when they suspect respondents have misunderstood. This article reviews evidence from 12 studies about the effectiveness of these two approaches. Findings consistently show that CI leads to considerably more accurate question interpretation and response accuracy than SI across different samples, modes, and languages, and does not increase interviewer variance. CI generally leads to longer interviews than SI, requiring practitioners to weigh increased response accuracy against longer interview duration. Several online implementations of CI have produced initially promising results.
Conversation analysts have described the formation of actions and the sequential organization of talk in a wide variety of contexts and offer resources that can be used to study interaction in the interview. Conversational practices are relevant before and during the survey interview: First, the process of recruiting sample members to become respondents provides a site in which an analysis of actions can be applied with a measurable outcome – the effects on participation. Second, once the interview and the task of measurement begins, conversational practices intersect with – and sometimes disrupt – the ‘paradigmatic’ questionanswer sequence, complicating our notions of what it means to ‘measure’ a construct in interaction. CA provides insights into interaction during both these tasks. This paper selectively reviews work that uses conversation analysis to understand the survey interview and offers some new applications (e.g., examining answers to yes-no questions).
Questionnaire design texts commonly recommend emphasizing important words, including capitalization or underlining, to promote their processing by the respondent. In self-administered surveys, respondents can see the emphasis, but in an interviewer-administered survey, emphasis has to be communicated to respondents through audible signals. We report the results of experiments in two US telephone surveys in which telephone survey questions were presented to interviewers either with or without emphasis. We examine whether emphasis changes substantive answers to survey questions, whether interviewers actually engage in verbal emphasis behaviors, and whether emphasis changes the interviewer-respondent interaction. We find surprisingly little effect of the question emphasis on any outcome, with the primary effects on vocal intonation and the interviewer-respondent interaction. Thus, there is no evidence here to suggest that questionnaire designers should use emphasis in interviewer-administered questionnaires to improve data quality. As the first study on this topic, we suggest many opportunities for future research.
To explore socially desirable responding in telephone surveys, this study examines response latencies in answers to 27 questions in a corpus of 319 audio-recorded voice interviews on iPhones. Response latencies were compared when respondents (a) answered questions on sensitive vs. nonsensitive topics (as classified by online raters); (b) produced more vs. less socially desirable answers; and (c) were interviewed by a professional interviewer or an automated system. Respondents answered questions on sensitive topics more quickly than on nonsensitive topics, though patterns varied by question format (categorical, numerical, ordinal). Independent of question sensitivity, respondents gave less socially desirable answers more quickly when answering categorical and ordinal questions but more slowly when answering numeric questions. Respondents were particularly quicker to answer sensitive questions when asked by interviewers than by the automated system. Findings demonstrate that response times can be (differently) revealing about question and response sensitivity in a telephone survey.
Expert interviews are a widely-used qualitative interview method often aiming at gaining information about or exploring a specific field of action. This paper wants to move beyond the focus on explicit expert knowledge by emphasizing the experts’ individual perspectives that affect social practices in a field of action. The paper addresses the investigation of this implicit, interpretative expert knowledge by developing the ‘problemcentred expert interview’. This approach merges the theory-generating expert interview that discusses the social relevance of expert knowledge and the problem-centred interview (PCI) that offers a dialogic-discursive interview procedure investigating individual perspectives. By drawing upon an empirical study in human geography, the paper demonstrates how one could conduct and analyse this methodical combination in research practice. The following discussion shows that, despite some pitfalls, the combination appears fruitful for divulging implicit expert knowledge and understanding the inner logics of decision-making processes. The paper concludes with an outlook on possible fields of application.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of socially desirable responding in an item-pair measure of acquiescence from the Big Five Inventory. If both items in an item-pair have desirable content, the likelihood of agreeing with both items is increased, and consequently, the type of responding that would be taken to indicate acquiescence. In Study I, item content desirability was evaluated for each of the 32 items belonging to the item-pairs in two samples of 214 and 68 university students. The item-pair desirability was then correlated with the percentage of respondents who agreed with both items in a separate sample of 895 students. Results showed a substantial correlation between item-pairs’ desirability and the percentage of estimated acquiescence, indicating an inflation of acquiescence when item-pairs have desirable content. The finding was further supported by Study II, in which acquiescence and item difficulty, assessed with cognitive interviews, were unrelated.
This article introduces the method of podcast ethnography. The method encompasses three general stages: to explore a podcast from a particular social field, to engage with it through careful, ethnographic reflexivity and to examine the podcast by developing typologies and themes expedient for analysis. Podcast ethnography is beneficial due to its spatial and temporal flexibility; observing a podcast universe can be performed on the move and in parallel with other tasks. This advantage enables a muchneeded breathing space for researchers inquiring vehement milieus, such as white radical nationalism. The article uses an example from this precise milieu in Sweden – the podcast Motgift [Antidote] – to illustrate and flesh out the potentials and challenges of applying the method’s three stages. In so doing, the article argues for inclusion of podcast ethnography into the extended family of ethnographic methods.
The article introduces a systematic comparison of video-based dyadic interviews and focus groups using newly developed tools for evaluating the success of one way of doing focus groups over another. We conducted a series of online discussions using a video conferencing tool, half of which consisted of four-person focus groups and the other half were twoperson dyadic interviews. Moderators, who were well-trained master students of a course on digital technologies and data collection, answered systematic questions that compared their experiences with each type of group. All participants were contacted after their interviews to complete an online survey rating their experience. Analyses of logistics, moderating, and interaction issues investigated the various advantages of one or the other form of data collection, while also illustrating the value of online focus groups. Most of the advantages that we located favoured twoperson over four-person groups, with the notable exception of the larger groups producing more ideas that moderators rated as unique and relevant.
In data collection process of Turkey Demographic and Health Surveys (TDHSs), only printed questionnaire in Turkish is used. Therefore, on-the-spot translation was performed during the data collection process, rather than using printed questionnaires in Kurdish or Arabic. From the item-level nonresponse perspective, this study examines the quality of birth date data with two different but interrelated angles (1) impact of the language mismatch between language of interview and mother tongue of women; (2) impact of on-the-spot translation from Turkish into Kurdish and Arabic. The findings suggest that interviews with language mismatch and interviews conducted with on-the-spot translations, especially translations performed by local interpreters tended to produce high item-level nonresponse when compared with matched interviews. For this reason, an organized interviewer training session for increasing the effectiveness of on-the-spot translation with explanatory documentations and/or printed questionnaires in Kurdish and Arabic may be considered as options to decrease the item-level nonresponse further.
Interaction is the distinctive feature of focus groups, yet little attention has been devoted to understanding techniques for enhancing the quality of interactions. We argue that using a quantitative survey instrument with focus groups has specific benefits beyond traditional open-ended topic lists or questions. We describe particular features of a survey that provoke reflection and reaction by participants, thereby deepening dialogue. When using this approach, we recommend that individuals complete the survey privately first, reflecting and taking a position on the statements individually, and then engage in discussion, which can surface differences and similarities. Drawing on our work with the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative involving collaborative cross-disciplinary research, we demonstrate the benefits of such a survey instrument to initiate and sustain productive dialogue, in this case regarding scientific beliefs and values. We conclude with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, as well as recommendations for designing and using survey items for focus groups.
Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a methodology for sampling and analysing survey data from rare and elusive populations that has gained increasing attention in migration research in recent years. Since its introduction in 1997, it has been applied in numerous surveys in the field of epidemiology (mainly for the estimation of HIV/AIDS prevalence in high-risk populations) and increasingly in migration research. This article summarises some of the experiences of applying RDS to study migrant populations, in light of some of the key assumptions that the methodology builds on, pointing to the advantages, but also the limitations of this approach. If sample frames of reasonable quality are available or can be produced, this will normally be preferable to RDS. But if no sample frame is available, the RDS methodology does create opportunities for a more systematic approach to the study of marginalized migrant populations, where qualitative studies, and convenience samples thus far have dominated knowledge production.
This article explores the co-production of research as creative, speculative, and eventful rather than as research processes determined by equality, empowerment and social justice. There are persuasive critiques of participatory and co-produced methods. In response, the case is made for focusing instead on the complex processes through which ideas, affects and relational capacities emerge, are nurtured or obscured, and circulate as part of the complex processes of co-producing research. The argument is developed with reference to a recent research project on youth loneliness. Through process philosophy and speculative approaches, the coproductive imagination illuminates the necessary imaginative work of conceiving propositions, techniques of relation and methodological tactics that move us through creative advance to eventful realisations that something in our research matters! Through an ethics of the event the aim of research becomes collaboratively creating new potentials in a world in process.
This paper discusses methodological challenges in researching practice. The primary challenge discussed arises from the view that practice is inextricable from its performance, and that performance is embedded in social relations, material infrastructures and historical context. The paper argues for a philosophical hermeneutics approach that works with practitioner-informants to explicate a model of variables salient to practitioners, which, in concert, would support practical wisdom in decision-making. A further methodological challenge discussed in the paper is that of defining the object of practice. The paper argues for avoiding tight definitions in favour of discovering from the lived experience of informants a recognisable ‘family likeness’ in relation to the object of practice. The paper shows how one research team responded to the challenges by its choices of stance, lenses through which to attend to information, selection of sources, and how to discern and present emergent insights.
Measuring respondents’ attitudes is a crucial task in numerous social science disciplines. A popular way to measure attitudes is to use survey questions with rating scales. However, research has shown that especially the design of rating scales can have a profound impact on respondents’ answer behavior. While some scale design aspects, such as scale length and direction, are frequently researched, some other scale design aspects, such as scale midpoint and polarity, are under-researched. In this study, we therefore investigate the effects of mismatches between scale midpoints and scale polarity – i.e., unipolar ‘moderately’ vs. bipolar ‘partly/ partly’ middle options in unipolar scales – on respondents’ answer behavior. We conducted an experiment in a smartphone survey (N = 1,641) and randomly assigned respondents to one of two scale conditions (match vs. mismatch). The results reveal that mismatches between scale midpoints and scale polarity slightly affect respondents’ answer behavior. More specifically, mismatches cause small but significant shifts in latent means. Thus, mismatches pose a threat to attitude measurement.
Reflecting on one’s positionality as a researcher is a critical element in qualitative studies. While there are various qualitative studies on the meaning of and the way positionality affects qualitative research practice, this research note examines the phenomenon as it applies to the author’s doctoral study. Drawing from a collection of research memoirs, the research note presents the author’s conceptualisation of personal positionality in the study, based on nationality, personal values, work experience, age and gender. The note details the author’s multiple identity shifts throughout the study. Potential challenges and opportunities of knowing one’s positionality together with the effects of positionality on the participants, the researcher as well as the research process are highlighted. It concludes that positionality among qualitative researchers is characterised by fluidity, instability and continued shifts as opposed to it being a constant form of researcher identity.
This paper reports on findings from a study that examined students’ online asynchronous discussions in five online courses on qualitative research methods. Online asynchronous discussion data from 22 students in 5 courses over a period of two years were analyzed iteratively, revealing two themes: (1) patterns of writing in students’ posts that both softened authoritative speech and encouraged continued conversation and (2) expressions of authority and vulnerability embedded in students’ posts in relation to knowledge construction. Postings included proportionately similar patterns of authoritative and vulnerable language from week to week. Findings align with other studies of online discussions, in that much agreement, complimenting and supportive talk and few direct challenges were observed in the data. Findings contribute to literature on teaching qualitative methods by adding to what is known about how technology mediates delivery of coursework in the teaching of qualitative research methods. Understanding how qualitative researchers learn to conduct research in online contexts is essential for instructors of qualitative research methodology using online course delivery to prepare future researchers to develop innovative methods and conduct significant research.
Selective nonresponse can introduce bias in longitudinal surveys. The present study examines the role of cognitive skills (more specifically, literacy skills), as measured in large-scale assessment surveys, in selective nonresponse in longitudinal surveys. We assume that low-skilled respondents perceive the cognitive assessment as a higher burden than higherskilled respondents because they are more likely to experience negative feelings. We hypothesize that low-skilled respondents are more likely than high-skilled respondents to refuse to participate in a follow-up wave. We analysed data from two assessment surveys in Germany with similar study designs, target populations, and assessment instruments. Results provide support for our hypothesis. Consistently across both surveys, respondents with the lowest literacy skills had a higher probability of refusal than those with the highest literacy skills. This difference persisted even after controlling for several established predictors of nonresponse, including education.
This article demonstrates how a technique called Agent-Based Modelling can address a significant challenge for effective interdisciplinarity. Different disciplines and research methods make divergent assertions about what a satisfactory explanation requires. However, without a unified framework analysing the implications of these differences systematically, debate cannot transcend mere competing assertion. Using a sequence of examples, I demonstrate that Agent-Based Modelling provides such a unified framework by showing how pairs of models may display quantitatively distinct behaviours when differing only in (for example) including a social network. The ability to quantify differences arising from divergent assumptions about what models should include makes them subject to empirical evaluation (rather than mere contention). Although the article uses social network examples for accessible presentation, the approach of building paired models is quite general and can, therefore, illuminate other significant social science controversies (like the role of rationality and the importance of ethnographic detail).
It is widely assumed that researchers must normally secure informed consent from participants if research is to be ethical. But what exactly are people being asked to consent to? Most obviously, it is to supplying, or providing access to, data; but are they also agreeing that this data can be used in any way relevant to the research, or do they retain a right to control its use? A third question is: are they consenting to themselves being included within the focus of study, so that asking for consent amounts to assigning a rightnot to be researched? A further question concerns whether there can be group rights not to supply data, to control the use of data, and/or not to be researched? Such claims have been made by spokespersons for the disabled, indigenous groups, commercial organisations, governments, and religious cults. Justifications for these various rights usually appeal to the principle of autonomy, in one form or another. Yet this principle, being universal, must also apply to researchers themselves. So, does this imply that researchers have a right to carry out research? As this makes clear, there are conflicting rights-claims around research. This paper will examine these and their implications.
Interviews and focus groups are seminal core methodologies in the social sciences. However, how does a researcher elicit meaningful information when interviews and focus groups result in silence? This problem occurs in many settings but is prevalent when engaging youth, hard-to-reach and vulnerable populations, or when asking sensitive questions. This article discusses the use of reciprocal peer interviewing (RPI) when researching violence in Honduras with vulnerable youth. RPIs are a method wherein participants act in dyads to interview one another without the researcher present. The RPIs conducted for this study resulted in a richness and depth to the interviews through attuning to the influence of a researcher on power, social location, and the social process inherent in a traditional interview process. This article discusses the methodological advantages and disadvantages to the RPI method, arguing that RPIs are a powerful and promising alternative to traditional research methodologies.
Translation into another language to enable understanding (of concepts or phenomena) is a basic cultural technique and a prerequisite for international research. Translation decisions inevitably shape the research process and output for qualitative researchers relying on interview or textual data. Decisions need to be made in all stages of the research process from conception and data generation through data analysis and interpretation to final publication. In scientific publications, these decisions are rarely made transparent. This article focusses on the challenges of translation and the necessity to explicate the range of translation decisions in qualitative research. We propose a systematic framework with a foundation of generic queries to emphasize the omnipresence and importance of translation decisions in research as well as the latter’s contribution to scientific rigor. The framework provides clear guidance for EAL (English as Additional Language) researchers preparing their translation decisions and for reviewers evaluating qualitative research involving translation.
Collecting biological data in representative surveys is becoming more common due to their potential to inform research and policy. Nevertheless, using nurses to collect these data can lead to unintended effects. In this paper, we investigate how nurses influence the nonresponse process by looking at five waves of data coming from two surveys in the UK: Understanding Society and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We find that nurses explain between 5 and 14% of the variance in non-response to biological data collection. We also find that older nurses are more successful in obtaining cooperation and consent to biological data collection and nurses with more survey experience are more likely to successfully collect blood samples. Finally, we show that including nurse characteristics in non-response weighting models leads to modest changes in population estimates of biological markers.
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is said to be a method that can be used to uncover social complexity. However, this complexity is often ‘missing in action’ in actual empirical applications of the method. We aim to rearticulate the properties of social and causal complexity in their relationship to QCA. We first discuss the reasons why this relationship is not fully articulated in the current research. Rooted in a realist understanding of social emergence, we identify four possible strategies to bring social complexity back on focus when performing QCA: the use of thick case descriptions; the opening of the black box of conditions, by stacking and/or by developing them in a grounded manner; the integration of time in the method itself; and the combination of QCA with other, more timesensitive methods.
There is growing consensus in the literature about the emotional consequences for researchers involved in sensitive research. There is also concern about the support provided to these researchers. Such concerns are amplified by a lack of discussion on what exactly researchers themselves consider is ‘sensitive’ about their involvement in this type of research. This paper draws on data from a roundtable with 12 researchers working across a range of ‘sensitive’ research areas. It presents an examination of their views on these issues presented in themes that emerged from our analysis of these data. These themes are interconnected with examples from the literature that contextualises and add to our methodological understanding of the issue of sensitivity. Our analysis suggested these researchers’ sensitivities were closely linked to the context of the research. In addition, they described how issues of identity, as well as political motivations, meant there was a strong personal and professional investment in the research. We conclude by reflecting on these sensitivities, arguing that although they are supported by current definitions of sensitivity, they are more nuanced than broader discussions of sensitivity allow.
This article describes methodological and ethical issues associated with examining discourses of ‘normality’ in the context of the normalisation of HIV and relationships. It considers how sensitivity was anticipated, encountered and managed in the recruitment of participants and during research interviews, discussing the implications of these in this project. It reflects on the tensions present when generating data on topics externally deemed to be ‘sensitive’ but considered ‘normal’ by participants. In doing so, it has wider relevance for research on experiences that were once prohibited but are now considered normative in some settings, such as gay marriage. However, highlighting the importance of ‘the normal’ in notions of stigma, it concludes that potentially any research project that examines or questions ‘normality’ may give rise to sensitivity, emphasising the importance of reflexivity in assessing and managing sensitivity throughout the research process.
There is a growing literature that seeks to explore what is ‘sensitive’ about ‘sensitive’ research. In order to problematise and interrogate the concept of what may or may not be considered ‘sensitive’ research, this paper draws on four related projects exploring sex, intimacy and relationships for young people, over 16 years, who have life-limiting or life-threatening conditions (LLTCs). The authors focus on how, when and why these projects are regarded as ‘sensitive’ and consider who defines them as such. Drawing on the notion of methodological performativity, a mixture of complex phenomena that explores the relational aspects in interprofessional team practices, the authors examine aspects of the process of doing ‘sensitive’ research, exploring how research methods and techniques are employed because the research has already been defined (by others and the authors) as ‘sensitive,’ while simultaneously serving to (re) construct and (re)enforce the ‘sensitive’ nature of it.
Internet-mediated focus groups (FGs) have become a feature of qualitative research over the last decade; however, their use within social sciences has been adopted at a slower pace than other disciplines. This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of internet-mediated FGs and reflects on their use for researching culturally sensitive issues. It reports on an innovative study, which utilised text-based asynchronous internet-mediated FGs to explore attitudes to abortion, and abortion as a workplace issue. The authors identify three key elements of text-based asynchronous online FGs as particularly helpful in researching culturally sensitive issues – safety, time and pace. The authors demonstrate how these elements, integral to the actual process, contributed to ‘opinion change/evolution’ and challenged processes of stigmatisation centred on over-simplification, misinformation as to the incidence of a culturally sensitive issue in a population, and discrimination.
While there have been significant developments in the field of inclusive research with people with learning disabilities, there is limited knowledge about the ways inclusive research teams have conducted participatory data analysis. The authors argue this is inherently tied to the sensitivities involved in the inclusive research process. In this article, we present the experiences of two inclusive research teams (from the UK and Australia) who developed ways of working together to collaborate on data analysis. Both studies touched upon sensitive topics and crossed disciplinary boundaries. One was an evaluation of a series of history workshops with young people with learning disabilities; the other was an exploration of effective models of peer support for parents with learning disabilities. The authors explore different approaches to data analysis in inclusive research teams, and reflect on the politics of ‘sensitive’ research in this field, especially in relation to expectations of funders, ethics committees, and stakeholders.
Much care has been paid to reflexivity, including considering emotional sensitivities in relation to face-to-face interviews. However, less attention has been paid to the impact of sensitivities on the process of data analysis and the presentation of research findings. This paper focuses on what constitutes ‘the data’ to be analysed, who analyses and interprets the data, what is silenced and what is made public, and what this might mean for feminist research practice in areas considered to be ‘sensitive’. It examines these issues by focusing on research on abortion decision-making in which the views and emotions of the researcher were profoundly challenged by women’s constructions of narratives containing a theme of abortion regret. The paper demonstrates how theoretical perspectives – in this case, feminist standpoint theory – can be used in sensitive research, to allow the researcher to resolve such tensions by providing a means through which greater attention can be paid to the context of participants’ narratives.
Research about dying is viewed as inherently sensitive because of how death is perceived in many societies. Such framing assumes participants are ‘vulnerable’ and at risk of ‘harm’ from research. Simultaneously, with increasing recognition of the importance of reflexivity, researchers can become (deeply) preoccupied with their actions and experiences in the field. Whilst reflexivity is often described as a helpful process, in this paper we consider when introspection becomes problematic and even harmful for death researchers, in both a professional and personal sense. Identifying a process we call ‘internalising sensitivity’ the paper describes our own experiences of working and living with the pervasive ethical notions of sensitivity, vulnerability, risk and harm. We argue that these discourses can get ‘under the skin’ of researchers in that they impact researchers intellectually, emotionally, and physically, and this in turns affects their relationship with the research process and their place within, and beyond it.
This paper addresses the role of ‘emotional labour’ in conducting sensitive research. As such it begins to unpick the emotional and embodied consequences of working with data which covers sensitive subjects, in this case perinatal death, and considers how such responses are likely to impact on the analysis of data. We draw upon two doctoral studies which explored parental experiences of perinatal bereavement. We argue that researchers need to understand and consider carefully how emotions experienced during the research may impact upon the findings. By exposing the authors’ own positionality in this research based on their own experience of perinatal loss, we acknowledge that we are actors in research which has an impact on the process and final product of the studies.
This article discusses the sensitivities that come into play when researching issues of gender identity and relationships with young men, particularly when the researcher is male. The article argues that the nature of hegemonic masculinity, and the way that masculinity ‘works’ in the research process, means that research with young men on these issues is inherently sensitive and brings with it considerable challenges for researchers. Adopting a psychosocial approach to issues of gender identity, and to conceptualising the research process, the article also argues that it is important to understand the research encounter as an intersubjective process in which the identities of both researcher and researched influence each other in dynamic though often hidden ways. The article discusses these challenges in detail and suggests ways in which researchers might respond to them
This paper contrasts mixed methods design with strategic research design. Mixed methods research both advocates for itself as always better than singular research methods, while also seemingly allowing a wide variety of researchers to count their work under the very large umbrella of mixed methods. We argue for strategic research design as a set of principles that can help researchers decide whether to use mixed methods, choose the best methods to mix and the order to mix them in. Drawing on an actual case study of a mixed methods research project, we show the importance of realist epistemology, available resources, and the research situation in guiding the selection and mixing of research methods.
Fully qualitative surveys, which prioritise qualitative research values, and harness the rich potential of qualitative data, have much to offer qualitative researchers, especially given online delivery options. Yet the method remains underutilised, and there is little in the way of methodological discussion of qualitative surveys. Underutilisation and limited methodological discussion perhaps reflect the dominance of interviewing in qualitative research, and (misplaced) assumptions about qualitative survey data lacking depth. By discussing our experiences of developing online surveys as a tool for qualitative research, we seek to challenge preconceptions about qualitative surveys, and to demonstrate that qualitative surveys are an exciting, flexible method with numerous applications, and advantages for researchers and participants alike. We offer an overview and practical design information, illustrated with examples from some of our studies.
Qualitative data analysis has been criticised for a lack of credibility over recent years when vagueness has been afforded to the reporting of how findings are attained. In response, there has been a growing body of literature emphasising a need to detail methods of qualitative data analysis. This paper adds to this body of knowledge by presenting a reflexive narrative review of the development of a modified version of the ‘phenomenological hermeneutical method for interpreting interview texts’. This modification permits greater transparency when dealing with data that relates to multiple contexts. A visual model to represent this modified approach is also presented. Additionally, an exploration of the underpinning theoretical basis to this data analysis method, and modification, is provided. Accordingly, this paper demonstrates this modified qualitative data analysis method ensures that subjective relativistic origins and contexts of interpretations are identifiable, whilst permitting full objectification of the text.
The importance of the critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) to review quantitative and qualitative research, and to critically develop new theory, is increasingly recognized and evidenced by the increase in published CIS reviews. However, the flexibility embedded in the method hampers its implementation and exacerbates concerns about trustworthiness. This paper seeks to determine the extent of transparent reporting and soundness of execution in published CIS reviews by developing assessment criteria based on CIS key features. We analyzed 77 CIS reviews published between 2006 and 2018 for their reporting practices. Findings indicate that reporting practices of CIS key features are suboptimal. We recommend that authors better document their CIS to increase the transparency of their study and suggest authors to rely on described guidelines to select and conduct their CIS. To this end, our reported evaluation criteria could assist authors, reviewers, and journal editors in their evaluation of the quality of CIS studies.
We assess the case for a decline in the use of survey data in the social sciences during a period in which conventional survey research has faced existential challenges to its ongoing feasibility and growing competition from new forms of ‘Big Data’. Presser (1983) and Converse (1987) undertook content analysis of articles published in a set of leading social science journals, finding a trend of increasing the use of survey data between 1939 and 1980. In an extension of Presser’s analysis to the mid1990s, Saris and Gallhofer (2007) found a further small increase in the rate of survey use, though with notable variability across disciplines. We update these studies to include the period 2014 to 2015. While our analysis reveals the emergence of a small proportion of articles using Big Data, we find no evidence of a concomitant decline in the use of survey data. On the contrary, the use of surveys increased, being used in nearly half of all published articles in this set of journals in 2014/15 and, where articles reported using Big Data, many of them also used survey data. Additionally, we find a substantial increase in the use of secondary survey data over the reference period.
The use of multiple measures for the operationalization of subjective wellbeing (SWB) is highly recommended, as each approach brings exposure to different errors. To supplement the approaches proposed in the literature, the paper at hand outlines a complemental text mining technique – sentiment detection – which presents an efficient solution for big data analyses. Empirical findings from its application to 466 semi-structured life satisfaction (LS) interviews are contrasted with happiness and satisfaction ratings derived from the interviewees themselves as well as from external raters. In addition, detailed insights are presented into the use of emotive language in LS interviews and into relations between base emotions for the following affective features: anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, trust, fear, and anticipation.
As systematic reviews (SRs) of research increase in number, the methods used to conduct the analyses are becoming more diversified. While named in the methodological literature as an analytical approach, grounded theory (GT) is not frequently used as an approach in SRs; when it is, reviewers typically emphasize the use of GT coding and constant comparative methods while ignoring other key components of GT. In this article, we describe an SR of environmental education research that incorporated GT methodology to produce a theoretical model. To contribute to emerging discussions about methodological integrity when combining distinct methods like SRs and GT, we outline how our review methods aligned with core principles of GT and discuss implications of using GT when conducting an SR.
There is increasing concern among researchers about collecting data on sex and gender variables, yet many researchers are unsure of how to deal meaningfully with these variables. Drawing on literature that tests the psychometric properties of sex and gender demographic questions, we present considerations for collecting sex and gender demographic data. Extant literature suggests that asking asingle question to collect both sex and gender data contributes to nonresponse bias and the misclassification of asignificant proportion of gender minority participants. Aminimum of two questions, one asking sex assigned at birth and one asking gender identity, are recommended for the reduction of measurement error and the ethical treatment of gender minority individuals. We offer acritical discussion of options for these questions, with advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Clarifying demographic questions is crucial to methodological and ethical rigour of research engaging sex and gender data.
Comparative and case study researchers have responded to critiques of their methods by developing formal procedures to validate theoretical claims through set theoretical logics of causal conditions. This ‘logicoformalist turn’ has involved the stricter application of the schemas of set theory and the philosophy of logic to raise validation standards of theoretical and causal claims in comparative historical research. This paper critiques these solutions from a critical realist standpoint. It argues that the cost of such a defense has been the retention of positivist assumptions of causal inference and the downplaying of the importance of interpretive and theory-building work in comparative and case study research. By contrast, critical realism’s process of retroduction sees causal analysis not as proceeding inductively from empirical observation to causal proposition, but rather points out the constant epistemic shift from the level of empirical observation to that of the theoretical description of intransitive causal powers. The paper highlights the ways in which the metatheoretical perspective of critical realism makes possible a full break with both positivism and the implicit empiricism of the logico-formalist turn.
Online research methods have become increasingly important over the past decades. However, there is still a lack of research on the potential advantages and disadvantages of certain qualitative online research methods. This research note discusses key aspects of conducting synchronous text-based online focus groups and provides researchers with practical advice on their preparation and implementation. It draws on experience from a study conducted in Germany that used both face-toface and online focus groups to explore consumer attitudes and preferences toward palm oil. While synchronous text-based online focus groups are cost-efficient and convenient, relevant challenges related to group size and composition, technical issues, the discussion process, and the lack of control of the environment have to be considered. The research note concludes that the opportunity to search the internet for information during discussion makes this method rather unsuitable for elicitating participants’ knowledge and attitudes.
Romania is home to the largest Roma population in Europe. Exactly how large is a matter of intense debate, with estimates ranging between .62 and 1.85 million. The last Romanian census made the ethnic affiliation question unequivocally optional and it counted 1.24 million citizens with undeclared ethnicity, a huge increase from the 1941 cases recorded by the previous census round. Since the Roma are the only ethnic group expected to avoid disclosing ethnic affiliation, previous analyses of this idiosyncratic result attributed it exclusively to Roma discrimination led reticence. The current article corrects this view by analyzing the important role played by a previously ignored methodological change (i.e. recording as ‘undeclared’ the temporary absent citizens for whom their neighbors could not provide any information about ethnic affiliation) and revealing that lack of information about neighbors played a dominant role in urban municipalities.
In the digital age, where every click, purchase, or activity is systematically recorded, it is surprising to discover how difficult it still is to assemble crime data. This paper describes available web-based crime mapping services and discusses some of the key advantages and disadvantages of using this source for both general purposes and scholarly endeavors. Using a research project on crime occurring around train stations as a case study, we illustrate the pitfalls of relying on web-based services compared to requesting crime information directly from law enforcement agencies. We conclude with a few cautionary remarks regarding the use of data services that purport to offer an assemblage of crime data drawn from different jurisdictions.
The perspective of people with dementia, particularly late-stage dementia, is often excluded from research, even from methods like Participatory Action Research (PAR), which aim to democratise research. This research note outlines how a PAR project engaged with the perspective of people with late-stage dementia in a residential aged care facility. Firstly, we focus on our mistakes: methods which did not appropriately include or engage this group. Secondly, we explore how methods drawn from design thinking, creative and arts-based research were used to encourage staff and families to think about the perspective of people with dementia. Finally, we explain how only after this extensive creative consultation and through a partnership with a social enterprise was the PAR project able to engage people with late-stage dementia in meaningful ways.
In this study, we examine the effect of providing examples in the responses to a question about multitasking. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions: the first group received one set of examples (watching TV or watching kids), the second group received a different set of examples (walking or talking with someone else), and a final group received no examples. The experiment was embedded in a state-wide dual-frame telephone survey in the United States (N = 1,761). The results of the study show that providing examples did not affect the number of non-survey activities indicated by respondents. However, the examples did affect the activities reported by them, with activities listed as examples being more likely to be reported.
Existing literatures have discussed both ethical issues in visual research with young people, and the problems associated with applying ‘universal’ ethical guidelines across varied cultural contexts. There has been little consideration, however, of specific issues raised in projects where visual research is being conducted with young people simultaneously in multiple national contexts. This paper contributes to knowledge in this area. We reflect on our experiences of planning and conducting the International CYCLES project involving photo elicitation with young people in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. While some issues such as varying access to technology for taking and sharing photos and diverse cultural sensitivities around the use of photography were anticipated in advance, others were more unexpected. Balancing the need for methods to be appropriate, ethical and feasible within each setting with the desire for sufficient consistency across the project is challenging. We argue that an ‘ethics in context’ approach and an attitude of ‘methodological immaturity’ is critical in international visual research projects with young people.
This paper provides a reflection on the use of visual art workshops in an interdisciplinary feminist project with female survivors of domestic violence living in refuges in England and Portugal. The paper discusses the fieldwork in each location with attention to the interaction between participants, between participants and the researcher/s, and the cultural and institutional structures influencing the research and the images produced. Despite some key differences in the context, the analysis highlights key resonances and commonalities amongst the objects that survivors of domestic abuse depicted in each location. We use the feminist notion of ‘giving voice’ as an analytical tool throughout the paper. The paper argues that ‘giving voice’ was not unproblematically accomplished by using visual methods and suggests that our understanding remained partial and often reliant on verbal narratives accompanying the visual images produced. We also highlight issues of power emerging when exhibiting art generated through the study.
The paper presents a visual methods approach from a cross national methodological project that used digital visual technologies to examine young children's perspectives in father-child interactions. The approach combines capturing the dialectic with visual reflexivity. The notion of ‘capturing the dialectic’ specifically by analysing conflict to gather the child’s intention as their perspective, is underpinned by finding the contradictions in a situation of which children are a part. Visual technologies and in particular digital film does this, because it can identify difference, as it observes and captures the dialectic process. Researchers collected between 5–10 hours of film footage and twenty-four film elicitation interviews from young children and their fathers in twelve families within England, Hong Kong, Norway and India. In the study, participants took footage of routine father-child interactions chosen by the children; and researchers sampled the footage for situations of conflict and emotionally charged moments in order to capture the dialectic. Researchers then conducted film elicitation interviews with the children and fathers, which were recorded for the purpose of visual reflexivity. This visual methods approach can support social science researchers to address differences in representation and truth, for a better understanding of a young child’s perspective in cross-national projects.
Research involving children, deemed to have difficulties with conventional means of communication, can perpetuate reductive forms of representation of children’s knowledges and experiences. This article focuses on the possibilities and opportunities that visual and creative methods can offer to researching with children. Children advance their views in and through spontaneous and concrete forms of participation. Autonomy in aesthetic acts is central to this methodology; to explore practices that produce and reproduce presuppositions deriving from societal attitudes affecting research with children, their agency and self-presentation. This cross-cultural study was conducted in Central Italy and North West England: children contributed their perspectives and experiences through participation in a series of creative encounters resulting in aesthetic and embodied outcomes of sociological and educational significance. The study contributes to the debate on children’s autonomy and the value and quality of participation through artistic practice. Examples from the corpus of data, which includes a series of artefacts and over 900 photographs from each geo-cultural context, are presented. The study shows that it is possible to harmonise power imbalances in spaces of creative freedom, in research and education, where children’s choices and agency are respected.
This article discusses the possible ways in which visual research methodologies can be extended and applied to study similarities and differences in higher education institutions (and systems) in the context of the visual and digital turn in social science methodologies. The article focuses on the methodological potential of the institutional website analysis as a fruitful approach in comparative higher education research. The article futher focuses on two specific comparative methodological issues: different purposes of comparisons and different organisational aspects which can be compared. The review of the current state of research based on university websites found that the analyses are largely cross-sectional and focused on issues related to institutional identities and positioning of individual selfidentities towards institutions as well as on representations of different types of students. Organisational aspects of structure and hierarchies, disciplinary differences, leadership and management cultures, organisational aesthetics as well studies which focus on the representation of nonstudent groups of university members, are rare and represent potential research frontiers. Most of the reviewed articles are guided by linear causal explanation logic, while other comparative purposes like a better description, critique and provision of alternative explanations are less present and potentially could lead to a better understanding of higher education.
A new method is proposed here aimed at eliciting the mechanisms which maintain the relational positioning of people and places within social space. This ‘mapping tool’ is inherently relational by design and involves participants creating visual representations of their geographic imaginaries, encompassing their perceptions and preferences of different localities. This is followed by an interviewing approach wherein participants ‘speak to’ their map, producing ‘thick’ narratives detailing the ties that bind people and places. The method was developed and used as part of a 3-year study into the geographic imaginaries of young people in the UK, involving the collection of 1,000 maps, together with over 200 interviews, across 20 diverse localities. We draw on empirical examples of using the method from this study, including processes of differentiation within the middle classes and the place-based identities of towns, cities and localities.
This paper examines two contrasting creative methods; a drawing task and a LEGO building task used in a study exploring the gap between policy and practice in widening participation to higher education across two different types of university in England. These creative methods were used within 16 semi-structured interviews in seven universities to attempt to explore deeper understandings of everyday policy and what they mean in practice and to make comparisons across types of institutions. This paper examines the role that creative confidence played in the effectiveness of both methods through exploring the successes and failures of each arguing that understanding these barriers can improve the successful use of these methods, especially with adults. When these barriers are overcome, the paper also demonstrates how creative methods encouraged more reflective discussion of everyday issues, increased levels of rapport, and shared engagement in the interview process.
This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Netnography, an innovative methodology, relatively unusual in Education research. It explores the ethical approach developed for a study of UK mother perspectives on primary school homework found on open-access parenting websites, reviewing issues considered at the project’s outset and examining researcher decisions around the ethical stance. Using the concept of ‘negotiated ethics’, ethical obstacles were deliberated, to develop an appropriate ethical position and procedure which answered challenging issues arising from the methodology, research aims and particular field. Building on an existing proposition that the internet is a hybrid of space and text, the paper reveals how this conceptualisation, accompanied by an understanding of contributors to forum interaction as a type of participant-publisher, was a prerequisite for establishing the ethical grounds. The paper recommends tailoring ethics procedures to the nuanced contexts of individual online projects, their methodologies, topics and fields.
This article explores the challenges and benefits of using theatre as a research method. It questions certain claims and assumptions underlying Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and more recent literature on theatre-based research. In particular, it investigates the notion that theatre enables participants to address issues of oppression and create sociopolitical change. Based on a case study with migrant youth in South Africa, the article firstly argues that certain challenges specific to working with migrants such as differing language skills and a lack of trust may impede genuine dialogic exchange as envisioned by Boal. Secondly, it shows how these challenges can be overcome by incorporating writing exercises, video recordings and embodied communication. Finally, the article argues that theatre-based research can indeed create individual transformations in the form of increased displays of ownership, confidence and hope. These insights contribute to the growing literature on theatrebased research and will be useful for others using similar arts-based approaches.
Many ethical concerns in online big data research stem from a pervasive assumption that data are disembodied and place-less. While some scholars have begun addressing the ethical dilemmas of big data, few offer approaches or tools that fully grapple with the situatedness of online data and its ethical implications. We draw on feminist new materialist scholars to interrogate the onto-epistem-ological assumptions of online big data research and explicate their ethical implications. We then use Donna Haraway’s work as a theoretical foundation for a reimagining of online data as embodied and situated, putting forth a ‘feminist situated ethics’ as an alternative ethical framework for online big data research. Finally, we discuss how to enact feminist situated ethics at the different stages of the research process to provide guidance for online big data researchers.
Questionnaires routinely measure unipolar and bipolar constructs using rating scales. Such rating scales can offer odd numbers of points, meaning that they have explicit middle alternatives, or they can offer even numbers of points, omitting the middle alternative. By examining four types of questions in six national or regional telephone surveys, this paper found that omitting the middle alternative and forcing respondents to pick a side compromised data quality, for questions presenting two conditions with middle option ‘about equally,’ and for quasi-bipolar questions with middle option ‘fair.’ In addition, omitting the middle alternative never helped improve data quality for a variety of unipolar questions. Lastly, there is a marginally significant improvement in terms of data quality for bipolar questions with middle option ‘neither good nor bad’ when offering a follow-up asking whether they lean one way or the other or whether they are genuinely in the middle.
The fact that many sub-populations do not take part in research, especially participants from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, is a serious problem in education research. To increase the participation of such groups we must discover what social, economic and practical factors prevent participation, and how to overcome these barriers. In the current paper, we review the literature on this topic, before describing a case study that demonstrates four potential solutions to four barriers to participation in a shared reading intervention for families from lower SES backgrounds. We discuss the implications of our findings for familybased interventions more generally, and the difficulty of balancing strategies to encourage participation with adhering to the methodological integrity of a research study.
Analysis of social action has increasingly considered the place of ‘things’ in recent years, including seeing objects (both physical and digital) as coparticipants in social interaction, systems, and the research process. This article argues that video ethnography is well positioned to address such considerations including, with some methodological shifts, digital activity. Drawing on the methodology and findings of an 8-month video ethnography in a US classroom, I discuss a material semiotic approach to examining digital practices, including methods that followed interaction across the online and offline, approached laptops themselves as interlocutors, and examined participant interaction with research instruments as part of student meaning-making practices.
One question frequently included in surveys asks about respondents’ earnings. As this information serves, for example, as a basis for evaluating policy interventions, it must be of high quality. This study aims to advance knowledge about possible measurement errors in earnings data and the potential of data linkage to improve substantive conclusions. We use the German sample of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), a subsample of which could be linked to administrative data from the German Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB). We define measurement error as the difference between administrative and survey data. Our results show differences in the ordinary least squares estimates when the administrative and survey measures of earnings were used as the respective dependent variable, which suggests that measurement error causes biased results. Learning more about the size and type of measurement error can help to correct existing biases and improve the quality of survey data.
Bias may be introduced in survey data collection when participants answer questions differently depending on interviewer gender. This could affect the validity of collected data, especially sensitive data. Using sexual behavior data collected in a 2017–2018 cross-sectional survey of Haitian women (n = 304), we evaluated the associations between interviewer-gender and three different outcomes: (1) questionspecific response rates, (2) total number of non-responses, and (3) differences in reported answers. We observed higher item response rates for sensitive sexual behavior questions when the interviewer was female and more item non-responses (Don’t know/Refuse) when the interviewer was male. Among those who did respond, participants were more likely to report some sensitive sexual behaviors to women and others to men. We conclude that researchers should consider the sociocultural norms of the study population and the potential for interviewer gender bias in the planning and analysis phase of studies using self-reported data.
One overarching question in scholarly methodological discussions on qualitative comparative approaches concerns how it is possible to compare and generalise deep insider knowledge across (nationally) specific contexts. The aim of this article is to propose a research strategy that both facilitates the comparison and theorisation of such knowledge across nations and limits the risks of reproducing naturalised national ‘truths’. The strategy is developed within a feminist, cross-national, qualitative comparative analysis of how European countries addressed military deaths in connection with the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The article underlines the importance of collective analytical work and of strategies that allow continuous movement between insider and outsider positions throughout the research process. A number of analytical strategies are presented: collective project design, alternating between analytical closeness and distance, and de-familiarising writing practices.
Indigenous research Knowledges and methodologies have existed over millennia, however it is only recently that Indigenous scholars have been able to challenge institutional Western hegemony to reclaim sovereignty in the research space. Despite the high volume of quantitative research describing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, there has been limited evaluation of the value added through incorporation of Indigenous Knowledges and methodologies. ‘Research at the interface’ has been discussed as an Indigenous research methodology for researchers to contextualise and inform their research practices, between Indigenous and Western systems of knowledge. In this article we address the significance of ‘research at the interface’ for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research, as an exciting opportunity for innovation to ensure strength, self-determination and resilience for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities engaged in research. We also introduce weaving a methodology for ‘research at the interface’ as a process for conceptualising Indigenous and quantitative research methodologies at the interface.
The value of social science research lies within the development and implementation of study designs that adequately address complex research questions. This not only relates to the sampling strategies employed, but also the quality and applicability of the research team and associated networks. In this paper, we demonstrate the importance of involving a diverse study team in our community-based participatory action research study on homelessness in Durban, South Africa. We focus specifically on the usefulness of involving advisory networks in our study, which consisted of stakeholders from diverse backgrounds. The diversity in our advisory networks emerged as critically important in the co-designing and implementation of our research. Each network offered unique contributions to the study design which enhanced the credibility of our study. We also found that the advisory networks facilitated cross-sector collaboration and knowledge sharing through the establishment of targeted task teams. Given this, the design and implementation of future studies with marginalised populations can be strengthened by involving advisory networks from the inception phase of the project. This paper thus expands the methodological scholarship on advisory networks, which can be transferred to all studies that are interested in adopting a multivoiced approach to social science research.
Qualitative and mixed methods digital social research often relies on gathering and storing social media data through the use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). In past years this has been relatively simple, with academic developers and researchers using APIs to access data and produce visualisations and analysis of social networks and issues. In recent years, API access has become increasingly restricted and regulated by corporations at the helm of social media networks. Facebook (the corporation) has restricted academic research access to Facebook (the social media platform) along with Instagram (a Facebook-owned social media platform). Instead, they have allowed access to sources where monetisation can easily occur, in particular, marketers and advertisers. This leaves academic researchers of digital social life in a difficult situation where API related research has been curtailed. In this paper we describe some rationales and methodologies for using APIs in social research. We then introduce some of the major events in academic API use that have led to the prohibitive situation researchers now find themselves in. Finally, we discuss the methodological and ethical issues this produces for researchers and, suggest some possible steps forward for API related research.
The justifiability scale (JS) is widely used to measure individual and country differences in moral attitudes. However, the validity of the instrument has been barely assessed. The current study addressed the concurrent and content validity of four popular JS items (justifiability of homosexuality, suicide, prostitution, and euthanasia). A sample of 493 Russians completed both JS and the four validated multi-item scales. Results demonstrated that multi-item scales measuring suicide, prostitution, and euthanasia attitudes explained less than half of the variance of the corresponding JS items. The JS underestimated the justifiability of homosexuality, prostitution and suicide, and overestimated the justifiability of euthanasia. The JS homosexuality item appeared to be a precise measure of attitudes towards male but less so female homosexuality. The concurrent validity of the four items was associated with item nondifferentiation. We conclude that JS items should be used either after accounting for their bias, or as indicators of more abstract latent constructs.
Reviews of literature are conducted within academia to summarize and highlight gaps in findings and research approaches associated with a particular line of inquiry. Identifying sources to be included in reviews in rigorous ways can be challenging for interdisciplinary research topics, as relevant articles may be found in a wide variety of sources. Guidelines on conducting reviews rarely include step-by-step methods of identifying articles. Thus, this research note extends an existing scoping review framework by adding a more systematic method of manual searching to the common database search. As demonstrated through the application, one single rigours method of source identification is not sufficient for identifying articles in an interdisciplinary line of inquiry. The described systematic manual search presents a complementary method to the database search, rather than as a supplementary method to assists researchers in their searches of interdisciplinary topics.
This article contends that the ‘go-along’ contains more technical and ontological agility as a methodology for social research than is often assumed. After distinguishing the central spectrums of technical and ontological agility rooted in different research designs and philosophical orientations, I examine how researchers can nourish it while refining the go-along’s moral purpose in the context of environmental and related mobility crises that define the Anthropocene. I argue researchers can cultivate the go-along’s agility and moral purpose by deploying it with a quantitative context, comparing go-along case studies, moving past human supremacism and illuminating ecologically just forms of mobility that respect other species of life and their habitats. To show one way that the go-along can accomplish these things, I present two vignettes of cycling in urban Canada, drawing on a mobile video ethnography of cycling, a funded study in sociology, conducted between 2014 and 2018.
Contrary to its typical presentation in scientific publications as a certain and linear process, in reality, the experimental method, not least the design aspect of it, requires a great deal of trial-and-error and ad hoc decision-making on the part of the researchers. This uncertain and contingent aspect of research, although little known outside of the circle of experts, has important implications for our understanding of the nature of science and scientific findings. This paper offers a backstage perspective to experiment design, where the uncertain and contingent nature of experimental research is at its starkest. It draws on insights from the sociological perspective of ethnomethodology through the auto-ethnographic first-hand experience of the first author's own social psychology experiments. Based on detailed lab notes and planning documents on how and why design changes were made, the analysis focuses on the evolution of the experiment design, particularly the researcher’s in situ practical reasoning for how to make the experiment work. From this, we show how ethno-methods shape experiment results and highlight the inseparability of social science experimentation from in situ practical reasoning.
Web surveys are an established data collection mode that use written language to provide information. The written language is accompanied by visual elements, such as presentation formats and shapes. However, research has shown that visual elements influence response behavior because respondents sometimes use interpretive heuristics to make sense of the visual elements. One such heuristic is the ‘left and top means first’ (LTMF) heuristic, which suggests that respondents tend to believe that a response scale consistently runs from left to right or from top to bottom. We conducted a web survey experiment to investigate how violations of the LTMF heuristic affect response behavior and data quality. For this purpose, a random half of respondents received response options that followed a consistent order and the other half received response options that followed an inconsistent order. The results reveal significantly different response distributions between the two groups. We also found that inconsistently ordered response options significantly increase response times and decrease data quality in terms of criterion validity. We, therefore, recommend using options that follow the design strategies of the LTMF heuristic.
Realist evaluation (RE) is a research design increasingly used in program evaluation, that aims to explore and understand the influence of context and underlying mechanisms on intervention or program outcomes. Several methodological challenges, however, are associated with this approach. This article summarizes RE key principles and examines some documented challenges and solutions when analyzing RE data, including the development of Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations. An analytic method using NVivo features is also presented. This method makes it possible to respond to certain analytic difficulties associated with RE by facilitating the identification of patterns and ensuring transparency in the analytical process
In this paper, we examine the use of creative methods for understanding the experience of young adults aged between 16 and 30 years over a year following a cancer diagnosis. Exploring the renegotiation of identity, the narrative, longitudinal research design of the study demonstrated the unfolding process of the narrative work between participants and researcher. We used a combination of visual, spoken and reflexive psychosocial approaches to understand emergent narratives, many of which do not always find symbolisation in language. Our methodological approach focused on the difficult and sometimes ‘unspeakable’ nature of the young adults’ narratives, demonstrating the importance of different modes of communication in articulating complicated relations with uncertain futures. In this respect the links between narrative, social action and the imagining of possible futures are precarious. In this paper, we explore how untellable issues were explored, and the challenges of doing so.
This paper explores how a multimodal narrative methodology can open a creative, relational and safe space, in which refugee-storytellers negotiate their positioning within racialised power imbalances. Personal narratives that facilitate storytellers’ agency have a potential to empower and elicit social change. When refugees are denied their right to claim/speak/ act, the act of narrating becomes a vehicle for social change. Creative workshops delivered in the Calais ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in 2016–17 enabled us to co-construct a relational space with refugee participants, based on the principle of ethical hesitancy. In this paper we argue that the relational space offered possibilities for refugee storytellers to resist and challenge the representation of refugee stories, whilst giving rise to ethically important moments. These moments provide important perspectives on how practitioners and researchers can use narrative processes in creating spaces of resistance and social change with refugee participants.
Digital story grammar (DSG) is a methodology that combines narrative theory and computerised text analysis. The methodology offers new ways of identifying patterns in narrative identity work and examining how these patterns relate to social structures such as gender and social class. DSG works through an algorithm that identifies narrative units consisting of subjects, verbs and objects. To demonstrate the potential of the methodology, we apply it to interviews with young people from the Timescapes Qualitative Longitudinal Data Archive and address four research questions: Who are in the young people’s stories (characters)? What are their narratives about (domains of experiences)? When do they taking place (temporality)? How are the narratives told (sense of agency)? Among other findings, we observed that young people with middle-class backgrounds convey a stronger sense of agency than their working-class peers, and we show how this correlates with the ways in which they navigate school-to-work trajectories.
Mixed methods longitudinal studies continue to be rare, yet have potential for transcending the limits of qualitative and quantitative paradigms. This article compares the life stories of 47 young people generated from a cohort study of 6000 children born in 1995. The cases were sampled through an association between two variables – drug use and leaving school early – generating a four-field table. Comparing the cases within and across each table cells, we question the ‘black box’ logic that underpins the assumption that cannabis smoking is consequential for educational success. Moving into a qualitative paradigm we reconceptualise the cases as butterflies captured in a net and work deductively to understand the species captured. Culminating with an analysis of a single case over time, we argue that narrative approaches are the starting point for understanding subsequent social action, providing a basis for larger scale quantitative modeling.
Many sociologists have called for analytical rigor in the study of narrative while maintaining that narrative should be viewed as a form of social action. We argue that the narratological story-discourse distinction together with positioning theory provides a theoretical basis for such rigor. In narratology, story denotes the events in the world of the narrative, while discourse is the text that communicates them. This distinction helps us see how storytellers take positions on three levels: the story, the communicative (inter)action (discourse), and the level of norms. The third level derives from Michael Bamberg’s positioning theory, which offers a frame of understanding the social situatedness of storytelling. Narratological analysis of linguistically discernible voices on the story and discourse levels offers methodological refinements for analysis, finally allowing for a focus on positioning on the third, normative level. The theoretical and methodological arguments are illustrated through analyses of Finnish politicians’ stories.
This article responds to the call for prospective methodologies in the social sciences by developing a narrative approach to study the imagination of personal futures. The approach encompasses an analytical framework regarding dimensions of projectivity and an elicitation method (Letters from the Future). Using an example letter from a study about postReferendum futures in Greece, the article draws on psychological, sociological, and futures studies research to elucidate key issues in projectivity research. The article clarifies potentials and challenges in three thematic clusters: (1) Balancing clarity and reach concerns the quality of narrative accounts of the future and proposes techniques for eliciting personally meaningful accounts; (2) The experience and meaning of time foregrounds narrative sense-making involved in imagining the future, thereby highlighting futures thinking as cultural capacity; (3) Engaging spaces of the possible foregrounds imagination in (co-)constructing narratives of and from the future. Finally, the article reviews strengths and limitations.
In recent years, the Australian government has encouraged open access to administrative data, providing new opportunities for examining life course pathways and evaluating social policies. This paper demonstrates the importance of establishing partnerships in the use of administrative data for social research. In collaboration with the data custodian, we used administrative welfare data to investigate a policy-relevant topic: the association between income support receipt and relationship separation. Our results provided greater statistical power for detecting associations for minority groups than is possible with panel survey data, highlighting the benefits of administrative data for understanding the outcomes of population groups that are not well represented in surveys. The collaboration between university researchers and data custodians was critical to enable appropriate sharing of data for research and for accurate interpretation of the data and outcomes for relevance to policy.
Literature reviews are required at early stages of a traditional research progression. Many systematic approaches help researchers identify relevant literature. However, there is far less support for interpreting large collections of references. Understanding the evolution of knowledge within a discipline requires an awareness of the collaborative networks from which significant advances originate. Unfortunately, this relational awareness is only acquired after years of professional experience. Therefore, early-career researchers are at a fundamental disadvantage when conducting literature reviews. Social Network Analysis (SNA) can make the interpretation of large collections of literature more manageable. This paper provides a method for generating a co-authorship network from reference lists. The partition of the co-authorship network into communities provides a reviewer with direction to organise literature into meaningful groups. The interpretation of seemingly disparate and entangled research programs is far more manageable when interpreting smaller collections of highly relevant literature.
In this paper we argue that investigators using citizen science should attend, as much as possible, to certain ethical considerations when conceptualizing projects by embracing 1) inclusivity (finding ways to include those who have traditionally been excluded), 2) adaptation (modifying projects to provide greater opportunities for varied participation), 3) sensitivity (ensuring projects take into account and respect cultural traditions and beliefs), 4) safety (protocols that protect the physical, psychological, and cultural safety of citizen scientists and society at large), and 5) reciprocity (benefits for citizen scientists). These recommendations are particularly important when engaging in collaborative or co-created citizen science projects with marginalized groups. We provide examples of how citizen science projects can be designed and adapted in ways that ensure that they follow The Golden Rule, and make them appealing to, and achievable for, a greater number of individuals in our diverse global society.
This research note explores some of the contentions that have emerged from Muslim-on-Muslim research and how this can implicate the researcher more personally. Speaking in the context of methodological concerns arising from qualitative research, the paper consider the following aspects: inappropriate access of participants, over-representation of own experiences, and questioning fundamental parts of your identity. Whilst certain experiences can shake the foundations of being a researcher and even sense of self, these should ultimately be welcomed. It is concluded that, in taking the time to reconcile from such tensions emerging from our multiple identities, it can allow for becoming a more rigorous and reflexive researcher.
The UK census authorities have proposed guidance for the 2021 census indicating that the sex question may be answered according to subjective gender identity. This raises issues about the measurement of sex and gender identity which other data collection exercises are also contending with. This paper addresses the questions that have arisen regarding the census, before going on to explain how these questions have emerged more widely. Finally, I address the difficulties of discussing the collection of data on sex in a climate of policy capture and silencing.
We centrally consider the question of what interview data can be used to ‘say’ through a dialogue with advocates of the ‘radical critique’ of interview studies. We propose that while the critique has considerable utility in drawing to ‘the social life of interviews’ and the pervasiveness of notions of the ‘romantic subject’, it simultaneously goes too far in its reduction of interviews to narrative performance, and not far enough in its own critical departure from core characteristics of the romantic subject. We show how the critique leaves intact imagery of a seemingly unbridgeable divide between the experienced and the expressed, and involves a related conflation of what can be said at interview with what interviews can be used to say. We explore how the radical critique might productively be built upon via more ‘synthetic’ forms of research engagement, outlining alternative modes of apprehending interview data through a further critical departure from the romantic subject. Accordingly, we advance a move beyond a sole engagement with questions of how data are constructed and produced and towards how such data might otherwise be used to speak about the social world beyond the social nexus that constitutes an interview encounter
This paper addresses two interrelated questions concerning what interview data are and how researchers might use them. The first considers the value of a shift from a predominant or exclusive focus upon how data are constructed and produced at interview, and towards how such data might be apprehended through different forms of engagement. The second question relates to how and what qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) might be used to tell about the social world. In exploring this, we advance a critique of the divide between primary and secondary analysis, recasting the debate in terms of different degrees and qualities of ‘proximity’ and ‘distance’ from the formative contexts of data generation, and the distinctive analytical affordances that relate to these. Using QSA of interview data from a study of problem internet gambling as an empirical crucible, we consider the kinds of participation that interviewees develop through reciprocal engagement with interviewers. We illustrate how participants reflexively negotiate the affordances and limits to the narratives through which they frame and recount their experiences. Finally, we show how interview data can be used both to speak of the temporal, relational, spatial, epistemic contexts of their production, and also to contexts and questions beyond these.
In this article, we consider challenges for the existence and practice of qualitative research interviews. We review key features of qualitative interviewing, in particular the debate over the radical critique of interviewing and the nature of the data it generates, to set the scene for our arguments about the current standing and future prognosis for the method of generating data and the technologies that enable this. We look at qualitative interviewing in the context of the political project of neoliberalism and the regime of austerity associated with it, and the linked turn to what is known as ‘big data’, a feature of digital technological developments in garnering data. Qualitative researchers using interview methods have been creative in working with and resisting features of neoliberal austerity pragmatically and politically, and we provide some examples. We also consider an epistemological challenge and resistance from outside of the dominant framework – interviewing in indigenous methodologies. We argue that it is the relationship between the interview as a method of data generation for research and the ways of knowing about the world, that is the epistemology that the interview-based research proceeds from, that is crucial in considering the potentials for the method’s practice.
There is increasing emphasis on understanding economic advantage alongside disadvantage – on studying both ‘poverty’ and ‘riches’. This trend prompts and requires new ethical reflection. I argue that in qualitative interview research, a clearer distinction needs to be drawn between ethical commitments to individual research participants, and the group(s) to which they belong. This distinction is often elided in ethics guidelines and when researchers discuss their own work. Attending to the distinction highlights a symmetrical ethical dilemma: researchers studying disadvantage are often motivated to further the interests of the wider group to which their participants belong, yet the study itself risks eliciting or exacerbating negative experiences or identities amongst participants themselves. Conversely, the process of studying advantage frequently bolsters the positive identities or experiences of individual study participants, even as the research findings challenge or subvert the interests of their group.
This paper proposes the method of ‘narrative portraiture’, which, located within the wider field of narrative studies, offers an analytical tool to narrative data. Two research projects, one on disability and one on identity, are used to illustrate how the method can be applied. While the paper will focus on the methodological benefits and limitations of the approach, throughout the article we also highlight the ethical concern of representation. We suggest that through ‘narrative portraiture’ research findings can be contextualised in broader social narratives without losing sight of the unique personal qualities of the research encounter. Thus, we argue for the importance of bringing the participant and their everyday life experience into focus, highlighting that a portrayal of a sole story can be, not only a medium to understand a research phenomenon, but also a valuable research output in itself.
Although careless respondents have wreaked havoc on research for decades, the prevalence and implications of these participants has likely increased due to many new methodological techniques currently in use. Across three studies, we examined the prevalence of careless responding in participants, several means of predicting careless respondents, and the implications of careless respondents on data quality and recruitment attempts. At the same time, we sought to examine the geographic differences of careless responding and provide psychometric evidence for using embedded questions to detect these participants. In Study 1, we found over 1/3rd of participants showed some evidence of careless responding and that careless respondents exhibited certain personality and demographic characteristics. In particular, carelessness seemed more prevalent in Asian samples than in North American samples. In Study 2, we found nearly 1/4th of participants showed evidence of careless responding and that conclusions based on data including versus excluding these participants differed in significant yet unpredictable ways. Finally, in Study 3, we found that nearly 2/3rd of participants who signed up for the study did not meet advertised study requirements for participation and including these participants changed the structure of the data obtained.
This study aims to address the questionnaire design challenges in cases wherein questions involve a large number of response options. Traditionally, these long-list questions are asked in open-ended or closedended formats. However, alternative interface design options are emerging in computer-assisted surveys that combine both interface designs. To investigate trade-offs of these alternative designs, a split-ballot experiment was conducted with a) a long list of radio buttons, b) a search tree (nested list of response options), and c) a combo box (combination of a text box and a drop-down box). Based on the question on the highest educational qualification attained from the Innovation Sample of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigated the interface design that facilitates respondents optimally and enhances the measurement quality. The findings indicate that combo boxes reduce the response burden and increase measurement details, whereas search trees and long lists reduce post-coding efforts.
Social science datasets usually have missing cases, and missing values. All such missing data has the potential to bias future research findings. However, many research reports ignore the issue of missing data, only consider some aspects of it, or do not report how it is handled. This paper rehearses the damage caused by missing data. The paper then briefly considers eight different approaches to handling missing data so as to minimise that damage, their underlying assumptions and the likely costs and benefits. These approaches include complete case analysis, complete variable analysis, single imputation, multiple imputation, maximum likelihood estimation, default replacement values, weighting, and sensitivity analyses. Using only complete cases should be avoided wherever possible. The paper suggests that the more complex, modelling approaches to replacing missing data are based on questionable methodological and philosophical assumptions. And they may anyway not have clear advantages over simpler approaches like default replacements. It makes sense to report all possible forms of missing data, report everything that is known about the characteristics of cases missing values, conduct simple sensitivity analyses of the potential impact of missing data on the substantive results, and retain the knowledge of missingness when using any form of replacement value.
Mixed methods surveys using multilingual assistants in areas without clear pre-defined sampling units are often difficult to manage and unpredictable, thereby threatening data quality. More so when such surveys are executed in unfamiliar territories where cultural and language barriers prevent direct communication between the principal researcher and the respondents, and field assistants act as cultural/language brokers. This paper provides a method to enhance data quality in such contexts through a reflection on the research design and data collection experience in our study on flood damage mitigation processes among households and businesses in Kampala. Associated field challenges included different disciplinary and language skills levels of assistants, their multiple positionalities when translating concepts from the inquiry language to the source language and vice-versa, low settlement permeability/accessibility, multiple households per sampling unit, and socio-psychological issues among respondents and research assistants. The available literature lacks comprehensive systematic methods to address the challenges above, using detailed research fieldwork management experiences in which data collection is outsourced from field assistants. Our application of an extended version of the briefing and debriefing technique closes this gap. As a guide to apply this approach, we conceptualize social science research into four inter-related dimensions – paradigm, people, process, and presentation.
This study explores the acquiescent response style (ARS) among respondents in the Czech Republic. To analyse ARS, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed and the response style (RS) was modelled as a latent variable. The RS factor in the CFA model must be validated by its relationship to education and age, i.e. proxies of cognitive ability. The two studies presented in this article use large amount of data as all available balanced batteries of items were analysed. In Study 1, the RS factor showed no correlation with age/education in most of the models. Study 2 employed additional measures of cognitive ability and education and confirmed the overall absence of the relationship. Author concludes that the modelled RS factor then cannot be considered the ARS and deduces that the most likely explanation of the identified systematic error variance is the respondents’ carelessness manifested by automatically choosing the extreme agreement, or choosing the first presented answer as a result of memory effect.
Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/ gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data related to the worldviews of young people. In this paper we argue the value of studying the complexities and intersections of these identities and worldviews together in one study. We do this through reference to the Australia’s Generation Z (AGZ) study: the first nationally representative sample focused on providing an evidence-based understanding of both the religious/spiritual/non-religious and sexuality/gender identities and worldviews of young Australians aged 13–18. We discuss how we built on existing surveys in designing the AGZ survey. We also demonstrate how this survey allowed for the incorporation of young people’s non-binary understandings of religion, sexuality and gender.
The value of interdisciplinary research is increasingly recognised by the research community. Funding bodies are nowadays specifically encouraging that research they fund is interdisciplinary in nature. However, what is often branded as interdisciplinary research is in fact a network of researchers working to deliver a research output. In this research note, we share our experience of what we think can be labelled “truly interdisciplinary”. We share some best practice tips for those who are interested to go through a similar metamorphosis as we did as a team, learning from each other's ways of working. Overall, it has been a very positive experience and a revelation that has had a big impact on each author's view on how to conduct research as an integrated multidisciplinary team, as it has shifted our mental models and broadened our thinking, capacity to reflect, and critical analysis. We hope that our research note clearly shows the benefits of truly interdisciplinary research and motivates other researchers to follow our pathway of transformation.
Activist groups in ethnographic research re-negotiated our Ethics Committee’s expected order of securing consent before data collection, demonstrating the importance of researchers taking time to build relationships first. Although the Ethics Committee expected us to obtain group consent, the literature provides little guidance on how to do this. We developed a Memorandum of Understanding to summarize what forms of participant observation each group agreed to and how we would reciprocate. In this article, we (re)conceptualize consent, using analogies to consent in social contract theory and sexual relations to offer a critical perspective on what constitutes consent. We argue that taking time to build relationships before expecting research participants to consent and replacing informed consent with a negotiated agreement is a more ethical approach. We advocate for Ethics Committees to expand the meaning of ‘informed consent’ and review its timing, especially for ethnographic research with groups.
Few studies have explored approaches to teaching qualitative data analysis software (QDAS). As more researchers rely on self-teaching, more research into best practices for developing QDAS expertise is warranted. In this paper, we report our experience using the Five-Level QDA® method to guide the design of an introductory ATLAS.ti workshop. By focusing on the translation process between analytic strategies and the tactics of the software, we sought to help students harness ATLAS.ti powerfully. Using a case study and reflective practice approach, we reviewed instructional materials, observational field notes, instructor reflections, student questionnaires, and interviews to describe what happened during the workshop as well as instructor and learner perceptions of the method. For the method to be successful, methodological competence prior to training and ongoing support after training are necessary, both of which may be fostered by using community-building strategies during and after instruction. Hands-on exploration of the software components during the workshop, including demonstration of both in-progress and completed projects by the instructor and peers, can bring life to the Five-Level QDA method. While the method emphasizes that powerful use of the software requires analytic strategies to drive software tactics, learners may view the two as mutually constituting. Implications for teaching QDAS as well as the development of the Five-Level QDA method are explored.
In particular research domains, the randomized control trial (RCT) is considered to be the only means for obtaining reliable estimates of the true impact of an intervention. However, an RCT design would often not be considered ethical, politically feasible, or appropriate for evaluating the impact of many policy, programme, or structural changes common in public health research. As such, researchers must use alternative yet robust research methods for determining the impact of such interventions. The evaluation of natural experiments (i.e. an intervention not controlled or manipulated by researchers), using various experimental and non-experimental design options can provide an alternative to the RCT. The following review highlights (a) the importance of evaluating natural experiments; (b) design considerations associated with evaluating natural experiments; (c) methods for reducing bias in natural experimental studies; and (d) the potential benefits of targeted systems to enable natural experiments in emerging priority domains moving forward.
Researchers have become increasingly interested in better understanding the survey data collection process in interviewer-administered surveys. However, tools for analysing paradata capturing information about field processes, also called call record data, are still not yet fully explored. This paper introduces sequence analysis as a simple tool for investigating such data with the aim of better understanding and improving survey processes. A novel approach is to use sequence analysis within interviewers, which allows the identification of unusual interviewer calling behaviours, and may provide guidance on interviewer performance. Combining the technique with clustering, optimal matching and multidimensional scaling, the method offers a way of visualising, displaying and summarising complex call record data. The method is introduced to inform survey management and survey monitoring. The method is hence informative for adaptive survey designs and will help to identify unusual behaviour and outliers and to improve survey processes. Sequence analysis is applied to call record data from the UK Understanding Society survey. The findings inform further modelling of call record data to increase efficiency in call scheduling.
We identify and discuss the phenomenon of narrative stability, in the context of current methodological literature on interviewing. It derives from two independent studies, undertaken fifteen years apart, of members of the same genetics research group who were interviewed by different researchers. The first (‘Discovery’) interviews were collected very soon after the breakthrough was first published. The second (‘Legacy’) interviews were based on informants looking back at those events. Some strikingly similar narrative episodes across those accounts suggest strong narrative stability. In the course of interviews, informants reproduce biographical stories that are well sedimented. Not all interview materials, therefore, should be thought of exclusively in terms of co-production between interviewer and informant.
This article surfaces issues about the often-used but widely under-reported practice of working with advisory fora. We critically reflect on our experiences working with an advisory network when co-designing a research study about a ‘sensitive’ subject. We discuss the following: 1) How the network evolved as a matter of ethical and pragmatic choices; 2) Potential issues when discussing sensitive issues ‘outside’ of the participatory or participant context; and 3) Practical and epistemic issues involved in (not) ‘taking’ advice. We suggest that although sensitive research is more conventionally aligned with more ‘radical’ forms of participatory practice, advisory networks can present a useful and sometimes more appropriate form of inclusion and engagement for some advisors and for some types of research study. The article should, therefore, be of interest to a wide range of academic and practice-based health and social care staff and, in particular, those who plan to use advisory fora in their work.
Propensity score weighting often is used to correct for attrition biases in panel surveys. While methodological literature exists on the logic of propensity score weighting and its practical applications, an in-depth discussion is lacking on the effects of using this weighting to correct for attrition biases in attitudinal, behavioral, and socio-demographic variables. By applying a split panel design, we assessed the effects of weighting on attrition biases in 48 attitudinal, 38 behavioral, and 27 socio-demographic variables. Our findings suggest – while acknowledging the estimate-specific nature of bias – first, that biases vary across these types of variables and second, that the effects of propensity score weighting are not homogeneous across the types. Accordingly, a sole reliance on socio-demographics to evaluate attrition in the present panel survey would have resulted in an underestimation of the biases of attitudinal variables and an overestimation of the ability of weighting to cure the negative effects of attrition in behavioral variables.
In this article, we interrogate the concept of methodological ‘failures’ as they arise during fieldwork, in the process of collecting empirical data. We highlight how the techniques of validity horizon matrices and power analysis can be used as methodological tools to illustrate moments in the fieldwork process where these ‘failures’ occur and to illustrate what makes them ‘failures’ rather than just opportunities for learning. Drawing on examples from our own research, we use validity horizon matrices to suggest that ‘failures’ largely occur as a result of disagreements about backgrounded, implicit normative claims. We distinguish between ‘failures’ where communicative possibilities exist for negotiating norms and those where systemic constraints make critique impossible, though we acknowledge that in practice opportunities for negotiating power are limited.
Whilst critical realism (CR) is becoming recognised as a significant metatheory for the social sciences, there is little guidance on how to produce research which is consistent with its ontological and epistemological assumptions. This article contributes to an emerging discussion about how CR can be applied, drawing on an example of a qualitative study that has sought to understand and explain the causes of unmet need amongst a group of rural labourers in Tunisia . Using this study as an illustration, I show how techniques from grounded theory methodology can be usefully harnessed in the data collection, coding and analysis stages of a research project that adopts a CR philosophical and methodological framework. I illustrate how an ‘abductive’ variant of grounded theory allowed drawing on pre-existing theoretical knowledge throughout the research stages; whilst open and axial coding techniques could be harnessed for identifying and postulating CR causal mechanisms. This article should be of interest to students and researchers involved with grounded theory and applied critical realism.
In this paper, we explore the methodological implications of conducting qualitative interviews when researchers and participants come from different social classes. Singling out class on its own terms, rather than considering it as an auxiliary structural factor, we examine the unique challenges that arise during cross-class interviews. Such challenges, we contend, require researcher reflexivity about how researcher–participant interactions unfold and the ways in which knowledge is generated during the interview process. In our discussion, we draw on Bourdieu’s cultural view of social class to argue that cross-class dynamics between the researcher and the participant – along with the normalization of middle-class values often inherent in interview questions – create potential obstacles to establishing rapport and facilitating fertile conversation. We use examples from our own field research in a U.S. fast-food chain to illustrate these barriers. We also provide practical recommendations to researchers regarding how they can minimize class-based biases, reduce class saliency, and gain awareness of their own class positions during cross-class interviews.
From the perspective of study management, research is surprisingly lacking on two of the major challenges for planning and performing content analysis: determining the sample size (i.e. number of objects to code) and the required number of coders to hire. The optimization of both of these numbers will ultimately determine how efficiently available resources are used. This study contributes to the methodological discussion on coding by identifying and conceptualizing the role of learning effects with respect to the coding task and by highlighting the importance of considering the coding process when managing a content analysis. We present empirical evidence for the existence and impact of learning effects on coders’ coding speed. Accordingly, study management should take account of learning effects when determining the sample size and number of coders. We also provide an illustrative example of how learning effects can impact the results of pretests.
This study aims to assess whether respondent inattentiveness causes systematic and unsystematic measurement error that influences survey data quality. To determine the impact of (in)attentiveness on the reliability and validity of target measures, we compared respondents from a German online survey (N = 5205) who had passed two attention checks with those who had failed. Our results show that inattentiveness induces both random and systematic measurement error, which impacts estimates of the reliability and validity of multi-item scales. In addition, we conducted a sensitivity analysis, which revealed that the impact of inattentiveness on analyses can be substantial.
While qualitative researchers increasingly accept online video interviews as a reliable method, many maintain concerns about rapport and data quality. Drawing on two separate interview projects conducted in private in-person settings, public in-person settings, and privately via Skype, we compare interview contexts with regard to rapport, suitability to sensitive topics, interview duration, and scheduling concerns raised by prior research. Analytical comparison of these two corpuses of data suggest, largely in contrast to previous literature, that (1) interviews conducted in private settings (either in-person or via Skype) result in more sharing of deeply personal experiences, and there is little difference in this exceptional disclosure between Skype and in-person private interviews; (2) interviewing via Skype produces neither reduction nor inappropriate excesses of rapport; and (3) Skype interviews are a popular choice among participants, did not result in shorter interview duration, and were not subject to greater rescheduling or cancellation.
This paper aims to explore the response-order effects for rating questions presented in item-by-item and grid formats. It was hypothesized that the primacy effect occurs for both formats of questions, and that this effect is dependent on age, education, and type of device used for responding to questions. Two randomized experiments were conducted in 28 pre-course surveys of massive open online course students (N = 22,910). Our findings suggest that the order of response options affects respondents’ perception of the option lists and their responding patterns. The primacy effect is found for the item-by-item question, while there is no evidence for the presence of such an effect for the grid question format. Primacy effect for the item-by-item layout is lower for respondents with higher education degree while there are no interaction effects between ordering and age, gender, and type of device. For a grid question, mixed results were observed.
In social research, the use of agree/disagree (A/D) questions is a popular method for measuring attitudes. Research has shown that A/D questions require complex cognitive processing and are susceptible to response bias. Thus, some researchers recommend the use of item-specific (IS) questions. This study examines the processing of A/D and IS questions, using eye-tracking methodology. By recording respondents’ eye movements, how respondents process survey questions can be evaluated. The results reveal that IS questions cause more and longer fixations. However, this only applies to the response categories. There are no differences regarding the question stems. Altogether, it seems that IS response categories trigger deeper cognitive processing than A/D response categ
This paper analyses the phenomenon of the death of informants. Based on his own experience with the long-term (1999–2016) research of Voyvodovo – the only Czech village in Bulgaria, the author shows what the death of one’s informants means for the research and the researcher. The author argues that any long-term fieldwork entails emotional involvement of the researcher, and so the departure of his or her informants has a deep impact on the researcher’s well-being. The articles also address methodological consequences of the death of informants, namely, the case when the death of all of them leads to a situation that the group ceases to exist. The author shows that with the last member’s passing away Malinowski’s ‘native’s point of view’ is lost forever. The author also suggests that the topic of death of informants should be included into educational curricula for fieldwork training.
Identifying mediators in variable chains as part of a causal mediation analysis can shed light on issues of causation, assessment, and intervention. However, coefficients and effect sizes in a causal mediation analysis are nearly always small. This can lead those less familiar with the approach to reject the results of causal mediation analysis. The current paper highlights five factors that contribute to small path coefficients in mediation research: loss of information when measuring relationships across time, controlling for prior levels of a predicted variable, adding control variables to the analysis, ignoring measurement error in one’s variables, and using multiple mediators. It is argued that these issues are best handled by increasing the statistical power of the analysis, identifying the optimal temporal interval between variables, using bootstrapped confidence intervals to analyze the results, and finding alternate ways of assessing the meaningfulness of the indirect effect.
The field of Indigenous methodologies has grown strongly since Tuhiwai Smith’s 1999 groundbreaking book Decolonizing Indigenous Methodologies. For the most part however, there has been a marked absence of quantitative methodologies with the methods aligned with Indigenous methodologies predominantly qualitative. This article proposes that the absence of an Indigenous presence from Indigenous data production has resulted in an overwhelming statistical narrative of deficit for dispossessed Indigenous peoples around the globe. Using the theoretical concept of Indigenous Lifeworlds this article builds on the core premises of Walter and Andersen’s 2013 book Indigenous quantitative methodologies. Arguing for a fundamental disturbance of the Western logics of statistical data the article details recent developments in the field including the emergence of the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement. The article also explores Indigenous quantitative methodologies in practice using the case study of a Tribal Epidemiology Centre in New Mexico.
Individual interviews have traditionally been an important method of data collection in multiple disciplines, including psychology. However, research comparing individual interviews with focus groups has generated mixed results regarding which method is more effective in investigating sensitive topics. The purpose of the present study was to directly compare the two methods with respect to young women’s verbalizations on a sensitive topic, namely their thoughts and feelings related to body image. Female undergraduate students were randomly assigned to an individual interview (n = 32) or focus group (n = 33). Participants in the individual interviews disclosed more personal thoughts and feelings about body image and had more positive perceptions of the interpersonal climate of their sessions than participants in the focus groups. These findings suggest that individual interviews may provide women with a more supportive environment in which to discuss sensitive topics.
How do research participants feel about having their ‘ordinary’ lives researched? This article focuses on how research participants manage the sharing of details emerging out of their ordinary lives in the context of research – an activity which, for most, is outside of the ordinary. Despite two significant research turns – towards reflexivity and towards the ‘everyday’ – these experiences remain curiously neglected. Drawing on a study of small acts of help and support, I seek to push methodological debate about researching the ordinary beyond the technical challenges of surfacing or capturing the apparently mundane or ‘insignificant’. I do so by arguing that background feelings rooted in the living of, and sharing about, the ordinary are analytically important in their own right; that the ‘ordinary’ itself, therefore, has to be managed by research participants and researchers; and that Goffman’s notion of performance is a useful tool for understanding how this is done.
his article explores the comparability of assessment tools under different format conditions. Prior studies have not considered the interaction of format and device on time to complete an assessment and have instead treated each of them separately with conflicting results. This study assesses, by linear regressions using web-based data, the performance of multiple devices under varying formats while controlling for non-device factors such as demographic information. The results of this study add to the growing literature on the equivalence among devices and formats used to collect and interpret performance in a variety of organizational settings.
This paper compares the use of confidence intervals (CIs) and a sensitivity analysis called the number needed to disturb (NNTD), in the analysis of research findings expressed as ‘effect’ sizes. Using 1,000 simulations of randomised trials with up to 1,000 cases in each, the paper shows that both approaches are very similar in outcomes, and each one is highly predictable from the other. CIs are supposed to be a measure of likelihood or uncertainty in the results, showing a range of possible effect sizes that could have been produced by random sampling variation alone. NNTD is supposed to be a measure of the robustness of the effect size to any variation, including that produced by missing data. Given that they are largely equivalent and interchangeable under the conditions tested here, the paper suggests that both are really measures of robustness. It concludes that NNTD is to be preferred because it requires many fewer assumptions, is more tolerant of missing data, is easier to explain, and directly addresses the key question of whether the underlying effect size is zero or not.
The study of marginalia has not been widely discussed in social sciences research and occupies a marginal space in terms of methodological legitimacy. We highlight the value of paying attention to the ways in which participants speak back to the researcher. This paper draws on marginalia found in surveys written or drawn by young people in classrooms across South Wales, demonstrating how various notes and marks made spontaneously by participants can tell us something important and worthwhile about how young people engage with research. We position marginalia as a manifestation of complex power dynamics in the research process that illuminate participants’ negotiation of complex and multiple subjectivities in the literal margins and between the lines of the survey pages. Whilst the sensitive and rigorous analysis of marginalia is fraught with ethical and methodological challenges, we argue that paying closer attention to marginalia presents an opportunity for deeper engagement with participants when undertaking survey research.
The paper outlines the author’s experience employing the Delphi method, using as an example a particular application of the Delphi in the field of public transport research. Attention is given to aspects such as the choice of method, selection of experts, design of questionnaires, interaction between survey coordinator and participants, and also the analysis of experts’ responses. Some of the challenges encountered during the survey, the way they were dealt with, and risk mitigation strategies used by the Delphi coordinator are highlighted too. The primary objective of this paper is to offer insights that can support other researchers or practitioners preparing to apply the Delphi methodology. Furthermore, the article contributes to the methodological debate by reflecting on the introduction of novel practices that can help overcome some typical pitfalls of the Delphi: a dedicated blog supporting the survey, safety-net questions, and a constant-sum type question.
Participatory research actively engages participants in some or all stages of the research process – from deciding on scope and problem statement to actively collecting data to disseminating results and effecting change. Considering the shifting roles of participants and researchers in participatory ageing research, to the academic, participatory research becomes a venture into project and people management, local politics, consultancy and community building. First, we present a literature overview of the promises and pitfalls of participatory research. Then, drawing on a university initiated participatory study involving older people as coresearchers in a neighbourhood in Groningen, the Netherlands, we discuss the shifting roles and expectations of all of those involved in the participatory research process. We conclude that a central question that requires continuous negotiation in the participatory research process is: what’s in in for whom?
While social programs are often assessed using short-term impact studies, longitudinal designs allow evaluators to capture change over time, identify longer-term outcomes, adapt instruments, and better understand participants in transition. A mixed methods design can be critical in understanding these dynamics; yet there is a lack of literature exploring the practical considerations of planning and conducting qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis within longitudinal studies. This paper examines two different mixed methods frameworks used in a 5-year evaluation of three youth entrepreneurship programs in East Africa. We show how the evaluation team dealt with unique challenges across methods and over time, and how the design ultimately facilitated a richer understanding of program impacts and processes. Considerations for conducting this type of study are explored, related to the impact of longevity on analysis and research staff. Successfully using a longitudinal mixed methods approach requires researchers to be strategic and reflexive, and work in close collaboration.
Cronbach’s alpha is the most frequently used measure to investigate the reliability of measurement instruments. Despite its frequent use, many warn for misinterpretations of alpha. These claims about regular misunderstandings, however, are not based on empirical data. To understand how common such beliefs are, we conducted a survey study to test researchers’ knowledge of and beliefs about alpha. For this survey, we selected authors from recent papers, in which alpha was used. The results provide empirical evidence for the claims that researchers have difficulty interpreting alpha in a proper way. At the same time, we expounded the claims, by showing that whereas some beliefs are fairly typical, others are notso often seen. This non-technical paper, aimed at both statisticians and substantive researchers, is concluded by providing a few suggestions that could be helpful to get us out of the current stalemate regarding the usability of alpha and its alternatives.
In this paper, we argue for a view of analysis as an embodied practice and review others’ testimonies of carrying out multimodal ethnography. This review suggests that metaphors are key for communicating what happens to us in the course of the research and our subsequent sensemaking practices. We identify four metaphors for communicating data collection and analytic practices: composing, meandering, plundering and time travel. We then turn to our own multimodal fieldwork with children in middle childhood, to think about the experiences and emergent metaphors that shaped our practice on an international study looking at the relationship between childhood and public life. Children’s play was instructive in our own formation as multimodal ethnographers. We provide examples of the ways in which children recruited us into their play, the ways in which play taught us about what matters to children, and finally, how we took play into our own analytical practices.
Participation in web surveys via smartphones increased continuously in recent years. The reasons for this increase are a growing proportion of smartphone owners and an increase in mobile Internet access. However, research has shown that smartphone respondents are frequently distracted and/or multitasking, which might affect completion and response behavior in a negative way. We propose ‘SurveyMotion (SMotion)’, a JavaScript-based tool for mobile devices that can gather information about respondents’ motions during web survey completion by using sensor data. Specifically, we collect data about the total acceleration (TA) of smartphones. We conducted a lab experiment and varied the form of survey completion (e.g. standing or walking). Furthermore, we employed questions with different response formats (e.g. radio buttons and sliders) and measured response times. The results reveal that SMotion detects higher TAs of smartphones for respondents with comparatively higher motion levels. In addition, respondents’ motion level affects response times and the quality of responses given. The SMotion tool promotes the exploration of how respondents complete mobile web surveys and could be employed to understand how future mobile web surveys are completed.
This study explored whether the interviewers’ judgments of respondents’ performances in an initial survey can predict survey participation for a second survey among the same group of respondents in a panel study. Specifically, this study examined two interviewer variables: the interviewers’ judgments of (1) the respondents’ understanding of survey questions and (2) the respondents’ attitudes toward the survey. The analyses revealed that respondents who were rated to have an excellent understanding of the survey questions and friendly attitudes were more likely to respond to the second interview request than those with a poor understanding and unfriendly attitudes, after controlling for the characteristics of the respondents. Of these two, the judgment of the respondents’ attitudes was a stronger predictor. However, interviewer’s judgments are not correlated with the primary survey outcome or the data quality. This suggests limited value of the interviewer observation.
Two leading camps for studying social complexity are case-based methods (CBM) and agent-based modelling (ABM). Despite the potential epistemological links between ‘cases’ and ‘agents,’ neither camp has leveraged their combined strengths. A bridge can be built, however, by drawing on Abbott’s insight that ‘agents are cases doing things’, Byrne’s suggestion that ‘cases are complex systems with agency’, and by viewing CBM and ABM within the broader trend towards computational modelling of cases. To demonstrate the utility of this bridge, we describe how CBM can utilise ABM to identify case-based trends; explore the interactions and collective behaviour of cases; and study different scenarios. We also describe how ABM can utilise CBM to identify agent types; construct agent behaviour rules; and link these to outcomes to calibrate and validate model results. To further demonstrate the bridge, we review a public health study that made initial steps in combining CBM and ABM.
Dual-frame, random-digit-dialing (DFRDD) surveys, using a frame of landline telephone numbers and a frame of cell phone numbers, have become the norm for telephone surveys. Two alternative frame constructions sample exclusively from a cell phone frame, referred to as the ‘single-frame cell,’ and sample from the listed landline frame and the cell phone frame, referred to as ‘listed/cell.’ The listed/cell frame construction differs from the DFRDD in that it does not select unlistedlandline frame members. We observe in our simulated data that the listed/cell frame construction results in estimates that more closely approximate the estimates from DFRDD compared with the singleframe cell, results in an improvement in precision compared with the DFRDD that is not as large as the improvement in the single-frame cell, and has lower cost than both the DFRDD and the single-frame cell. We conclude that a listed/cell frame construction might be a better solution than either a DFRDD or single-frame cell frame construction.
Most quantitative studies in the social sciences suffer from missing data. However, despite the large availability of documents and software to treat such data, it appears that many social scientists do not apply good practices regarding missing data. We analyzed quantitative papers published in 2017 in six top-level social science journals. Item-level missing data was found in at least 69.5% of the papers, but their presence was explicitly reported in only 44.4% of all analyzed papers. Moreover, in the majority of cases, the treatments applied to missing data were incorrect, with many uses of deletion methods that are known to produce biased results and to reduce statistical power. The impact of missing data and of their treatment on results was barely discussed. Results show that social scientists underestimate the impact of missing data on their research and that they should pay more attention to the way such data are treated.
This study compared the quality of survey data collected from Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers and college students. Three groups of participants completed the same survey. MTurk respondents completed the survey as paid workers using the Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. Student Online respondents also completed the survey online after having been recruited in class. Finally, Student Paper-and-Pencil respondents completed the survey on paper in a classroom setting. Validity checks embedded in the survey were designed to gauge participants’ haste and carelessness in survey completion. MTurk respondents were significantly more likely to fail validity checks by contradicting their own answers or simply completing the survey too quickly. Student groups showed fewer careless mistakes and longer completion times. The MTurk sample tended to be older, more educated, and more ethnically diverse than student samples. Results suggest that researchers should pay special attention to the use of validity checks when recruiting MTurk samples.
Literature reviews are an important and popular part of synthesising evidence across a range of disciplines. There are numerous approaches, each with their distinctive features and purposes. The aim of this article is to advance the science of literature reviewing by describing a new form of review: The ‘Focused Mapping Review and Synthesis’ (FMRS). We critique the approach and highlight its similarities and differences in relation to existing review methodologies. There are four key features of FMRS. It: 1) focuses on a defined field of knowledge rather than a body of evidence; 2) creates a descriptive map or topography of key features of research within the field rather than a synthesis of findings; 3) comments on the overall approach to knowledge production rather than the state of the evidence; 4) examines this within a broader epistemological context. The FMRS can be used to answer questions that might not be appropriate for other review types and potentially offers a useful addition to the methodological toolkit of social researchers from multiple disciplines.
This research note discusses opportunities and challenges of using online survey engines for social network analysis (SNA) data collection and assessing sample size and representativeness. The discussion is based on a case study of SNA data collection for a pilot research on health-relevant policy networks in Canada. Our approach demonstrates how to use generic online survey tools in long-term snowball sampling campaigns and how to compute population size estimates through capture–mark–recapture formulas, thus solving a significant methodological challenge of collecting snowball data for unbounded networks.
Quantitative text analysis tools have become increasingly popular methods for the operationalization of various types of discourse analysis. However, their application usually remains fairly simple and superficial, and fails to exploit the resources which the digital era holds for discourse analysis to their full extent. This paper discusses the discourse-analytic potential of a more complex and advanced text analysis tool, which is already frequently employed in other approaches to textual analysis, notably topic modelling. We argue that topic modelling promises advances in areas where discourse analysis has traditionally struggled, such as scaling, repetition, and systematization, which go beyond the contributions of simpler frequency and collocation counts. At the same time, it does not violate the epistemological premises and methodological ethos of even the more radical theories of discourse, we will demonstrate. Finally, we present two small case studies to show how topic modelling – when used with appropriate parameters – can straightforwardly enhance our ability to systematically investigate and interpret discourses in large collections of text.
This paper considers the use of identity boxes as a data collection method to elicit experiences. Participants were asked to respond to questions using objects to represent their answers. The rationale for using identity boxes was to allow for a more embodied, less textual approach. The identity boxes were then also used to create an artistic installation as one form of data analysis. The reflection section in this paper shows that the approach posed potential risks around the emotional vulnerability of participants, with participants experiencing the project as cathartic and therapeutic. Some participants struggled with the process of thinking through objects as difficult. Although using a less conventional approach to research led to deeper, richer reflections and thus relevant, interesting data, concerns were raised around relevance, generalisability, and more generally the evaluation of the research. The paper concludes with a reconsideration of the identity boxes as a method.
Disability research often favours the use of disabled researchers carrying out research with disabled participants. It is believed to empower disabled people and create results that are more valid. However, little consideration has been given to the ethical implications of this type of research process, including in relation to female researcher safety. This paper provides an autoethnography of my experience of being sexually assaulted when recruiting participants for my doctoral research, at a convention held by an association for people with dwarfism (The term used to refer to someone with this impairment often differs. In this research project terms participants preferred included; dwarf, person with dwarfism, short stature and restricted growth. I use the term ‘person with dwarfism’ as it fits in with the social model of disability by demonstrating that a person is ‘dwarfed’ by a built environment, which is constructed for the average sized person and is therefore disabled). Focusing on gender, disability and sexuality, situated in space, this paper explores the problems encountered when trying to recruit participants within a particular space. This paper suggests that the safety of the researcher, needs more consideration and offers recommendations to increase researcher safety.
In this study, we investigate whether mobile device use in surveys can be predicted. We aim to identify possible motives for device use and build a model by drawing on theory from technology acceptance research and survey research. We then test this model with a Structural Equation Modeling approach using data of seven waves of the GESIS panel. We test whether our theoretical model fits the data by focusing on measures of fit, and by studying the standardized effects of the model. Results reveal that intention to use a particular device can predict actual use quite well. Ease of smartphone use is the most meaningful variable: if people use a smartphone for specific tasks, their intention to use a smartphone for survey completion is also more likely. In conclusion, investing in ease of use of mobile survey completion could encourage respondents to use mobile devices. This can foremost be established by building well-designed surveys for mobile devices.
The increasing popularity of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) in social research brings an increasing criticism about its validity, robustness and, more recently, its lack of expressive features. Recently, the novel arts-based research approach called body-mapping was recognized as enhancing social science research in creative and nuanced ways. Body-mapping allows for unique insights into participants’ lived experiences, the meaning thereof, and into how meaning is impacted by their socio-cultural contexts. This article provides new understandings about the potential use of body-mapping as part of an IPA framework by drawing upon existing literature to critically discuss their philosophical and methodological congruence. The following discussion demonstrates how particular strengths of body-mapping align with weaknesses of IPA and that, when merged, they may be especially useful for research with vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations. Limitations of this discussion and implications for future research are provided.
Realist evaluation (RE) is increasingly adopted to assess the effectiveness of social programs. RE goes beyond measurement of outcomes, providing insight into how and why programs work by focusing on how participants experience and respond to programs within certain contexts. A RE was conducted on Healthy Start-Départ Santé (HSDS), an early childhood development program in Canada, created to address the prevalence of overweight and obese children. The first step of the RE was to create an initial program theory (IPT) to identify key contexts and mechanisms relating to the success of the program. Realist methodology can be challenging, time consuming, and resource intensive and there are few practical examples of how to conduct a RE. This article aims to add to the realist methodological literature by describing the construction of the IPT, reflecting on the process used, and providing a starting point for future realist practitioners.
This article reports on a conversation between users of two research methods, biographical interviews and imagined futures essay writing. A dialogue form is used to discuss these methods and their potential to be combined. The value of comparing research methods is discussed, and then the two methods are described and points of connection and contrast are explored. Although one method emphasises looking back while the other looks forward, the two have much in common, including the exercise of imagination, and discussion of individual agency and structural constraint. Both involve the construction of narratives that help understanding of people’s lives as individual trajectories set in broader social and historical contexts. The two methods are quite different but complementary, and possibilities for their combination in one project are identified. The article ends by reflecting on the benefits and drawbacks of using dialogue to consider how research methods sit alongside each other.
Although the null hypothesis significance testing procedure is problematic, many still favor the use of p-values as indicating the state of evidence against the model used to generate the p-value. From this perspective, p-values benefit science; or would benefit science if used correctly. In contrast, the novel argument to be presented introduces a taxonomy of assumptions included in the model; such as theoretical assumptions, auxiliary assumptions, statistical assumptions, and inferential assumptions. Careful attention is paid to the different categories of assumptions that models necessarily include to render p-value calculations sensible. Such careful attention suggests unappreciated limitations of p-values. Considering these limitations in the context of the descriptive statistics researchers routinely have available to them clarifies that p-values provide no added benefit to the scientist, above and beyond such descriptive statistics. The lack of added value, combined with the obvious harms documented in recent reviews, suggests that researchers in the sciences should rarely, or never, use p-values. Not even for indicating the state of evidence against models.
Validation is a critical element of analysis which increases the credibility, rigor, and trustworthiness of research. Interpretive phenomenology traditionally has employed member checking as the validation tool to support the themes cultivated from data. However, the literature has challenged member checking as being insufficient or inaccurate in validating interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Using cultural domain analysis (CDA) to validate IPA findings is a novel and non-traditional approach to the method design. CDA, a method more commonly associated with ethnographic or anthropological research, parallels the epistemology and ontology of IPA. This article illustrates the use of free listing (a CDA tool) to validate findings of an interpretive phenomenological study about Generation Z’s experiences in the workplace. A brief discussion of the study will be included to establish context, but the primary discussion will address using cultural domain analysis to validate IPA. The implications, limitations, and challenges of this method design will also be discussed.
There is a need to improve the ways in which Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) handles qualitative data. To this end, we propose to include ideas and routines from Grounded Theory (GT) in QCA. We will first argue that there is a natural fit between the two on the ontological level. On the methodological level, we will demonstrate in what ways routines from GT can be used to improve interpretation, coding, sorting and calibration in QCA. We use examples from our own research into the planning and implementation of infrastructure projects to exemplify the various routines.
Multiple perspective interviews (MPIs) involve interviewing members of a social group separately and triangulating their accounts during analysis to gain insights into the functioning of such groups (e.g. families). So far, there has been little engagement with the specific challenges of MPI research during the analysis, particularly with dissonant data. To illustrate the importance of this aspect, we draw on the triangulation metaphor and related epistemological and ontological perspectives, which determine analytic choices and thus yield different forms of knowledge. We show how triangulating perspectives can extend individual-level results, but also how researchers should go beyond a descriptive level of analysis for convergent and dissonant accounts to realize the potential of MPIs. Convergence should not be assumed too hastily, yet, there might be dissonance that cannot be resolved. (Self-)reflection on epistemological views, interpretive practice, and the purpose of MPI as well as their interrelation can increase the strengths of MPI approaches
Introduction: Web-based epidemiologic surveys are being widely used, but still present lower response rates compared to traditional methods. Their design can influence survey response rates. Objective: Analyse the influence of questionnaire length, frequency of reminders, and the interaction between them, on the response rates of five web-based questionnaires. Methods: This is a 2×2 factorial study. Participants registered into the coortesnaweb platform (n=1,277) were randomly assigned to respond to short or long questionnaires, and to receive high or low frequency of reminders. We analysed the influence of these factors on the response rates of five web-based questionnaires applied in a longitudinal manner. The relative risk of responding to an additional questionnaire was also analysed. Results: The mean response rate was 54.3%. Sending reminders more frequently was positively associated with the response rates for the first questionnaires. Questionnaire length did not influence response rates. We found no interaction between questionnaire length and frequency of reminders. Women and highly educated participants had, respectively, 13.0% and 28.0% increased probability of responding an additional questionnaire. Conclusions: We obtained high response rates for the first questionnaires. Sending reminders more frequently and providing conditional incentives should be employed. Long questionnaires did not jeopardize response rates of web-based questionnaires.
The present study is the first to examine empirically whether required fields in online surveys impair reliability and response pattern, as participants forced to respond to all items may provide arbitrary answers. Two hundred and thirteen participants completed a survey consisting of six questionnaires testing personal and social issues and perceptions. They were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the survey: optional-fields (N = 104) or required-fields (N = 109). Comparison of the Cronbach’s alpha of the two versions revealed identical reliability values for all questionnaires, save for somatization, where a minor difference was found. Confirmatory factor analysis showed no difference in the factor structure of the two versions, and no differences were found by Bayesian t-test and Levene’s test for equality of variances. The findings suggest that required fields do not impair reliability or change the response pattern, and therefore can be used in online surveys to prevent missing data.
Online surveys are increasingly used to investigate health conditions, especially among young people. However, this methodology presents some limitations including item nonresponse concerning sensitive and knowledge-related questions. This study aimed to suggest latent class analysis as the methodology to statistically deal with item nonresponse data, while describing item nonresponse in an online health survey addressed to young people. We used data from an e-cohort study on 8,663 French university students and identified six homogenous groups of students with similar use of nonresponse options (‘I don’t know’, ‘I’m not sure’, or ‘I don’t want to answer’): one of High Respondents (64.2%), four of Partial Respondents (34.3%), and one of High Nonrespondents (1.5%). Item nonresponse largely depended on the survey’s contextual features (type of nonresponse options, question domains), and was significantly associated with (non)respondents’ individual characteristics (gender, age, field of study). We conclude that item nonresponse can be very informative and that latent class analysis is a useful method to identify its patterns in online health surveys.
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) has been proposed as an equitable, empowering partnership approach to collaborative research. International literature about the ethical implications of CBPR suggests a continuing strong interest in the topic. However, there is a notable lack of research that captures the experience of ethical challenges of researchers from different countries who engage in CBPR. The aim of this research was to address this lack of evidence by exploring researchers’ experience of ethical challenges in CBPR at an international level. An innovative data collection method was designed utilising a purpose-built blog. Balancing participant protection and autonomy, partnership tensions, and enduring impacts of the researcher role emerged as the main themes. These findings illustrate the specific conflicts faced by researchers engaged in CBPR. This is largely as a result of the complexities of CBPR coupled with rigid ethics committee review that does not always take into account the more fluid nature of the approach.
As research on mediation has grown, so too has interest in identifying ways to assess the size of indirect effects in a mediation analysis. One such estimate – the ratio of the indirect effect to the total effect (PM) – was tested in a sample of 21,297 children from the Early Childhood Developmental Study. Results showed that the two independent variables – low self-control and externalizing behavior – correlated equally well with a common mediator (mathematical thinking). Moreover, the two pathways shared the same mediator and dependent variable (subsequent externalizing behavior). Despite this, PM was three times larger in the self-control-initiated pathway than in the externalizing-initiated pathway, based on a stronger correlation between prior and subsequent externalizing behavior than between low self-control and externalizing behavior. The comparison pathways approach, where pathways mediated by mathematical reasoning are contrasted with pathways mediated by a control variable (general knowledge), is offered as an alternative to effect size measurement in mediation research.
While discussions on patient engagement commonly focus on patient behaviors, a small body of research highlights the patient-practitioner relationship as critical in engagement. Understanding this relationship might be facilitated through a relationally-oriented methodology. The Voice Centred Relational Approach is one such qualitative methodology. Within this paper, we present one turn in a long conversation about this methodology. Drawing on our longitudinal observational study of engagement practices in stroke rehabilitation in New Zealand, we explicate how a theoretical framework can inform how the Voice Centred Relational Approach is enacted in the research process, from entering the field to dissemination. We detail how we adapted the associated analytic techniques (the Listening Guide and i-poems) for use with multiple forms and sources of data. We propose that the underlying relational ontology and relational orientation of this methodology makes it a useful approach in researching relational practice in healthcare.
Multimodal studies posit that meaning is not only communicated through spoken and written words, but also through other modes such as images, gesture, gaze, proximity etc. The widespread availability of high-quality, miniaturised audio and video recording and storing technology has made multimodal data collection cheap and easy. However, the transcription and analysis of the resulting avalanche of recorded data is complex, timeconsuming, labour-intensive and expensive. To date there is no established practice or consensus as to scope, methods, objectives or definitions. In fact, concern has been voiced that the field risks expanding to the point of incoherence, sometimes building theory from intuition and generalising from single case studies. Lessons from the 200-year-old discipline of modern linguistics can provide one way forward for the vibrant emerging field of multimodal studies by introducing methods that generate results and hypotheses which can be critically evaluated and empirically tested.
Mixed methods research requires integration of qualitative and quantitative data. However, there is debate about how to define integration and what is required for integration to occur. This paper describes a mixed methods research project which revisits datasets from different eras, which were originally instigated for different purposes and had different theoretical frameworks. Using selected results about the relationship between teenagers’ vocational aspirations and adult occupations we show how the research topic and question integrated the projects within a constructivist theoretical position. We argue that reanalysing and comparing historical datasets can provide new insights into a topic even with minimal integration of the data. We recommend a broad definition of integration and reflexive research practice to encourage innovation and diversity in mixed methods research, particularly with regard to reanalysis of datasets from different eras.
Qualitative research with political elites provides unique opportunities to access intimate details regarding the perceptions and opinions of key decision-makers; yet limited scholarly attention has been directed at the difficulties involved in recruiting these groups for interviews. In this article, I outline a series of targeted strategies aimed at successfully recruiting members of the political elite for qualitative research, using examples from a successful recruitment process in a study of U.S. state court judges. Recruitment strategies tailored to elite populations are described, including utilizing multiple modes of contact, crafting a compelling presentation of the study, highlighting participation benefits, preemptively alleviating concerns, and elegantly navigating gatekeepers. These techniques extend common recruitment approaches used with non-elite populations to political elites and provide guidance in managing the unique power dynamics associated with accessing members of the elite to improve interview participation rates.
The effect of the response scale direction on response behavior is a wellknown phenomenon in survey research. While there are several approaches to explaining how such response order effects occur, the literature reports mixed evidence. Furthermore, different question formats seem to vary in their susceptibility to these effects. We therefore investigate the occurrence of response order effects in Agree/Disagree (A/D) and Item-Specific (IS) questions. We conducted an experiment among n = 930 students in which we varied the scale direction (decremental vs. incremental) within A/D and IS questions and asked respondents to evaluate the questionnaires. The results reveal response order effects within the A/D but not within the IS question format. Furthermore, respondent’s evaluations suggest that completion of the IS questionnaires requires more consideration than the completion of the A/D questionnaires. Altogether, our findings indicate that IS questions are more robust against response order effects than A/D questions.
This article outlines how co-production might be understood as a utopian method, which both attends to and works against dominant inequalities. It suggests that it might be positioned ‘within, against, and beyond’ current configurations of power in academia and society more broadly. It develops this argument by drawing on recent research funded through the UK’s Connected Communities programme, led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; and by attending to arguments from the field of Utopian Studies. It explores particular issues of power and control within the field of co-production, acknowledging that neoliberalism both constrains and coopts such practice; and explores methodological and infrastructural issues such that its utopian potential might be realised.
This study constitutes the first longitudinal exploration of consent to link survey and administrative data. It examines variations in consent over time and explores the influence of the respondents’ characteristics (both observed and latent) and the impact of the interviewers on consent co-operation. Respondent inclination to consent is modelled as a latent construct. Most respondents behave consistently over time. However, this consistency is not driven by a strong inclination to consent but rather by the circumstances of the respondents at the time of the interview and by the impact of the interviewers themselves. The findings also show that the change in consent behaviour over time is a clear indication that consent should be treated as a dynamic phenomenon at the individual level.
As intersectionality gains more prominence, scholars still face difficulties of incorporating principles of intersectionality into empirical research. Key concepts of intersectionality theory include moving away from additive thinking, relationality, and social constructionism. An important challenge is how to incorporate these concepts into research design. While existing scholarship examines intersectional methodology, most of the focus has been on issues of analysis not data collection. I argue that some of the difficulties in intersectionality scholarship are not just issues of analysis but issues of data collection. In particular, I discuss how scholars can incorporate intersectionality concepts into research design by offering examples from my own research that used qualitative interviews to examine how race and gender influenced neighborhood experiences. I also present the obstacles I encountered in conveying the key concepts of intersectionality into language that is relatable to study participants.
Electronically assisted survey techniques offer several advantages over traditional survey techniques. However, they can also potentially introduce biases, such as coverage biases and measurement error. The current study compares the relative merits of two survey distribution and completion modes: email recruitment with internet completion; and door to door recruitment with either tablet or internet completion. Presentation mode is held constant so that we are able to separate the impacts of recruitment mode and completion mode on responses. Recruitment mode appeared to influence both response rates and which socio-demographic groups were represented. However, the difference between the two recruitment modes was relatively small. Completion mode appeared to have little or no impact on responses although it did influence completion times. The email distributed survey performed better with regard to time costs and the number of respondents obtained. Differences between the two survey modes appeared to be largely due to recruitment method rather than completion mode.
This article tests whether collecting pile-sort data online produces results similar to those obtained with face-to-face methods. We collected pile sorts from 227 university students in the cultural domain of emotions. To test for mode and design effects, we randomly assigned participants to faceto-face or internet modes and to either a 15- or 30-item sort. We found no evidence of mode effects in semantic structure, but the level of agreement among respondents varied by mode, depending on the number of items in the task. Agreement was higher among online respondents in the 15-item task but among face-to-face respondents in the 30-item one. Because the central purpose of pile sorting is to elicit semantic structure, we conclude that online data collection is a viable option for most researchers, but the mode effect in level of agreement implies that other design elements may affect comparability of face-to-face and web-based methods.
Collecting multiple perspectives data (e.g. from related individuals) in a qualitative longitudinal design can provide rich understanding of the dynamics at play in complex relational systems, and the different perceptions of people involved. However, such approaches are inherently challenging due to the complexity and volume of data involved. So far, little attention has been paid to the methodological challenges of data analysis in multiple perspectives longitudinal research. This paper contributes to the development of a systematized analysis process for multiple perspectives qualitative longitudinal interviews (MPQLI). We present a framework for handling the complexity and multi-dimensionality of MPQLI, describing discrete steps in such analyses, and related aims and insights. We exemplify the suggested strategies with our own research on the transition to parenthood. The proposed framework can increase both traceability and credibility of analysis of MPQLI, and help to realize the potential of multiple perspectives longitudinal interviews.
We assess the potential for mixing social research methods, based upon a materialist and micropolitical analysis of the research-assemblage and of what individual research techniques and methods do in practice. Applying a DeleuzoGuattarian toolkit of assemblages, affects and capacities, we document what happens when research methods and techniques interact with the events they wish to study. Micropolitically, many of these techniques and methods have unintended effects of specifying and aggregating events, with the consequently that the knowledge produced by social inquiry is invested with these specifications and aggregations. We argue that rather than abandoning these social research tools, we may use the micropolitical analysis to assess precisely how each method affects knowledge production, and engineer the research designs we use accordingly. This forms the justification for mixing methods that are highly aggregative or specifying with those that are less so, effectively rehabilitating methods that have often been rejected by social researchers, including surveys and experiments.
This paper examines the role of the research process in shaping the construction of knowledge about sensitive topics in in-depth interviews particularly with regard to researcher identity and cultural influences or norms. We argue that these influences shape all aspects of the research process and that researchers will benefit from reflecting upon them when planning, undertaking and interpreting qualitative studies. Drawing on an empirical study interviewing Australian women aged 55 years and older about sexuality we address differences and similarities between researchers and participants; cultural constructions of sexuality and ageing, and generational influences. Using examples from our interview data we interrogate the contribution of each of these aspects to the interview dynamic and the coproduction of meaning. Our analysis draws attention to the fluidity of insider and outsider status and to the existence of hidden boundaries that impact on how certain topics can be discussed in interviews. The paper argues that knowledge about sensitive topics such as older people’s sexuality must be viewed as a situated occurrence shaped by the particularities of the interview and the cultural context. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for qualitative inquiries into sensitive topics.
Issues of positionality of Black African researchers researching African issues is seldom discussed in methodological literature. In this article, I reflect from an African perspective on issues of insider/outsider positionalities and of serendipity and unexpectedness during my fieldwork which are areas often dominated by writing from the global north and by writers and researchers who do not identify as African people of color and hope that my article will contribute to fill this gap. I share my background, identity, gender and age, and how these might have influenced my approach and interpretation during the process. My qualitative study explored perspectives and subjective experiences of Xhosa speaking adults with epilepsy and their carers in an urban Black township in Cape Town, South Africa. I conclude with the tortoise metaphor to show the cultural relevance thereof, the importance of curiosity and of embracing events of unexpectedness in fieldwork.
Co-producing research is complex and messy. This paper draws on Tina Cook’s argument for the systematic inclusion of ‘mess’ in research accounts  as a conceptual framework through which to articulate areas of ethical mess from within a co-produced research project. Through narrating the ‘messy’ ethical complications the paper illustrates a number of specific ethical risks when coproducing research; particularly when working with young people. The paper provides valuable insight into ethical tensions that can emerge when using a co-produced methodology and will be informative for future researchers negotiating their own co-produced research projects. The paper argues for the systematic inclusion of mess in the accounting of participatory research.
Knowledge about different health-related attitudes, beliefs, and risks is of significant interest to scholars in different Social Science disciplines. Usually knowledge is collected in a form of multiple variables and then constructed as a composite indicator. The question any researcher working with knowledge-related variables faces is: what is the best way to measure and summarise different dimensions of health-related knowledge? The main goal of this paper is to evaluate and compare simple score and latent class approaches to measuring and summarising health-related knowledge using population data on HIV knowledge collected in five selected countries (China, India, Kenya, Malawi, and Ukraine). The advantages and shortcomings of both approaches (simple score and latent class approaches) to measuring and summarising health-related knowledge are evaluated and discussed.
In this article, we present the results of three question design experiments on inter-item correlations, which tested a grid design against a singleitem design. The first and second experiments examined the inter-item correlations of a set with five and seven items, respectively, and the third experiment examined the impact of the question design on inter-item correlations of follow-up questions. We found that the inter-item correlations in grid designs were higher for both the set of five and seven items than for questions in a single-item design. Additionally, the inter-item correlations of the set of follow-up questions were higher if the preceding set of questions was presented in a grid. According to the findings of the present research, respondents seem to apply the interpretative near means related heuristic when answering grid questions, and also when answering follow-up questions preceeded by grid questions.
Engaging non-conventional gatekeepers such as the police presents both promises and perils. Although studies have relied on police data for researching suicide and other sensitive topics in Africa, there is a paucity of literature that explores or reflects on police gatekeeping and its research implications. This paper presents authors’ reflections on police gatekeeping in a qualitative suicide study in Accra, Ghana. The main observation is that the process was double-edged. On the one hand, it led to field delays and costs, (mis)apprehensions and positionality problems, and trust building challenges. On the other hand, it vouched for research(er) credibility, provided therapeutic openings, and facilitated the viability of research with the suicide bereaved. Sensitivity to research context, sensitising the police, and reinforcing ‘therapeutic-research discourse’ with participants, are recommended means for aligning participants’ goals to research goals and for achieving therapeutic disclosures.
The need to elicit public opinion about predefined topics is widespread in the social sciences, government and business. Traditional survey-based methods are being partly replaced by social media data mining but their potential and limitations are poorly understood. This article investigates this issue by introducing and critically evaluating a systematic social media analytics strategy to gain insights about a topic from YouTube. The results of an investigation into sets of dance style videos show that it is possible to identify plausible patterns of subtopic difference, gender and sentiment. The analysis also points to the generic limitations of social media analytics that derive from their fundamentally exploratory multi-method nature.
This article focuses on research ethics in highly intimate research with possible impact on life and death. In order to stimulate an open-ended dialogue about research ethics, we reflect on four ethical challenges that came up during our research into older people with a wish to die. Drawing on our experiences, we discuss (1) the possibly confirming influence of our research on the death wish (moral experience of whether or not to disregard responsibility); (2) the suggested duty to intervene (moral experience of whether or not to compromise the person’s autonomy); (3) the researcher’s authority and power over the data (moral experience of threatening a person’s self-narrative) and (4) the dilemma of intimacy (moral experience of encountering the tragic). For guidance in addressing these challenges, we draw upon work on research ethics from phenomenological and care ethics scholars, as well as from those writing about relational ethics in health research. We suggest that being open about ethical uneasiness is important, because in most cases of a grey area, there are only open-ended answers needing an enquiring mind, rather than clear and fixed guidelines. Acknowledgement of ethical uneasiness and open-ended reflexivity are indispensable to constitute a morally good research practice.
Though panel data are increasingly used in the social sciences, the question whether repeatedly participating in a panel survey affects respondents’ attitudes and (response) behaviour is still largely unsolved. Drawing on a model of associative networks that is extended by assumptions on survey satisficing, we present a theoretical framework that emphasizes the role of strength-related attributes of attitudes (accessibility, internal consistency, extremity) and motivation in respondents’ information processing. In particular, we argue that – depending on respondents’ predispositions – occupation with survey questions enhances attitude strength, which results in increasing attitude stability and influence on thoughts and behaviours. Against this background, we bring together hitherto unconnected results from previous research and thus contribute to a more thorough understanding of both the mechanisms and the multifaceted outcomes of panel conditioning.
Snowball sampling is frequently advocated and employed by qualitative social researchers. Under certain circumstances, however, it is prone to faltering and even failure. Drawing on two research projects where the snowball failed to roll, the paper identifies reasons for this stasis. It goes on to argue that there are alternative forms of networking that can be developed by the qualitative social researcher in lieu of snowballing. Specifically, when research momentum fails to build, rather than drilling down ‘vertically’ through social networks, we argue that the researcher can move ‘horizontally’ across social networks and cast the sampling and recruitment net wide and shallow rather than deep. This change in emphasis can, we argue, make the difference between a project failing and a project succeeding, and points to the importance of a variegated understanding of the social networks on which our social research depends.
The ‘mixed’ group, officially recognised in the 2001 Census, is one of the most rapidly growing ethnic groups in Britain. Although ‘mixed’ categorisation was added to ethnic coding in NHS datasets, our knowledge of health patterns for this population is meagre. Data quality problems remain a key obstacle, including poor reproducibility of the data and constraints on reporting due to sparse data bias. The consequent minimal and indicative evidence base has focused mainly on risky health behaviours, mental health and generic measures of self-rated health, as it has in the U.S.A. and Canada. There is negligible information on the main underlying causes of death, such as neoplasms, heart disease and stroke. Consideration should be given to pooling data across multiple years of health and general purpose surveys to enable reporting for the four ‘mixed’ categories and adjustment for mediating factors and relevant confounders, such as measures of socioeconomic status.
Trust is often treated as a binary where research participants either trust researchers or not, whereas in reality trust is multi-layered. Drawing on 10  months of fieldwork working with internally displaced persons and their non-displaced neighbours in rural Colombia, this article provides a more nuanced discussion of trust in research. It identifies ways in which participants are vulnerable, provides fieldwork strategies to address these vulnerabilities, and questions the assumption that extended time spent in the field necessarily results in greater trust. It argues that such beliefs underestimate the complexity of conflict and post-conflict research contexts where political and social relations are often unstable. Demonstrating that trust may be compartmentalised, and that trust and distrust can coexist, it proposes that the question researchers should ask themselves is not whether participants trust us or not but rather in what capacity and to what degree they (dis)trust us and what influences their level of trust.
In the field of social sciences, certain tasks, such as the identification of typologies and the characterization of groups of individuals according to a set of questions, tend to pose a challenge for researchers. Further complications arise if the chosen rating scale is from 0 to 10, since the responses can be treated either as metric or categorical variables. This paper shows that neither treatment is able on its own to capture all the inherent properties of this type of data, and goes on to propose a bicriteria clustering approach, which captures both perspectives and enables the simultaneous analysis of mixed data using multiple tables.
Mixed methods research is growing in acceptance and complexity, which translates into significant pedagogical challenges for teaching about mixed methods research. To address this challenge and to contribute to creating a pedagogical culture for teaching research methods, we developed a practically focused conceptual framework for describing the field of mixed methods research and used this framework to structure an Introduction to Mixed Methods Research course. Our socio-ecological framework describes the field of mixed methods within three nested and interacting levels: the mixed methods research process, content, and contexts. The course introduces students to each level and its components and considers how the framework accounts for different perspectives, issues, and debates found within the field. Course evaluations suggest that the new pedagogical approach helps students successfully understand and navigate the complexity and nuances of the mixed methods field, and develop foundational knowledge for designing and implementing a mixed methods study.
This article explores the ‘methodology of friendship’ and its wider potential within music research. Drawing on two research examples that made use of ‘friendship’ in distinct fashions – one that explores music listening practices in everyday life and the other, music as a site for racialisation – the article discusses how friendship can be incorporated within semi-structured interviews. The case studies act as examples of how to negotiate alterity in music research and how friendship represents a potential for gathering more detailed data. The notion of ‘alterity’, at the core of research relationships is critical to shift the conversation to an informal tone and improve the depth of the discourses gathered from informants. Consequently, this article addresses debates within qualitative (music) sociology by reconsidering friendship as an axis of power and examines the nature of the data gathered in semi-structured interviews through the methodology of friendship.
Despite years of refinement and improvement to questionnaire design, the need remains to identify effective, but ‘user-friendly’ questioning procedures to predict behaviour, without compromising predictive performance. Questionnaires developed to predict behaviour typically use an attitudinal approach. However, those types of questionnaires are associated with increased respondent fatigue, decreased question comprehension, opposition to question tone and demand effects. An alternative approach involves use of factual questions. This study compares ease of application in the field as well as predictive performance of the two approaches to questionnaire design in the context of predicting willingness to donate blood. Results indicate that factual questions are quicker and easier to apply in the field than attitudinal questions, while predictive performance of the approaches is equivalent.
In all parts of the world, researchers are addressing the colonial legacy of research. This article aims to contribute to the decolonisation of research in a sub-Saharan African context by exploring Ubuntu as an indigenous Southern African research paradigm. Drawing on lessons learnt from participatory action research with South African science teachers and on Ubuntu research literature, I develop, and reflect on, characteristics of an Ubuntu research ethics, agenda and methodology. Understood as humanness, Ubuntu encompasses a dimension of becoming human and being human. Both dimensions are realised through lived community and respectful, caring relations with other living beings and the environment. Thus, ethical protocols evolve around relating positively to others. Ubuntu research agendas contribute to strengthening community and methodologies are community based, relational and participatory. The emphasis of the article is not on presenting Ubuntu research as categorically oppositional to conventional methodologies, but on an approach to research that is grounded in indigenous African epistemologies.
This study investigates how an interviewer’s characteristics affect how respondents answer survey questions about democracy and political engagement. I analyze data from the 2008 Afrobarometer surveys, in which 810 interviewers surveyed 27,713 respondents across 20 countries in subSaharan Africa. Using these data, I study how interviewer education, age, and gender affect two outcomes: (1) response distributions to attitudinal and behavioral survey questions and (2) the likelihood of respondents saying ‘don’t know’ to a survey question. The analysis also investigates how the respondent’s perception of who sponsored the survey (NGO, private sector, government) affects attitudes. The results show that these interviewer characteristics affect the quality of survey data on political attitudes and behaviors. In the discussion, I consider the implications for research based on public opinion data about democracy and political engagement.
This study compares cost, completion times, and percent completion of electronic tablet (n  =  244) to paper-based (n  =  398) questionnaires administered to participants of scenic raft trips on the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park. We hypothesized e-tablet questionnaires would (1) cost less (2) be completed faster and (3) be completely filled more frequently than paper-based questionnaires. Our survey resulted in a greater per unit cost of e-tablet compared to paper-based questionnaires ($4.17 and $1.80, respectively). Although e-tablets were completed faster (230 [±66] s) than paper questionnaires (235 [±57] s), the difference was not significant (t (641) = 1.97, p = 0.39). E-tablets were filled completely more frequently than paper questionnaires (80% vs. 51%, respectively; χ2 = 3.84, p 
While the ability, and indeed right, of children to be active participants in the research process has become better understood in recent years, concerns still persist when the research topic is particularly sensitive, or when the participants are vulnerable. This article provides an account of an ultimately unsuccessful research project aimed at exploring the conceptualisations and experiences of loss and bereavement of children in care. The literature relating to the practical, ethical and methodological considerations when conducting research on sensitive topics or with vulnerable children is reviewed and mapped against the author’s experience. Reflecting on the barriers to successful completion of the project the paper then discusses whether, despite well-documented limitations, many of these barriers to conducting sensitive research with vulnerable children may have been overcome by employing a practitioner–researcher approach to the methodology. By providing a rare reflection on a research ‘failure’, the paper is of relevance to students, practitioners and researchers alike.
Sequential explanatory mixed method design is the most frequently applied in both health and social sciences literature. It is denoted by ‘QUAN → qual’ which represents the quantitative study occurs first and has greater weight in addressing the study’s aims, and the qualitative study follows to explain quantitative results. Despite the extensive use of sequential explanatory design, there are limited references to this design. Therefore, this methodological paper attempts to fill the gap by providing an illustration in developing a sequential explanatory interview schedule based on complementary-alternative medicine (CAM) study among clinical psychologists in Indonesia. The most important step to develop sequential explanatory interview schedule was the construction of aspects and questions that were immensely grounded on the most notable quantitative results. In this study, eight aspects of interview schedule were constructed after analyses of the nationwide survey. The interview schedule then piloted among participants with fairly similar characteristics to the participants in the main interviews. This process enhanced the quality of questions through feedback from participants and improved the interviewer’s skills through familiarization with questions. It is expected that this reflection report could be adopted as a practical guideline in developing interview schedule for sequential explanatory mixed  method design, particularly in the field of psychology
When a theoretical framework (and its components) is not clearly linked to research methods, researchers risk designing flawed studies, wherein the stated research question is inconsistent with the research design. Explicitly identifying one’s theoretical orientation can provide an orderly schematic for linking observations from separate investigations (i.e. qualitative, quantitative) thereby facilitating understandings and guiding research designs particularly in fields of social and health sciences where complex phenomena are an aspect of the subject of inquiry. Although this has been established, how researchers might position their research theoretically to guide mixed methods research is less clear. In this paper, we propose the Before Design Theoretical Placement as a general guide for specifying and locating studies in a broader theoretical grounding, and discuss how it may inform overall study considerations. We then use this approach to illustrate how theories and methods can work together to facilitate professional knowledge development from a relational perspective.
This article deals with three topics: lying, privacy and anthropological research. Their complex intertwinement is analysed using fieldwork notes and through engagement with relevant literature from various disciplines. Experiences of privacy, among researchers as well as among respondents, is underexposed in the literature on social research methodology. Furthermore, lying is sometimes the only effective way to protect one’s privacy. Starting from a research experience with lying respondents in Ghana, I discuss the various circumstances and reasons that lead to lying in defence of privacy, and in particular, concerns about respect in the context of research. Next, I return to the concept of privacy and explicate cultural variations in the experience of privacy. I then look at the consequences for research ethics. The paradoxical conclusion is that lying, a discredited tool of deception, is often applied in order to uphold a widely accepted basic human necessity of life – privacy. Qualitative social researchers should take these concerns about privacy and respect into account and engage in conversations that do not threaten the security of their interlocutors.
Involvement of children in research processes requires various ethical considerations. In particular, while interviewing children, a researcher needs to take into consideration the power imbalance between a researcher and children as well as among children. This article suggests a possible way of mitigating potential risks, drawing on the idea and practice of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) as an interview method. CoI is the practice of group dialog for knowledge-making, where participants talk about a common topic by sharing their lived experiences in a cooperative manner. This article shows that CoI allows children to act as both interviewers and interviewees, which helps children in reflective knowledge-making while at the same time mitigating the ethical concerns of interviewing. To illustrate how CoI can help achieve these goals, this article draws on the empirical research conducted with a group of junior high school students in Japan.
Public health relies on sample surveys to monitor the health of populations and investigate factors that contribute to population health and illness. Such investigations require surveying individuals who are selected in ways that support statistical inference to the population. Faced with rising costs and declining participation, survey researchers are exploring economical ways to recruit samples that validly represent larger populations. The current report describes an innovative resource, the Colorado Adult Population Sample– Survey Research Registry, which maintains survey access to respondents from a probability-based state health survey. We describe recruitment and retention strategies, explore representativeness, report several studies that used the registry, and discuss future directions.
Hermeneutic phenomenologists propose that researchers inescapably bring themselves into their research because interpretation must inevitably be influenced by their contexts and pre-understandings. They propose that interpretation is a dynamic and active part of the construction of a text’s meaning, and involvement in this construction process leads to deep empathic understanding of others’ experience, reappraisal of accepted social and cultural systems, and a level of self-enlightenment. The strengths of the hermeneutic methodological approach have led to its use in a number of disciplines, however, there remains concerns about interpretative validity. It is widely acknowledged that in order to support rigour and validity in hermeneutic studies, researchers are required to develop and integrate strategies within the research process to promote awareness of the interplay between their pre-understandings and interpretation. This paper discusses how episodic interviewing which capitalizes on ‘shared intelligibility’, and the reflexive strategies of ‘oppositional arrangement of perspectives’ and ‘backgrounding’ were used to shed light on data from a study of the experiences and views of nursing home nurses regarding their occupational role and status, and work identity.
In this paper, we compare the estimates of earnings determinants based on the non-probabilistic WageIndicator web survey with those based on the widely used, representative EU Study of Income and Living Conditions survey. Using 10 years of Dutch data, we show that there exists an established segment of predominantly junior workers from which the respondents of the WageIndicator survey are disproportionally drawn. In consequence, the composition of WageIndicator sample tends to retain key characteristics over the years, even though it lacks a probabilistic sampling frame. We show that the estimates produced on the basis of an extended Mincerian earnings model using the two data sources are qualitatively similar. In line with much of the literature, however, the two sets of estimates do not pass the formal statistical test of equality. Nonetheless, when we examine only the subsample of junior workers, the statistical testing does not detect a statistically significant difference between the two datasets in many instances. To our knowledge, ours is the first paper showing such statistical evidence for comparability of a web survey based with a widely used representative data source.
Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a survey method for hidden populations and, as such, it offers a suitable approach for sampling the homeless. Surprisingly, the practical use of RDS in surveying homeless populations has only sporadically been described in the professional literature so far, and the specifics of using RDS for sampling this group have not been reflected in depth. The goal of the article is to investigate how three specific concerns, namely the transitional character of social ties among the homeless, problems with locating the interview site, and the irregular use of coupons, affect the sampling process. The findings of the article are based on experience using RDS for creating two independent samples of homeless persons in two Czech cities. Worries of poor referral effectiveness were disproved, but poor validity of the network size indicator, tendency towards irregular use of coupons, and negative effects arising from selecting service centres for the homeless as survey sites were confirmed.
While there is broad consensus that involving children in research is critically important for understanding their lives, there is considerable caution around their participation in social research on ‘sensitive’ issues. Such caution is further amplified by a lack of agreement about what constitutes a ‘sensitive topic’. This article draws on data from interviews with a range of Australian stakeholders, including children, parents, researchers, ethics committee members, government and non-government organisation representatives, and other decision-makers, specifically related to the question of ‘what is a sensitive topic?’. While participants identified a range of sensitive topics, findings point to sensitivities being closely linked with the contexts of children’s lives and experiences. This requires researchers to approach research in ways that reflect more nuanced understandings of these sensitivities, help address potential concerns and facilitate the development of research relationships that promote ethical conduct of research with children.
Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable ‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined layers of the digital environment interplay with users’ online social practices – which are embedded within offline everyday life and vice versa. While Internet ethnography largely dealt with contextual digital fields, recent developments in the realm of online research allow the ethnographic exploration of digital meta-fields and their publics. This shift recalls Marcus’ appeal for a multisited ethnography but, in fact, goes further beyond, towards a truly ‘un-sited’ ethnography. I highlight and discuss the main methodological implications of meta- and contextual fieldworks by presenting an exploratory study of European exchange students’ Facebook identities.
A common motivation for adding control variables to statistical models is to reduce the potential for spurious findings when analyzing non-experimental data and to thereby allow for more reliable causal inferences. However, as I show here, unless all potential confounding factors are included in an analysis (which is unlikely to be achievable with most real-world datasets), adding control variables to a model in many circumstances can make estimated effects of the variable(s) of interest to the researcher on the dependent variable less accurate. Due to this fact, in some circumstances omitting control variables, even those that affect the dependent variable and are correlated with the variable(s) of interest, may allow for more accurate estimates of the effect(s) of the variable(s) of interest.
In this report, we introduce a system for running reimbursed surveys via text messages and mobile cash. The key advantage of this approach is the ability to conduct rapid surveys at an extremely low cost. After reviewing existing literature, we describe an automated system for conducting such surveys and demonstrate its merits in a proof-of-principle application in India. We obtain substantive insights on the effectiveness of a policy trial that are in line with expert assessments. This application suggests that our approach can be applied to a wide range of problems including impact assessment for policy or developmental aid, and monitoring of public sentiment, and possibly monitoring of conflict dynamics.
We studied the impact of different layouts for rank order questions on respondent effort, data quality, and substantive results among PC and smartphone respondents, in an experiment in an opt-in online panel in Spain, using an order-by-click design. We experimentally varied the device, the number of columns, and, for smartphone respondents, the position of the ‘next’ button in questions on trust in institutions. We found some evidence of lower data quality for smartphone users but no evidence that presenting ranking items in one column performs differently than two columns. We also find little evidence that these effects differ by the number of response options presented or the number to be ranked. The placement of the ‘next’ button had little effect on performance on ranking items. Overall, our findings suggest that the format and layout of order-by-click questions has little effect on data quality, regardless of device used.
This paper explores the potential of observational sketching as a social science research tool, informed by our own recent experiments with observational sketching techniques and approaches. We first outline the historical roots of academic sketching and note a recent resurgence of interest in sketching in certain disciplines. We then introduce our own explorations in sketching as method, based on a year-long collaboration between an observational artist and a group of qualitative researchers with interests in creative methods. The paper outlines some of the lessons we learnt from our partnership, focusing on three themes: (i) ‘sketchiness’; (ii) ‘concentrated seeing’ and (iii) sketching as interaction. We conclude that observational sketching generates a refreshingly different form of visual data which has considerable potential to be used as a complement to other methods, including as a participatory method and as a useful tool for thinking.
RTI International created a geospatial grid-based sampling methodology that: achieved a probability-based household sample and unbiased estimates; was comparable across countries; used simple frame data available from the in-country census; and was efficient with minimal training to local field staff. The methodology used 1 km2 LandScan world population data, which was further subdivided to smaller grid cells ranging from 50 to 150 m2 . To guide fieldwork, georeferenced maps were generated and viewed without an Internet connection using a third-party app and the tablet’s internal global positioning systems receiver. The field staff’s location was displayed in real time as a blue dot enabling field staff to determine household inclusivity. This methodology was successfully implemented for household surveys Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The design is transferable, adaptable, scalable, and can be used anywhere in the world.
Reflexivity is a multimodal research feature that relies on the researcher’s subjectivity and self-awareness. This paper discusses uses of reflexivity when carrying out qualitative in-depth interviews on sexual topics. Through extracts of a challenging interview, where the challenge comes in the form of sexualised provocation from one man to another, this paper considers the benefits of using reflexivity to address emerging complexities in the interview process. The discussion focuses on ethical research practice through the lens of three forms of reflexivity: (1) reviewing the values that underpin a research project, with emphasis on the tension between rationality and intuition; (2) emotional self-awareness and self-care; and (3) recognition of the power dynamics in the researcher-participant relationship. Reflexivity promotes an intuition-informed decision-making process as a means to achieve ethical practice and conduct interviews with sensitivity and proficiency.
We present three statistical methods for causal analysis in life course research that are able to take into account the order of events and their possible causal relationship: a cross-lagged model, a latent growth model (LGM), and a synthesis of the two, an autoregressive latent trajectories model (ALT). We apply them to a highly relevant causality question in life course and health inequality research: does socioeconomic status (SES) affect health (social causation) or does health affect SES (health selection)? Using retrospective survey data from SHARELIFE covering life courses from childhood to old age, the cross-lagged model suggests an equal importance of social causation and health selection; the LGM stresses the effect of education on health growth; whereas the ALT model confirms no causality. We discuss examples, present short and non-technical introduction of each method, and illustrate them by highlighting their relative strengths for causal life course analysis.
The development of questionnaires, surveys and psychometric scales is an iterative research process that includes a number of carefully planned stages. Pretesting is a method of checking that questions work as intended and are understood by those individuals who are likely to respond to them. However, detailed reports of appropriate methods to undertake pretesting are currently underrepresented within the literature. This study presents a detailed protocol of a cognitive interview pretesting approach that informed the development of the Exercise Referral Quality of Life Scale – a measure of life-quality designed specifically for structured clinical exercise settings. This documented approach to pretesting proved a vital stage in the scale development process, without which the item problems detected would have carried forward into the statistical analyses. The current protocol intends to contribute to reducing the current shortfall in pretesting guidance for practitioners and researchers.
We still know relatively little about how researchers use qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) such as ATLAS.ti and NVivo. We conducted a discourse analysis of 763 empirical articles published from 1994 to 2013 that explored the language used by researchers when reporting QDAS use. We found that most researchers provided few details of their QDAS use beyond naming the program, but the detailed accounts provided by some authors provided valuable insights into the ways that QDAS programs can be used to support data analysis and the reporting of research outcomes. We conclude with suggestions for best practices in reporting QDAS use. We encourage researchers to provide more detail about their program usage, e.g. by choosing active rather than passive voice to avoid attributing agency to the software, defining specialized QDAS terminology to prevent confusion, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims of a relationship between QDAS use and improved quality.
The purpose of the paper is to offer a detailed explication of collectively enacted analytical and sense-making practices in participatory research. The co-production of knowledge is central to the methodological integrity of participatory research, but capturing the shared and collaborative processes through which meaning is made; particularly the analytical practices, can be difficult to untangle. A participatory project that employed memory work techniques is presented to illustrate and examine these dynamic processes ‘in action’. Three issues that merit careful consideration in enacting collective analytical practices are identified and discussed; firstly the negotiation of tension between forms of organic and more structured forms of analytical exploration, secondly reflexive engagement with power relationships and diversity in making sense of data, and finally addressing the utility of the analysis as an important aspect of participatory work. The paper contributes to an ongoing conversation concerning the challenges and possibilities for collaborative knowledge generation in participatory practices.
The notion of visual informed consent (VIC) is developed in the context of capturing on film the clarification of the purpose of data collection, the use of information obtained, and the rights, risks and benefits of participation on the one hand, and the registration of the participant’s understanding of this and of given consent on the other. VIC seeks to replace the paper-based informed consent procedure in situations where data are collected and used visually. Filming informed consent offers several benefits as compared to working with written forms, whereby the bureaucratic concerns for documented and ‘signed’ informed consent are given priority over the right to be informed. Based on empirical research in a context of film productions in the global South, this article documents the exploration of VIC’s potential and illustrates its procedure and relevance. Our ambition is to elucidate the VIC concept because of the increasing use of visual data in social science research.
Recently, implicit methods have been employed as a method to understand the underlying attitudes of the participant while also bypassing the social desirability biases that explicit measures are vulnerable to. Unfortunately, the literature has not considered the viewpoints of the individuals who participate in this process and the face validity they ascribe to the test’s results. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore how individuals respond to engaging in and receiving the results of an implicit test that addresses a sensitive topic and exploring the subsequent methodological implications. Specifically, we conduct a qualitative exploratory study of individuals’ reactions to their scores on the race-based implicit association test (IAT) using publically accessible comments from online message boards. Overall, we discuss four themes: the reporting of results, questioning IAT legitimacy, explicit racism/in-group behavior, and humor. Using a sensemaking theoretical framework, we discuss our findings and make recommendations for the future use of implicit tests.
While the methods used to study ‘elites’ are of particular relevance in policy research, to date there has been little examination of the particular challenges associated with ‘elite’ interviewing in this field. More specifically, the issues associated with interviewing ‘elites’ while conducting qualitative research in a contested policy domain, especially if policy processes are being studied as they play out in real time, remain underexplored. While the extant literature on ‘elite’ interviewing has begun to grapple with the notions of ‘power’ and ‘vulnerability’, the question of how these notions might need to be rethought in the context of a politicised policy domain remains open for examination. This article provides a methodological and reflexive account of the challenges associated with conducting research in one highly contested policy domain, namely, drug policy. Drawing on examples from a study which examined Australian drug policy processes, this article examines issues associated with anonymity and confidentiality produced through power relations between researcher and participant, particularly as these play out in a contested policy domain. In doing so, this article critically reflects on the practical and political implications for data collection, analysis and reporting of policy research.
In this paper we examine methodological innovation in the social sciences through a focus on researching the body in digital environments. There are two strands to our argument as to why this is a useful site to explore methodological innovation in the social sciences. First, researching the body in digital environments places new methodological demands on social science. Second, as an area of interest at the intersection of the social sciences and the arts, it provides a focus for exploring how social science innovation can be informed by engagement with the arts, in this instance how the arts work with the body in digital environments and take up social science ideas in novel ways. We argue that social science engagement with the arts and the relatively unmapped terrain of the body in digital environments has the potential to open up spaces for innovative social science questions and methods: spaces, questions and methods that have potential for more general social science methodological innovation. We draw on the findings of the Methodological Innovation in Digital Arts and Social Sciences (MIDAS) project a multi-site ethnography of the research ecologies of the social sciences and the arts related to the body in digital environments. We propose a continuum of methodological innovation that attends to how methods are moved across research contexts and disciplines, in this instance the social sciences and the digital arts. We illustrate and discuss the innovative potential of expanding and re-situating methods across the social sciences and the arts, the transfer of methods and concepts across disciplinary borders and the interdisciplinary generation of new methods. We discuss the catalysts and challenges for social science methodological innovation in relation to the digital and the arts, with attention to how the social sciences might engage with the arts towards innovative research.
This article brings together recent developments in the methodological literature on case selection in multi-method research (MMR), design of process tracing studies and the relevance of temporality in the explanation of political processes. It presents an extension of set-theoretic MMR by introducing a comparative process tracing (CPT) framework based on fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. To facilitate case selection for CPT, different types of cases in qualitative comparative analysis are defined. The CPT framework, then, specifies the cases to be compared in theorytesting or theory-building process tracing designs where the emphasis lies on the elaboration of the importance of timing and sequencing of conditions leading to an outcome.
Drawing on the experiences of a novel collaborative project between sociologists and computer scientists, this paper identifies a set of challenges for fieldwork that are generated by this wild interdisciplinarity. Public Access Wi-Fi Service was a project funded by an ‘in-the-wild’ research programme, involving the study of digital technologies within a marginalised community, with the goal of addressing digital exclusion. We argue that similar forms of research, in which social scientists are involved in the deployment of experimental technologies within real world settings, are becoming increasingly prevalent. The fieldwork for the project was highly problematic, with the result that few users of the system were successfully enrolled. We analyse why this was the case, identifying three sets of issues which emerge in the juxtaposition of interdisciplinary collaboration and wild setting. We conclude with a set of recommendations for projects involving technologists and social scientists.
This paper investigates the effect of interview mode (telephone vs. face-to-face) on responses to a 13-item module of identity questions covering distinct domains. With increasing moves towards mixed-mode implementation, especially in longitudinal surveys, establishing whether mode effects are likely to influence findings is of practical value. A growing number of studies explore mode effects; but the potential impact of mode on identity questions has not been investigated, even though such questions are increasingly being asked in multi-topic surveys. Adjusting for selection, we find little evidence for specific mode effects. The exception is responses on political identity: telephone responders are eight percentage points more likely to consider politics important to their identity. We do not find differences in data quality as measured by item non-response, straightlining, primacy and recency effects across modes. We conclude that mode effects are small for identity questions.
When undertaking quantitative hypothesis testing, social researchers need to decide whether the data with which they are working is suitable for parametric analyses to be used. When considering the relevant assumptions they can examine graphs and summary statistics but the decision making process is subjective and must also take into account the robustness of the proposed tests to deviations from the assumptions. We review the contemporary advice on this issue available to researchers and look back to the roots of hypothesis testing and associated work undertaken by eminent statisticians since the 1930s. From this we create a set of flow charts to give researchers tools they can use to make decisions in a more objective manner.
Critical realism (CR) is a useful philosophical framework for social science; however, little guidance is available on which precise methods – including methods of data collection, coding, and analysis – are best suited to applied CR research. This article provides a concrete example of applied qualitative research using CR as a philosophical and methodological framework. Drawing examples from a study of Canadian farm women’s experiences with agricultural policy, I suggest a flexible deductive process of coding and data analysis that is consistent with CR ontology and epistemology. The paper follows the typical stages of qualitative research while demonstrating the application of methods informed by CR at each stage. Important considerations CR ontology and epistemology raise, such as the use of existing theory and critical engagement with participants’ knowledge and experience, are discussed throughout. Ultimately, I identify two key causal mechanisms shaping the lives of farm women and suggest a future direction for feminist political economy theory to more effectively analyze women’s work in agricultural contexts.
The changing face of qualitative research has opened up discourses on the validity and rigour of research processes and products. A current debate is whether the criteria traditionally used to judge the rigour of quantitative research are appropriate to assess the academic integrity of qualitative research including autoethnography. The purpose of this article is to appraise views on the academic rigour, validity and scientific accountability of research in general and autoethnographic research in particular. The researcher reports on issues of rigour in conducting autoethnographic research from her own experience and that of published autoethnographic researchers. The issue of relevant appraisal criteria against which the research integrity and rigour of autoethnographic studies can be assessed is investigated. It is concluded that the academic rigour of autoethnographic studies should be established to enhance its credibility and value and that the criteria used need to be judiciously determined and applied.
A map provides a unique view over the complex relationships of competition and complementarity between methods. It goes beyond the usual approaches to methods, namely monographic, mixed, encyclopaedic and classificatory. A diverse set of 50 social and political science methods instructors were surveyed about their specialty along 17 dimensions that are regarded as contrasting by the methodology literature. Correspondence analysis and cluster analysis were used to reveal response profiles and proximities between courses. Results show that the ‘qualitative/quantitative’ divide appears structuring, but not as much as is often conceived. Quantitativeoriented courses form a rather cohesive cluster whereas qualitative courses display high variability regarding empirical material, scales of observation, techniques and epistemologies. The resulting global picture accounts for more dimensions of the quickly expanding space of methods than usual typologies of methods do. We hope it will stimulate new methodological combinations and new ways of teaching methods.
This paper explores provocation as an approach towards social science research. While routinely used in natural science and arts research, this paper argues provocation might enable the social science researcher to initiate critical reflection amongst participants on issues that are often otherwise overlooked, obscured or accepted as naturalised practice. By assuming the role of provocateur, stimulator and/or agitator, the social science researcher can interrupt the flow of everyday life in order to illuminate and draw attention to complex social issues. Using research interventions that embrace, rather than deny, the socially constructed nature of the research process, provocation provides an alternative to largely non-obtrusive methods favoured in much social science research. This paper concludes by outlining the practical and methodological issues associated with this approach – in particular the complicated ethics of provoking reflection on topics that might not have otherwise come to the participant’s attention.
The pedagogy of teaching research methods, let alone research ethics, is an under-researched field. In this article a sociology lecturer connects five postgraduate students in a qualitative research ethics course with two novice ethnographers’ candid empirical studies. While it is common for students to read articles and books on the topic, what was unusual in this ethics course was assigning the readings without priming the students of the ethical concepts of autonomy, do no harm, respect for persons or beneficence. The article documents how these students drew on their prior tacit knowledge of ethics to critique these two empirical studies both in classroom discussions and later in their written assignments. Each student wrote an account of the two texts before joining forces to construct a joint auto ethnographic account based on their reflective journals and on transcriptions of their classroom discussions. Invariably the students’ tacit knowledge allowed them to successfully locate core ethical issues within these two texts.
This short piece considers how participant recruitment can have ethical elements. With reference to a qualitative research project on asexuality we explore the challenges associated with recruiting from an emerging, and politically charged, identity group. In our attempt to broaden the representation of asexual stories we sought to recruit people who may not fully identify with the emerging term ‘asexual’ as a sexual orientation while also not equating this with a lifestyle choice of abstinence. This was attempted through crafting suitable recruitment materials via the use of the Mass Observation archive and expanded sampling criteria. Our efforts met with mixed success, on which we reflect. We conclude by suggesting how such ethical questions related to recruitment will remain ‘gaps’ in ethical regulation, calling for a greater reflexive approach from researchers about sampling criteria.
This paper discusses possibilities of designing ethical research practice in relation to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD). We will argue that in the case of this group of people, research ethics is about ethically justifiable research aims, design, methods, and practices that are based on the recognition of their equal worth as humans. We argue that the turn to emancipatory methods in disability studies has effectively excluded persons with PIMD as they implicitly assume that research participants have the kind of cognitive and communicative capacities that persons with PIMD lack. Their exclusion from disability studies is further reinforced by the theoretical tradition of the field that has emphasised the material arrangements of society, as well as the ableist cultural ideologies as key factors contributing to disabled people’s social exclusion. It is problematic to apply these approaches to individuals whose lives are marked by insurmountable impairment effects. Research ethics should take into account potential disparities of cognitive ability and power between researchers and research participants. Using an ongoing ethnographic study about the lives of persons with PIMD as an example, we describe in detail what positioning research participants as moral subjects could mean in practice.
When I began to undertake qualitative PhD research in Myanmar, I found myself caught between the demands of an ethics approval process that required researcher certainty about ‘risk’, and the reality of a research site where I would be able at best to part-glimpse the risks people faced. I found space to work through holding to the process of critical ‘languaging’; paying ongoing attention to power dynamics within interviews while engaging in ‘a social process in which we jointly construct realities for each of us to see, occupy and to talk into’ (emphasis in original). In this article, I reflect on the tensions between ethical process and research practice and argue that researchers should consider critical languaging as an important ethical tool.
This international research collaborative undertook what became a decade long process to look at meanings of celebratory food related occupations of elder women across three cultures in New Zealand, Thailand and the United States. Cross-cultural research comes with inherent ethical issues related to cultural lenses, use of instruments and potential biases of investigators. The many views of what cross cultural research is and how it might be done and the very general ethical codes from professional institutions provided guidance for protections of participants, however, gave little direction regarding ethical interaction amongst researchers. The team was committed to open, interpretive and unbiased engagement with each other, study participants and data. Critical engagement supported this, including the development of methodology to assure trustworthiness of data interpretation and creation of in person and virtual communication strategies to give all cultures voice. We found ways to negotiate language barriers and collaborated to deal with inequity in resources. We consciously addressed issues of equitable distribution of labor and authorship. We educated each other about our cultures by design and circumstance. Our satisfaction with the research process and outcomes is directly related to our adherence to its basic integrity.
The ethics of research representation are rarely discussed. Yet representation can have a significant impact on research participants and audiences. This paper draws on some of the limited body of accounts of ethical challenges experienced in representing others in qualitative research. These accounts make clear that researchers often have to choose between ‘competing goods’ when representing others, such as participant control over what is presented and how, researchers’ ‘interpretive authority’, and how to represent participants’ speech. These decisions frequently involve researchers choosing between ‘literal’ (empirical, evidence-based) and ‘real’ (authentic, experiential) truths. To resolve these dilemmas, some researchers are turning to creative methods of representation, such as poems, songs, plays and dance. Like all forms of representation, these methods require compromise: in particular, some detail, depth, or location may be sacrificed in return for accessible engagement with participants and wider audiences. Conversely, traditional methods of presentation may sacrifice some scope for engagement and accessibility in return for greater detail and depth. We argue that such sacrifices are a necessary component of all forms of qualitative representation and consequently require a reflexive approach to choices about representation. It is this reflexive approach which we argue constitutes an ethics of engagement.
With the growing possibilities for conducting web surveys, researchers increasingly use such surveys to recruit student samples for research purposes in a wide array of social science disciplines. Simultaneously, higher education students are recurrently asked to complete course and teacher evaluations online and to participate in small-scale research projects of fellow students, potentially leading to survey fatigue among student populations across the globe. One of the most frequently reported effects of over-surveying is a decrease in overall response rates. This situation has significant impacts on the generalizability and external validity of findings based on web surveys. The collection of reliable data is, nevertheless, crucial for researchers as well as educational practitioners and administrators, and strategies should be developed for achieving acceptable response rates. This paper reports on a methodological experiment (N = 15,651) conducted at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in which possible strategies to improve survey response are explored. I specifically focus on the impact of an extra reminder as well as specific reminder contents on response rates. The results reveal that extra reminders are effective for increasing response rates, but not for diversifying the sample.
This paper focuses on microethical issues concerning interactions in which the process of informed consent occurs. It draws on research analysing the biographies and future hopes of 15- to 17-year-old girls and boys participating in targeted youth/educational programmes in the Helsinki area. The ethical challenge explored here is how to negotiate with the young interviewees on expanding the research setting towards a longitudinal and cross-generational approach, which also means expanding the data produced on their already well-reported lives. The paper highlights the power relations between adult researcher and young research participant, the contextual nature of gaining informed consent, and the conflict involved in trying to avoid hounding an over-surveilled group while still tracking their whereabouts and revisiting them for a follow-up interview.
This article engages with the practice of video recording in social research. We draw on our research of institutional talk to explore the emotionality of video recording in the context of the studied situations. Drawing on insights from Collins’ theory of interaction rituals, we demonstrate a variety of situational moments in which different participants negotiate the presence of a video camera. Our analysis reveals the emotional aspects of negotiating and appropriating the presence of such technologies by all parties involved in the research process. We contribute to and extend the growing body of literature that discusses the meaning of technology for social research by emphasizing the emotionality of using video cameras in social and research practices.
Obtaining informed consent can be challenging in stressful and urgent circumstances. One example is when potential participants have recently had their child removed into care; intervention is urgent and mandatory whereas participation in associated research is voluntary. Using a nested qualitative study, we examined experiences of consent processes in a randomised controlled trial of a family assessment and intervention service for maltreated young children. Some potential participants found it difficult to use information; some believed consenting might influence the return of their child. In response to these ethical challenges, we propose reversing the typical process of securing consent, so that randomisation to an intervention occurs before inviting potential participants to consider the trial. This will avoid delays, delineate research from intervention, and make it easier to consider information. We suggest that this innovation could be useful in trials across service areas that incorporate urgent and complex interventions.
This article examines the use of quantitative methods to advance feministinspired understandings of intersectionality. We acknowledge a range of conflicting opinions about the suitability of current quantitative techniques. To contribute to this debate, we assess the conceptualizations of intersectionality embedded in the most common approach to quantitative analysis, multiple regression. We identify three features of intersectional analysis highlighted in the feminist literature: (1) attention to context; (2) a heuristic approach to identifying relevant dimensions of inequality; (3) and addressing the complex, multidimensional structuring of inequality. Using these criteria, we evaluate: (1) multiple regression including context as a higher-order interaction; (2) multiple regressions run within different contexts and compared; and (3) multilevel regression including context as a higher-order level of analysis. We demonstrate with research illustrations that the models do a progressively better job at satisfying the criteria. We conclude that the third model offers a conceptualization of intersectionality that is the most consistent with the feminist literature.
This paper explores the potential of an online TimeBank for inclusive research to address some of the challenges related to the unequal distribution of power and money for researchers within and outside the academy working in collaboration. The problem, the concept of TimeBanking, and the relationship of TimeBanking to inclusive research principles are explained. The case is made for developing an online TimeBank for inclusive research, and an account is given of initial co-production of a prototype by an English interdisciplinary academic team and a Welsh workers cooperative set up and run by people with and without learning disabilities aiming to make public life more inclusive. The paper concludes that, while the concept is some way from becoming a reality, a hybrid digital-physical TimeBank, if accessible and flexible enough to attract usage, has potential for supporting democratised, inclusive research in practice.
This paper presents a methodology for field-testing concepts through practitioner engagement. It was developed and trialled in a study involving the critique and reconceptualisation of the psychodramatic concept of warm-up. A critical review of the concept led to a reconceptualisation and description from which an explanatory document was drawn together as the lead statement for surveying psychodrama practitioners. The fieldtesting used online software to communicate with selected international participants. The lead document and survey invited critical text-based evaluative responses to the reconceptualisation. The responses were processed by selecting those with substantive critical comment and then clustering them according to a framework of criteria designed for concept evaluation. Responses were reviewed critically in the context of the overall conceptualisation and incorporated as appropriate into it. The process provided significant support for the new conceptualisation as well as critical input that led to its further improvement.
African American communities have experienced negative effects from a history of medical abuse, lack of proper research procedures, and misinterpretations of study findings because of racism. These past injustices have led to a mistrust of research and researchers. This paper focuses on how some methodological challenges, in a study funded by a National Institutes of Health grant on two low-income African American communities in Kentucky, were mediated through the collaboration of a multi-racial/ ethnic team of researchers engaged in cross-disciplinary research. The information for this paper is based on the reflections of key members of the research team. The reflections show that having researchers with different epistemologies resulted in a culturally aware and sensitive study in which emic and etic research approaches were adopted. The inclusion of race-based epistemologies and close community ties were found to be particularly useful in building trust and getting the support of the two communities. However, these outcomes were only possible because research team members provided each other latitude for intellectual freedom and leadership.
There is an increasing body of research which examines the reliability and validity of different modes of network measurement with most studies focusing on the classical paper or digital network questionnaires. Visual methods of data collection, in which interviewees draw their ego-centered network in a pictorial representation, still live a kind of shadowy existence in the field of network research, with little known about data quality of these approaches. In this paper, the classic approach of questionnaire data collection will be compared to the digital-visual method (VennMaker) in a parallel study design. Similar name generator and interpreter questions were used to collect network data from 264 young adults. Two participants from both studies participated in follow-up qualitative interviews to understand the advantages and disadvantages of data collection modes. Network measures of size, composition and density with additional information on the subjective importance of relations within the network were collected. Results indicate relevant differences between both network methods. These emerge due to the differential effect of the name generator in the visual approach, the specific display of the study material, and the particular limitations of space and effort each method entails. In-depth interviews shed light on subjective strategies (such as gestalt and distancing-and-selecting strategies) in order to cope with the distinct methodical tasks.
Prompted by discovering a paper written in 1980 which described a process of ‘ethnography by proxy’, I revisit this concept in the light of two research projects: a workplace study of an electronics company conducted in the early 1990s and a later home-based study of young children’s encounters with toys and technology. The paper defines ethnography by proxy as the process of delegating some of the ethnographer’s activities to participants in the research setting. It discusses a pragmatic response to some of the challenges of conducting fieldwork and considers the implications of delegating non-academic proxies to fulfil aspects of the ethnographer’s role, the different guises that may be taken by the ethnographer and what this shift in research relationships might mean for the interpretation of data. The concept of proxy has implications for some of the tenets of ethnographic research as it requires a re-examination of our roles and the relationship between researcher and researched
This paper discusses the ‘telling case’ and the manner and extent of its use in social research. The ‘telling case’, proposed by Mitchell as a counter to prevailing expectations of typicality, is an ethnographic case study, derived from analytic induction and focused on the exposure of new theoretical insights. By means of an evaluation of the available literature this paper summarises Mitchell’s construal of the ‘telling case’ before examining how it has been exploited by others. The evidence suggests that while authors acknowledge the source of the ‘telling case’ few offer any substantial acknowledgement of Mitchell’s conceptualisation, indicating that most ‘telling case’ research has employed Mitchell’s name somewhat disingenuously and contributed to the growth of a methodological myth. Moreover, despite its international spread, its origins seem located in the work of a small number of internationally recognised scholars and the mobility of their former graduate students.
Survey researchers are increasingly concerned that the presence of other people (bystanders) may affect data quality in structured, face-to-face survey interviews. In this article, we study bystanders using data from 15,309 faceto-face surveys about technology from Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Brazil and Guatemala. Our analysis (1) describes the frequency of bystander presence (spouses, parents, other family and non-family members), (2) investigates the correlates of bystander presence, and (3) studies whether bystanders affect response distributions, ‘don’t know’ responses, and satisficing behavior. We also consider the influence of other environmental factors – noise and distractions – on interviewer–respondent interaction and satisficing. The results are encouraging for the field of survey research. Bystanders did not affect response distributions, the number of ‘don’t know’ responses, or satisficing behavior. Although noise negatively affected interviewer– respondent interactions, noise did not affect data quality. Our research suggests that for less sensitive topics, bystanders have limited influence, and also that respondents and interviewers are resilient to challenges such as noisy environments.
This article contributes to a growing literature that takes a more nuanced approach to exploring the complexities of relationships and negotiations with gatekeepers. Using our study of young people living with a parent at the end of life as a ‘critical case’ of sensitive qualitative research, we discuss how far from being a smooth, linear process, participant recruitment was experienced as a series of overlapping challenges, characterised here as ‘wheels within wheels’. Each component of this multi-faceted process relied on identifying and engaging with key practitioners who acted as gatekeepers. We discuss how researcher and gatekeeper positionality influenced the outcome of negotiations with gatekeepers, and highlight potential implications for young people in exigent sets of circumstances. If the routes ‘in’ to access young people are difficult, then this also raises questions about routes ‘out’ for young people and their access to support when living through challenging times.
Some social scientists have criticised the workings of research-ethics committees on the grounds that their biomedical model is ill-suited to some social-science research in both practical and philosophical terms. In this paper we review these criticisms and propose an alternative approach to pre-research ethical review that is based on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
This article reports on an attempt to use photo-elicitation to explore contested intergenerational perceptions and experiences of ‘place’ in one English village. Participants actively disrupted the photo-elicitation project and ended up co-creating an enriched research design that allowed them to represent how they experienced ‘place’. The spontaneous, mixed mediaelicitation that resulted overturns some of the more straightforward notions that are aligned with photo-elicitation techniques. This article builds on a growing body of critical literature on photo-elicitation and shows how participants’ disruption of a project’s research methods can be both challenging and fruitful in practice. The researcher’s flexibility and willingness to work with participants’ alternative approaches proved extremely effective in allowing participants to communicate their ‘imagined geographies’ and to identify experiences of social inequality. This article explores how the initially problematic in participant involvement can be turned into the productive through the use of ‘improvised methodologies’.
Photographic images allow data to be captured from an alternative perspective. Traditional, manual cameras are the most common method of recording photographic data, however, innovative technology is changing the way in which photographs can be collected. Wearable cameras enable a vast amount of photographic images to be captured, automatically, without user interaction. It is often assumed that photographic research methods are used for a similar purpose, engage participants in a similar way and yield a similar outcome, however, there are various differences between the use of traditional, manual cameras and innovative, wearable cameras. This research note offers a unique contribution to the literature by highlighting the differences between the use of traditional, manual cameras and wearable, automatic cameras within research.
This study explores how virtual desktops hosted within a cloud computing environment can be used as a data capture tool to undertake research exploring web-browsing and web-searching behaviour. It details the protocol used to observe the task-orientated web interactions of 105 university and school aged participants within the confines of a research experiment and considers the comparability between data collected remotely via virtual desktops and data collected in a controlled environment. Data collected remotely via virtual desktops is found to be comparable to data collected in the field across a number of key statistics, with remote data collection making recruitment and participation more convenient, whilst potentially reducing response bias. The protocol detailed has broad potential for adaption where there is a need to remotely capture participants’ web-use in a cost-effective and non-technical manner. Limitations with the protocol are identified and possibilities for future adaptations are discussed.
Growing interest in mixed method approaches to social research, alongside calls to expand methodological toolboxes to include the use of visual, mobile, sensory and observational methods, are generating diverse forms of research data that represent a range of ways of knowing. We discuss a study that used multiple methods to explore the circumstances of ‘early school leavers’ and show how we utilised the metaphor of pinboard logic and techniques of montage to guide the analysis, synthesis and interpretation of hetergeneous data. Pinboard logic enabled us to frame, assemble and contextualise data for analysis and interpretation, while montage suggests how these various ‘bits’ of data can be linked to develop insights into complex social scenarios. These analytic strategies accommodated the diverse expressive practices that young people used to describe their experiences, and allowed us to explore the varied circumstances associated with young people disengaging from educational opportunities.
This study investigates three methods to handle dependency among effect size estimates in meta-analysis arising from studies reporting multiple outcome measures taken on the same sample. The three-level approach is compared with the method of robust variance estimation, and with averaging effects within studies. A simulation study is performed, and the fixed and random effect estimates of the three methods are compared with each other. Both the robust variance estimation and three-level approach result in unbiased estimates of the fixed effects, corresponding standard errors and variances. Averaging effect sizes results in overestimated standard errors when the effect sizes within studies are truly independent. Although the robust variance and three-level approach are more complicated to use, they have the advantage that they do not require an estimate of the correlation between outcomes, and they still result in unbiased parameter estimates.
Back translation – the ‘re-translation’ of a translated questionnaire back into the original language and the subsequent comparison of the original version and the back translation – is a controversial assessment method for questionnaire translations. Recently, cross-cultural survey methodologists have followed the call for more empirical research on this method. This article adds to the small body of research by drawing on the back translation documentation from the 2012 European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS). First, results from the official EQLS back translation step are contrasted with results when additional persons perform the same comparison step between back translation and original. We note inconsistency in the detection of presumed flaws. Second, the back translation outcome is contrasted with additional native speaker checks of the actual translation. While back translation can uncover problems, it causes quite a number of false alarms, and even more importantly, many problems remain hidden.
This paper reflects on the methodological complexities of producing emotionally-sensed knowledge about responses to family deaths in urban Senegal. Through engaging in ‘uncomfortable reflexivity’, we critically explore the multiple positionings of the research team comprised of UK, Senegalese and Burkinabé researchers and those of participants in Senegal and interrogate our own cultural assumptions. We explore the emotional labour of the research process from an ethic of care perspective and reflect on how our multiple positionings and emotions influence the production and interpretation of the data, particularly exemplified through our differing responses to diverse meanings of ‘family’ and religious refrains. We show how our approach of ‘uncomfortable reflexivity’ helps to reveal the work of emotions in research, thereby producing ‘emotionally sensed knowledge’ about responses to death and contributing to the cross-cultural study of emotions.
In recent years, the possibilities and pitfalls of qualitative secondary analysis have been the subject of on-going academic debate, contextualised by the growing availability of qualitative data in digital archives and the increasing interest of funding councils in the value of data re-use. This article contributes to, and extends these methodological discussions, through a critical consideration of how the secondary analysis of thematically related qualitative longitudinal (QL) datasets might be utilised productively in qualitative research design. It outlines the re-use of two datasets available in the Timescapes Archive, that were analysed to develop a primary empirical project exploring processes of continuity and change in the context of men’s care responsibilities in low-income families. As well as outlining the process as an exemplar, key affordances and challenges of the approach are considered. Particular emphasis is placed on how a structured exploration of existing QL datasets can enhance research design in studies where there is limited published evidence.
Forming part of the new ‘methodological frontier’ the use of digital communication technologies has become increasingly commonplace in social research. Whilst audio-only online interviews and asynchronous means of communicating online has been discussed for over two decades, video capabilities; being able to see a participant face-to-face online (e.g. via Skype, Face Time, Google Hangouts) is a much more recent phenomenon. Discussion of such new opportunities has tended to centre on the practicalities and technicalities. Alternatively, this paper moves beyond the recent empiricist focus to reflect critically on the implications of using internet video calls on methodological matters of importance to qualitative (longitudinal) researchers. Drawing on a long-standing qualitative longitudinal study following lives of over 50 young people, the paper focuses on the potentials and pitfalls for rapport of using internet video calls for qualitative interviewing. The findings have resonance for short-term studies, and longitudinal endeavours.
Pluralism and creativity are inherent and important parts of the qualitative endeavour. The multiplicity of approaches and methods can, however, be confusing. We undertook a focused mapping review and synthesis to obtain a snap-shot profile of the state of qualitative research in health and social science literature. We retrieved 102 qualitative articles published between January and March 2015 from six leading health and social science journals. Articles were scrutinised for alignment between researchers’ reported orientation (methodological or philosophical positioning) and the techniques used (methods). In the sampled articles level of alignment was generally high, with considerable mastery of qualitative approaches evident. However, the complexity of the qualitative landscape highlighted in our review, led us to develop a diagrammatic representation: The Qualitative Research Level of Alignment Wheel™. This educational resource/teaching aid is designed to assist qualitative researchers (particularly those more novice) and research students to locate the orientation and techniques of their studies. As an important contribution to the international field of qualitative inquiry, it will assist in understanding and accounting for points at which techniques are melded and orientations blended. In turn this will lead to the individual and collective qualitative endeavour as being a coherent one.
This article discusses findings from a qualitative longitudinal study of dignity in later life, which focused on the perspectives of older people at a time when their need for help and support was increasing as a result of long-term illness. It reflects critically on the methodology for its ability to generate knowledge about this eventful and unstable period of the life-course. It is argued that a longitudinal qualitative approach provides the optimum conditions for researching older people’s perspectives on their health and illness as well as on their experiences of being helped and supported. It sheds light on the changes they faced in their relationships, their home environments and their daily lives as well as how they dealt with these changes while maintaining their dignity
The usefulness of the online Skype system for qualitative data collection has been well documented, but its application in qualitative data analysis has been largely ignored. This article provides insight into the use of Skype in the context of interdisciplinary team research, with a focus on the analytical phase of a qualitative investigation. Team members used Skype throughout the implementation of a qualitative study that was informed by the Consensual Qualitative Research process. Research team members found that regardless of proximity to one another, Skype enabled an effective collaborative qualitative data analysis process. The system facilitated team members’ communication and analytical consensus building due to its unique system features that enabled all team members to view data in real time during all phases of the data analysis process, including coding, categorization, and identification of domains. Use of the Skype system increased the efficiency and effectiveness of a team-based qualitative data analysis process that, in this case, was consensual but can be usefully applied to other analytical contexts.
Embedded within quantitative longitudinal panel or cohort studies is narrative potential that is arguably untapped but might enrich our understanding of individual and social lives across time. This paper discusses a methodology to assemble the life history narratives of families using social work by drawing on quantitative data from the British Household Panel Survey. It explores whether this person-centred approach helps us to understand the counter-intuitive results of a parallel multivariate analyses, which suggest that families using social work fare worse than similar others over time. Our findings are tentative, due to the experimental use of this narrative method and the limits of social work information in the data-set. Nonetheless, the life histories presented bring to light complexities, diversity and the non-linear pathways between families’ needs, support and outcomes that the aggregates obscure. We conclude that reconstructing families’ lives in this way, especially in the absence of complementary longitudinal qualitative data, affords the wider opportunity to interrogate and better understand the findings of quantitative longitudinal studies.
Researcher reflexivity, meaning the revealing of the researcher’s assumptions and her position vis-à-vis those researched, has by now become commonplace. This article explores such issues in the context of a larger study of transnational adoption for which I conducted interviews with South African birth mothers as both a researcher/interviewer and an adoptive mother. Instead of seeking to eliminate researcher bias, I propose using it as data that could reveal novel aspects of the phenomenon under study. This article specifically explores the use of reverse interviewing, which in this case meant disclosing my double positionality and inviting the interviewees to ask me questions. It is not a matter of merely extracting information: the technique allows participants to air their concerns, and facilitates investigation of the researcher’s reactions to them. All this, in turn, carries implications with regard to how the study area is conceptualised.
Qualitative researchers often have to decide whether to collect data using focus groups or individual interviews. We systematically compare these two methods on their ability to generate two types of information: unique items in a brainstorming task and personally sensitive disclosures. Our study sample consisted of 350 African-American men living in Durham, North Carolina. Participants were randomized into either a focus group arm or individual interview arm, and were asked the same open-ended questions about their health-care seeking behavior. For the item-generating task, we compared data at two levels of analysis – the event and the individual. At the event level, focus groups and individual interviews generated similar numbers of unique items in a free-listing task. When compared on a per-person basis, however, individual interviews were more effective at generating a broad range of items. We also compared the number of data collection events in which personal, sensitive information was disclosed. We found that several types of sensitive and personal disclosures were more likely in a focus group setting, and that some sensitive themes only occurred in the focus group context. No sensitive themes emerged exclusively, or more often in, an individual interview context. Researchers may use these findings to help align their choice of qualitative data collection method with research objectives.
Missing data (attrition and non-response) are a feature of most surveys especially longitudinal/panel studies. And many such studies now have multilevel designs and hence multilevel data structures. Recent advances in imputation methodology now offer social researchers opportunities to address issues of missing data in a statistically principled way. Paradata can offer great insights in understanding the nature and causes of missingness and can be used to construct auxiliary variables to be included in imputation models. In this paper we present multilevel multiple imputation which has recently extended MI to incorporate multilevel data, making it a flexible and robust strategy for many research settings. We illustrate the procedures by analysing data drawn from a longitudinal study of prisoners. We show how paradata of that study was instrumental in guiding our approach and subsequent analysis.
We developed the Geographical Proportional-to-size Street-Intercept Sampling (GPSIS) method in order to obtain a sample of nightlife-goers which accounted for the diversity of spaces, patrons and locations within two Swiss cities. Popular nightlife zones were identified and quantified using social media data and local experts’ knowledge. Young people were recruited in the streets on Friday and Saturday nights on three consecutive weekends using the ‘fixed-line method, pro-rated for the zone’s estimated popularity. Of the 3092 young adults approached, 896 agreed to pre-register. The importance of recruitment in multiple zones and over multiple weekenddays was evidenced by significant variations in participant demographics and registration rates between recruitment zones, times and weather conditions. To conclude, by combining a geographical approach with in situ recruitment, GPSIS has considerable potential as a tool for recruiting samples that represent the diversity of the nightlife population and spaces.
Proxy reporting is a common practice during survey data collection to increase response rates while reducing fieldwork costs, and agreement between proxies and self-reports is critical to make reliable and valid inferences. This study is the first to unpack what influences proxy accuracy in a non-Western setting using data from the 2012 Qatar Education Study. We find that agreement is a function of a student’s grade in school, grades, a parent’s level of education, and the interaction between immigration status and parent education. These findings suggest in multicultural contexts, agreement may vary based on factors beyond what is typically accounted when examining the components of reporting error as a result of using proxies over self-reports.
Multi-sited ethnography has been extensively applied to migrants’ transnational family life and to the underlying care practices. Its methodological underpinnings and dilemmas, though, are relatively under-reflected. How can the relational and affective spaces between migrants and left-behind kin be ethnographically appreciated? Against this question, I revisit my fieldwork on a migration flow between Ecuador and Italy. This is an instance of the development of transnational social relationships, based on the circulation of material, cognitive and emotional resources, whereby people living ‘here’ and ‘there’ negotiate mutual affections, concerns and expectations. The challenge for ethnographers, under similar circumstances, lies less in staying in more sites than in sensing and understanding the relationships between them and the social practices on which this connectedness relies. The attendant methodological implications are discussed, ultimately pointing to the significance of relationality and in-betweenness for ethnographies of migration, transnationalism and mobilities.
This paper explores the methodological implications of working with damage: damaged relationality, injured belonging, impaired narratives, and vulnerable identities. The conceptualization of damage as a methodology was the outcome of a narrative investigation into queer relationships’ dissolution. The study explored the way in which lesbians narrate romantic failures and relational dramas in an era marked by gay possibilities and compulsory happiness , where one may belong by embracing heteronormative convictions of family bliss such as respectability and stability on the one hand, and heteronormative convictions of storytelling such as progress and redemption on the other hand. This paper will take the act of composition and the rhetorical symptoms of the exasperation of being at odds with culture’s guidelines as the vantage point for theorizing a methodology of damage. Examining two methodological moments: the invitation to narrate and the interpretation it generates, I discuss the effect of damage on research design. Drawing on affect theory, I explore what feelings ‘do’ in the research process and address the possibilities embedded in failure and damage as methodological tools.
The methods used when samples of journal articles are treated as the basis for measuring levels of quantification in national sociologies are examined. The data come from every identified example in English. It is found that operational definitions of ‘quantitative’ vary, while ‘qualitative’ work is characterised simply by the absence of sophisticated quantification, which is sometimes taken to imply quantitative incompetence rather than methodological choice. The articles used as data on the state of a whole national sociology are usually drawn from elite general journals in which many sociologists have never published, and ignore the authors’ national backgrounds and publications elsewhere. It is concluded that there is a gap between concepts and operational definitions which it would be desirable to fill.
For surveys targeting specific population groups, the two-phase postal approach (screener followed by a topical survey sent to eligible households) has been demonstrated to be more effective at identifying population domains of interest than random digit dial telephone methods considering cost, coverage, and response. An important question is how best to motivate screener response from eligible households. In 2011, we conducted a large-scale field test to empirically test a number of methods for motivating response. We fielded screening surveys that varied content-influencing relevance, and also switched screener questionnaires for following up nonrespondents to the initial postal survey – an approach we have labeled responsive tailoring. In another experiment, we tested the effect of asking for first names in the screener questionnaire. In this article, we describe the effects of these experimental treatments on response to both the screener and the topical survey.
As participant recruitment and data collection over the Internet have become more common, numerous observers have expressed concern regarding the validity of research conducted in this fashion. One growing method of conducting research over the Internet involves recruiting participants and administering questionnaires over Facebook, the world’s largest social networking service. If Facebook is to be considered a viable platform for social research, it is necessary to demonstrate that Facebook users are sufficiently heterogeneous and that research conducted through Facebook is likely to produce results that can be generalized to a larger population. The present study examines these questions by comparing demographic and personality data collected over Facebook with data collected through a standalone website, and data collected from college undergraduates at two universities. Results indicate that statistically significant differences exist between Facebook data and the comparison data-sets, but since 80% of analyses exhibited partial η2< .05, such differences are small or practically nonsignificant in magnitude. We conclude that Facebook is a viable research platform, and that recruiting Facebook users for research purposes is a promising avenue that offers numerous advantages over traditional samples.
Validity in the context of qualitative research may take on many different definitions depending on the philosophical perspective. When a researcher conducts research within their place of employment, this will also influence the approach and interpretation. Insider research has been under scrutiny for the very fact that the insider is an actor within the setting. This paper explores my journey, conducting insider research and working as an occupational health and safety practitioner, by presenting an example of the methods used, including reflectivity and reflexivity, to address validity issues which may arise prior, during and post data collection.
In this article, we revisit Aaron Cicourel’s classic text Method and Measurement in Sociology. We consider the legacy and influence of the book in the context of the continued and urgent significance of such properly methodological inquiry. We examine, in particular, the ways in which Cicourel’s concern with decisions of measurement – as a situated, contingent and unavoidably practical accomplishment – makes a critical contribution to the understanding of measurement within sociology and serves as continued inspiration for the sociology of contemporary measurement practices in the context of proliferating regimes of institutional performance measurement and league tables, risk assessment and audit. We recommend a critical engagement with this text in the sociological examination of social inquiry – avoiding both overly subjective interpretations of social phenomena and the arbitrary application of crude categories to complex forms of organisation – and in sociology’s continued warrant to critically engage with the practices in and through which social reality is (re)produced.
Robin James Smith and Paul Atkinson (S&A) have prepared a lucid, succinct review of Method and Measurement in Sociology (M&M), and I welcome the opportunity to respond on this occasion of its fiftieth (plus one!) anniversary. The response is organized into three sections. I first describe the origins of M&M, respond to Smith and Atkinson’s comments, and conclude with a summary and elements of recent research and its relevance to M&M.
This article is a contribution to a mini symposium on the 50th anniversary of the publication of A V Cicourel’s Method and Measurement in Sociology (1964). The central theme of the book is reviewed – the problem of the relationship between everyday language and cultural meanings, and the language of measurement in social research – and the lack of an adequate ontology of social actors is identified as being the cause of the problem. The solution offered by Alfred Schütz – that social scientific language should be derived from everyday language – is discussed and it is argued that this was probably too radical at the time the book was published, and is still generally neglected in the social sciences.
In this article, we describe ways that the Delphi technique can be extended from its more traditional approaches and processes in order to make it a tool for scholars using participatory methods. This innovative proposed approach is called the change-oriented Delphi. We describe this innovative approach using an example from our own work to create solutions to the growth of non-tenure-track faculty in higher education institutions, which is negatively impacting student outcomes.
Virtual worlds, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, have seen remarkable mainstream uptake in the last decade. Such environments have grown from hosting niche interest groups to providing sites for leisure, business and education for tens of millions of Internet users. Concurrently, a multi-disciplinary research field exploring the application of such spaces has emerged. This article examines in detail one data collection practice – observation in virtual worlds – that has been applied extensively, but without extensive methodological discussion. By revisiting and extending earlier work on this topic, the article presents four key considerations for those conducting observational research in virtual worlds: defining and delimiting field sites, discerning attention, charting actions and attributing intention. It is concluded that researchers must both ward against flawed assumptions about virtual world observation and consider multi-method strategies to overcome limitations in observational data.
In recent years there has been an increase in literature which has explored the insider/outsider position through ethnic identities. However, there remains a neglect of religious identities, even though it could be argued that religious identities have become increasingly important through being prominent in international issues such as the ‘war on terror’ and the Middle East conflict. Through drawing on the concept of subjectivity, I reflect on research I conducted on the impact of the ‘war on terror’ on British Muslims. I explore the space between the insider/ outsider position demonstrating how my various subjectivities – the ‘non-Islamic appearance I’, the ‘Muslim I’, the ‘personal I’, the ‘exploring I’, the ‘Kashmiri I’ or the ‘Pakistani I’, the ‘status I’ and the ‘outsider I’ – assisted in establishing trust, openness and commonality. I conclude by demonstrating how the ‘emotional I’ allowed me to manage my own emotions and participants emotions.
Comparability of data across modes is an important issue in survey research. In this paper we discuss item non-response to attitudinal questions in telephone and web surveys. We present results from a survey experiment conducted in Italy and in Spain that compares different presentations of response options in an online setting with a benchmark telephone survey. In line with earlier studies we find that (A), the share of non substantial answers in the online survey depends on how the response option is presented. Comparing different presentations in an online survey to the standard approach of telephone surveys using propensity score matching, we find that (B), the share and pattern of non substantial answers, is most similar across the two modes in the online survey when the it is captured in an instruction on each screen for the online survey. Our findings are of particular relevance for the design of multiple mode or mix-mode surveys of attitudinal questions using online and telephone modes.
We use an experiment based on the relationship dynamics and social life study of sexual behavior, pregnancy, and contraceptive use to investigate whether participation in weekly self-reports over one year result in differential effects on related behaviors and attitudes, compared to participation in a one-time followup interview requiring retrospective self-reporting for the prior year. We randomly assigned 200 subjects to either a control group or a journal group. All subjects were interviewed at the beginning of the study (baseline interview) and 12 months later (closeout interview). Subjects in the journal group also completed a five-minute web- or phone-based survey every week during the 12-month study period. We found no statistically significant difference in pregnancy rates across the two groups at closeout. Contrary to our expectation, the control group experienced a slightly larger increase in having ever used a contraceptive method, although this was mainly due to increases in the least effective methods, such as condoms and withdrawal. Respondents in the weekly interview group became slightly more positive toward childbearing in terms of one specific attitude measure, but not for the vast majority of measures. We conclude that intensive longitudinal data collection does not appear to have a large or consistent impact on respondents’ pregnancy, contraceptive use, or related attitudes, relative to the more standard longitudinal approach.
Single case studies can provide vital contributions to theory-testing in social science studies. Particularly, by applying the process-tracing method, case studies can test theoretical frameworks through a rigorous research design that ensures substantial empirical leverage. While most scholarly contributions on process-tracing focus on either theory-building or on explaining single outcomes, we discuss how to apply the process-tracing method in theory-testing case studies. Furthermore, unlike the tendency to use examples from classic social science studies, we refer to our own case study of tax reform in Georgia thereby providing a constructive reflection on the practical application of and relevant methodological challenges in applying process-tracing. The strength of the process-tracing method lies in its ability to provide depth and testable substance to theoretical causal explanations.
The use of reference groups made up of members of the population being researched has been encouraged within the qualitative research literature. This paper describes the use of reference groups made up of children and young people and promotes them as a space within which co-reflexive activities can help researchers reconsider their research approaches and assumptions, their methodologies and methods and the new knowledge created. The paper uses three case studies to highlight the benefits the authors have encountered as well as those identified by children and young people themselves.
Conducting social science research is a complex process, and social science students face a number of learning challenges in order to develop their skills. Moreover, new sources and types of data including so-called big data are providing new opportunities for research, but also pose methodological challenges. In this article, we explore a task-based learning approach for teaching social science research methods. We draw on evidence from two case study learning tasks: (i) the collection and analysis of Twitter data; and (ii) designing and conducting a face-to-face and online survey. The students were guided to co-lead the tasks, apply their knowledge and then to critically reflect. The pedagogical framework of task-based learning provides opportunities to embed learning in new ways by integrating knowledge, practice and critical reflection. Task-based learning can create a dynamic learning environment and can empower students to develop their identities as researchers.
Accurately documenting the occupational biographies of older people can be challenging given their lengthy duration and the complexity of contemporary employment. This paper shows how a traditionally quantitative occupational history calendar (OHC) instrument can be adapted for use in a mixed methods research design, to gather in-depth information about long working lives. The OHCs were embedded within semi-structured interviews and recorded lifetime work histories of between 33 and 53 years for 56 participants. Sequence analysis of the calendar data was undertaken in parallel to thematic analysis of interview transcripts. This included in-depth exploration of the factors motivating occupational changes and transitions and their impact in older age. Mixing methods allowed us to collate data over relatively long periods of time and enabled an examination of the complex interplay between work, family and personal circumstances that shapes employment histories. Selected research findings are used to demonstrate how this tool can effectively facilitate the exploration of long working lives.
Attrition represents a significant obstacle to overcome in any longitudinal research project. It is, perhaps, most keenly felt when the data collected are from a qualitative study, since, unlike quantitative longitudinal research, weighting factors cannot be applied to ‘correct’ for any biases in the achieved sample and even a small number of ‘lost’ respondents can equate to a large percentage of the original sample. It is perhaps because of qualitative longitudinal research’s (QLR) reliance on, generally speaking, smaller samples that few have been able to shed much light on which re-contacting procedures are associated with achieving higher rates of retention. In this article, using data from a fifth sweep of a larger but particularly challenging cohort of 199 former probationers, we explore the strategies which helped us maintain high levels of retention in a QLR study. The article contains many practical suggestions which others planning or undertaking similar studies may find useful.
In this paper, I extend the concept of observer effect into the realm of countrylevel secondary data analysis. When analyzing what appear to be the same secondary data using the same methods, macro-comparative researchers arrive at different results. I argue that this is a product of idiosyncratic variation directly or indirectly produced by the researchers. Even when this bias produces only small perturbations in results, the consequences may be very large. Using an influential study by Brooks and Manza I analyze this secondary observer effect (SOE). Two seemingly identical replications of their data by different researchers produced surprising variations. Reanalysis of these divergent values produces similar but not identical results. A rough calculation of the size of the SOEs suggests that they are about .32 standardized standard deviations across variable scores. Simulations of this size of error show that significant changes in findings occur as a result.
This article considers the application of phenomenography, as arguably the only research design (so far) to have been developed substantially within higher education research by higher education researchers. It considers its origins, meaning and application, and the issues and critiques that it has raised. It concludes that, while phenomenography has both acknowledged limitations and undoubted achievements, it still appears to have much to offer to higher education research, and its usage might be extended to other fields.
Childhood and youth studies have seen the development of a range of innovative research methods over the past two decades. However, many studies have focused on the ideals of empowerment and ‘giving voice’ rather than developing understandings of the nuanced and complex experiences of children and youth. This paper argues that the development of an insightful sociology of childhood and youth necessitates an understanding of complex, fluid, and often political, processes of youth experience. It argues that the use of research methods characterized by a variety of power dynamics can generate situated knowledges of youth experience. Ongoing reflexive analysis of researcher and participant positionality in research encounters is posited as affording insightful and in-depth research perspectives. This is illustrated through discussion of qualitative research carried out with Muslim teens in the west of Ireland which involved the use of focus groups, visual narratives and an online blog site.
This study expands our knowledge of consent in linking survey and administrative data by studying respondents’ behaviour when consenting to link their own records and when consenting to link those of their children. It develops and tests a number of hypothesised mechanisms of consent, some of which were not explored in the past. The hypotheses cover: parental pride, privacy concerns, loyalty to the survey, pre-existing relations with the agency holding the data, and interviewer effects. The study uses data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study to analyse the correlates of consent in multiple domains (i.e. linkage of education, health and economic records). The findings show that respondent’s behaviour vary depending on the consent domain and on the person within the household for whom consent is sought. In particular, the cohort member’s cognitive skills and the main respondent’s privacy concerns have differential effects on consent. On the other hand, loyalty to the survey proxied by the longitudinal response history has a significant and strong impact on consent irrespective of the outcome. The findings also show that interviewers account for a large proportion of variations in consent even after controlling for the characteristics of the interviewer’s assignment area. In total, it is possible to conclude that the significant impact of some of the correlates will lead to sample bias which needs to be accounted for when working with linked survey and administrative data.
As units of analysis, documents are often seen as unproblematic, easily accessed sources of data. This research note discusses and reflects on a research project where documents were not easy to access and instead prompted significant negotiation, contained disturbing information and images and had an emotional impact on the researcher. A reflexive account is provided in this paper, which draws upon feminist methodological theory and explores the researcher’s experiences of using documents in research. The paper concludes that documents should not always be categorised as a low risk data source, rather issues such as access difficulties, ethical dilemmas and potential emotional harm, should also be considered.
Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) programs are established tools for qualitative research. Making informed decisions when using them requires researchers to understand how they affect research practices and outcomes. In this article we consider the impact of CAQDAS on researcher reflexivity. Reviewing three decades of literature, we identify specific ‘reflexive moments’ experienced by CAQDAS users, the contexts in which they occur, the issues they raise, and the reflexive awareness they generate. The ways in which CAQDAS can enhance or undermine researcher reflexivity are also reported. By doing so, we aim to help researchers and especially research students (and their supervisors) understand the relationship between CAQDAS and reflexivity and the reflexive moments they may encounter when using such software.
The use of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) has not been without controversy, with a pervasive sense of skepticism and resistance towards its adoption by many scholars. Language-based researchers in particular, such as conversation and discourse analysts, have been slow to embrace such tools for their work. In this paper we illustrate how we have used ATLAS.ti to support our own conversation and discourse analysis work, in order to demonstrate how such a tool can be leveraged to complete nine analytic tasks. Tasks and features we describe include, among others, transcribing and synchronizing transcripts with media files, engaging in unmotivated looking through creating quotations, and conducting a close, line by line analysis through writing memos. We illustrate how ATLAS.ti has allowed us to document our analytic decisions in a transparent, reflexive, rigorous and systematic way. We note, too, limitations of the software such as a lack of real-time collaboration support and challenges inherent to the analysis of video and online interactional data. Rather than taking control away from the researcher, we argue that ATLAS.ti enables the analyst to solve a range of methodological challenges, such as working with large data-sets and supporting deeper levels of analysis than is possible by hand.
Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research.
Ragin’s Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is often used with small to medium samples where the researcher has good case knowledge. Employing it to analyse large survey datasets, without in-depth case knowledge, raises new challenges. We present ways of addressing these challenges. We first report a single QCA result from a configurational analysis of the British National Child Development Study dataset (highest educational qualification as a set theoretic function of social class, sex and ability). We then address the robustness of our analysis by employing Duşa and Thiem’s R QCA package to explore the consequences of (i) changing fuzzy set theoretic calibrations of ability, (ii) simulating errors in measuring ability and (iii) changing thresholds for assessing the quasi-sufficiency of causal configurations for educational achievement. We also consider how the analysis behaves under simulated re-sampling, using bootstrapping. The paper offers suggested methods to others wishing to use QCA with large n data.
Whereas the sample composition biases of web surveys have been discussed extensively for developed countries, studies for developing countries are scarce. This article helps to fill that gap by comparing similar non-probability-based web surveys (WEB) and probability-based face-to-face (F2F) surveys both to each other and to the labor force. An analysis of WageIndicator data on work and wages derived from surveys held in 2009–2013 in 10 developing countries (WEB-sample N = 9135; F2F-sample N = 14,659), shows that F2F samples resemble the labor force to a larger extent than web samples do. In both cases, individuals in their 20s and early 30s are overrepresented, and younger and older respondents are underrepresented. This trend is more pronounced in WEB than in F2F samples. However, the differences converge in countries with higher Internet usage. A comparison of the WEB and F2F samples shows that compositions differ greatly, with web respondents being younger, more often male, more often living alone, and higher educated, although these differences are smaller in countries with higher Internet usage. Given the cost differences between the two survey modes, one should nevertheless consider the potential of web surveys as an instrument to gain explorative insights, specifically when searching for individuals with particular characteristics.
This brief paper introduces a new approach to assessing the trustworthiness of research comparisons when expressed numerically. The ‘number needed to disturb’ a research finding would be the number of counterfactual values that can be added to the smallest arm of any comparison before the difference or ‘effect’ size disappears, minus the number of cases missing key values. This way of presenting the security of findings has several advantages over the use of significance tests, effect sizes and confidence intervals. It is not predicated on random sampling, full response or any specific distribution of data. It bundles together the sample size, magnitude of the finding and the level of attrition in a way that is standardised and therefore comparable between studies.
In this study, we investigated whether incorporating eye tracking into cognitive interviewing is effective when pretesting survey questions. In the control condition, a cognitive interview was conducted using a standardized interview protocol that included pre-defined probing questions for about one-quarter of the questions in a 52-item questionnaire. In the experimental condition, participants’ eye movements were tracked while they completed an online version of the questionnaire. Simultaneously, their reading patterns were monitored for evidence of response problems. Afterward, a cognitive interview was conducted using an interview protocol identical to that in the control condition. We compared both approaches with regard to the number and types of problems they detected. We found support for our hypothesis that cognitive interviewing and eye tracking complement each other effectively. As expected, the hybrid method was more productive in identifying both questionnaire problems and problematic questions than applying cognitive interviewing alone.
Studies of state repression of protest have focused on theories of threat and weakness, in which states repress movements that threaten state authority or elite interest or movements that lack organizational or political strength. Empirical studies have most often used regression analysis of protest-event datasets. This paper proposes qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as an alternative approach to protest-event data that retains more qualitative complexity and captures the conjunctural and heterogeneous nature of causation during events. The paper applies both methods to protest data from the United States (1963–1973). While both methods provide strong evidence for the threat and weakness hypotheses, QCA more effectively illustrates how combinations of threat and weakness factors increase the risk of repression. The paper argues that QCA is a viable alternative approach to event data, but it should also be seen as a valuable complementary method that can improve regression-based approaches.
This article investigates the value of ethnographic re-studies, and some of the theoretical and methodological issues that carrying out a re-study can generate. It is argued that the disputes that arose around some classic examples in anthropology and community studies are particularly illuminating. For example, Mead’s work on Samoa and Redfield’s study of Tepoztlán, and the re-studies of these, generated considerable discussion, and this still offers lessons for today. Three key functions of re-studies are discussed: replication, mapping change, and producing a fuller portrait of a community or institution. Also explored is the role of the personal characteristics and the theoretical orientations of researchers. It is concluded that re-studies reveal threats to validity that are present in all social research. At the same time, there is a danger that the discrepancies in findings between study and re-study will be exaggerated, indeed that the methodological problems involved will be mistakenly treated as representing a logical impasse.
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), a technique by which the tools of Boolean algebra are applied to equifinal causal conditions, is gaining popularity amongst scholars. This paper draws upon a distinction largely overlooked by the QCA literature: the difference between inclusive- and exclusive-or (OR and XOR). I argue that XOR should be included amongst the tools of QCA, explain why XOR is more easily applied to crisp- than fuzzy-set QCA, and provide two original techniques for applying XOR to fuzzy sets: mechanical and calibrated. With the calibrated technique, the application of the exclusive-or is related to substantive knowledge of the cases with two threshold values: (1) how large two fuzzy set values need to be in order to violate a prior commitment or overshoot a target outcome, and (2) how similar two values need to be in order to violate the rule: ‘A or B, but not both’. This paper improves the capacity of QCA expressions to mirror natural language closely, formalize conversational implicature, and deal with mutually exclusive clusters of sufficiency conditions. It includes a helpful step-by-step guide for QCA practitioners.
Multiple imputation (MI), a two-stage process whereby missing data are imputed multiple times and the resulting estimates of the parameter(s) of interest are combined across the completed datasets, is becoming increasingly popular for handling missing data. However, MI can result in biased inference if not carried out appropriately or if the underlying assumptions are not justifiable. Despite this, there remains a scarcity of guidelines for carrying out MI. In this paper we provide a tutorial on the main issues involved in employing MI, as well as highlighting some common pitfalls and misconceptions, and areas requiring further development. When contemplating using MI we must first consider whether it is likely to offer gains (reduced bias or increased precision) over alternative methods of analysis. Once it has been decided to use MI, there are a number of decisions that must be made during the imputation process; we discuss the extent to which these decisions can be guided by the current literature. Finally we highlight the importance of checking the fit of the imputation model. This process is illustrated using a case study in which we impute missing outcome data in a five-wave longitudinal study that compared extremely preterm individuals with term-born controls.
This paper presents an empirically-derived CAQDAS Postgraduate Learning Model (CPLM) that illustrates the importance of integrated learning of qualitative methodology and technology for postgraduate students. Developed from analysis of a qualitative data-set of interview transcripts, survey responses and support-session observations constructed from two previous studies, CPLM brings the fields of technology acceptance/adoption and CAQDAS together. Analysis reveals that initial enthusiasm for the potential of software is often tempered by frustrations with actual, independent use. However, despite frustrations being attributed to lack of software functionality, CPLM illustrates that successful use of CAQDAS technology amongst postgraduate students is related to methodological awareness, adeptness in the techniques of analysis and technological proficiency.
This paper investigates the relationship between blank and non-blank email subject lines on levels of response to a solicitation to participate in an interview, and on participation in a web survey. Email use has grown substantially in recent years, presenting significant opportunity to the empiricist seeking research respondents. However, response to emails may be low because growth in the sheer volume of messages that individuals receive per day has led to a sense of ‘email overload’, and faced with the challenge of personal email management, many recipients choose to ignore some messages, or do not read them all fully. Drawing on information gap theory, we expected that sending an invitation with a blank subject line would induce a sense of curiosity in recipients that would improve email response and willingness to participate in research studies. However, findings from research with two samples with different propensities to participate in research (academics and business owners) revealed that an email invitation with a blank subject line does not increase overall response rates to a web survey and a face-to-face interview over either an informative subject line or a provocative subject line, but that it does prompt a greater number of active refusals. Based on this finding, recommendations for researchers are outlined.
Understanding factors associated with consent for data linkage has largely focussed on adults, but parents or guardians can also be asked to consent on behalf of children for whom they are responsible. A framework for consent decision is presented, and is tested using a large nationally representative survey asking mothers to consent for both themselves and their children for two sets of records. Nearly all mothers give the same consent outcome for all their children. Consent rates are higher for education records than for health records and higher for mothers than children. Multivariate analyses suggest that minorities are generally less likely to consent, while more trust increases chances of consent. Several survey environment factors are important, with harder-to-contact respondents less likely to consent, while the presence of others and higher interviewerrespondent rapport lead to a higher chance of consent. These findings suggest potential methodologies to improve consent rates and possibly minimise bias. This is important given significant demographic differences between children across consent outcomes. However, data from a survey of 10–15 year olds in the study shows fewer differences for several important behaviours and attitudes across consent outcomes.
We evaluate the effectiveness in empirical migration research of the respondent-driven sampling (RDS) and the quota sampling with regard to four criteria: quality of the data; sociometric diversity of the sample; geographic coverage of the sample; and cost-effectiveness. We review two surveys of ex-USSR migrants, conducted simultaneously in the Warsaw metropolitan area, each undertaken with the use of one of the two sampling methods. We find that although the RDS was considerably costlier, it enabled faster data collection and posed a lower risk of underestimating the cost of the survey. We also find that the RDS generated higher-quality data, and that it was more successful in surveying short-term circular migrants. This comparative evaluation contributes to the literature on social research methods in that it links the sampling methods with the quality and character of the data, and helps assess the usefulness and applicability of RDS in empirical migration studies.
Transcription of audio data is widespread in qualitative research, with transcription of video data also becoming common. Online data is now being collected using screen-capture or video software, which then needs transcribing. This paper draws together literature on transcription of spoken interaction and highlights key transcription principles, namely reflecting the methodological approach, readability, accessibility, and usability. These principles provide a framework for developing a transcription system for multi-modal text-based data. The process of developing a transcription system for data from Facebook chat is described and reflected on. Key issues in the transcription of multi-modal text-based data are discussed, and examples provided of how these were overcome when developing the transcription system.
In recent years there has been an increasing use of visual methods in ageing research. There are, however, limited reflections and critical explorations of the implications of using visual methods in research with people in mid to later life. This paper examines key methodological complexities when researching the daily lives of people as they grow older and the possibilities and limitations of using participant-generated visual diaries. The paper will draw on our experiences of an empirical study, which included a sample of 62 women and men aged 50 years and over with different daily routines. Participant-led photography was drawn upon as a means to create visual diaries, followed by in-depth, photo-elicitation interviews. The paper will critically reflect on the use of visual methods for researching the daily lives of people in mid to later life, as well as suggesting some wider tensions within visual methods that warrant attention. First, we explore the extent to which photography facilitates a ‘collaborative’ research process; second, complexities around capturing the ‘everydayness’ of daily routines are explored; third, the representation and presentation of ‘self’ by participants within their images and interview narratives is examined; and, finally, we highlight particular emotional considerations in visualising daily life.
Challenges were encountered when attempting to analyse video based data during a project exploring touch screen computer technology with people living with dementia. In order to inform the analytic process, a scoping review of published evidence was undertaken. Results of the scope illustrated the use of various techniques when analysing visual data, the most common of which was the transcription of video into text and analysed using conversation analysis. Three additional issues emerged in the course of the review. First, there is an absence of detail when describing the ethical implications involved when utilising visual methods in research. Second, limited priority is given to providing a clear rationale for utilising visual methods when audio or field notes may have been a viable alternative. Third, only 40% of reviewed articles clearly stated a chosen methodology. The conclusions of the review illustrate a lack of consistency across studies in the overall reporting of research methods and recommend that authors be explicit in their reporting of methodological issues across the research process.
This paper presents an innovative and effective approach for conducting surveys with preliterate adults in a context of limited infrastructure in post conflict Burundi, Africa. We conducted surveys with parents/carers of children with a disability and community members, as a component of mixed methods research with children and adults to provide baseline data for Handicap International in developing programs to prevent sexual abuse among children with a disability. To meet the challenges of conducting surveys on the sensitive topic in such field conditions, we developed specifically adapted researcher-assisted self-completion questionnaires (RASCQ) using images and verbal guidance. RASCQ allowed researchers to provide respondents with supports needed to complete surveys and the privacy and confidentiality needed to encourage honest answers. This paper discusses the development process, details of survey implementation, and quality of data obtained. RASCQ proposed in the current study can be used in various studies with marginalised groups and people in developing countries.
It is argued in this paper that a significant number of definitions of terms provided in currently available methodological texts are inadequate or positively misleading. Some do not cover the main meaning of the term but focus instead on a non-standard one. Others fail to pick out the distinctive features of what is being defined. There are also those that fail to indicate relationships to related terms or those with similar meanings. Finally, there are some definitions that are simply incorrect in significant respects. It is argued that defective definitions are worse than useless and are a disservice to students.
In recent years, implicit measures of attitude have emerged as increasingly important methods in research with adults; however, they have been used less often in research with children or adolescents. The present article seeks to initiate wider discussion on the potential for using implicit measures with young people by providing readers with an introduction to their use in child and adolescent research on intergroup attitudes and offering some guidance to researchers who are considering their use. The article initially explains the nature of implicit measures and then discusses in greater depth three measures that have been used with children. Psychometric and ethical issues (e.g. reliability, validity and use of deception) relevant to utilising implicit measures are then discussed and this is followed by a section detailing some practical considerations when using implicit measures. The final section of the article considers the current standing of implicit measures in work with children and makes suggestions for future research directions.
Likert scales are used to make relative and absolute judgments about measures of attitude. Despite its ubiquitous use, only few studies have investigated the effects of altering the configurations of the response options. The purpose of this experiment was to explore the effects of response option orientation and directionality in Likert scales administered online on internal consistency reliability, factorial validity, measured score, completion time, and mouse click counts. A positively stemmed 15-item 5-point Likert scale was administered to 1693 adults. Six independent groups were constructed (2 × 3 design). The response options were configured (a) vertically or horizontally and (b) unidirectionalascending (strongly disagree to strongly agree), unidirectional-descending (strongly agree to strongly disagree), or bidirectional (mixed). Results indicated that vertically unidirectional response options should be used when absolute judgments are being made using online-administered Likert scales. When relative judgments are being made, horizontally unidirectional response options should be used.
Qualitative research interviews constitute specific contexts for creating and telling stories. This study illuminates the significance of the research interview on the subjectivation of participants who are usually rendered problematic or victimized – in this case, young people who live in residential care provided by child protection services (CPS). It explores how the interview situation offers possible subject positions for the interviewees that contradict with how they are positioned in their daily lives. In contrast to the conversations, these young people often engage in with professionals, the research interview may position them as competent actors. It may also allow for a greater degree of complexity, ambiguity, and ambivalence. When the aim is not necessarily to acquire an understanding of how things ‘really are,’ or to describe the participants in categorical ways, the variety and diversity of life may be speakable. This in turn allows for the telling of new narratives, the prospect of other subjectivities and the creation of new developmental possibilities.
In psychology, there has been a growing interest in mixed methods approaches, however, only a minority of published research explicitly use this methodology. This study aimed to explore the full range of attitudes toward mixed methods research in psychology held by students and academics, using the model of attitudes by Eagly and Chaiken as a framework. Fourteen psychology students and seven academics (48% male and 52% female with ages ranging from 19- to 64- years old) were interviewed about their attitudes toward mixed methods research. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that while participants were generally open to the methodology, misunderstandings were common, most felt they lacked the skills and experience necessary to conduct this research and many were sceptical of mixed methods researchers’ motivations and practices. Identifying attitudes toward mixed methods research has the potential to dispel myths, promote attitudinal change, and increase both the use and teaching of this approach in psychology.
Typically authors explain how they conduct interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), but fail to explain how they ensured that their analytical process was trustworthy. For example, a minority mention that they ‘reached consensus’ after having engaged in a shared analysis of the data, but do not explain how they did so. In this article, we report on our experience of engaging in a shared analysis and aim to stimulate discussion about the process of ensuring the trustworthiness of one’s data when employing IPA. Our key recommendation is that all researchers involved in analysis should listen to the audio recordings; failure to do so increases the potential for researchers to superimpose their own presuppositions or interpretative bias onto the data. We also suggest that audio recordings should be kept for a longer duration in case secondary analysis is required. We finish our article with a series of tips developed from our experience of shared analysis.
How should we study the language of political legitimation? Incipient scholarship increasingly seeks to bridge the conceptual schism between the sociological is and the philosophical ought in the study of legitimacy, looking at public legitimating discourses to uncover the actual social attitudes toward prescriptive principles. And while this research agenda has recently gained traction, its methodology remains opaque. This paper suggests that normative concepts, central to the argumentations that hold common basic beliefs and discourse together, can allow us to tap into the language of legitimation. Normative concepts can be traced via mixed methods research, incorporating the quantitative method of corpus linguistics and the qualitative method of discourse-tracing – two techniques that mutually enrich and complement each other. By illuminating changes in the sort, scale, and scope of normative concepts, this mode of inquiry can explicate the language of legitimation and advance our understanding of sociopolitical legitimacy.
This article concerns a study that examines the attitudes of parents, who have had babies in neonatal care, to sharing their babies’ routinely collected health data for research purposes. A participatory methodology was applied to the design of the study; a group of eleven parents who had all previously had babies in neonatal care were involved in designing a large-scale questionnaire survey. The article addresses the rationale for taking this approach, highlighting how it differs from the more common models of patient and public involvement. It presents the five themes that emerged from parents’ discussion in the course of engaging in the questionnaire design: legitimation, expertise, experiential knowledge, a different epistemology, power and control. How these shaped the design of the survey is employed in this article as a means of providing a commentary on the participatory research process itself. The article concludes by reflecting on whether participatory research can achieve its aims of promoting social justice when used for instrumental purposes such as the refinement of a data collection tool.
In this article, we explore how those taking part in an interview about sex and risk reflected on their participation and what, if any, impact it had on them. All 22 individuals who were interviewed in an initial study were invited to document their thoughts and feelings about the research process in a short follow-up exercise. The data relating to the 11 people who shared their reflections on the interview were subjected to a thematic analysis. The themes that emerged describe the value participants placed on honest and open interaction within neutral and non-judgmental environments. They also illustrate how being interviewed about prior behaviour can facilitate a sense-making process and might provide some degree of cathartic benefit. The findings help improve our understanding of how individuals reflect on their interview participation, which can in turn help to inform the development of ethically sensitive qualitative data collection.
This paper focuses on the use of group discussions (GD), as a very open and flexible method of data generation, to learn about organisational characteristics of schools. In comparison to the more structured focus group method, the method of GD is less known; however, we demonstrate that it is a useful method to learn about how specific groups are constituted. The paper will draw on the findings and experiences of nine GDs that were organised with teachers, students and parents in three schools in Austria. They were conducted as part of a case study to learn about the influence of schools’ organisational characteristics on the implementation of health promotion interventions. GDs were analysed using hermeneutic system analysis. We will present our findings, discuss benefits and limitations of using GDs, and give recommendations for the future use within school (or organisational) research.
The development of definitions is an integral part of the research process but is often poorly described. This paper details the iterative development of five definitions: Policy, Health policy-maker, Health policy agency, Policy documents, and Research findings. We describe the challenges of developing definitions in a large multidisciplinary team and the important methodological repercussions. We identify four factors that were most helpful in this process: (1) An emphasis on fit-for-purpose functionality, (2) Consultation with in-context experts, (3) Our willingness to amend terms as well as definitions, and to revisit some methods and goals as a consequence, and (4) Agreement that we would satisfice: accept ‘good enough’ solutions rather than struggle for optimality and consensus.
Participatory approaches have become de rigueur in social research involving children. A growing trend is research by children where researchers engage (or employ) children as co-researchers or primary researchers. In this paper, we critique the ethical, methodological and practical issues associated with this participatory approach. The discussion is framed around six challenges: (1) Children lack research competence; (2) A comprehensive training programme is required; (3) Insider/outsider perspectives are difficult to balance; (4) Remuneration is complex; (5) Power differentials need to be overcome; and (6) Children need to be protected. For each challenge we propose a counter-challenge. Additionally, we offer pragmatic solutions to the issues raised, so that the paper holds practical utility to social researchers who utilise this type of participatory approach. Overall we argue that despite the approach’s inherent challenges, children as researchers are a powerful conduit for other children’s voices.
Social network analysis (SNA), a method which can be used to explore networks in various contexts, has received increasing attention. Drawing on the development of European smoke-free policy, this paper explores how a mixed-method approach to SNA can be utilised to investigate a complex policy network. Textual data from public documents, consultation submissions and websites were extracted, converted and analysed using plagiarism detection software and quantitative network analysis and qualitative data from public documents and 35 interviews were thematically analysed. While the quantitative analysis enabled understanding of the network’s structure and components, the qualitative analysis provided in-depth information about specific actors’ positions, relationships and interactions. The paper establishes that SNA is suited to empirically testing and analysing networks in EU policy-making. It contributes to methodological debates about the antagonism between qualitative and quantitative approaches and demonstrates that qualitative and quantitative network analysis can offer a powerful tool for policy analysis.
This paper reflects on research carried out with a group of women receiving intensive family support aimed at addressing the cause of their family’s ‘anti-social behaviour’. The methodological approach to the research was underpinned by the philosophical principles of critical realism. It was also informed by the ethical and political concerns of feminist scholarship. The paper reports on the potential points of tension that arise between feminism and critical realism in empirical research. In particular, attention is centred on the process of trying to marry approaches which stress the central role of participants’ knowledge, particularly those who are ‘labelled’ and whose voices are not readily heard, with the principle that some accounts of ‘reality’ are better than others.
The aim of this article is to identify and analyse the logic and structure of centrality measures applied to social networks. On the basis of the article by Borgatti and Everett, identifying the latent functions of centrality, we first use a survey of personal networks with 450 cases to perform an empirical study of the differences and correspondences between degree, closeness and betweenness centrality in personal networks. Then, we examine the correspondences between the three global indicators in each type of centrality: the maximum value, the mean value and the hierarchy or centralization. The results provide a better understanding of the centrality indicators of networks and the reality that they express in an empirical context.
This article examines the methodological device used in a sociological study that analyses empirically the concept of personal reflexivity. Taking into account the specific challenges of such an investigation the paper emphasises the potential of a biographical approach and the concrete parameters of its use. It is based on the experience of in-depth interviews conducted in more than one session and considers the different phases and elements of the empirical research process. Topics such as epistemological concerns, preparation of the interview guide, methodological cautions, the research relationship and the interview setting are at the centre of the discussion.
This paper outlines the state of the art in qualitative longitudinal methodology, reflecting on more than 10 years of development since a previous special issue on qualitative longitudinal research was published by the International Journal of Social Research Methodology in 2003. The papers presented in this special issue emerge from a methodological innovation network that brought together an international community of researchers in order to map new frontiers for the method. This paper summarises the development of the method from a design to a sensibility, identifying three new frontiers as part of a future research agenda including: the need for a processual imaginary; experimentation with temporal perspectives and orientations and explicating the temporal affordances of our methods.
The Whites Writing Whiteness project is concerned with changes to the racial order in South Africa over a long time-period and connects ‘big numbers’ and work on very large archive collections with close textual analysis of particular documents. It uses longitudinal data within a Qualitative Longitudinal Research methodological approach, combining formal analysis with a sampling process. In operationalizing this, letters from the Findlay Family collection with thousands of documents, a group of around 190 letters by Elizabeth Price, and a small set of Gottlob Schreiner’s letters, are discussed. In doing so, useful conceptual and methodological tools for analysing other large longitudinal datasets are provided.
This paper draws on data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty, to explore how international development research might be strengthened by including qualitative longitudinal research (QLR). We review three problems in development studies: (a) the relatively low status of qualitative research within the hierarchy of development knowledge, (b) the predominance of cross-sectional research, and, (c) marginality of research with children and young people. We offer examples from Young Lives research on early marriage in Ethiopia, household poverty dynamics in India and Ethiopia, and aspirations and migration in Peru, to highlight the potential of QLR to address these drawbacks. We suggest that QLR illuminates the dynamic complexities of the processes and practices of everyday life, how they are experienced by children and young people, the responses they make, and the shifting trajectories of their lives.
Anonymisation processes are an embedded, if contested, element of ethical research practice. Current debates, highlighting various challenges to anonymity, suggest the importance of situated ethics and negotiated solutions. However, the strategies adopted are necessarily mediated by the researcher’s epistemological positions. Longitudinal studies with their extended timeframes and intensive research relationships tend to amplify ethical dilemmas and highlight the contingency and fluidity of ethical processes. Here we explore how temporality intersects with epistemology in a qualitative longitudinal (QL) study of organisations located in a contemporary policy context. We reflect on the confidentiality and anonymity dilemmas that develop and change over time, the strategies adopted and the implications of these for the type of knowledge produced. We suggest that QL studies entail flexibility within epistemological frameworks. These issues have particular resonance and consequences for researchers in light of contemporary pressures around public scrutiny of academic performance and wider debates around public sociology
This paper explores the process of going back in qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) to gather later accounts of unfolding personal experiences. The design of interview-based QLR is usually premised on collecting data, over-time, around an unfolding experience or event. This design facilitates the establishment of an on-going research relationship and ‘rapport’ and the accessing of fluid and timesensitive accounts of individual experiences, leading to more nuanced understandings of temporal subjectivities. However in practice maintaining a sample in QL research, which may span a number of years, can be challenging and the process of going back, complicated. This paper reflects on issues and responsibilities which can arise when researchers try to access and go back to participants, especially where experiences once optimistically narrated and future-oriented have unfolded in unplanned and personally unwelcome ways. Using researcher experiences and the data from later phases of two UK based QLR studies on transition to first-time motherhood and first-time fatherhood, the practical steps of maintaining contact, reconnecting with participants and going back are documented. How does the passage of time and changes in participant’s lives alter research relationships, interpretations of data and researcher responsibilities?
This paper examines the temporal and ethical affordances of commercial social media platforms, such as Twitter, as tools for engaging in social research and knowledge exchange. Drawing on activity that took place during the New Frontiers in Qualitative Longitudinal Research seminar series, the article reports on using Twitter and other social media platforms to document, share and archive ‘data’ from a series of research events. It also experiments with new modes of research writing, using fragments of ‘data’ from Twitter to distil research knowledge and ideas, whilst also capturing the pace and form of this live method of social documentation and knowledge exchange. Bringing together conversations within digital sociology about how to ‘do’ time in digital research, with methodological debates among qualitative longitudinal researchers about how to research social and biographical continuity and change, the paper argues that the presentist focus in digital research is far from inevitable. Attending to time in digital media demands that we are alert to questions of authorship, audience and co-production, recognizing the labour of research and the provenance of research knowledge, ‘data’ and ideas.
In this article I argue that in their current genealogical and philosophical configuration, qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) practices – and a wider regime of knowledge, ethical, moral, legal, technological, political and economic practices with which they are entangled – embed and enact representational assumptions in which the realities being investigated – time, change and continuity; the past, present and future – are taken as ontologically given and independent of these QLR (and wider) practices. My approach is to conceptualize QLR practices along nonrepresentational lines, through a philosophical framework that is able to materialize the constitutive effects of QLR (and wider) practices on the objects of study and knowledges produced. For this, I turn to Karen Barad’s posthumanist performative metaphysics – ‘agential realism’ – a framework that embodies and enacts a non-classical ontology in which entities are seen as constituted through materialdiscursive practices. On this account, QLR (and wider) practices are understood as an ineliminable and constitutive part of the realities they help bring into being.
This paper analyses the quality of information collected by a self-administered survey responded to by a general population, who were offered the possibility of answering using the post or Internet. The analysis will be focused on the use of three grid questions with using rating scales with 6, 6 and 8 items, respectively. There was a polar point labelled scale (0–10) with verbal labels only at the endpoints. The postal survey showed greater acquiescence, a greater choice of extreme response categories and ‘easy’ answers, and a greater number of incomplete questions.
We propose relational data modeling as a tool for replacing the ad hoc and uncoordinated approaches commonly used throughout the social sciences to gather, store, and disseminate data. We demonstrate relational data modeling using global electoral and political institutional data. We define a relational data model as a map of concepts, their attributes, and the relationships between concepts developed using a formal language and according to a set of rules. To demonstrate the methodology, we design a simple relational data model of six concepts: countries, parties, elections, districts, institutions, and election results. Furthermore, we introduce a data model to solve the particularly vexing issue of party discontinuity (party splits, mergers, and alliances). We show how the solution facilitates computational tasks, such as the calculation of core measures of political phenomena (ex: electoral volatility). Ultimately, a relational data approach will play a central role in collective investments to develop advanced data capabilities, and thereby advance the accuracy, pace, and transparency of scholarship in the social sciences.
Snowball sampling is generally seen as a highly effective sampling technique that allows for the study of difficult to reach or ‘hidden’ populations. It is also seen as a valuable tool for the study of particularly sensitive or private matters. As a result, it was chosen as the sampling method for a research study into illegal drug users over the age of 40 who are not in contact with the criminal justice authorities or treatment agencies regarding their use. However, there proved to be great difficulty in locating and interviewing potential participants using snowball sampling. Four reasons for this are proposed, and it is suggested that snowball sampling is prone to failure in particular circumstances. Thus, caution should be exercised when considering its adoption as a sample-building technique.
This article reflects on the focus group as a research technique used in an analysis of the relationship between learning spaces and pedagogy, developed as part of the assessment of the secondary school modernisation programme in Portugal. The research proposes a methodological innovation in the use of focus group, by developing focus groups before, during and after tours to the schools. The focus groups in this format were particularly important for the research since they facilitated a dynamic of social interaction and the expression of views and opinions among groups of pupils and teachers about the impact of the renovations on education practices. They also highlighted some of the specific aspects of the interaction between the appropriation processes and the object of the intervention, which was in itself object of contradictory interpretations. Further, this technique enables the attainment of a triangulation strategy, central to the study.
This paper discusses issues of research design and methods in new materialist social inquiry, an approach that is attracting increasing interest across the social sciences as an alternative to either realist or constructionist ontologies. New materialism de-privileges human agency, focusing instead upon how assemblages of the animate and inanimate together produce the world, with fundamental implications for social inquiry methodology and methods. Key to our exploration is the materialist notion of a ‘research-assemblage’ comprising researcher, data, methods and contexts. We use this understanding first to explore the micropolitics of the research process, and then – along with a review of 30 recent empirical studies – to establish a framework for materialist social inquiry methodology and methods. We discuss the epistemological consequences of adopting a materialist ontology.
This paper considers the practical implementation of constructivist grounded theory principles in a study of widening participation in Irish higher education. Following a brief introduction to the research study upon which this paper draws, a rationale is provided for the use of grounded theory and the objectivist–constructivist nexus is examined. Grounded theory was regarded as a valuable methodology to employ in the area of social justice-oriented widening participation research; however, objectivist approaches were found to be problematic. This paper identifies key principles informing a constructivist grounded theory research design and subsequently focuses on what these principles might ‘look like’, in practice, through an exploration of three key processes I employed in my grounded theory study. These processes provide examples of how researchers might adapt grounded theory methods, in a constructivist fashion, to better align the methodology with social justice-oriented research.
In some quarters today there are arguments to the effect that research ethics codes should be formulated in terms of principles, rather than specific prescriptions and proscriptions. This derives in part from what is probably the most influential approach to bioethics: principlism. What is provided here is an exploration of the nature of ethical principles as these relate to social research, and of the debates around them. It is argued that principles are useful, so long as they are treated as reminders of what ought to be taken into account, rather than as premises from which specific ethical judgments can be derived. At the same time, it is concluded that any move towards formulating codes in terms of principles is likely to make little difference in practice for researchers under the present regime of ethical regulatio
There are pedagogical challenges USA students and instructors face within mixed methods classrooms. Instructors of mixed methods are often self-taught, lacking adequate training in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. Students are not often trained in both research approaches. These dual training gaps can result in deep pedagogical issues compromising students’ ability to fully understand mixed methods research praxis and leaving teachers feeling ill equipped to address students’ learning concerns. To tackle the myriad of challenges confronted in the mixed methods classroom requires structural changes to the current way graduate training programs in social research methods are organized and taught. Developing a team-based teaching approach to mixed methods research that provides students with instructors who have the requisite qualitative and quantitative knowledge can serve as a pedagogical model that can begin at least to address the current methods and methodological skills gap in the teaching of mixed methods research.
Initiatives, like the UK ESRC’s RDI/CI programmes and the Q-Step Centres, have a long-term aim of addressing the well-documented decline in the pool of academics able and willing to teach quantitative methods (QM). However, these initiatives will take time to make an impact; therefore, the upskilling of current staff is a vital strategy if we want to maintain QM in curricula. This paper draws on findings from the ESRC RDI project, ‘No More Pointy Clicky, numbers stuff; building staff quantitative skills’. This project focussed on upskilling staff in a large Sociology department. The project was committed to delivering training to develop staff competence in QM; however, it became clear that this alone would not be sufficient to build staff confidence. Therefore, the project rolled-out a more complex strategy that addressed a range of central issues, including, pedagogy, infrastructure, Departmental resourcing and strategy, and staff worldviews, which this article explores.
Those aiming to respond to the recognised shortage in quantitative skills within the UK social sciences have increasingly focused on the content of undergraduate degree programmes. Problems occur when quantitative methods are generally confined to a dedicated module, detached from substantive topics. This model makes it hard for students to understand or engage with the contribution of quantitative research to their discipline and can perpetuate negative perceptions of quantitative training. We suggest a solution to this problem is ‘quantitative embedding’, in which quantitative evidence and methods are incorporated into substantive teaching in the social sciences. We illustrate quantitative embedding with case studies from an ESRC funded project based in The University of Manchester, where teaching partnerships have developed curriculum innovations in Sociology and Politics. The paper then discusses the challenges of disseminating quantitative embedding, highlighting the need to bridge separate communities of practice that can isolate quantitative specialists.
An increasing challenge for teaching methods courses in the social sciences is the ‘critical turn’, which has encouraged some students to adopt an anti-empirical orientation. We present a case study of a compulsory undergraduate methods course in a political science department strongly influenced by post-structuralist philosophies. The first author redesigned the course to implement four constructivist pedagogical principles: (1) develop a full understanding of students’ pre-existing perceptions of political science research methods; (2) encourage students to see methodology as an inevitably contested field; (3) provide space for students to choose a methodological approach that best aligns with their personal stance on knowledge; and (4) encourage students to view research as an ongoing ‘conversation’. We critically reflect on the implementation of these constructivist pedagogical strategies and argue they improve students’ critical engagement with course material, increase linkages between methods teaching and other disciplinary subject matter, and accommodate diverse student perspectives and needs.
This paper introduces Five-level QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis) as a pedagogy for the teaching and learning of CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS) that spans methodologies, software packages and teaching modes. Based on the authors’ personal trajectories of using, teaching and researching CAQDAS since the late-1990s, the paper illustrates the need for a CAQDAS pedagogy by describing the challenges of learners in powerfully harnessing CAQDAS packages. The principles behind Five-level QDA are outlined, which focus on the contrast between the strategies and tactics of conducting QDA with software, and the need to translate between these. The implementation of Fivelevel QDA as an adaptable method of instruction is illustrated through the use of Analytic Planning Worksheets in the Recurring Hourglass design.
Researchers’ responsibilities towards their research data are changing across all domains of social scientific endeavour. Government, funders and publishers expect greater transparency of, open access to, and re-use of research data, and fears over data loss call for more robust information security practices. Researchers must develop, enhance and professionalise their research data management skills to meet these challenges and to deal with a rapidly changing data sharing environment. This paper sets out how we have contributed to jump-starting the research methods training curriculum in this field by translating high-level needs into practical guidance and training activities. Our pedagogical approach involves applicable, easy-to-digest, modules based on best practice guidance for managing and sharing research data. In line with recent findings on successful practices in methods teaching, we work on the principle of embedding grounded learning activities within existing narratives of research design and implementation.
Developments in pedagogical knowledge in the teaching of social research methods have largely been generated through teachers reflecting on their practice. This paper presents an alternative approach to generating data through reflective dialogue between researchers, teachers and learners. The approach incorporates elements of video stimulated recall and reflective dialogue within focus group interviewing. The rationale and affordances are discussed in relation to the goals of discussing teachers’ pedagogical decision-making and learners’ experience of, and response to, various pedagogical practices. The context is a study of capacity-building short courses in advanced social science research methods, specifically courses on: multi-modal analysis, computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, multi-level modelling, and systematic review. The paper examines the methodological challenges of capturing the everyday realities of methods classrooms for teachers and learners and the affordances of using dialogue on observed teaching sessions to gain further insight into each other’s thinking and action. It concludes with lessons learned about methodological and pedagogical processes and an argument about the value of bringing methods and standpoints together in creative dialogue.
This paper seeks to explore the relational participatory action research (PAR) frameworks that have been developed to allow non-Indigenous researchers, along with Indigenous co-researcher participants, to learn and honour Indigenous stories. Specifically, in the context of PAR research in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, we outline: (a) potential challenges between Indigenous research paradigms and Western research paradigms, (b) the situation of the non-Indigenous researcher in relation to the Indigenous community, (c) challenges associated with the non-Indigenous researcher’s selection of a research site, (d) collaboration throughout the research process and (e) the processes of developing and maintaining responsibilities. The aim is not to offer simple answers to such challenges, but to highlight the manner in which such processes can be addressed. This research may provide practical insight for future non-Indigenous researchers working with Indigenous communities through a participatory sharing process with Indigenous co-researcher participants, Elders, leaders, knowledge-holders and youths.
The article seeks to demonstrate the contribution that corpus linguistic software can make in news frame analysis and how it can help address some of the methodological challenges in the extraction of news frames. With the employment of corpus linguistic software WordSmith, the study conducts an inductive frame analysis of the UK press coverage of the Greek financial crisis, in which it combines principles of qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches. The findings demonstrate that, by integrating a statistical measuring mechanism in a qualitative analytical approach, corpus linguistic techniques can offer a systematic connection of stylistic and ideological features of news content and a more reliable identification of the loci for frames. Such techniques can also allow a better approximation of the unconscious level of frame construction. This can lead to a more efficient identification of frames that exhibit deeper cultural values and are more likely to shape the receivers’ interpretation
Low socio-economic groups are typically difficult to recruit and retain in health research, which makes it difficult to investigate their health-related beliefs and behaviours. Low socio-economic parents with overweight or obese children took part in a longitudinal qualitative child obesity study over 12 months. These parents’ views of and recommendations for appropriate recruitment and retention strategies are reported. Their interpretations and suggestions are considered in the light of the difficulties that were experienced in designing the study to meet their needs and the approaches that were found to be more effective in achieving and maintaining a viable study cohort. Relevant aspects of recruitment included remuneration, recruitment locations and the use of appropriate weight-related terminology. Retention factors included protocol flexibility, ongoing remuneration and learning opportunities. Barriers to ongoing participation are also discussed. Suggestions are provided for future qualitative research with low socio-economic families.
‘Participatory’ research is often presented as a means to ‘empower’ stigmatised groups by addressing shame and by promoting attitude changes. Drawing on experiences producing a ‘participatory’ docudrama with traditional Qur’anic students (almajirai) in Kano, northern Nigeria, I reflect on the limits of ‘participatory’ research as a tool for ‘empowerment’. I describe the risks stigmatised groups may incur by participating, and consider to what extent, if at all, it can foster social change. The almajirai have attracted negative attention as presumed victims of child neglect and as ‘cannon fodder’ for Islamic radicalisation. Their participation in the filmmaking gave them an opportunity to voice their concerns and to rebuke those treating them heedlessly. At the same time, they became vulnerable to accusations and suspicions within their communities. To escape the negative connotations of poverty, they deemphasised its role for almajiri enrolment, thus concealing structural inequalities.
This paper builds on the history of Esbrina, an established research group in Spain with almost 20 years’ experience and a deeply-rooted tradition of selfreflection and learning. We start by analysing the academic and social contexts in which the group was created and recognised. We make explicit team members’ backgrounds, dispositions and positionalities, to provide insight into the tensions aroused in deciding research topics, methodological approaches and research methods. Then we focus on two specific projects and explore the learning processes of those engaged in them: the first involves micro-ethnography, for which we examine our apprenticeship process through interviews, observation, inferential analysis and visual documentation. The second involves collaborative ethnography, for which we give an analytical account of how we created different ways of learning through collaborating and narrating. Throughout the paper, we reflect on our determination to create a methods-learning environment in which we constantly challenge our comfort zone by trying to do research on topics involving authentic learning. The most innovative aspect of the process is that senior and junior researchers, including group directors, play both the role of teachers and learners.
Thematic analysis is frequently used to analyse qualitative data in psychology, healthcare, social research and beyond. An important stage in planning a study is determining how large a sample size may be required, however current guidelines for thematic analysis are varied, ranging from around 2 to over 400 and it is unclear how to choose a value from the space in between. Some guidance can also not be applied prospectively. This paper introduces a tool to help users think about what would be a useful sample size for their particular context when investigating patterns across participants. The calculation depends on (a) the expected population theme prevalence of the least prevalent theme, derived either from prior knowledge or based on the prevalence of the rarest themes considered worth uncovering, e.g. 1 in 10, 1 in 100; (b) the number of desired instances of the theme; and (c) the power of the study. An adequately powered study will have a high likelihood of finding sufficient themes of the desired prevalence. This calculation can then be used alongside other considerations. We illustrate how to use the method to calculate sample size before starting a study and achieved power given a sample size, providing tables of answers and code for use in the free software, R. Sample sizes are comparable to those found in the literature, for example to have 80% power to detect two instances of a theme with 10% prevalence, 29 participants are required. Increasing power, increasing the number of instances or decreasing prevalence increases the sample size needed. We do not propose this as a ritualistic requirement for study design, but rather as a pragmatic supporting tool to help plan studies using thematic analysis.
Whilst there is no doubt that fieldwork research involving active criminals contains risks and dangers, this is not always the case. Drawing on interviews conducted with illegal tiger skin suppliers and traders in Lhasa (Tibet), this article challenges orthodox understandings of criminological fieldwork. My experience in Lhasa speaks to three methodological issues: (A) the process of gaining access to and recruiting interviewees from the underworld, (B) fieldwork dangerousness and (C) the effects that the personal identity of the researcher has on the process of socialisation with the interviewees.
The study of the everyday is recognised as central to the understanding of identities, agency and social life. Yet, attempts to research everyday life often fail to capture the complexity of the mundane. This paper draws on findings from two studies: fatherhood across three generations and adult narratives of childhood language brokering to illuminate that complexity. The purpose of bringing these studies together is methodological; in particular, it is to examine how the storied material generated by narrative approaches can contribute to understanding of the everyday practices of family life, practices that are often unacknowledged, hidden or assumed. One study adopted a narrative form of interviewing while the second combined narrative photo-elicitation techniques with narrative accounts. Methodologically, the two studies illustrate that no one method produces ‘objective’, comprehensive knowledge of family practices. Together, however, they produce new insights into family practices around fatherhood, migration and language brokering and how participants ‘do’, ‘display’ and commemorate family. The paper argues that narrative approaches, sometimes alongside visual methods, can assist holistic analyses of family practices from sociocultural, intergenerational and life course perspectives.
There is a growing body of research arguing the relevance of practice approaches to understand resource consumption, and to highlight alternative pathways to sustainability. These practice approaches offer an alternative conceptualisation of demand and have been demonstrated largely by qualitative research, particularly in the work on water and energy consumption in the home. However, these historical narratives and qualitative research have not, to date, lead to the development of quantitative or mixed methodologies that could potentially reflect the diversity of performances of practice across populations in a more systematic way. This paper reflects, critically, on one such attempt to scale a practice-based perspective into a quantitative survey on water consumption and practice in homes in the south and South-East of England. The use of quantitative and mixed methodology has substantial potential – from translating practice-based research to policy; developing indictors to track patterns of practices as they change over time; and the exploration of methodologies that reflect the bundling and coordination of practices associated with water use inside and outside the home. The benefits and utility of such a methodological approach are highlighted as cautions and future research directions.
This paper proposes that established research techniques can be developed in new directions by becoming attentive to the ways in which novel epistemological and ontological frameworks can shape the production of research knowledges. Drawing upon ideas from performance theory and science studies, and two brief fieldwork examples – archival research on the MRC’s Common Cold Unit and participant observation of the challenge of moving a herd of cattle – we argue that habits are also always to extent improvised; shaped by the capacities of human bodies to sense and respond to the nonhuman agentive world around them, including methodological habits. We propose a new term, ‘experimental partnering’ to define an interpretative approach that is attentive to how practice can illuminate the improvisatory or unstable temporary alignments that underlie some habits. ‘Experimental partnering’ is not offering a new way to access the research field, but a term to express a particular interpretative mode that draws attention to human-nonhuman relations and assemblages, fostering new apprehensions of how these more than social relations modify and interrupt the habitual.
This article discusses the formation, salience and reformation of everyday bodily routines and resources in relation to cycling; it also examines how we can study them ethnographically in different places. I discuss forms of embodied, sensuous and mobile ethnography that can illuminate how routines, habits and affective capacities of cycling are cultivated and performed. The article argues that autoethnography is particularly apt at illuminating the embodied qualities of movement, and it sits within established ethnographies of ‘excising’ and ‘mobile bodies’. In the second part of the article, I draw upon ongoing autoethnographies of cycling in a familiar place (my hometown, Copenhagen) and by learning to cycle ‘out-of-place’ (in London) and ‘in-a-new–way’ (when commuting long distance on a racer bike). The study challenges static notions of the body by analysing how cyclists’ (and researchers’) affective capacities develop as they practice cycling.
This paper explores research routines which are so mundane that they are rarely noticed and may be hard to even verbalise. How does one acquire the bodily dexterity of rifling through a filing cabinet, skimming Google lists or judging a book by holding in it one’s hands? Drawing on interviews with and observations among scholars of both the analogue and digital generations, mainly in the social and cultural sciences, I look at how such routines are established, naturalised and transformed. They may be seen as methods slowly turning into inconspicuous habits. To what extent do such practices, which are often seen as intensely personal, actually mirror norms and cultural conventions of specific academic settings? With a focus on materialities and sensibilities, I discuss three arenas of everyday academic activities: writing, reading and handling information.
To some extent, policy-relevant research on families and households addresses timeless questions designed to understand the processes that lead to particular social practices and outcomes for parents, children and professionals. Yet, the social contexts in which families and households negotiate their everyday practices are necessarily dynamic, as are research methods. In order to stay relevant, therefore, it is crucial that researchers update their theoretical frameworks and methods as well as their orientation to the social context. Julia Brannen’s successful accomplishment of research over the last 40 years exemplifies the ways in which continuing to do relevant research is not simply a question of remaining relevant, but also requires conceptual and methodological reframing over time. This paper traces some of the theoretical and methodological shifts and adjustments that have served to keep Julia Brannen’s research cutting edge, exciting and policy relevant. It does so both by considering how her preoccupations have shifted, expanded and remained and illustrating these shifts by drawing on literature more broadly
Julia Brannen is very much a pioneer of mixed methods research having organised one of the first conferences on the subject in June 1989. In this paper, I assess her contribution to the field of mixed methods research. I examine both her methodological writings on the principles of doing mixed methods research and some of her research which derives from the approach. Through this examination of the two strands of her mixed methods work, I tease out the distinctiveness of her approach to the field and the contribution she has made. In so doing, I address quality issues in mixed methods research, something Julia Brannen touched on in her early writings, how these might be developed, and how they relate to her work.
This article explores the costs and benefits of combining and integrating different research methods both within and across paradigms in international comparative research. It reviews the reasons for the supposed incompatibility between different epistemologies and associated methodologies. Drawing on examples from international projects, it examines the various ways in which methodological pluralism can be exploited to extend the scope of comparative studies. Although combined methods may not be a panacea in international comparative research, the author suggests that they can provide a fruitful approach for researchers seeking to capture more fully the complexity of the objects under study
This paper reflects on Julia Brannen’s contribution to the development of theory and methods for intergenerational research. The discussion is contextualised within a contemporary ‘turn to time’ within sociology, involving tensions and synergies between sociological and historical imagination. These questions are informed by a juxtaposition of Brannen’s four-generation study of family change and social historian Angela Davis’s exploration women and the family in England between 1945 and 2000. These two studies give rise to complementary findings, yet have distinctive orientations towards the status and treatment of sources, the role of geography in research design and limits of generalisation
This paper explores the use of focus group methodology as part of a life course approach building on Julia Brannen’s pioneering work in these two areas. Much life course research uses individual interviews, including biographical interview techniques. It is less usual to find focus groups used within the life course perspective. This paper draws on a PhD study of young British and Asian adults’ experiences of the transition from university to full-time employment, using focus groups as part of a multi-method approach, within a life course perspective. The study drew explicitly on Julia Brannen’s approach to life course transitions. Three focus group excerpts are presented and discussed to illustrate how focus group data can further the understanding of the ways in which a group of peers discuss the transition to work and especially future work–life balance. We show how focus group discussions about individual choice for future work and ‘life’ or ‘lifestyle’ can highlight shared assumptions of this birth cohort group as well as areas of disagreement and contention, rooted in both individual experiences and societal and socio-cultural expectations. We relate this to Julia Brannen’s conceptualisation of the three different modalities which young people draw on to talk about the future.
Over the last 30 years, the authors have collaborated with Julia Brannen on five major research studies: the Day Care Project in the 1980s; the study of Four Generation Families at the turn of the millennium; the Care Careers Project in the mid 2000s; and, most recently, Fathers across Three Generations and the Food Practices and Employed Families with Younger Children studies. This article offers an overview of the studies, situating them in their particular historical contexts and the important economic and social changes that have taken place in these contexts. It shows how the theme of the relationship between care, gender and employment has run through all five studies, and also how two complementary themes – intergenerational relationships and the role of fathers – have gained increased prominence, as has the concept of time particularly across the life course. It examines how Julia’s approach to researching the relationship between care and employment has changed over the course of the studies, including evolving conceptualisations and time frames and the introduction and use of new methods.
The UK Government agencies have an interest in making greater use of administrative data. This paper discusses the methodological challenges of using administrative data held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for constructing an alternative sampling frame for the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and for replacing income data collected in the FRS. The analysis shows that administrative data would provide a good basis for sampling the FRS by linking to socio-demographic data held administratively, which would be advantageous for sampling specific sub-populations (e.g. types of benefit recipients or households with children). Sampling using administrative data also potentially offers more representative population sampling by including some addresses currently excluded from the small users Postcode Address File (PAF) but which are important to DWP, such as people living in care homes. However, comparing FRS questions and income data held administratively, suggests little overlap. Therefore, limited gains may be realised from shortening the length of the FRS by using income data from administrative sources.
The aim of this study was to look at the issue of nonresponse and self-selection bias in the context of a family study on daily family life. Data on the participating families and refusers were gathered as part of the wider Palette study in which questionnaires and diaries were used as data collection methods. On the basis of these data (N = 208 participating families and 119 refuser families), we profile the families left outside the study. The parents who declined to participate in the Palette study were asked to fill in a short refusal form, which included questions concerning their family background and reasons for refusal, and they were also asked to write freely about their everyday life. We found the refuser families to have less-educated mothers and more children than the participating families. On the basis of a qualitative analysis, three life situations which refusers considered too demanding to allow participation in the study were found. The challenges of reaching nonparticipants and the generalizability of the findings are discussed.
Acts of counter-subjectification in qualitative research are always present but are often submerged in accounts that seek to locate the power of subjectification entirely with the researcher. This is particularly so when talking to people about sensitive issues. Based on an interview-based study of infertility and reproductive disruption among British Pakistanis in Northeast England, we explore how we, as researchers, sought and were drawn into various kinds of connections with the study participants; connections that were actively and performatively constructed through time. The three of us that conducted interviews are all female academics with Ph.Ds in anthropology, but thereafter our backgrounds, life stories and experiences diverge in ways that intersected with those of our informants in complex and shifting ways. We describe how these processes shaped the production of narrative accounts and consider some of the associated analytical and ethical implications.
Recent methodological discussions among childhood researchers seeking to empower children have, to a large extent, circled around ways to widen the boundaries for children’s conventional involvement as research informants, leaving the interview encounter somewhat unexplored. This article directs attention to the co-production of knowledge that takes place between an interviewer and an interviewee. It argues that, and aims at making explicit how, informants can participate in the production of knowledge in decisive and ethically sound ways through conventional interviews, even when research issues are sensitive and informants are under age.
Grounded theory (GT) has been a popularly used qualitative research methodology in the social sciences and has become increasingly popular for doctoral theses and dissertations. Yet, issues such as the changing nature of grounded theory, time constraints, theses advisors, doctoral committee procedures and Institutional Review Board regulations create challenges for doctoral candidates (researchers) who choose to use GT for their dissertations. In this paper, we present the general and specific challenges of using GT for doctoral theses and dissertations by sharing our personal experiences from our Ph.D. programmes in the USA. We conclude by providing practical suggestions for doctoral researchers who are considering using GT for their theses and dissertations.
Systematic review and synthesis methods have gained wide acceptance within the social sciences and, as a result, many postgraduate students now consider using them for their thesis or dissertation research. However, students are rarely aware of all the concrete implications that their decision entails. This reflective narrative reports the experience of a political science student who began to conduct a systematic review as part of his Ph.D. dissertation but who did not complete it. The aim of this article is to identify challenges and lessons learned from this experience and to formulate recommendations for postgraduate students who wish to make an informed choice with respect to the use of these methods.
This paper argues that door-to-door surveys are a valuable tool for collecting information about health and the environment in urban areas in a manner consistent with community-based participatory research principles. We describe in detail how a door-to-door survey on food shopping and physical activity was conducted with the primary food shopper in 514 households on 30 randomly selected blocks in West and Southwest Philadelphia over seven weeks during the summer of 2010. We identify the elements of our door-to-door protocol that had benefits for the quality of the data collected, flow of data collection, the perceived safety of interviewers and residents, and that informed subsequent phases of this multimethod four-year study of urban food and physical activity environments. We conclude that door-to-door surveys are appropriate and valuable in certain research contexts, when spending time in a community, conducting observations and building relationships are central to the goals and success of a study.
Using freedom of information requests to facilitate research
This mixed-methods study uses both cognitive interviewing and a quantitative field test to provide empirical evidence on the value of cognitive interviewing for questionnaire development. Ten interviews were conducted with a questionnaire on patient experiences with cataract surgery (75-item consumer quality index cataract), using both thinking-aloud and probing techniques. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, problems were coded with the commonly used systems of Levine et al. and Willis, and results were compared with item non-response in a field test. The coding systems revealed similar numbers and type of problems: 55 items showed a total of 174 problems. However, most problematic items (67%) had an adequate response in the field test. Results stress the importance of cognitive interviewing as a pre-survey evaluation method to early identification of questionnaire problems, and it is recommended to use the coding system of Willis for it provides specific directions for questionnaire optimization.
Personal construct psychology (PCP) has always been better known for its methods than its theory, but many researchers are not aware of the range of qualitative methods offered by a PCP approach. We argue that PCP methods have been overlooked as tools for the qualitative researcher and that they satisfy some key requirements of much qualitative research, such as the capacity to provide in-depth insight into personal experience, to establish a ‘democratic’ relationship between researcher and participants and to represent the participant’s ‘voice’. We illustrate several of these methods, drawing on research examples. We show how they enable participants to articulate their experience, and how they may be used as part of an in-depth interview. We conclude that Personal Construct methods provide opportunities for qualitative researchers to create innovative ways of researching personal experience.
‘I am too busy’ is one of the most commonly cited reasons for people not to participate in survey research. Yet, empirical data on the association between ‘busyness’ and survey participation are scarce, due to a lack of data on busyness or time pressure among the non-respondents. This article sets off with an overview of the strategies and types of auxiliary data that can be used to assess the effects of busyness on survey participation. Then, using data of a two-wave SCV/ISSP-survey of 2002 that includes an elaborate section on time use and combining work and family life, we employ survey variables of the first wave to investigate effects of busyness on survey participation in the second wave. Interestingly, we find that the subjective experience of busyness – feeling too busy – has a significant effect on participation, whereas more objective measures of busyness do not.
The material is not just ‘a carrier’ of different types of symbols, but an active element in the practices. Bringing this to the fore requires new research methods. This article discusses a methodological approach, we call it a wardrobe study, which allows for the analysis of the way in which clothes relate to each other on the whole or within parts of the wardrobe. More specifically, we discuss how this method can contribute to increasing the materiality of clothes studies. The theoretical point of departure for this approach is a practice theory in which the material enters as an integral part. First, the article briefly discusses developments within the study of dress and fashion. Second, the methods combined and developed in wardrobe studies are discussed. The emphasis here is primarily not only on the weaknesses of the individual methods in practice-oriented dress studies, but also on how they jointly can contribute to the wardrobe study.
The use of Charles Ragin’s Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is increasing in the social sciences. However, some of its characteristics, especially those of its fuzzy set variant, are still not well understood by users. QCA, a set theoretic method, aims to describe, in a Boolean form, the configurations of conditions that are necessary and/or sufficient for some outcome. The calibration of set memberships is a central feature. We discuss how two alternative calibrations of a condition affect the assessment of consistency with sufficiency. Using first an abstract example and then an empirical one from the sociology of education, we explain why “stricter” calibration of conditions results in higher consistency with sufficiency. We demonstrate that conventional truth table analysis is not an ideal way to compare the analytic consequences of alternative calibrations and therefore employ an alternative which allows a more direct comparison of consistency indices while keeping comparative configurational contexts intact.
Typically, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is praised for its hermeneutic dialogue between theory and empirical cases. However, in reporting research with QCA, these hermeneutic processes will usually not be illustrated. This paper aims at showing clear how QCA induces this dialogue between theory and data. As an illustrative example, I use a research situation dealing with a genuine research question of Legislative Studies: the causes of party unity. Using the classical dichotomous and the MV-QCA approach, the paper mainly shows how to deal productively with contradictory theoretical statements and how stepping from simpler to more complex models adds explanation while still making clear further routes to improve insights into the substantive research topic: both theoretically and empirically. Finally, non-observed configuration (‘logical remainders’) will be used to simplify the resulting theory, and its theoretical and empirical plausibility will be evaluated. The whole paper makes explicit how the QCA approach forces researchers to reveal the dialogue between theory and cases – just as it was intended by the inventor of this analytical tool.
This paper is a discussion regarding vignette development and administration as a means of protecting research participants in social research. Health and social care researchers investigate a plethora of issues that may be sensitive or upsetting, for example, abuse or bereavement. This exposes participants to potential emotional harm caused by revisiting the original trauma. Using research methods that offer a protective layer is important. Evidence suggests that vignettes provide protection for research participants by placing distance between their experience and that of the vignette character. However, there are few methodological papers regarding vignette use. Utilising examples from our own research, we engage in a critical discussion regarding vignette development and administration. The paper offers a new framework to support researchers – particularly those in health and social care – in the development and administration of vignettes. We contend that the framework supports best practice in vignette use, particularly when researching sensitive issues.
Undocumented alterations to research images, defined in this piece as image manipulation, may represent a case of research misconduct. What constitutes image manipulation, particularly when images of human participants used in research need to be adjusted for protection of participant confidentiality? In this article, conceptual clarifications of the definition of image manipulation, image management, and research integrity are developed and adapted to the context of visual social research. Using these definitions, a series of recommendations for notifying human participants of image management techniques via the informed consent processes and a set of guidelines for managing images of identifiable human participants in research in visual studies research are developed.
When performing data linkage, survey respondents need to provide their informed consent. Since not all respondents agree to this request, the linked data-set will have fewer observations than the survey data-set alone and bias may be introduced. By focusing on the role that survey design features play in gaining respondents’ consent, this paper provides an innovative contribution to the studies in this field. Analysing experimental data collected in a nationally representative household panel survey of the British population, we find that interview features such as question format (dependent/independent questions) and placement of the consent question within the questionnaire have an impact on consent rates.
This paper reflects on a project which involved the authors working in partnership with a working group of looked after children and young people established by a small unitary local authority to develop a pledge defining what support, services and care looked after children can expect from them. The authors aimed to develop an approach which ensured that the young people’s voices were heard and also that the well-being of those involved as participants remained at the centre of the process throughout. We argue that Honneth’s theory of recognition, which identifies three forms of recognition as important to ensure that human beings feel assured of their dignity or integrity – in brief love, rights and solidarity – offers a useful framework for achieving this. The main principles which emerged were: (i) building the research around the young people’s existing relationships, (ii) respecting the group’s decisions and (iii) honouring the views expressed.
This article presents a reflective account of the emotional dimensions of in-depth field research in prisons. Drawing on the work of Goffman to make sense of ethnographic processes and techniques, it is argued that performance and impression management play crucial roles in the research process. However, it is suggested that there are commensurate emotional costs associated with the roles and identities that ethnographers might enact in the field. It is argued that the finer details of ethnographic practice can be better understood when the emotional dimensions of research experiences are carefully analysed and processed.
The tax discipline has accepted the practice adopted in the economics and psychology disciplines of using student subjects for experimental research purposes. However, in other social science disciplines (e.g. accounting, management or consumer research), experimental research that uses students as a substitute for another group has been widely criticised as having little external validity. In this research, data are compiled from journal articles over a 20 year period to investigate the extent to which tax experiments use student subjects and the potential implications from this practice. Three research questions are addressed. First, do tax studies using student subjects justify or explain the use of student subjects? Second, are policy recommendations or other extrapolations to the tax-paying population made from the student subject results? Third, is any acknowledgement made of the potential limitations of using student subjects? The findings indicate that approximately half of the tax experiments investigated used student subjects. Of these, approximately 80% provided no justification for their chosen subject sample. A similar proportion did not acknowledge any limitations from the use of a student sample. Around half of the papers using student subjects extrapolated their findings to the general tax-paying population or provided tax policy recommendations. In addition, the research indicates that the tax discipline has not had the same level of robust debate on the use of student subjects in experimental research as that seen in other disciplines. This potentially limits the external validity and utility of many of the tax research experiments undertaken to date.
Depression is a complex problem, commonly but not always successfully managed in primary care. We know relatively little about the system of primary care for depression particularly at the level of organisations. In this paper, we describe the use of mandalas as a visual data collection method within an in-depth programme of participatory action research undertaken in six primary care organisations in Victoria, Australia. We draw on mandala images, selected and discussed by 49 multidisciplinary primary health care professionals and demonstrate how they can be employed as an effective graphic elicitation method. We conclude that mandalas offer an innovative approach for qualitative data collection for two reasons. First, they can engage busy research participants in a reflective space. Second, using the mandalas as an elicitation method generates meaningful data: it provides new insights, reveals unrecognised aspects of practice, generates new learning, gives physical form to tacit processes and enables complex information to become accessible; all within short timeframes.
The study of religious and spiritual beliefs raises complex epistemological and methodological questions for interpretive social scientists concerning our ability to understand the everyday lifeworlds that belief-based communities inhabit. The primary focus of recent debates has been on the long-standing methodological insider/outsider dynamic, defined in terms of religious belief or affiliation, which intersects with other social categories such as gender or ethnicity. We contribute to this debate by considering a relatively neglected position, methodological agnosticism, which informs our study of religion and spirituality in the workplace. We argue that an agnostic position can be methodologically productive as a research strategy, but this must be counterbalanced by awareness of the fieldworker risks, which include emotional distress and identity threats. Agnosticism also encourages greater epistemological reflexivity as it implies ‘not knowing’ in relation to both metaphysics and social scientific knowledge construction. Through this, we highlight the productive nature of uncertainty in the study of belief as an epistemologically and methodologically constructive standpoint.
This paper reports the use of verbal probes in cognitive interviews (CIs) undertaken to test the usefulness, validity and reliability of survey questions. Through examining the use of probes by three interviewers undertaking interviews as part the piloting of a cross-national crime survey, we examine which of the various types of probes used in CIs produce the most useful information. Other influences on interview quality are examined, including differences between interviewers and respondents themselves. The analyses rely on multilevel modelling and suggest that anticipated, emergent and conditional probes provide the most useful data. Furthermore, age, gender and educational levels appear to have no bearing on the quality of the data generated.
This paper analyses the implications of using survey response scales with 10 or more categories which are often analysed using factorial techniques such as principal components analysis. Although it is the type of metric that determines the choice of this method of analysis, these scales, despite being considered metric, lack some metric properties, such that a score of 10 in a satisfaction survey, for example, does not represent twice the satisfaction of a score of 5. Their ordinal nature also means they cannot be treated as purely categorical. Thus, having both metric and categorical properties, they allow the use of different factor analysis techniques. The second objective is to apply different factorial techniques to a given test item in order to detect potential differences in the analytical information obtained by each method. Finally, we will discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages for use with this type of survey question.
When pooling the results from different studies, conventional fixed effect and random effect meta-analysis do not aim at representing populations. Instead, they build on the common literature synthesis perspective and provide a summary effect estimate, which combines the results from the studies included. The individual studies are weighted according to sample sizes and variance, but not population sizes. We demonstrate that, from the population perspective, the results can yield highly misleading conclusions when the common heterogeneity problem in effect estimates is given. We discuss bias, heterogeneity and generalization in single and multiple studies; we show the relevance of the population perspective in psychiatric health care; and demonstrate how weights can alternatively be defined by the study samples’ target population sizes. The approach is exemplified with a simplistic meta-analysis of the effect of Tai Chi based on a Taiwanese and a US sample. We show that the results can be very sensitive against the choice of the target population. No matter which method is used to pool heterogeneous effect estimates, a global summary estimate should not be used to make a global and uniform health decision. Instead, the determinants of heterogeneity should be investigated and differential advice provided.
This paper documents an experience of using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to recruit socially marginalised young people in Sydney, Australia. Respondents were young people aged 16–24 years who were current illicit drug users and who reported at least one feature of social marginalisation (e.g. recent homelessness or juvenile detention). Four seeds initiated the sampling and 61 respondents were recruited until the sampling was closed due to slow progress at week nine. The paper examines: (1) the overall success of RDS and compares this with similar RDS studies; and (2) the sufficiency of network ties among respondents. The analyses suggest that RDS was generally successful in that, despite its small size, the sample achieved adequately long recruitment chains and variables converged to equilibrium. Nevertheless, recruitment was much slower than comparable studies. This could be due to the study population having reduced willingness to participate, a high proportion of respondents who did not fit the selection criteria, and small and disparate networks. Using RDS with marginalised youth may require generous resourcing to allow large incentives to increase willingness, and a lengthy recruitment period. Moreover, the small networks suggest that researchers should start the sampling with a large number of seeds.
Social network researchers are routinely faced with the boundary specification problem, namely, where to place limits on nodes that constitute a social network. The complexity of the issue varies; some networks are easily delineated, while others are not. For instance, if we were interested in exploring the relations among older people in an elder care home, then ‘residence’ would define actor membership. However, where a network exists with ambiguous, perhaps unstable, outer limits and its population proves tricky to access, significant challenges arise for the researcher. In this article, I consider ‘the boundary specification problem’ as it relates to an amorphous, ‘tricky-to-access’ population of cross-community youth leaders in North Belfast, Northern Ireland. This article will review current strategies and approaches for bounding social networks, assess the applicability of each and provide practical insights and extended ideas around delineating ambiguous, unstable, elusive structures composed of ‘tricky to access’ populations.
Fuzzy-set theory has provided researchers with a new perspective on many social-scientific problems. In particular, the method of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) has gained in popularity across various disciplines. However, while the methodological development of fsQCA has progressed on a number of fronts, sensitivity diagnostics have only recently been put on the agenda. This article analyses how coverage as an important descriptive statistic in fsQCA is influenced by the interaction between membership function form and crossover threshold choice. Depending on the relative location of the latter, changes in the former influence coverage in either a negative or a positive direction, and to different magnitudes. This influence is not uniform but varies in relation to cases’ distance from unique peak points. Although the orientation of this article is theoretical, its results have implications for empirical research. Most importantly, the influence of membership functions should become part of routine sensitivity checks.
This study aims to empirically investigate whether cognitive interviewing is effective as a pretesting method for detecting problems in translated survey questionnaires as in the English language source questionnaire. The validity of non-English cognitive interviews is of concern among researchers because the cognitive interviewing technique was developed based on the communicative norms of Western cultures where directness and openness in expressing one’s opinion is encouraged. However, different communicative norms are present in Asian languages and cultures. To date, little research has been conducted on this topic. Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, we compared survey question problems identified through the cognitive interviews conducted in English and in Korean and found that Korean cognitive interviewing was indeed effective for detecting problematic survey questions.
The article focuses on the topic of measurement invariance (equivalence) testing in comparative research. Measurement invariance is the basic requirement for comparative data and should be addressed by researchers before any international comparison begins. In the article, multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis is first performed to describe three methods of measurement invariance testing (configural, metric, and scalar). Subsequently, this procedure is applied to the case of measuring experience with ageism against seniors in the quantitative European Social Survey, Round 4. Measurement invariance in the concept is tested across 29 states participating in the survey. Hypotheses about the sources of the lack of measurement invariance between some countries are then tested by comparing the parameters of the models identified for different groups of European states. Finally, evidence of international comparability of items measuring experience with ageism against seniors is summarized and implications for other areas of comparative social research are discussed.
The article reports the development of a synchronous text-based online interviewing tool with a continuity of private discussion that is not achieved in open-ended questionnaires, email interviews and online discussion boards. The participants were women who had undergone a surgical or natural menopause, who in a pilot interview highlighted the potential sensitivity of this subject and inspired the implementation of this method. The overall feedback was positive with the main advantages centred on feelings of anonymity, convenience and a more comfortable interview environment. Disadvantages included lack of body language and technical issues with computers. This technique ensures a degree of confidentiality while still obtaining depth of enquiry, where other qualitative methods potentially risk invading a participant’s privacy. It can be offered both alongside other interviewing techniques to allow participant choice and on its own when exploring sensitive and personal topics or when extra participant anonymity is appropriate.
With the increasing use of information and communication technologies, there is a wealth of longitudinal data available, which open up new research directions. This availability necessitates special analytical tools, namely time series analysis methods. The paper focuses on Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) modeling and provides an outline of how it can be used in social sciences to study dynamic social processes. It provides a typology of dynamics of social processes, using the distinctions between stability vs. fluctuation of a communication process and exogenous vs. endogenous changes. Five distinct types of dynamics of social processes are outlined: stability; linear trend; different attractors; permanent effect; and not permanent effect. Further, the paper examines how these types can be analyzed with the use of ARIMA modeling, and what this means for understanding of the underlying social process. Conclusions are drawn for the use of ARIMA in social sciences, and for understanding of dynamics of social processes.
The aim of this paper is to provide new conceptual and practical insights about the issues associated with ethics and dignity when undertaking research involving the collection of photographic data. Case studies of photographs taken as part of a research project in Chennai, India, are employed to illuminate the significance of dignity. The case studies reveal that dignity-in-context provides a useful conceptual tool that encapsulates the range of ethical issues that might be encountered. This concept has two dimensions. The first, dignity-in-outcome, assists deciding what and whether to photograph by drawing attention to the need for those being researched to benefit from the research, to present an authentic view of the situation and to ensure that participants are not demeaned or reduced. The second is dignity-in-process that helps researchers decide why and how to photograph in terms of involving those being researched in the way an image is captured, choosing the right angle for the image and the impression the image will give if and when it is published.
This article explores the possibilities offered by visual methods in the move towards inclusive research, reviewing some methodological implications of said research and reflecting on the potential of visual methods to meet these methodological requirements. A study into the impact of work on social inclusion and the social relationships of people suffering from severe mental illness (SMI) serves to illustrate the use of visual methods such as photo elicitation and graphic elicitation in the context of in-depth interviews with the aim of improving the aforementioned target group’s participation in research, participation understood as one of the basic elements of inclusive approaches. On the basis of this study, we reflect on the potential of visual methods to improve the inclusive approach to research and conclude that these methods are open and flexible in awarding participantsa voice, allowingpeople with SMI to express their needs, and therefore adding value to said approach.
This article reconceptualizes sampling in social research. It is argued that three inter-related a priori assumptions limit on the possibility of sample design, namely: (a) the ontology of the case, (b) the epistemological assumptions underpinning what properties are necessary to know the case and (c) the logistics involved in the process of ‘casing’ the case. In considering sampling in this way, not only are key criteria commonly used to gauge the validity of sample problematized, but a genuine epistemological bridge between probability and non-probability sample designs is also forged.
Media analysts are challenged to acquire selections of documents that are representative of their topics of interest. Conventional search and selection processes are often constrained because of an inability to efficiently filter large amounts of potentially relevant documents and thus pose the risk of introducing bias. We describe a computer-assisted approach to increase the probability of identifying all articles relevant to a topic (in this case, marijuana), and provide an evaluation of its effectiveness in reducing bias while minimizing time expenditure. Using our system, we filtered 23,755 articles in 24.4 h. Relative to conventional processes, a substantial reduction in bias was achieved. Our system significantly reduced the risk of bias while retaining efficiency and accuracy in document selection.
In their capacity to evoke the sensory, non-rational and material aspects of life, visual research methods offer potential for the study of food and eating. The flexible and interactive nature of some visual approaches also means that such methods may be particularly appropriate for research with children. Drawing on an ongoing study of food and eating in employed families, this paper explores the usefulness of using visual methods, including drawing and photoelicitation, to study children’s food practices. It examines what these methods ‘add’ in this mixed methods study and how they work in combination with other methods and reflects upon some of the challenges faced by researchers adopting such approaches.
It is very likely that electronic means of data collection will become a standard for socio-economic surveys in the near future. As surveys move from paper form to personal digital assistants (PDAs) or tablets, there is a need to evaluate if such a shift will affect the quality of the data. To explore the potential biases that data collection through PDAs may generate, we use the third wave of Young Lives-Peru to randomly assign survey respondents between PDA-based questionnaires and paper-based questionnaires. The study shows that data collected through PDAs has a higher level of agreement when compared to paperbased responses. However, there are a number of situations where paper-based questionnaires do not easily translate to PDA-based questionnaires. In addition, the study highlights the need to improve training as different surveyor’s characteristics (age, gender, education, etc.) may also be correlated with some observed differences between PDA and paper-based questionnaires.
Seeking Research Ethics Committee (REC) approval in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) is increasingly encumbered by bureaucratic rules and regulations. Termed ‘ethics creep’, such governance is challenged by an emerging body of international literature. This article contributes to such literature by documenting the emotional vicissitudes of seeking REC approval in an Irish university, for a proposed sociological study of children with asthma. Our critical discussion includes an account of indeterminate bureaucratic procedures and protocol which, despite their formally rational and rationalised status, were unreasonable, insidious and frustrating. Challenging ‘ethics creep’ and promoting critical debate underpins our discussion of the researcher’s experiences and responses when confronted with bureaucratic irrationality – arguably something that not only taxes researchers’ emotions and commitment but also threatens to ‘strangle’ HSS research and the research base more generally.
This autoethnography describes how a Korean woman made a decision to be a qualitative researcher, what she has confronted in a positivistic culture, and how she has survived as a qualitative researcher. The author, using self-reflection, raises issues of professional development, academic politics, and coping strategies for qualitative researchers.
Twitter is an important and influential social media platform, but much research into its uses remains centred around isolated cases – e.g. of events in political communication, crisis communication, or popular culture, often coordinated by shared hashtags (brief keywords, prefixed with the symbol ‘#’). In particular, a lack of standard metrics for comparing communicative patterns across cases prevents researchers from developing a more comprehensive perspective on the diverse, sometimes crucial roles which hashtags play in Twitter-based communication. We address this problem by outlining a catalogue of widely applicable, standardised metrics for analysing Twitter-based communication, with particular focus on hashtagged exchanges. We also point to potential uses for such metrics, presenting an indication of what broader comparisons of diverse cases can achieve.
Cuba, a country that is often portrayed as an isolated, secretive and bureaucratic dictatorship, would appear to present many challenges for a social researcher intent on eliciting the genuine opinions of the native population. However, in December 2008, I began just such an investigation, researching ‘environmental justice’ (i.e. the social and distributive impacts of environmental policy and practice) in the country, using a mixture of interview and participant observation techniques. As might be expected, much of the fieldwork was dominated by the sensitive political context, creating numerous methodological issues and dilemmas, as well as personal challenges. This paper looks at the difficulties faced, in particular with regard to the problem of attaining reliability and validity, and the strategies that were used to overcome them. It will be of relevance to anyone considering carrying out fieldwork investigations in socialist, and other politically sensitive, locations.
This article presents a typology of designs for social research in the built environment. Currently there is no such typology, while the notion of ‘research design’ is less known in the built environment compared to the social sciences. Twenty-five subtypes are identified and clustered into 10 prototypical designs, namely: (1) surveys, (2) experiments, (3) modelling, simulation, mapping and visualisation, (4) textual and narrative studies, (5) field studies, (6) case studies, (7) intervention research, (8) evaluation research, (9) participatory action research and (10) meta-research. After determining the extent to which these designs feature in actual studies, the designs are classified according to six design considerations, including research – context, aim and purpose, methodological – paradigm and approach, and source of data. The typology contributes towards greater clarity in terms of ‘research design’, improved teaching of research methodology and greater methodological coherence in projects.
Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry that investigates how everyday experiences are coordinated by work done with texts in organisations. Methodologically, IE relies on interviews, observations and document review to produce data. Yet strategies for data analysis in IE have not received as much attention as have issues of data production, the latter of which can be further refined. Although many types of qualitative data analysis have recently been developed in the social sciences, in this article I assess two: the listening guide and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Contributing to debates about qualitative data analysis and IE, I compare the listening guide and IPA to evaluate whether these forms of data analysis can be used to supplement IE. I argue that there are five points of convergence between the listening guide and IE, which institutional ethnographers can build on in future research, analysis and writing.
One of the greatest concerns or fears of either survey designers, survey project manager or those relying on survey data for decision-making, is the falsification of data collected in the field. This practice is called curbstoning. Using the Grounded Theory Methodology, I interview 74 quantitative field surveyors in Jamaica to identify the strategies they use to falsify questionnaires. These field surveyors explain and describe curbstoning methods they have used to falsify close-ended and open-ended questionnaires, as well as questionnaires with verification questions. I have suggested several strategies for mitigating each one of these curbstoning methods. This article has significant practical application for how survey designers and survey project managers in all spaces around the world can mitigate against the curbstoning of questionnaires. This article also helps to start discussions on the falsification of emerging methods and tools for quantitative data collection.
The social shaping of technology (SST) has become a broad umbrella term to cover a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives in the social sciences. It has also defined a set of funded projects in the UK focused on a particular technical initiative around e-social science – digital social research. It is increasingly understood that social science research and work on the SST, in particular, should be applied to the study of innovations in digital research and their implications for the sciences and humanities. This overview is designed to help introduce the diversity of perspectives that the social sciences can bring to bear, such as under the social shaping umbrella and explain why this set of perspectives is of value to policy and practice in this field. The continuing advance and diffusion of digital research make it ever more important to strengthen the role of the social sciences in this area of multi-disciplinary research, policy, and practice.
For social scientists, the widespread adoption of social media presents both an opportunity and a challenge. Data that can shed light on people’s habits, opinions and behaviour is available now on a scale never seen before, but this also means that it is impossible to analyse using conventional methodologies and tools. This article represents an experiment in applying a computationally assisted methodology to the analysis of a large corpus of tweets sent during the August 2011 riots in England.
The growing number of people using social media to communicate with their peers and document their personal everyday feelings and views is creating a ‘data on an epic scale’ that provides the opportunity for social scientists to conduct research such as ethnography, discourse and content analysis of social interactions, providing an additional insight into today’s society. However, the tools and methods required to conduct such analysis are often isolated and/or proprietary. The Cardiff Online Social Media Observatory (COSMOS) provides an integrated virtual research environment for supporting the collection, analysis, and visualization of social media data, providing researchers with an innovative facility on which to conduct hypothetical experiments that lead to defensible results. This study presents a methodology for Digital Social Research and explains how the features of COSMOS aim to underpin it.
This study analyses hyperlink data from over 100 political parties in six countries to show how political actors are using links to engage in a new form of ‘networked communication’ to promote themselves to an online audience. We specify three types of networked communication – identity reinforcement, force multiplication and opponent dismissal – and hypothesize variance in their performance based on key party variables of size and ideological outlook. We test our hypotheses using an original comparative hyperlink dataset. The findings support expectations that hyperlinks are being used for networked communication by parties, with identity reinforcement and force multiplication being more common than opponent dismissal. The results are important in demonstrating the wider communicative significance of hyperlinks, in addition to their structural properties as linkage devices for websites.
This article reports on Leximancer and Discursis, two visual text analytic software tools developed at the University of Queensland. Both analyse spatial and temporal relationships in text data, but in complementary ways: Leximancer focuses on thematic analysis, while Discursis focuses on sequential analysis. Our report explains how they work, how to work with them and how visual concepts are relevant to all stages of their use in analytic decision-making.
Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a widely-used variant of snowball sampling. Respondents are selected not from a sampling frame, but from a social network of existing members of the sample. Incentives are provided for participation and for the recruitment of others. Ethical and methodological criticisms have been raised about RDS. In this study RDS was used to recruit male household heads in rural Uganda. We investigated community members’ understanding and experience of the method, and explored how these may have affected the quality of the RDS survey data. Our findings suggest that because participants recruit participants, the use of RDS in medical research may result in increased difficulties in gaining informed consent, and data collected using RDS may be particularly susceptible to bias due to differences in the understanding of key concepts between researchers and members of the community.
This paper discusses some of the methodological issues in the measurement of ethnicity in the social survey. Measurement encounters two sets of interrelated problems: those of the definition and nature of ethnicity as a social phenomenon and its individual subjective experience and those of the derivation of valid and reliable categories. Commonly used single-item measures fail to capture many ethnic groups and may be of limited value. Extending categories in these will capture more groups, but can be unwieldy and produce small cell counts, whereas multiple measures can be more successful, but are practically less viable in general surveys. We conclude that whilst these difficulties are probably insurmountable, a strategy that is sensitive to the presence of ethnic groups in particular localities is a way forward, but this should also be part of a more sociologically nuanced approach to the collection of ethnic data.
Evidence suggests that physicians have lower response rates than nonphysicians to mailed surveys. It is important to identify methods that can increase physician and nurse participation in health-related survey research. In an effort to improve response rates among clinicians, we developed esthetically enhanced survey materials (booklets printed on glossy paper with color and graphic designs) as part of a large mailed-survey study of oncology doctors and nurses who were listed as members of a North American cooperative oncology group. We randomized these clinicians to receive either an enhanced (90%) or standard (10%) paper survey (standard white paper with no color nor graphic designs, stapled together) about offering results of clinical trials to trial participants. Overall, 34% (793/2333) of the surveys were returned. There was no significant difference between the two groups; 33.7% (707/2300) responded to the enhanced materials and 36.9% (86/233) responded to the standard materials (p = .34). These results suggest that esthetically enhanced materials do not increase clinician response rates to mailed surveys, although further research is warranted in this area.
This article explores the interactions between researchers and potential respondents when recruiting for a door-to-door survey. Researchers’ reflective accounts suggest a range of tactics used to influence potential participation in research that draws upon contrasting identities and roles for researchers and participants. In examining these roles, the paper demonstrates the ways in which, while fleeting, the interactions between researcher and respondents involve impression management strategies and are entangled in negotiations of power and status. In reflecting on some of the practices behind door-step recruiting in survey research, we show how gaining consent to participate is about negotiating researcher and respondent roles. In doing so, we hope to encourage debate about the importance of identity, the ethics of consent and issues of reflexivity in survey-based research.
Cross-national qualitative research is an increasingly common approach to health system research. Whilst cross-national qualitative research presents many challenges, the benefits include the development of new perspectives and the opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and develop capacity. In particular, qualitative data analysis must be scientifically robust, balancing comparability with context-driven research, and must be collaborative and incorporate capacity development. The Mental Health and Poverty Project employed a threestage approach to cross-national qualitative research, consisting of development of a common structure in a workshop, adaptation by country teams and ongoing support. Through this process, the project developed broad thematic frameworks which were adapted by each study country and used as a skeleton for the data analysis. This paper critically reflects on the approach employed and reports the experiences of researchers throughout the analysis process. The paper concludes with lessons learned for cross-national, qualitative research projects.
Over the last two decades, interest in salivary research in the social sciences has grown rapidly. Salivary research is appealing as a quick, inexpensive and noninvasive means of determining a range of biological markers, which offer insight into a variety of human responses, for example, stress. To the social researcher these advantages provide exciting possibilities for new transactions between social, behavioural and biological models of development. Salivary research is especially attractive to those working with children. Indeed, as well as being non-invasive, saliva also provides an opportunity to measure variables with young children where self-report measures may be inappropriate. Yet, for all its appeal the reality of saliva collection with younger populations appears far from straightforward. This article draws on two research examples to illustrate some of the methodological, ethical and practical issues pertinent to salivary research with young children. Specifically, it considers barriers to participation and possible strategies for promoting the methodological and ethical basis of salivary research. In doing so, it provides starting points for discussion in what has become a critical methodological debate
This paper discusses the potential of specialist software to develop category construction in qualitative data analysis and considers how the uses of software may best be reported to substantiate researchers’ claims. Examples are examined from two recent projects: a consultation of pupil’s perceptions of assessment for learning strategies and an exploratory enquiry on employing music as a tool for inclusion in post-conflict Northern Ireland. From this experience, a number of suggestions on how to support the researchers’ claims are made and a model of knowledge generation is put forward. Some of the practical implications outlined are discussed within the context of social research, but it is acknowledged that the suggestions also apply to any field in which knowledge is generated from qualitative data.
There is an increasing body of literature which examines the personal experiences of social science practitioners who become reflexive researchers. Less, however, has been written on researchers who reflexively investigate once traumatising locations and experiences. This paper problematises the psychological and methodological challenges experienced by a social scientist and ‘survivor’ of wrongful conviction conducting reflexive research where the participants and researcher have a shared (hi)story of wrongful conviction and trauma. A particular consequence of conducting the study was that friendship groups were developed between researcher and participants. The paper will examine this phenomenon and conclude that reflexive ‘insider’ approaches that spawn friendship groups can provide rich data providing the challenges of such research are acknowledged and appropriate strategies employed to safeguard the integrity of the research. The paper similarly concludes that measures should be adopted to protect the psychological equilibrium of the ‘insider’ researcher to avoid possible re-traumatisatio
This paper considers the advantages and limitations of using mixed methods, diaries and focus groups in research with older people, specifically research investigating the interaction experiences of older individuals as customers, members and workers with public-, private- and community-based organisations. Drawing on the literature on mixed method integration, five distinct advantages were identified: development, completeness, expansion, offsetting and initiation. Two limitations were also noted: demands of the data collection on the participants and insufficient depth. Each is discussed in the context of the particular research project, with the suggestion that mixed methods be used in future research with older people.
Clustering seeks to identify a finite set of clusters to describe data. Cluster analysis is partitioning similar objects into meaningful classes, when both the number of classes and their composition are to be determined. Nowadays, we often see illustrations concerning the use of latent class models (LCM) in the field of cluster analysis. They provide a useful probabilistic/statistical method for grouping observations into clusters. In this approach to clustering, each different cluster in the population is assumed to be described by a different probability distribution, which may belong to the same family but differ in the values they take for the parameters of the distribution. The goal of this research is cluster analysis and LCM comparison, and methodologically we considered three datasets: one with solely continuous variables, one with only binary variables and one with mixed variables. In all situations, LCM performed reasonably well; in contrast, cluster analysis achieved both the best (90.7%, only continuous variables) and the worst performance (40%, mixed variables).
The article reports the results of a Mokken Scale Procedure (MSP) developing a hierarchical cross-national scale gauging attitudes toward illegal immigration, and a subsequent qualitative cross-national assessment of this scale. Responses to a 20-item Likert-type-scale were collected in two national representative surveys in the Netherlands and New Zealand. The MSP analysis yielded a cumulative scale with the same four items for each with an acceptable ‘scalability’ in both samples, of H > .40. This cross-national four-item scale was evaluated by means of in-depth interviewing nine participants in the Netherlands and 15 participants in New Zealand. Analysis of the interviews shows that individually ranking the items of the scale is similar to the rank order generated by MSP, but the individual evaluation of the degree of negativity of items strongly depends on the way illegal immigrants are framed by subjects. The contribution of a mixed methods approach is discussed. It is suggested that the present quantitative measuring instruments measure a general average attitude, which may be likened to a measure of the average temperature of a country at a certain moment, while qualitative evaluations vary with the way illegal immigrants are framed by individuals, like variations in local temperature
Visual methods with children have gained interest as social researchers search for participatory methods that align with the current conceptualisation of children as social agents. This paper describes the reflections and experiences of using the home movie as an innovative vehicle allowing access to children’s everyday life. This method was adapted and used to encourage high levels of child-led participation and minimise researcher input. This paper explores practical and methodological strengths, challenges, and ethical questions arising from the production of home movies by the children and suggests that the home movie is an acceptable means for generating insight into children’s perspectives and to produce and reflect visual representations of children’s social worlds.
Drawing on ethnographic research concerned with the phenomenon of migrant prostitution in Italy, this article problematises the mechanistic model in social research that reduces the gatekeeper to a static and instrumental figure to be gotten past and the passage through the metaphorical gate as a matter of course. Moving beyond this, it suggests approaching gatekeepers as social actors embedded, participating in and influencing relations of power, and gaining access through gatekeepers as a dynamic process that is shaped by transformative encounters in the field.
This paper examines the importance of gatekeepers in facilitating access to key informants. Using the author's experience of working in alcohol-related research, the problems in gaining interviews with licensees, security staff and club and bar operators are discussed. However, in a departure from an understanding of gatekeepers as fixed, I argue that we need a more fluid and rhizomatic model. Rather than being fixed, it is argued that gatekeepers are far less stable than first appears and can shape, open up, inform and re-direct the research process along often surprising trajectories. Extending this point, in the second part of the paper, gatekeeping is explored in terms of discursive and disciplinary practices. I ask how discursive gatekeeping, and specifically debates about responsible and irresponsible drinking practices, have shaped and informed research in this area. Again, a more fluid understanding of gatekeeping is developed in order to work through the complex and often contradictory ways that knowledge is produced, reproduced and generated in critical work on drinking cultures.
Based on research conducted in a secondary school with 13- to 14-year-old students, this article describes and analyses how gatekeepers’ perceptions of the researcher determined access, influenced rapport and cooperation with the students, and defined expectations regarding the researcher’s role within the school. The article also takes into consideration which intersecting social categories gatekeepers, the researcher and the research subjects highlighted and made visible, and which ones were ignored or rendered less visible in the different researcher/gatekeeper and researcher/researched interactions. Social categories were important for understanding how all of the actors in the research process (researcher, researched and gatekeepers) viewed the researcher’s positionality vis-à-vis the young research participants. A type of ‘sliding door’ (‘now you see one, now you see another’) deployment of categories such as race, class, gender and ethnicity framed gatekeepers’ assessment of the possible benefits in enabling researcher access, and impacted on the researcher’s ability to remain reflexive during the research. In addition, the way that gatekeepers perceived the researcher also determined the type of role the researcher was expected to fulfil during the time she spent at the research site. Such expectations affected the researcher’s attempts to build rapport with the students in order to ensure their cooperation during the course of the research.
Interpreters are often considered to be a form of gatekeeper to communication and understanding in situations where researchers do not speak the same language as the people who they wish to interview. The conventional best practice model poses the interpreter as a neutral conduit linking the interviewer to the interviewee. Using experiences from two research projects, in this article I challenge this model to uncover the complex interplays of power and trust in the relationships between interpreters and the imagined communities to whom they are positioned as gatekeepers, and between interpreters and the social researchers who they work alongside. I draw out some of the tensions around power and trust in the alignments and distinctions assumed, claimed and experienced in these relationships.
This research note describes different gatekeepers to quantitative data on victims of human trafficking in Europe. It explores how the researcher–gatekeeper relationship must be negotiated, and in particular, explicates how the notion of ‘goodwill’ might help foster a research relationship and collaboration. I identify that goodwill might be measured as a continuum, and argue that it can be fostered but at other times is constrained by factors outside of the researchers’ control. I conclude that goodwill is an important resource to help negotiate access with gatekeepers to hard-to-reach data.
This research note aims to extend the discussion on the methodological implications of doing research on intimacy and personal life. Drawing on a comparative study concerned with the intimate lives of those who live outside the conventional, modern western nuclear family, it reflects on the processes of gaining access to often hard-to-reach populations which informed and influenced the empirical work that we carried out in four European countries.
In drawing from a recent qualitative grounded theory study which explored attitudes towards, and readings of, depictions of human sexual relationships found in online video material – including sexually explicit material – among 16- and 17-year-old students, this research note explores the encounters of the researcher with three tiers of gatekeeping and their influences on the methodology, design and execution of the research.
This research note focuses on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and age relations with gatekeepers by concentrating on explicit and implicit forms of sexual harassment and intimidation by male gatekeepers toward the author, a female researcher. Comparing fieldwork experiences in radically different cultural settings (Turkey and Surinam) shows that the general dynamics are strikingly similar: being (seen as) powerless can be both a bane and a boon in getting access in the field and information through gatekeepers.
Calls to reflexivity in social science have a long history. This article, after defining the terms endogenous and referential reflexivity, examines that history within several traditions. It argues that this history has tended to prioritize endogenous over referential reflexivity through an over-emphasis on the process of social research compared to what is learnt about social relations. As a result, interactions within the social world and the potential for transformations are not adequately understood, nor are the relations between the social sciences and social life.
In this paper I discuss the genre and framing of student practical reports to illustrate methodological and moral-political tensions in the move towards qualitative research in psychology. Using these ‘apprenticeship accounts’ as indicative of prevailing disciplinary discourses of research practice, and after framing my own account of these accounts, I argue that claims made for qualitative research as necessarily more progressive or humane in its practice are unfounded. By focusing on the accounts of five key constructs in accounts of research processes (‘rapport’, truth, subjectivity, power and reflexivity) I suggest that the possibilities of qualitative work can be impoverished by being defined in relation to quantitative research for two related reasons: first, qualitative research is advocated to supplement the limits of quantitative work: second, it is seen as correcting procedural lacks and informational limitations of quantitative work rather than as a challenge to positivist epistemological assumptions guiding research. In this way, the current popularity of qualitative work within psychology may be as much an index of its incorporation within the discipline as of an emerging ‘paradigm shift’. Nevertheless, as a site of resistance, as well as regulation, to prevailing norms of psychological research the student reports document a process of institutional negotiation, and I suggest that the process of reading and discussing such texts can open up other possible spaces for engagement.
In recent years there has been a growth of interest in breaking down the divisions between qualitative and quantitative research. However, although examples of multi-method studies now abound, there has been little discussion within the literature about the empirical and theoretical challenges that such eclecticism can pose. This article provides an example of a multi-method investigation into social scientists and their media relations wherein qualitative and quantitative findings appeared to contradict each other, and describes how the authors sought to explain and accommodate these discrepancies. Using this case study, they argue that it is incumbent on all researchers committed to the integration of research methods to deal with any differences that may emerge, rather than to resort to selective, epistemic prioritization as a get-out clause.
A small-scale study to explore the possibility of obtaining information about small companies' charitable giving through telephone interviews provided challenges on three research design issues: selecting a target sample, telephone interviewing, and sensitive research topics. This article explores the general lessons derived from the study. First, it considers suitable sampling frames for identifying and contacing small companies. Second, it discusses the consequences for response rates of the telephone warfare between telemarketers and small companies. Third, it reviews what contributes to the sensitivity of research topics and ways of overcoming this.
Academics and others have long made use of survey items framed in a Likert form. This type of question, where respondents are asked to agree or disagree with a series of statements, has long been a staple of those creating attitude scales. There has, however, been increasing use of these items in inappropriate settings. This article discusses the appropriate and inappropriate use of Likert items in social science research, using three settings where the agree-disagree response settings are wrongly applied. It concludes with speculation about the diffusion of this form throughout the research culture.
This paper explores the opportunities that developments in computer-mediated Communication (CMC) are making available for social science research. In particular, the use of electronic mail (e-mail) is proposed as a viable and valuable research medium for conducting qualitative interviews, alongside the traditional face-to-face interview. The practical, methodological and conceptual implications of e-mail interviewing are explored. In addition, important ethical dilemmas concerning informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, protection from harm, interpretation and ownership of material are discussed.
This paper is concerned with the effects of participating in semistructured interviews on the interviewees. It is based on evidence supplied by young adult women who were interviewed a number of times and asked about their previous interviews. While most claimed to have little recall of these earlier events, they did remember them as interesting and/or enjoyable. This was because the interview focused on them with the guaranteed but detached interest of the interviewer. Informants' reflections on previous interviews showed that there was a range of impact on women's views from (a)recording information; (b)clarification of views; (c)review of position; and (d)discovery of something new. Beyond interviews interacting with the informant's views there is also evidence that some interviewees' actions outside the interview were influenced by their participation. The fact that interviews involve the interaction of participants is now recognized in a number of intellectual approaches but the variability of this has not been documented.
This paper airs specific problems encountered at the outset of the author's research on ‘The impact of race and racism on boys’1 fear of crime'. The complexities of researching boys from black2 (and white) backgrounds are examined from the author's standpoint as a young, white female academic. Epistemological questions are raised in recognition that ‘who we are and what we do shapes and constrains what we can know’ and, more specifically within the demands of a feminist standpoint epistemology, gender is discussed as a central consideration of the research process in relation to race and age. Rather than simply being a ‘useful exercise’ for the author herself, the paper highlights epistemological considerations relevant to much of social science research in complex areas. The paper does not set out to offer concrete solutions to the problems and practicalities detailed, but should be viewed as a discursive piece that draws on the personal experience of ongoing research in theoretically and practically challenging areas to suggest that reflexivity holds the promise of ‘good’ research.
The practicalities and success of an audio-visual recording system developed to document night-time noise and activity in children's bedrooms in an inner-city area are described. The development and use of this method during the study, and potential applications and contexts for its future use are discussed.
We examined children's sleep disturbance due to cough. To date 143 recordings have been made on 41 children. Seven studies (five per cent) were unsuccessful. Three of 70 families declined to take part in the study because of intrusion of privacy. Analysis of the videos took approximately three hours per study.
Home recording at night was practical and successful in households where sleep disturbance due to cough was presented as a problem. Problems that were anticipated with this method of data collection are discussed, and were minimal.
This review article focuses on a series of reports commissioned by Barnardo's, the largest children's charity in the UK.1 The series examines ‘what works?’ in different forms of social intervention with children and families. The publication of these reports is very timely. There is growing interest, indeed a demand, from many quarters for a strengthening of the evidence base that informs social policy. This, in turn, has opened a debate among researchers and users of research about what constitutes evidence. What sort of information enables us to make claims that a particular initiative works? This series considers the question of appropriate research methodologies and in so doing raises many further questions, which are the theme of this review.
This paper introduces and reviews the use of focus group methodology across the social sciences, identifying three different research traditions within which it has been used. It examines some key considerations affecting the use of focus groups, and highlights three central features of focus group research: providing access to participants' own language, concepts and concerns; encouraging the production of more fully articulated accounts; and offering an opportunity to observe the process of collective sense-making in action. Finally, the paper outlines some of the issues in the analysis of focus group data-an area with considerable potential for future development.
There has been a welcome growth in the use of qualitative methods in health services research. Most qualitative researchers would consider many of the criteria for evaluating their research suggested in the health services literature to be important and unproblematic. In this paper I focus on two more contentious criteria: how reliability and validity (both internal and external) should be judged in qualitative research. I argue that, as with all guidelines, the criteria for evaluation have been developed on the basis of assumptions about what constitutes qualitative research. I suggest that the criteria adopted for judging qualitative research are often operationalized in ways that are only appropriate for researchers using a particular definition of qualitative research. Implicit in these criteria are assumptions that echo those adopted by quantitative research, which is often thought to be the gold standard. Researchers not following this particular gold standard are judged to be carrying out work that is not ‘quality’. I suggest that the definition of ‘quality’ needs to be flexible enough to include qualitative research utilizing a range of different approaches and theories.
Drawing on two recently completed ethnographic studies of young women in the West Midlands, this paper explores a series of issues about the application of feminist principles and practice to such research. One study analysed young women's friendships, mainly through participant observation in school, supplemented by participation at a youth club. The other explored the likely success of the former Conservative Government's ‘Health of the Nation's’ targets for aspects of young women's health, through extended attendance at two youth clubs, supplemented by ‘shadowing’ informants at school. Both studies also used interviews, diaries and other data sources. Driven by the researchers' desire to ‘give a voice’ to their informants, this paper reviews power relationships in the production of knowledge; issues about self-presentation; securing access to and winning the trust of the young women; and their resolution of some of the ethical dilemmas which confronted the researchers in the course of their fieldwork.
This research describes how and why interpretive biography was chosen as a potentially fruitful way of gaining insight into participants' experiences and understandings of institutionally led housing renewal. The paper gives a detailed description and review of the theoretical basis of interpretive biography and critically assesses its application in practice. A development is suggested which builds upon the model's considerable attractions and superiority to other interview methods in its ability to engage with the concerns of participants at the narrative level and begin to tackle the power imbalances in the research setting.
This paper describes the application of the visual social semiotics schema developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) to sexual health leaflets and posters for young people (age 13 to 19 years) in order to explore how male heterosexuality is managed at a visual level. It illustrates the use of the method, and its advantages and drawbacks in comparison with other methods, and highlights the importance of visual representations as a source of sociological data. This analysis shows how social semiotics can be applied to reveal the discourses in images, and how sexual health materials reinforce dominant ideologies of masculinity. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the potential effectiveness of sexual health materials.
This paper poses the question ‘Is it possible to think too much and too deeply about the meanings in our work?’ This paper presents case study approaches to adult learning in terms of two narratives: learning as journeying and the confessional account. My aim is firstly to draw attention to the processes of reflective learning embedded in concepts of reflexivity. Thus, learning to be reflexive is as significant as the products of reflexivity. Secondly, I highlight the ways in which the processes and products of reflexivity can be simultaneously dis/empowering.
This paper provides a researcher's account of the qualitative methods used in a research project which aimed to establish how children define and make sense of the concept ‘family’, from a sociological perspective. Research was carried out with 183 children aged between 8 and 14 in schools in two parts of eastern England; a rural area and a large town with a significant population of British Muslims originating from Mirpur and Azad Kashmir in Pakistan. This paper aims to contribute to growing debates about methods and methodologies for working with children. The paper gives the background to the study and then describes the methods used. It then discusses the issues of working with children from minority ethnic backgrounds. It explores some ethical considerations, focusing on issues of informed consent. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the researcher's role in research with children and discusses children's views on being involved in a research project.
Social research brings costs and benefits to people who agree to take part as respondents. This research note considers why people agree to participate in research with special reference to drug injectors. It is based on asking a small sample of drug injectors why they agreed to participate in a qualitative study that explores their perceptions of drug using and sexual behaviours related to the spread of HIV. The following broad themes are used to present respondents' reasons for participating in the study: 1) The research being interesting, relevant and worthwhile; 2) the timing of the fieldwork and respondents' concerns and priorities; 3) a belief that participating is beneficial to the individual participant; 4) a feeling that participating benefits people in general; 5) participation was influenced by referrers, agency staff or other drug injectors who introduced people to the researcher; 6) respondents' first impressions of the researcher; 7) the importance of confidentiality, and finally; 8) the use of tangible rewards and incentives in relation to participation. These findings are discussed throughout this research note.
Although it is known that older people are diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV (PHLS, 1998) and attend genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics (Gott et al. 1998, Gott et al. 1998, Rogstad and Bigneil 1991, Openeye 1991, Kohiyar 1983), little is known about the sexual health of older people who do not present at health care services. This paper discusses methodological issues pertinent to designing such a study and presents the example of a two-phase postal questionnaire survey based upon the electoral register which elicited a satisfactory response rate from an older sample. This indicates that the perceived difficulties of researching sexual health issues with older populations may have been over-estimated.
This paper describes problems of gaining access to public documents in a qualitative study of the NHS internal market in Wales. Official Department of Health (DoH) guidance stresses the importance of 'openness' and requires contracts between NHS purchasers and providers to be made available on request. However, this study suggests that 'openness' policies do not always translate into straightforward research access, and must be seen as a topic of study rather than an aid to research. The research team experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining full contract documentation; requests were complied with only after follow-up letters; generic 'standard form' drafts were sent in lieu of final contracts; some contract schedules were not supplied with the main documents; and where full contracts were forthcoming, price and activity figures were sometimes omitted or blanked out. Moreover, some contracts depended on a substratum of trust and tacit understandings that were not reflected in the written documents and were not always communicated to the researchers. These problems illustrate the discrepancy that can exist between formal agreements of research access and the defacto secrecy that surrounds some areas of organizational work, where leakage of information might undermine an organization's ability to achieve its goals. Health Authorities were concerned that public scrutiny of contracts would reveal inconsistency in their dealings with different hospital Trusts, particularly regarding the level of penalties to be levied for poor performance. Trusts were concerned that scrutiny would show they were ignoring NHS pricing rules and charging different Health Authorities different tariffs for the same services.
This paper is an account based upon the author's ethnographic study involving two major companies within the chemical industry sector. Using examples from personal research experience, and drawing upon organizational ethnographies in the management domain, the processes of impression management which enable research access are explored. Through analysis of narrative voice within predominantly realist accounts, it is argued that 'confessional' declaration of fieldwork experience provides a more reflexive textual account. Using culture as a theory within which to locate organizational ethnography, the implications of insider/outsider distinctions in fieldwork are considered. It is suggested that, particularly in management research, consultancy type 'working roles' are generated by researchers in order to gain credibility. Male-dominated research settings present particular issues for the female researcher, whose access to certain backstage regions and masculine discourse will almost certainly be limited. It is argued that gender, as a methodological issue which defines narrator perspective, needs to be taken into account by both men and women in the field and made more explicit. Gender dynamics within fieldwork can be modelled according to the dominant composition of the cultural setting. The paper argues for increased diversity in management research in order to appreciate the gender-situated nature of our understanding of organizational culture.
This paper seeks to contribute to debates within the 'new' sociology of childhood by focusing on issues of structure and agency in the research process. Drawing on a detailed qualitative study of children's paid work and employment, funded as part of the ESRC 'Children 5-16: growing into the 21st Century' initiative, the discussion examines the extent to which it is possible to design and conduct research on and for children, where children are participants in the research process. The paper suggests that despite the best intentions of researchers, the structure and organization of research inevitably reduces children to the status of at best, participants rather than partners and at worst objects of the researchers gaze. The reasons for this relate to issues of methodology rather than method in that what counts as acceptable academic knowledge is defined in relatively narrow and conservative terms by academics who are invariably adults and to children's lack of research or academic capital.
The questions used in crime surveys (such as the British Crime Survey and Scottish Crime Survey) have been criticized for a number of different reasons, all of which call into question the validity of the questions employed to measure 'fear of crime'. Using data generated by research aimed at improving the conceptualization and measurement of the fear of crime, the current article outlines how assessments regarding the validity of such questions can be built into crime surveys. The procedures are eminently transferable to other topics as required.
In this invited paper I reflect back on thirty years of working as a qualitative researcher. My work has been principally in the areas of family and medical sociology and sexual health. I argue that this account of my career and associated career decisions must be situated in terms of changes and continuities, particularly in the labour market, gendered relationships and the interweaving of private and professional lives. Through an account of my own work and life events I draw out some of the main issues which continue to challenge and concern me. Major issues remain about careers in research, particularly for women, although labour market conditions have changed for all. Although qualitative research methods have become a more accepted way of doing social research, contested issues remain around what it may be expected to deliver. I argue that we must continue to be reflexive about the kinds of data we are constructing in response to changing research environments, structures and technologies. In particular we must take care to promote ways of doing, evaluating and assessing qualitative research which are appropriate to its epistemological roots.
The aim of this contribution is to provide researchers involved in quantitative and qualitative cross-national comparative projects with a rationale and practical guidance for analysing socio-economic phenomena in relation to their institutional and socio-cultural settings. The paper tracks the shift in cross-national comparisons in the social sciences away from universalistic culture-free approaches to culture-boundedness, which has placed the theory and practice of contextualization at the nexus of cross-national comparative studies. It draws on a wide range of multinational and interdisciplinary studies to address a number of recurring questions, covering the selection of appropriate contextual frames of reference, the impact of the researcher's own cultural traditions, issues of equivalence of concepts and interpretation.
This paper analyses the central concerns of selection and execution of cross-national qualitative research. Discussion is issue-driven, incorporating relevant publications on the basis of good practice. An assessment is made of the potential of the qualitative approach in cross-national settings, as well as its pitfalls. Questions of sampling and the attributes of specific methods are then addressed. The paper concludes with a brief review of the added value of qualitative data software packages.
The paper discusses quality monitoring and assessment in quantitative survey research from a cross-national perspective. It takes standards of best practice advocated in national survey research as a starting point from which to discuss cross-national research quality and comparability. It illustrates how the lack of adequate documentation at each stage of crossnational research seriously hampers monitoring and evaluation of project quality and comparability across countries. It outlines different kinds of information needed to begin to monitor and evaluate quality properly in cross-national survey research and points towards developments in cross-cultural survey methods which can follow on from such information becoming publicly available.
This paper examines the methodological issues encountered in a comparative case study, which investigated how discourses shaped and legitimated policy maintenance and policy change in Germany before and after unification. The research strategy involved discourse analysis of party political and parliamentary documents, integrating detailed textual and contextual analysis of the institutional framework within which discourses were articulated. The paper examines the possibility of using comparative case studies to develop concepts, and reviews the relationship between concepts and context in qualitative comparative research. A critique is then offered of the process of analysis, ranging from the initial data analysis using NUD*iST, to the re-contextualisation of the textual analysis, and the reintegration of context, theory and textual analysis in writing up the research.
This paper examines some of the conceptual and definitional constraints associated with the use of statistical data on international migration in Europe. It explores the research potential of using large-scale international datasets in qualitative research, with particular reference to migration data in cross-national social research. The approach suggested is to identify specific reference data subsets with the aid of detailed documentation and metadata, and to use carefully selected migration data as indicators in the analysis of global economic, political and social structures, and social processes. Drawing on knowledge of Eurostat's database on international migration, examples are presented in which recognition of the data problems can help the user to identify subsets that aid qualitative research on migration related topics
This paper discusses the aims and compromises that ensued in the design of a project investigating the obstacles faced by migrants in professional occupations when they move between countries in the European Union. A qualitative approach was selected because of the virtual absence of statistical and empirical data on the mobility and barriers to skilled/qualified migrants in the EU, in specific professions. Central to the research design was a series of guided interviews with regulatory bodies, employers' representatives and native workers, and 60 semi-structured interviews with women migrants.
This paper examines some of the methodological questions raised in the operationalization of a comparative project on children and migration. First, it considers a number of issues concerning contextualization in a project of this nature. Particular attention is given to the identification of appropriate cultural references in research involving migration and mobility. As an exercise in policy evaluation, the research also raises important questions about the relationship between supranational bodies (such as the European Union) and national administrative structures in policy formulation and implementation, further complicating the identification of relevant contexts. The paper then focuses on the second major methodological challenge of the project: researching childhood on this geographical scale. It considers some of the reasons for the paucity of comparative research on children, including the lack of data and the pressure for more qualitative approaches. In conclusion, it outlines and evaluates the strategy adopted in the children and migration project.
The point of departure in this article is a client study with children who had received services from child welfare, school counselling or child psychiatric clinics, compared to a cohort study targeting all children in the same community. It discusses whether parents' reservations towards letting their client children participate in the study indicates a fear of the researchers interfering in family life, and how the choice of research strategies influence the images constructed of client children and their families. A common finding in the two studies was that the children themselves provided the most positive information about their lives. It is argued that adult images of children as either vulnerable, and thus in need of protection, or competent, and thus with an ability to participate, influence access to, as well as construction of, client children's lives.
Low participation and high attrition rates in research studies may produce socially and psychologically biased study samples which limit the generalizability of findings. Although this problem is often acknowledged, published studies sometimes fail to assess and report non-response bias and make few efforts to prevent it. Two examples, one involving patients and another involving health professionals, are reported to illustrate the problem. The first was a randomized controlled trial of presenting a prenatal screening test, with questionnaires given to participants on four occasions. The final sample differed in ethnic group and use of screening, being more likely to be white and to undergo the test. The second example was a randomized controlled trial of communication skills training of obstetricians and midwives. Those completing the study differed from the others in holding more positive attitudes towards training and having better communication skills. Potential solutions to the problem of non-response bias are addressed.
This paper describes a process of analysis and the development of representational strategies in a narrative study. It takes the reader through the often hidden steps involved in doing research, and unveils some of the problematics of narrative and voice. Within the context of rural post-Apartheid South Africa, the researchers were positioned as outsiders, bordercrossing into the lives of the researched, in the name of articulating their voices. The ethical dilemmas of this kind of research are examined, as is the perspective that the researcher is positioned, not as an objective, all-seeing eye, but as a re-presenter from 'somewhere'. The heart of the paper analyses the development of different strategies of analysis, including poetry and various mapping, graphic and matrix techniques. Representational models are developed progressively, in response to the dilemmas and complexities of re-telling 'a' story, and the particular challenge of capturing the contradictory, partial and fluid nature of each teacher's story. The research process culminates in a model which allows for a reading of each narrative as complex, nuanced and intrinsically ambivalent. Against the backdrop of a wider study of teacher narratives (on which this paper is based) and the policy context of education, some conclusions about the implications of narrative study for teacher development in South Africa are drawn.
This paper presents a single case study of doctoral supervisory experience and practise on a joint supervision programme, for women students, which operates between a British and a Saudi Arabian university. It discusses the development of the student's research design which assessed the quality of nutritional advice given by diploma-level nurses to Saudi mothers. It examines the approach of the supervisor in supporting research which both drew on internationally recognized trends in nursing research whilst attending to local requirements and conventions on the student researcher by virtue of her gender and her religious values. Consideration is given to the appropriateness of supervisory practise in such contexts, in particular the encouragement given to integrate the religious and cultural values of the researcher (Islam) within the overall research design. The article explores the research supervision skills required in such settings, and raises the question of whether a western doctoral model is transferable to non-western situations.
It is often said that research methods are a matter of rational choice: it is the research question, or problem, which ought to dictate the method to be used. This may be true to some extent, but there are other more powerful reasons why social scientists choose the research methods they do. Underlying philosophies of social science and long-held and much cherished tenets about epistemology are prime among these. Moreover, such an interplay between epistemological position and methodological decision is enormously affected by social context. We pay attention to what other social scientists are doing, to fashions in both methodology and topic - the things it is considered proper for social scientists to study; we are affected by research funding and publishing opportunities, by the material resources available to support our work, by intraprofessional rivalries and difference, and by politics - both in its commonly understood sense and as applied to power relations between academics and those who take part in research. Apart from what we do, there is the whole issue of how others construct our work. And this is only some of what goes on. In short, it is a very complicated business.
It has now been established that normative samples drawn from Western populations report mean levels of life satisfaction that lie within 70-80 percent of the scale maximum. This study tests whether such consistency is an artifact of Likert scales, and also examines the cognitive processes people employ in making such judgements. Forty-two undergraduate psychology students were asked to describe an imagined worst and best life for themselves. They then rated their current life on a 100 point imaginary scale connecting their worst and best life, and completed a standard life satisfaction scale. The values obtained from the imaginary scale yielded a mean of 76.1 percent and correlated 0.79 with the standard scale. It was concluded that the normative standard for life satisfaction was not an artifact of scale construction. Life satisfaction judgement was found to be dominated by the life domain of intimacy and to confirm the types of comparisons predicted by multiple discrepancies theory.
There is widespread use of consumer surveys in the welfare field, in particular in social housing, and yet there are considerable conceptual problems about the meaning of satisfaction and how it might be measured. Moreover, such surveys are typically motivated by purposes which conflict with one another and thereby threaten the validity of the research in respect of each or all of those purposes. The analysis draws on the author's experience of conducting tenant satisfaction research, examination of an indicative sample of such studies and interviews with responsible officials of housing associations. Both through theorizing the social and political context of satisfaction surveys and appealing to real life examples, the author attempts to show that the key predicaments derive from the fact that social landlords operate in markets oriented to tenants and markets oriented to creditors and regulators and that they have to combine both roles of trustee and of business. Implications are spelled out with regard to the researcher-landlord relationship, research methods, modes of analysis and publication. It is noted that there are pressures for both landlords and researchers to collude in giving the impression that the researcher is independent, whereas the reality may be somewhat different.
The pressures of funding and publishing requirements often make it difficult for researchers to pay close, detailed and reflexive attention to methods as an integral part of their research work. This paper reports on a project about women's perceptions of health, health risks and osteoporosis which was designed explicitly to explore methodological and epistemological issues as they arose and were renegotiated during the research. Three experienced qualitative researchers carried out equal parts of this small piece of research, and reflected on how faced with the same topic and conditions they each did their interviewing and analysis. Through reflexive attention to their feelings of dissatisfaction with the quality of this qualitative work the authors highlight the importance of effects of project design and collaborative working on both the social and material relations of the interview itself and the experiential and contextual depth of the data. The paper concludes with a consideration of its implications for teamworking in qualitative projects.
Reporting on an exploratory e-mail survey of social researchers experienced in one-to-one interviewing or lone observation, this paper addresses the issue of researcher safety in social research. Despite the acknowledgement that the chance of a dangerous encounter is low, social researchers state that fears about their personal safety do arise during fieldwork periods, and that these fears can affect the quality of their data collection. Our research indicates that a carefully implemented code of safety practice for fieldworkers could be a positive development in the social sciences. Fears about personal safety could be reduced if mandatory procedures were established for researchers to follow throughout their fieldwork.
This paper introduces the Tog coefficient, which can be used to measure the level of inequality in a cross-tabulation of two ordinal-level variables. The Gini coefficient is a standard measure of income inequality which has been adapted by other authors for use in different contexts such as the measurement of health inequalities and the quantification of occupational segregation; the Tog coefficient represents a further stage in this process of development. The paper outlines the construction of the Tog coefficient and illustrates this using a social mobility table based on data from the 1972 Oxford Mobility Study. The trend in social mobility-related inequality as measured by the Tog coefficient is compared with the findings of Goldthorpe et al. based on odds ratios. A more elaborate application of the Tog coefficient uses a variety of data relating to the similarity of spouses' class backgrounds to demonstrate the existence of a long-term decline in the level of inequality in British society.
The objective of this article is to highlight seldom considered aspects of the relationship between the researcher and the interviewee in feminist oral history research. As part of a study of the work of British women sociologists the researcher is undertaking a series of oral history interviews with retired academics. The attempts to follow social science ethical injections concerning the protection of human subjects and feminist injunctions to maximize subject collaboration and researcher reflexivity have raised several issues prior to, during and after the interviews. Issues of collaboration and censorship impinge on the research process at every stage of the work and, along with the personal and structural power relations of those involved, determine, in unanticipated ways, the final research product.
In the last few decades social scientists have shown increasing interest in practice-oriented research in general, and in problem solving and policy research in particular. From this may be deduced the growing importance for the social sciences of prescriptive knowledge, as opposed to explanation. Although many mainstream social scientists still implicitly believe that explanation is superior to prescription, explanation appears to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for prescription. Moreover, prescriptive knowledge appears to be highly complicated from a validation point of view and for that reason deserves the attention of social science researchers and methodologists.
In the contemporary research context policy makers tend to value the generalizable outcomes associated with numerical data and quantitative techniques. Case study research, using the qualitative techniques of interpretive social science and critical social theory, does not seem to enjoy the same acceptance. This article argues that case study research is capable of creating thick descriptions and rich understandings of social contexts that have relevance and resonance across social sites. Furthermore, in its critical mode, as expressed in action research, it leads research participants to take a pro-active role in shaping the policies that affect their social environments and to determine the norms and values that direct their social practices. To demonstrate this approach to case study research the article uses notions of purpose, place, process and product; and sets them to work in an empirical case study. It is argued, therefore, that qualitative case study approaches offer valuable research strategies and insights for public policy makers. The article concludes with a set of principles for the practice of case study research.
This article describes the use of vignettes, or hypothetical scenarios, with semi-structured follow-up questions. The vignette approach offers a number of benefits, particularly for eliciting data on awareness and attitudes, including: (1) flexibility that allows the researcher to design an instrument uniquely responsive to specific topical foci; (2) enjoyment and creativity for the informant; and (3) depersonalization that encourages an informant to think beyond his or her own circumstances, an important feature for sensitive topics or for illuminating future use patterns of services. In this article, we illustrate the vignette approach by examining the awareness and attitudes of older adults toward the use of formal community-based or home-health services. Although researchers generally acknowledge the importance of understanding informants' awareness of and attitudes toward formal services, these factors are often overlooked in formal service utilization literature, possibly owing to a lack of methodological tools. By employing the vignette approach, we avoided prestuctured questionnaires that often contain investigator bias while encouraging topical focus unavailable in most 'grand tour questions'. We provide a description of and evidence for how this vignette approach circumvented frequently encountered problems in awareness and attitudinal research, while more richly capturing the voices of the informants.
A review of the growing literature on the Muslim population in Europe shows that it remains poorly captured in official statistics. There is no authoritative map of the distribution of Muslims in Europe, and little quantitative evidence on their demographic, social or economic characteristics. This paper undertakes a systematic review of the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the quantification of Muslim populations. With few countries routinely collecting data on religious affiliation, this is generally based on an estimation of the association between religion and some other measure of identity, such as country of birth or nationality. The rationale for the various 'religiousproxy' methods, and their limitations, is discussed in relation to the range of different data regimes observed across the region. The paper argues that changes in the political status of Muslim populations (following naturalization) and the manner of their growth (increasingly driven by natural increase) have meant that in statistical terms, they represent a disappearing target. The paper concludes that meaningful statistics on the Muslims in Europe will increasingly depend on the direct measurement of religious affiliation.
The paper examines some methodological issues associated with the use and analysis of focus groups in social science research. It is argued that what distinguishes this methodology from other methods is the interactions which take place within focus groups, and that this should be reflected in analysis of the data. Interactive features considered here include individuals dominating within the groups, constructing the Other, tendencies towards normative discourses, and conflicts and arguments within focus groups. These are considered in relation to examples from a study of young adults' expectations of the future, and their orientations towards work and family. Possible moderator strategies and analysis approaches which take account of the interactions are discussed.
This paper considers ethnographic investigation 'at home' in reference, in part, to research carried out into youth homelessness in Britain. Relations of distance and familiarity in the field, and the notion of the ethnographer as stranger, are discussed so as to advance an understanding of the purpose and practice of participant observation. The paper explores fieldwork relations in the context of urban and social exploration, and also with reference to ethnographic research with young people and/or children. In conclusion, the paper argues for a recognition of difference and distance in fieldwork, not simply as obstacles to be somehow overcome but as something inevitable and necessary to the insights that fieldwork affords.
Psychology and other disciplines of social sciences, and even the medical discipline of psychiatry, are plagued by a tendency towards instrument development. In psychiatry there is the trend to develop more and more refined scales and interview schedules, in psychology we have an increasing trend to rely on measures of validity (and reliability) in the development of instruments to quantify otherwise rather little explored fields like intelligence, loneliness, severity of addiction, happiness, depression etc. The basic question asked in this paper is whether the statistical way of constructing realities is appropriate. The term precision is introduced for 'virtual' realities created by statistical modelling, whereas the term exactness is proposed for 'social' realities, realities by consensus, or meaning shared through a common grammar and, therefore, of communication value. The paper tries to set out social realities as pertaining to realities by consensus, created by a shared grammar of constructing things rather than by statistical associations. It goes on to examine some mathematical bases of qualitative research. The paper assumes that topology, communication theory, language development, emotional intelligence and a few other issues following a common grammar of constructing meaning can be helpful in promoting social science research. The basic issue: can we delink meaning from statistics, i.e. quantification? Drawing from examples from physics and biology the paper tries to give the answer of an assertive yes to this question.
This paper advances the conjecture that Social Research is becoming a discipline in its own right, independent of substantive disciplines such as sociology, social policy or political science. In the first part of the paper I briefly examine the historical foundations of research and the factors that led to its growth in the last two decades. In the second part of the paper I discuss the implications arising from an increased demand for methods training, in particular the potential impact of autonomous degrees and pathways in Social Research on traditional social science disciplines.
This paper argues that community studies remain an effective medium for the development of sociological arguments, despite well-known criticisms of the genre. Several features of community studies help to explain the continuing popularity of the approach among researchers and audiences, even though they are at odds with the discipline's supposed 'McDonaldization'. First, community studies have the capability of 'placing' sociological arguments. Secondly, community studies have the capacity to illustrate the meaning of macro-level trends for people's everyday lives. Thirdly, community studies facilitate holistic treatments of the social relations under investigation through their emphasis on context. Fourthly, the community studies format is prized for its accessibility, achieved through a narrative style which plays down conventional researcher/ reader hierarchies without losing analytical sharpness. Recent research monographs and other studies are drawn upon to illustrate these points. They show that while the community studies tradition has necessarily evolved conceptually and methodologically, it has continuing relevance to the sociological enterprise.
This paper explores an aspect of the use of qualitative interviewing methods in researching sensitive and private aspects of people's lives. Using examples from two research projects that involved inviting participants to narrate their experiences of personal transition, the dilemmas encountered in doing this type of 'intimate' research are explored. By creating a space in which participants were invited to, and felt able to, narrate their personal experiences, both researchers found they shared a sense of what had constituted a 'successful' interview. This was one where the personal narratives constructed gave a distinct sense of a 'real' self through self-disclosure. Yet feelings of responsibility for acts of self-disclosure were experienced differently by the researchers. When the boundaries between doing sensitive feminist research and what other 'experts' do-counselling and therapy-became blurred the researchers reacted in different ways. This raises questions about the co-producing role of the sensitive feminist interviewer and prompts consideration of the ways in which qualitative interviewers are prepared for data collection in research. Can the invitation to narrate past and present experiences, together with future hopes, avoid offering potential therapeutic opportunities?
Although transcription is an integral process in the qualitative analysis of language data, and is widely employed in social research, theoretical issues surrounding transcription and their methodological implications have received relatively little attention. In this paper, the role of transcription in qualitative inquiry is problematized. In particular, this paper examines the nature of transcription, the epistemological assumptions upon which it rests, the multiple purposes it serves, and the issue of trustworthiness, or quality.
The distinction between basic and applied social research continues to be influential. Problems with this distinction are identified, and an alternative typology is presented. This distinguishes, first of all, between scientific and practical research, in terms of their audience and mode of validation. Further distinctions are then made within each of these categories, between theoretical and substantive scientific research, and between contract-based versus autonomous, and dedicated versus democratic, practical research.
Developments during the 1990s in the use of computer software for qualitative data analysis are surveyed. Salient trends are identified as are wider issues associated with software use. Also listed are some of the resources now available to potential and actual users of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS).
This paper looks at the significant innovations that are being introduced into the 2001 Census in England and Wales. Whilst the traditional concept of collecting information from each person and household in the country at a fixed point is being adhered to, in virtually every other respect the Census in 2001 will be very different from those that have preceded it.
In this article I offer an account of some of the 'boundary oscillations' I experienced during the writing of my doctoral thesis, and attempt to illustrate my personal struggle with the presentation of qualitative data. This struggle evolved through my search for an appropriate style to [re]present both voice and experience as a text, resulting in my turning towards genres alternative to those normally adopted in social science research. And it was during that process that I experienced both change and conflict in my epistemological position, as I moved from positivism, through postpositivism and towards postmodernism.
This paper considers two aspects of feminist orthodoxy regarding ethics and reflexivity during data analysis in qualitative research. These methodological issues surfaced in an exploratory study of how discourses of sistering socially construct and produce feminine subjectivity. Research was carried out with 37 women aged between 6 and 50 from different class and ethnic backgrounds living in the UK. Auto/biographical work in sociology influenced the design of the qualitative methods and the use of a grounded theory and case study approach to the analysis of the interview narratives. The discussion of methodological dilemmas-how to analyse multiple perspectives of relationships with varying degrees of disclosure among participants-is located within both feminist standpoint and poststructuralist theory. A case is made for guaranteeing anonymity rather than confidentiality, and offering selective reciprocity rather than an equal exchange between researcher and participants. The challenge of working with feminist reflexivity is considered through the notion of bounded privacy and a silenced 'I'.
Few methodological papers exist which examine the use of vignettes within qualitative research and more specifically, with children and young people. The paper will briefly discuss the application of vignettes within quantitative and qualitative research traditions derived from the available literature before outlining the major theoretical and methodological issues relating to the use of this technique in social research. Using empirical examples of young people's responses to a selected vignette, we then go on to explore the various benefits of vignettes that can ensue when employing this technique in isolation or as part of a multi-method approach. This discussion concludes with an exploration of how vignettes can be harnessed to engage young people, particularly in the discussion of sensitive topics, whilst enabling them to retain a high level of control over the research process.
Ethnic Monitoring in higher education has been limited and piecemeal. It often fails to explore the relationships between ethnicity and student progress and achievement, and to account for any ethnic inequalities revealed. In this paper an approach to ethnic monitoring that utilizes quantitative and qualitative methods is discussed. We argue that such an approach gives a clear statistical picture of group progress and achievement, identifies social, economic and institutional factors that might account for ethnic inequalities, and highlights the processes of racism and discrimination in higher education. All of these aspects are vital to a thorough understanding of ethnic inequalities in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom.
This paper reports on a project carried out in Zimbabwe in 1998. The aim of the work was to develop a methodology, based upon participative techniques, which could be adapted for use by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) in assessing entrepreneurs' perception of government and non-government business support services. The overriding purpose of the project was to improve DFID's policies towards facilitating an enabling environment for the private sector. The project was commissioned in order to alter the conventional donor agency approach to businesses in Africa of using questionnaires. Instead, the project team developed a system of semi-structured interviews with individual entrepreneurs and managers, supplemented by a variety of visual techniques and collective workshops incorporating the participants themselves, government representatives and agency staff. Whilst the techniques used are not in themselves unique, the approach certainly is, within an African context.
This paper arose out of the empirical requirements to describe and position agents and agencies of symbolic control concerned with the regulation of social relationships, consciousness, disposition and desire. These requirements led to a differentiation of agents in terms of their function and discourse and their segmentation through their specialized fields of activity and their stratification according to hierarchical position in a given field. This model generated a sensitive differentiation and segmentation which provides the social basis for expected differences in interests, motivations and identifications of functionally similar agents operating in different fields of activity. The model raises general issues of social class allocation and the relation between theory and methods.
Researchers in management and organizations are suffering from a narrowing of the economic research arteries in the modernist mode of much research undertaken in this area. This article considers the possibility of incorporating more reflexive writing into research accounts produced in this field despite the systemic barriers to doing so. The article points to a 'textual turn' in the study of management and suggests textual strategies and resources for those who wish to draw attention to the constructed nature of the seemingly 'natural' and common-sense agendas for management research. The paper considers five different ways of incorporating reflexivity in research texts-the typologies are 'seemingly accidental', 'benign', 'methodology chapter', 'textual guerrilla warfare' and 'socio-political'.
In this paper I am concerned with the analysis of semi-structured interview data that emerge from an inquiry rooted in institutional environments. The examples of data used to illustrate the procedures of analysis come from research carried out in Further Education Colleges in England. The focus is on individual actors (managers and teachers), mediating change within organizations. This focus provides scope for the exploration of social manifestations of political action. A number of epistemological questions arise with respect to the data and the nature of knowledge that is accessible through their analysis. The paper is practically oriented in that it presents an example of data analysis as part of researching the implementation of policy at the level of institutions, and the enactment of such a policy by individuals. The consideration of different traditions underpinning research and specific methodological techniques for data analysis has resulted in identification of a set of theoretically informed procedures that provide a framework for de-constructing, interpreting, and synthesizing interview data into accounts of policy implementation in the field. These procedures are presented and exemplified, while the theoretical assumptions underlying them and their implications for further research are discussed.
While advocating the adoption of qualitative approaches to evaluation, it is important to reflect on the practice. This paper draws on the work of a diversionary project to involve young people at risk in leisure and sporting activities using one to one mentors. The approach adopted was one that was designed to address potentially sensitive issues and place the experience of the key players central to the enquiry. Hence, the intention was that the young people and their mentors should be treated as knowers and actors rather than the objects of the research. The approach discussed here stops short of treating them as 'partners' in the research as discussed previously in this journal, arguing instead for an approach in which skilled researchers actively engage all parties. Such an approach can offer insights inaccessible to more conventional evaluation techniques.
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is a comparative tool that uses Boolean algebra for a systematic analysis of similarities and differences across cases. Most commonly, it is used causally in macrosocial study to investigate under which conditions a state of affairs is realized. Nevertheless, although not commonly recognized, the method has no in-built premises validating only causal applications. Here, we apply QCA to microsocial interview data on 14 teenagers who reflect upon themselves and the world through artistic practices. Our use of QCA is a process of categorization where several analyses, at various levels, follow each other, helping us to look at the cases from different angles and accordingly arrive at new ideas about their interrelations. The use of QCA forced us to penetrate deep into the principles of interpreting and organizing data, which we consider a major benefit of the method.
The aim of this article is to discuss some of the central conceptual and methodological issues which must be tackled if we wish to investigate poverty in a gender-sensitive way. The relationship between women and poverty is complex and therefore very difficult to reveal. The disproportionate vulnerability of women arises from the interaction of economic disadvantages in the labour market, in domestic circumstances and in welfare systems. The methodological challenge that emerges now is 'how can we reveal the gender dimension of poverty?' My answer is that both a new and more suitable theoretical paradigm and a new methodology are required. Women's poverty cannot be understood and tackled using paradigms and methodological instruments based upon the view that poverty is a genderneutral phenomenon. Particularly, it is necessary to shed light on the different mechanisms behind women's poverty and to depict the crucial role played by the inequalities in the distribution of resources within the family in shaping women's well-being. Thus, longitudinal data are required, since they can efficiently estimate the parameters of dynamic processes in the social sciences. Moreover, specific methodological choices and full methodological awareness are needed: what is needed is a way of placing individuals within households. Finally, a higher data quality and a greater data comparability are required.
This paper addresses the role of emotion in the qualitative research process and in particular, the effects of emotional experiences on the researcher. Drawing briefly on the literature, we show the importance of emotion for understanding the research process. Whilst this literature acknowledges the emotional risk for research respondents, there is little evidence providing in-depth understanding of the emotions of the researcher. We consider theoretically and empirically, the significance of emotion throughout the duration of a research project. Using our own personal experiences in the field, we present a range of emotional encounters that qualitative researchers may face. We offer suggestions for research teams who wish to develop strategies for 'managing' emotion and effectively utilizing 'emotionally-sensed knowledge'. We conclude that unless emotion in research is acknowledged, not only will researchers be left vulnerable, but also our understandings of the social world will remain impoverished. The challenge therefore is how to construct meaning and develop understanding and knowledge in an academic environment that, on the whole, trains researchers to be rational and objective, and 'extract out' emotion.
This paper draws on an international literature to consider ways in which children work as researchers. Children's and teenagers' activities at various stages of research projects, their levels of participation, and their use of a range of research methods are described, with a review of some of the problems and advantages of children doing research.
This essay seeks to offer some reflections on doing research with political elites where those elites also happen to be women. It tries to show some of the excitements and frustrations of doing research with elite subjects in elite settings, when the researcher is always the stranger and the person with the least power in an otherwise very powerful and intimidating environment. It addresses some of the tensions in 'doing' feminist research with women with whom the researcher does not empathize and discusses the extent to which those differences actually matter when ranged against the much bigger considerations of gender and patriarchal relations.
In a recent article in this journal, Farrall and Ditton (1999, 2, 55-60) illustrated the usefulness of multi-methodological validity checks in crime surveys. This research note continues this theme, using data from a small pilot study designed to test the feasibility of introducing the concepts of confidence and accuracy to fear of crime research. A short quantitative interview was conducted on a sample of 60 respondents. Confidence was measured using assessments of response time and demeanour made by the interviewer. Six of these respondents were selected for a follow-up interview. Any inconsistencies between responses were noted and later analysed. Results at this pilot stage suggest that measures of accuracy and confidence are workable in the field. The author suggests how future work might develop the concepts further. This study focuses on the fear of crime but it is anticipated that the findings will be applicable across substantive domains.
This paper is based upon our experience of commissioning diaries to be kept by research subjects. First the paper reviews some previous research based on diaries, then it outlines the aims of our research and the method of data collection. Then the paper goes on to evaluate the design and use of a diary that participants in our research completed. In particular we consider the ways in which the diary may have biased our sample, caused the participants difficulties and generated poor data. There is also a discussion on how it may have affected behaviour and on the ethical issues that are raised by commissioned diaries. In conclusion, observations are made about the strengths and weaknesses of diaries as an investigative tool with a wider applicability. The diary proved particularly revealing and we recommend that other researchers consider diaries as a method of investigating everyday life.
This paper reports on the methodology of a comparative study of three gay communities in Australia as they struggle with HIV/AIDS. The study focused on the pedagogy and practice of HIV/AIDS education for disease prevention and for health maintenance for people living with HIV/AIDS, through the investigation of three problematics: (1) constructs of 'community'; (2) the centrality of gay community-based health educators; and (3) the relations of gay men within and to their communities. The study was conceived of as a critical ethnography involving a three-part sample in the three sites and using three related research methods: (1) individual and group interviews; (2) textual analysis; and (3) participant observation. The theoretical bases for the study and its design lay in notions of 'performativity', community and adult education, organizational and institutional processes, and the idea of a 'post-AIDS' sociality. The methodology is explained in detail, as are various consultative processes embedded in the design to facilitate and enable a productive relationship with the communities researched.
There is a dearth of discussion on the methodological dilemmas faced by minority ethnic researchers who research minority ethnic communities of which they are not a part. The paper explores the political and ethical issues involved in a black woman researching South Asian women's lives, analysing the research process, and focusing on issues of choice of research group, access and placing. This paper represents a reflexive account of the research relationships developed in longitudinal qualitative doctoral research between a black (of African descent) postgraduate student and sample of 19 South Asian female student teachers in England and draws on literature of women interviewing women and ethnic or 'race' matched research. The methods employed were documentary analysis, observing meetings, a focus group, two student questionnaires, one-to-one interviews with staff and group and one-to-one interviews with South Asian female student teachers. It is argued that whilst social characteristics such as gender, language, religion and culture are important in determining notions of commonality and difference, a shared experience of racism between the researched and the researcher may affect the research relationship most significantly.
Focusing on the emotions generated by place, this paper describes a journey of emotional reactions to place, emotional reflection around cultural difference, followed by later reflection and reassessment. It is argued that the use of emotions as data can provide a mirror through which the taken for granteds of the researcher can be made visible. An example is given of the way that the concept of distance and the intersectionality of emotion, time and space as a confluence of culture and subject positions, can be used to operationalize emotions as data.
A comprehensive body of comparitive material has been produced which looks at the similarities and differences betwen welfare regimes whether along continuums measuring degrees of commodification, service structure or social care models employed. However there has been a concentration on structural and institutional factors and a lack of recognition of the important consequences for the practice of welfare professionals within these welfare states of the values and ethics they bring to their work. This article seeks to explore the commonalities and differences between the value bases underpinning the work of welfare professionals in Denmark and Britain. Through an examination of the writings of Freire, Kierkegaard and Grundvitg in Denmark and the work of those espousing a framework for anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practice in Britain. The article examines the similarities in values bases expressed around key issues such as human nature, power/oppression, liberation/empowerment and praxis. It concludes by suggesting that it is around the notions of equality and difference that the most obvious discontinuities occur. It concludes by calling for a recognition of the way in which an appreciation of our differences can lead to increased understanding and improved practice.
Translating texts on social policy into several languages, comparing the social policies and social reality of different member countries, and transferring social policies across national borders are becoming more and more important for European integration. At the roots of these issues, the question of translation is found; since to compare and transfer, one must first translate. So the objectives of the paper are to present some reflections on the translation process, and to outline and explain the main difficulties faced, in particular in the field of social policy.
Technological developments in collection and transfer of data have widened the scope of comparative research, but there has perhaps been less progress in methodology at conceptual and theoretical levels. In this article the author uses aspects of the research experience in a comparative study to illustrate the importance of considering transference and translation of concepts. The study compared child maintenance sytems in ten European countries to contribute to the UK policy debate on child support and reform of the Child Support Agency. Complex issues arose in making comparisons, illustrated here in discussion about different assumptions of obligation and ownership among the countries studied, in the context of child support, and conceptual differences in what is considered 'fair'. The author also reflects on the management and effect of language differences between the informants, and the adoption of English as the working language. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of developing the conceptual, theoretical and linguistic underpinning of comparative research.
Globalisation has increased the demand for policy transfer but also raises problems. There are international organisations that advocate common approaches to policy and better communication means that policy makers are more aware of what is going on in other countries. At the same time attempts to transfer policy highlight real differences in history and culture and what they mean for power relations. Within this context the development of large cross national data sets is growing fast. These mainly quantitative data are virtually all produced by governments or quasi governmental organisations. They embody top down power relations and belong to the scientific tradition of social research that assumes that terms can be translated exactly, even though the difficulties of doing so are recognised. The result is data sets that have enormous potential for social science but that are open to serious abuse unless it is realised that they minimise historical and cultural differences and reinforce dominant hierarchies.
In 1998, the research unit of the French Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité (MIRE) published a bilingual glossary of French and English terms used in social policy. A number of issues, questions and hypotheses, all related to translation and transferability, were raised in the course of this exercise. This article purports to take some of them up again. Although the glossary was a collective venture, the following interpretations are under the sole responsibility of the author.
Alvin Gouldner (1979) suggests knowledge is both culture and capital. Knowledge enables meaningful action. Capital is culture privatized. Culture is capital generalized. This raises the question of ownership in social research. Detachment in social research is praised as a virtue but also viewed as a source of difficulties epistemologically and ethically. Participatory action research offers a critique of detachment and advocates its opposite, 'commitment'. This may not necessarily involve 'political' advocacy. However, commitment to involve participants, and to further their goals through the conduct of research, does become a form of 'advocacy'. This paper draws on problematic experiences as a 'participatory action researcher' in social movement and evaluation research. Drawing on the recent work of Fuller, this paper suggests, rather bluntly, that when asked 'whose side are we on', academics might be more bold and suggest 'we are on our own side'.
Anthropologists and others working in the field of development are making increasing use of participatory research methods. While aware of the value of such methods, this paper outlines a number of methodological issues that need to be carefully considered. Such issues, when taken together with the problem of combining participatory with other forms of qualitative and quantitative research, argue strongly not only for caution but the need to undertake basic research on the participatory methods themselves. This paper looks at the development of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) in development research, and critically examines three methods/techniques--interviewing, visualization and ranking/scoring--in terms of their relation to qualitative research. Finally, the issue of the validity of PRA is discussed in relation to arguments about the role of sequencing/triangulating research techniques that are shown to be as problematic as the unexamined use of PRA methods.
This paper is based on reflections concerning the initial stages of a research project focusing on women, 'race' and later life. The paper describes some of the aims behind the project and discusses some of the immediate methodological issues which have arisen. It then goes on to reflect upon some more general matters which are beginning to emerge. The paper is rooted in concerns about the gap between social research and social theory. These form the context for the problems selected for consideration here.
There is a trend in current quantitative sociology that argues for the integration of quantitative sociological research and rational action theories (RATs). The main proponents argue that the two are not only desirable for each other but are in fact necessary to give them credibility. In this paper the author argues that quantitative sociology does not need RAT in order to be an essential and credible part of sociological analysis. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu, she argues that quantitative sociology should not link itself to the atomistic theories of rational action but rather should look towards a position within sociology based on its own strengths. In addition, it is argued that the current vogue to link RAT and quantitative research owes more to the character of RATs than to their explanatory power. Thus, the responsibility for a way forward for sociological research of all kinds lies not only with those actively engaged in research but also with those who claim to be generating sociological theory.
The general thesis of this contribution is that 'literature' - which I very loosely define as any kind of imaginative and stylistically expressive presentation of experience through written language, typically with a narrative structure - offers a way of knowing the social world equal in cognitive value to the more scientific discourse of sociology. Just as scientific accounts of social life are not a priori superior to laypeople's accounts in terms of the claim to knowledge of phenomena - even though they may improve on laypeople's accounts by way of techniques of observation and methods of data analysis - so literary and scientific-sociological accounts of social reality differ only in the mode of linguistically communicating knowledge, not in the claim to knowledge itself. Literature may refer to fictional entities that do not exist, but it is no less capable of imparting knowledge and less no capable of being true. I defend this thesis first by way of some general remarks on the idea of literature as a medium of sociological knowledge and then turn to what I see as an exemplary instance of sociological insight to be gained through literary writing in Robert Musil's monumental novel of 1930-1942, The Man Without Qualities . I conclude with some further comments on the methodological issues raised by invoking literature as a vehicle of sociological communication, as well as on the context of Musil's writing in Austrian culture of the early twentieth century and his relationship to other sociologically significant writers of the modernist period.
This paper draws on Desrosie ¤ res, Hayles and Tukey in arguing for an exploratory approach to the use of numerical taxonomy and related approaches in quantitative social research. It asserts that rather than trying to develop algorithm (either in the form of equation sets or game rules) based representations which abstract 'variables' as analogies of Newtonian forces, we should centre on cases and deal with classifications. Then trajectories can be explored in terms of changes both in the classification location of particular cases and changes in the actual form of the classification sets themselves. This approach seems to correspond with Aristotle's notion of intuitive induction with computing technology understood as extending the cognitive capacities of the taxonomist.
This paper is concerned with two related methodological problems. First, presented with a complex social scenario of a meeting between the representatives of different social welfare agencies, how should we make sense of this meeting? Second, in the context of the potential insights that the complexity sciences offer for understanding the social world, how can we translate those models to make sense of complex social dynamics? The example of the meeting, taken from an ethnographic study of collaboration in social welfare, is used to situate debates about the use of complexity science in knowing the social world. Drawing upon the work of Luhmann, I argue that we need to re-think the insights complexity sciences in order to situate the problem of complexity in the social world itself. Doing so locates the problem of knowing the social world in the social world itself, and highlights the necessary role of ignorance both in social life itself, and in knowing the social world.
The analysis of employment histories has been facilitated recently by advances in survey methodology, statistical processes and computing power. While much work has focused on transitions between states and time spent in one state, the potential of analysing a series of states (i.e. careers) has largely been ignored. A concentration on movement between two states, whilst allowing relevant contextual covariates to be controlled for, often ignores valuable data both prior to and after the episode in question. Analysis of extended sequences of employment states is better able to describe employment trajectories. Furthermore, comparison of sequences permits either allocation to theoretical categories, or the identification of latent groupings using cluster analysis. The resulting typology of careers can then be used in inferentially based analyses. This paper explores sequence analysis using Optimal Matching Analysis (OMA). OMA is explained in relation to one broad substantive issue: the relationship between employment trajectories and gender.
Over the last two decades there has been an increase in the longitudinal data available to social scientists, and this has been accompanied by the development of concepts and tools which allow for a rigorous approach to empirical research. However, there is still an appreciable gap between the methodological innovations within the field of applied statistics and the everyday practice of the majority of social scientists. The aim of this paper is therefore to demonstrate some of the advantages of using event history data to underpin our understanding of social processes. In particular, the paper explores the benefits of using SABRE (Software for the analysis of binary recurrent events, developed at the University of Lancaster) as a tool for carrying out event history analysis. The specific advantage of this software is that it allows the researcher to focus on duration effects or temporal dependencies in the social process under investigation. The substantive focus of the paper is the way in which women manage to combine paid employment with motherhood. Analyses are based on data from women's life histories, collected as part of the fifth sweep of the National Child Development Survey carried out in 1991. Within this paper, the primary focus is on the conceptual issues raised by modelling event history data; statistical terminology and notation has been kept to a minimum.
This paper reflects on the vocation or 'calling' of the researcher in the sociology of religion in the light of his experiences of researching transformations in English Catholicism in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point Weber's two essays. A consideration of religious perspectives on the lay vocation leads to an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of insider research. The paper reflects on research mistakes, threats and attempts to co-opt the researcher, unexpected surprises and serendipity, and the need for the social scientist to retain control of his/her research. It concludes with inspiration from Havel that the calling of the sociological researcher is socially important and urges renewed commitment to seeking with integrity the extension of certified knowledge and the demystification of powerful institutional structures.
This paper examines methodological challenges in researching paramilitary violence, with particular reference to the author's examination of paramilitary 'punishment' activity in Northern Ireland. The author notes the dearth of published work on methodological issues in social science research of violence generally. The range of major qualitative studies on paramilitary violence is presented and discussed. The paper explains the context of conducting such research in Northern Ireland in terms of the broader political conflict. It then examines several key challenges in researching paramilitary violence based primarily on the author's research. These included maintenance of political sensitivity, good faith and cautious security protocols. Potential legal and ethical difficulties were addressed through design of interview schedules that minimized risk of disclosure of the names or identities of those subject to 'punishment' or the perpetrators of offences. Those subject to paramilitary 'punishment' proved 'hard-to-reach', requiring greater time and effort in meeting the initial target sample, and a consequent need to research across a wide range of voluntary and community-based organizations. While risks of physical injury were minimal, successful research in the field was achieved through transparency about the impartiality and funding independence of the researchers, and a strategic sensitivity towards community and political backgrounds.
In case-control studies it is important that controls selected are representative of the population from which the cases came, to give an unbiased estimate of population exposure. This is difficult to achieve, but one method to select controls has been to use the patient lists of the general practitioners with whom the cases are registered. Using data from a case-control study of heart attacks in young women; this article explores whether this method of selecting controls resulted in an unrepresentative distribution of deprivation levels in controls. The controls did not reflect the high levels of deprivation seen in the cases, although they came from the same neighbourhoods (general practice catchment areas). Such controls are often referred to as neighbourhood controls, but this is misleading. General practice controls are more likely to represent the general distribution of the population than the relative affluence or otherwise of the cases.
The paper considers the use of video as a medium for the dissemination of research findings in the context of a study of children's concepts of care and their experience and contribution to family life. While the video medium was chosen to give a direct voice to children, it served other purposes. It served as an opportunity to feed back research results to children and to reflect on the ways researchers had interpreted data concerning their own views and experiences of family life. It also provided a public context in which children enacted competences namely in the articulation of expert opinions. The process of making a professional video in many respects mirrored the process of doing research.
Since the rise of qualitative computing in the mid-1980s, the field of qualitative data analysis has changed in a number of ways, which remarkably have been ignored in the methodological literature, to the detriment of the area's self-understanding. This paper provides for the record an account of the intellectual development of the two qualitative data analysis programs that I have designed, together with Lyn Richards. The theme behind the history is: (1) computing has enabled new, previously unavailable qualitative techniques; (2) some important pre-computer techniques and methods were not supported by computerization of the field, at least until recently; and hence (3) computerization encouraged some biases in qualitative techniques. I hope that this paper will act as a source for a revitalized and up-to-date debate on methods and techniques that recognizes computer use as an agent of change in the field.
This study about researchers' transitions to using qualitative data analysis (QDA) software identified three stages of 'closeness to the data': the tactile-digital divide; the coding trap; and the metacognitive shift. The 'tactile-digital divide' involves adapting to working on screen instead of paper, an initially distancing process. As users gain comfort with the software, they experience 'the coding trap'--an issue of too much closeness to the data. Users warned that there was a tendency to become 'bogged down' in coding, and developed strategies to provide analytical distance. 'The metacognitive shift' involves learning to think about software processes with the same level of reflectivity that should accompany qualitative research processes in general, including developing strategies for error recognition. These transitions invite reflections on the nature of 'cognitive tools' and expertise with them, which lead to implications for evaluating research and considering trustworthiness.
Developments in Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR software) from N3 through to NVivo have impacted not only on the convenience of using the program but also on the capacity of the researcher to undertake interpretive analysis. Perhaps reflective of changes in the broader context of social research, developments through succeeding generations of this software have also increased its capacity to contribute to integrated mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) analysis. New tools in the software have facilitated bringing quantitative (demographic, categorical and other numeric) data into a qualitative project, primarily to use for comparison of texts across subgroups. In addition, with N4 it has became possible to display tabulated data showing either the presence or absence of coding in particular documents or matrix displays (cross-tabulations) of grouped data. NVivo allows for both greater flexibility and greater specificity of quantitative output. Quantitative outputs from the qualitative database allow for graphical display or statistical manipulation of the data. Numeric output might be combined with existing statistical data to expand analytic possibilities. Interpretation of numeric data is supported throughout by the availability of the text on which such data are based, while patterns in the text can be elucidated through numeric displays. This ability to treat data both qualitatively and quantitatively, using software, can move mixed methods research beyond comparative, convergent or sequential designs toward truly integrated analysis.
Video Intervention/Prevention Assessment (VIA) is a qualitative research method that investigates health conditions from the patient's perspective. VIA's primary data consist of visual illness narratives, video diaries made by participants of their experiences living with and managing chronic medical conditions. The visual narratives are viewed and listened to by a data logger and notated in sequential scenes by participant identification number, tape number, and video timecode. The content of the audiovisual data is logged as text comprising 'objective descriptions' of information that is visible or audible and 'subjective accounts' of what is observed, relating the participant's perspective, emotional tone and psychosocial dynamics of a scene. Within the logs, distinct font headings designate different types of data, so that they can be recognized as such when the logs are imported into NVivo qualitative analysis software for data management, structuring and analysis. Using this software, multiple researchers can code, recode and refine the logs of the visual illness narratives and link their structured analyses to illustrative excerpts from the primary audiovisual data.
Qualitative computing is often described by enthusiasts as revolutionary, but in stark contrast, its methodological innovations are rarely discussed. Why is the debate missing? The paper charts some of the major developments in support for coding and theory-building, exploring the many reasons why these are either taken for granted or unrecognized and often unused. Whilst these tools had the potential to change methods, their adoption and their impact have been uneven, and they have been subjected to remarkably little sharp and critical debate. The paper concludes by asking what is required if researchers are to benefit from and drive this technological change.
Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR) provide merge tools for combining NUD*IST or NVivo 'projects' as neither package enables more than one researcher to work on a data set simultaneously (although, of course, turn-taking on the computer is possible). These tools appear to offer researchers collaborating in pairs and in teams the option to develop work separately and combine it for cross-analysis. Although the merge tools are easy to use, doing so effectively imposes some important limitations on the use of QSR software. This paper discusses four strategies for using merge effectively in team research.
This article presents, for the first time in English, findings from a Danish research project on language comprehension and memory as generators of measurement problems in sociological and other social-science survey studies. Utilizing survey questionnaires as instruments of measurements, the article deals with the linguistic sensitivity of Danish adults and the measurement problems it entails. The article uncovers the nature and extent of statistically significant response differences due to moderate linguistic changes. The article problematizes the trustworthiness of Danish social-science survey studies and provides evidence that respondents' answers to survey questions depend to a marked extent on the latter's wording. The empirical basis is a split-sample experiment in which 1900 respondents completed two versions of the 'same' questionnaire.
This paper considers the possibility of accurately measuring the numbers of persons homeless in a given location, at particular times. It is maintained that such data are necessary to the efficient apportioning of resources, but hitherto have been unobtainable through 'traditional' methods of counting. In recent years researchers have advocated the use of the method of 'capture-recapture', a technique which utilizes information from duplicate cases to allow the number of people otherwise unobserved to be calculated. This paper describes and critically evaluates the use of this method in two studies in Plymouth and Torbay, UK.
This paper reflects on an empirical, retrospective study of juvenile prostitution. It aims to explore the ways in which the practical constraints, practical difficulties and ethical considerations that are inevitably encountered in a 'sensitive' area of research, such as young people who are exploited through prostitution, are intrinsically linked to choice of methods and the process of the research. It argues that in such research pragmatism in choice of methods is necessary to achieve the epistemological aims, of allowing the voices of disadvantaged young people who are exploited through their involvement in prostitution to be heard, while maintaining ethical integrity. In addition the paper reflects on the emotional impact of research such as this on researchers and suggests ways in which research design and the collaborative efforts of research teams may minimise potentially negative impacts on researchers. The author suggests that by anticipating problems posed by research into young people who are sexually exploited through prostitution, ethical and practical difficulties might be negotiated to enable research in this field to be taken forward in the future.
In this article we focus on recent literature on the housing needs of older people from minority ethnic communities. Such research has undoubtedly benefited particular communities in demonstrating that their needs have been neglected to date. However, the terminology used to describe ethnicity often assumes an unproblematic black-white divide in that it defines communities as discrete and homogeneous groups. Moreover, whilst much research in this field is described as concerned with 'black and minority ethnic' communities, it is in effect about specifically defined 'black' communities with little or no room for other minority ethnic communities. We argue in this paper, using two examples, that this has consequences for resource distribution and for funding of initiatives to help minority ethnic communities.
The need to provide an evaluation of policy implementation is an integral part of almost all work carried out by organizations. Accordingly, many social science researchers will undertake some form of evaluation work during their careers. For many, this task will prove relatively unproblematic. However, for some, evaluation research may pose a number of difficulties. This reflexive article explores one area of concern, focusing as it does on some of the consequences and problems that emerge when researchers undertaking evaluations become involved in the consequences of their work.
The use of interviews from related individuals has become increasingly common in social research. This is particularly apparent in the area of family sociology, which has previously been criticized for relying on research of family lives based solely on interviews with mothers. Obtaining such accounts can raise postmodern ontological and epistemological themes of multiple perspectives and multiple realities, but there has been little explicit discussion of how to tackle the analysis of such related interviews. This paper explores approaches to the analysis of interviews with nine individuals drawn from three case study 'families'. An ideal typical categorization of possible approaches is developed, based on the cross-cutting themes of (1) degree of similarity/divergence, and (2) an objectivist/interpretationist ontology. The powerful role of the researcher's 'bird's eye view' is highlighted, involving the active interpretation of both disagreements and agreements between related interviews. A major feature of these approaches is the complexity of the data generated and the time involved in the analysis. Such analytic choices yield different forms of knowledge and lead us to 'see' varying patterns and themes according to the focus we take, whether we reveal the possibility of 'family cultures', the relevance of standpoint differences around gender and generation, or wider structural issues of class and ethnicity. Within individual accounts we can see how these different aspects are interwoven in particular histories. How we represent such complexities and tensions between related accounts is a further choice, which may depend upon the audience and purposes involved. Even where we choose to weave the threads into one apparently coherent overall story, we argue for openess and reflexivity concerning the difficult analytic choices that underlie such a production.
The research literature on triangulation has paid little attention to the problematic of 'making sense of dissonant data'. Nor has there been much discussion around the use of the technique of triangulation when researching families. Through a presentation of research findings gathered from self-report questionnaires and in-depth interviews with couples and families the possibilities of convergent, complementary and dissonant data and their interpretation are explored. The paper reflects on the ontological, epistemological and methodological tensions that must be negotiated when working with triangulated data. It is argued that given the multi-faceted context and intimate subject matter in family and couples research there is a high likelihood of dissonant findings. Recommendations are made for family researchers interested in the technique of triangulation to consider the context and process of their research in the interpretation of their data. Despite the challenges that triangulation throws up for researchers, it is argued that working within a post-positivist paradigm, triangulation enables analysis which is both more complex and more meaningful.
This paper considers the modifiable areal unit problem, a long-standing issue in geography, but also one of importance for all social researchers concerning the level of aggregation at which their analysis is best conducted. This problem has two related parts in spatial analyses. First, the scale at which the analysis is conducted, and second, the way in which areas are sub-divided to produce appropriate zones for analysis. A consideration of both factors is an important pre-condition to the generation of safe knowledge at any level of aggregation. This paper uses the example of measuring socio-economic segregation between schools to illustrate results at different levels of aggregation from national to artificial 'competition spaces'. However, like the 'ecological fallacy', the issues involved here have a more general application to most substantive areas of social research.
This paper is an attempt to initiate a dialogue among the 'first generation' of those who teach mixed methods research courses in the social and behavioural sciences. It is argued that in the past three decades, research methodology, and the teaching of research, has faced strong pressures toward polarizing into a qualitative and quantitative dichotomy. Research courses are either qualitative or quantitative, and graduate students are often encouraged to choose a 'track' early on in their education. Following the structure of most introductory research methods textbooks, when both approaches (qualitative and quantitative) are taught in a research course, they are discussed separately, with little effort to link them together. On the other hand, strong pressures are currently being faced from applied researchers in the field to train 'research experts' who are able to incorporate both the qualitative and quantitative methods and approaches in their projects. It is argued that those who teach research methodology in the social and behavioural sciences have a responsibility to prepare their students for a professional world that is increasingly using mixed methods. Issues related to the teaching of mixed methods in each of five phases of a typical research project are presented. A sample course with a mixed methods approach is also presented in this article.
Studying social capital is widely spread and the concept entered almost each and every field of the social sciences in the last decade. An overview of the available research strategies and empirical approaches of social capital is presented here. Surprisingly, the conceptual heterogenuity is much less reflected in operational and empirical heterogenuity than expected. The field is characterized by several orthodoxies, mainly related to the dominant position of polling methods and the use of straightforward survey questions. Available alternative approaches are limited to the use of official statistics as inverse indicators and to some experiments. The major pitfalls in empirical research on social capital are discussed. Urgently needed are multi-method and multi-level strategies in order to strengthen the role of empirical evidence in the debates on social capital, civil society, and citizenship.
This paper responds to van Deth's overview of empirical research on social capital and the difficulties of measuring the concept. We entirely agree with many of the problems that he identifies with the dominant mode of enquiry to date: namely survey and polling methods of attitudinal data. We are sure there are ways of improving on such quantitative methods although we are of the view that qualitative research is especially helpful for exploring the processes of social capital formation and the relationship between networks and norms so crucial to Putnam's use of the concept. Briefly, we discuss our own qualititive work involving intensive interviews with 120 activists drawn from a Citizens Audit of Britain. We address the importance of pre-existing trust and informal processes of mobilization, the significance of experiences of group involvement for generating norms of trust as well as distrust and the extent to which evaluations of such experiences influence wider views of participation and democracy in Britain. In sum, we totally endorse van Deth's call for the greater use of 'multi-methods and multi-level srategies' in empirical research by extending his plea to consider the valuable role of qualitative methods in the study of social capital.
This paper addresses the challenge of sustaining critical and committed research within individualist academic research practices by highlighting key features of the storied character of research accounts. Three issues that are negotiated within any research project are explored: firstly, received understandings of the possibilities of theory as a tool of intervention as well as an academic requirement for, and outcome of, research. Secondly, issues of commitment, whether political or disciplinary, and the interplay (and tensions) between the two are considered. Thirdly, issues of textuality are addressed, as expressing political and disciplinary questions of genre and audience, including the variety of forms of accountability researchers are both subject to and those we (should) institute to elaborate more than academic criteria for evaluation of research practice. By framing the commentary according to adaptations of accounts of the socially situated and encultured character of narration by Walter Benjamin and Donna Haraway, some theoretical resources for analysing and countering the individualist ethos of academic research are put forward. These then give rise to further practical questions around joint action and intervention.
From a general methodological point of view the status of the case study as a type of research is not quite clear. There are some ambiguities as to the object and the way we look at it, the research methods that are used, and the results to be obtained. One piece of background of its unclear status is that the case study is mostly defined as the study of one single case, rather than as a way of doing the research. Another one is that, in the eyes of many quantitative social science researchers, the results of a case study are of poor quality. This article aims to clarify some misconceptions and ambiguities of the case study as it is used in modern social science disciplines, and to define it as a research strategy of its own, clearly distinguished from and complementary to the quantitative or large scale survey type of research, the experiment, and (other) qualitative research strategies.
One of the key methodological and conceptual constraints in social mobility analysis has been how to differentiate between the 'core' pattern connecting social origins and destinations, and the effect of different distributions of origins and destinations across nations and time points. Conventional sociological wisdom has held that class differentials in family size (and occupational change) impose a significant constraint on the marginal distributions in a mobility table. Due to the logic of the random sampling process, middle class fathers with smaller families are under-represented in mobility tables. It is therefore necessary to approach mobility via the randomly sampled social destinations, rather than as a process moving chronologically from origins to destinations. However, a re-working of the Nuffield Mobility Study data-set is used to show that class differentials in fertility have virtually no effect. The explanation of this surprising finding is shown to lie in class size and the actual distribution of large and small families. The finding implies that if occupational change is left as the only process modifying marginal distributions, it deserves greater attention.
Recent health care policy directives advocate partnerships between researchers and service users in setting the research agenda and conducting research. This paper seeks to explore the meaning and reality of user participation from the perspective of a parent-carer and his experiences of being involved in three recent research projects. Important issues, such as the need for practical and emotional support and respect for user partners, are discussed alongside key questions for participants, including, what's in it for me? Drawing these ideas together, the authors' highlight four broad issues and recommendations to inform and guide the further progress of participatory research within health and social care.
The use of the internet for social science research is becoming increasingly common. This paper outlines practical, methodological and ethical issues for researchers to consider when using web-based questionnaires. This is illustrated by consideration of the authors' own experience of conducting a study into the phenomenon of self-harm.
This paper explores the notions of time and texture --or the interplay of the temporal and cultural dimensions of social life--as the conceptual foundation for the development of longitudinal qualitative (LQ) methodologies. It illustrates the different ways in which time is theorized among both qualitative and quantitative researchers in order to draw out the creative potential offered by LQ methodologies for understanding the dynamics of everyday life. The paper concludes by exploring how LQ methodologies might be used in the context of childhood research and for revisioning the process of 'growing up'.
This paper discusses a longitudinal, interview-based study of Australian secondary school students that explores the interaction between school ethos and forms of subjectivity. The study was designed to enable prospective and retrospective understandings of identity over time. It is suggested that this methodology encourages a reflexive self-positioning for both participants and researchers and, in the accumulation of an archive of perspectives, responds to poststructuralist critiques of contingency and construction in research interviews. Second, it is argued that the richness of longitudinal research invites more than one kind of analysis, and that working with and across conventionally divergent theoretical approaches can be fruitful. This is discussed with reference to Bourdieu's account of social field and habitus, and Hollway and Jefferson's notion of the 'defended subject'.
This paper reviews the utility of the framework offered by Giddens' 1991 work Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in a Late Modern Age , for the analysis of longitudinal qualitative studies. Working from two different longitudinal qualitative data sets, the authors explore the extent to which the notion of the 'reflexive project of self' and associated concepts might be operationalized to assist with the analysis and interpretation of empirical data. We first explore the notion of 'fateful moments' in a longitudinal qualitative interview-based study of young people's biographies. We then explore the importance of mechanisms of 'shame' as accompaniment to dramatic life transition, using data taken from a 3-year study of female sex workers in New Zealand. The paper concludes by arguing that although Giddens' work provides us with an interesting starting point and some useful operational tools, in practice the data outgrow the theory.
This article discusses issues of methodological warrant in a qualitative, longitudinal study with only a small number of subjects. The 12 to 18 Project was designed to contribute to research on gender, class and schooling. The rationale for a design using only 26 students spread between four schools is explained. It is argued that even with small-number research, issues of selection and comparison are important--but emphasis on techniques of data-treatment and comparison is misplaced. The meaningfulness and contribution of studies of this type lie in multiple acts of design, comparison, reflexive interpretation and dialogue with the broader field, and the more that such studies emphasize technical analytic procedures, the more they undermine their warrant to be anything other than a report on a small sample. Illustrations of interpretations of the data and from the data are given.
This paper describes a UK based longitudinal qualitative study following approximately 100 young people over 9 years. It provides an overview of the research design, methods of data collection and analysis as well as reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies employed. We focus on the value of a devolved research design, complementary cross-section and temporal analytic approaches and the effects of being involved in a longitudinal study on researchers and participants. The paper aims to contribute to a growing understanding of the practical, ethical and epistemological challenges presented by longitudinal qualitative methods, and highlights those challenges that are specific to this method as well as those which are amplified by this kind of approach.
In this paper we explore the implications of conducting a longitudinal transitions study based on ethnographic research in secondary schools. The main issue we address is how the ethnographic starting point materialized into a longitudinal exploration of young people's transitions to adulthood. We discuss the process of the research and how the ethnographic study contextualizes the life history research, focusing on 'remembering' and 'imagining'. In our conclusions we address representations, in particular ethics and politics of writing. The article draws from a project Tracing Transitions--Follow-up Study of Post-16 Students in which we trace young people's transitions into further and higher education and the labour market.
Feminist social science is marked by its diversity, its ethos of inclusiveness and its critical power. These qualities are best exemplified in feminisms' acknowledgement, at the epistemological level, that men as well as women are crucial participants in the feminist enterprise. Moreover, epistemological justifications for positioning men within feminism is matched by a commitment to think through the methodological implications of men's involvement as both researchers and researched. In particular, inclusiveness pushes at the boundary of what counts as feminist methodology, and it forces us to rethink the underlying principles of feminist research work. In this article, two key feminist methodological principles—rapport and empathy, and democracy—are interrogated in the light of a series of in-depth interviews with a group of powerful, authoritative and uniformed men (senior police officers). It is suggested that while there may be a temptation to dismiss the interviewing relations which evolved as ‘non-feminist’, they are also indicative of feminist methodological vitality and strength as well as its capacity to accommodate the fractured subjectivities of research participants. The paper concludes by positing a re-conceptualization of interviewing principles which not only appreciate diversity in feminist epistemological and methodological commitments, but also variability and difference in feminist research relationships.
The central argument of this article is that participants in focus groups may talk and interact in many capacities. As a consequence a central methodological question in analysing focus group material is who's talking—that is, in what way are the utterances of individual members of the focus group to be interpreted. This problem is discussed by using material from three focus groups discussing the phenomenon ‘burnout’. We suggest that the participants of focus groups may constitute themselves in various ways, even just as an array of individuals talking together, without being a group and that they may shift between these different modes of interacting. Two interactive problems seem to be particularly important in the establishment of a focus group. A first interactive problem for the participants is to establish a common ground; a second is to add their contributions to the common ground. This has implications in the way the researcher is able to attribute attitudes and opinions to persons in focus groups.
This paper addresses methods for the development of quality standards for cross-national quantitative surveys. Five conceptual approaches to the development of standards are presented and the properties and consequences of each are discussed. The aim is to provide researchers with a rational set of arguments for choosing a particular approach in a given situation. The development of quality standards is particularly complicated in the case of cross-national research, owing to variability between nations in a number of factors that might typically be considered as ‘fixed’ design constraints in the context of single-country studies. This variability is illustrated by a number of examples that arose in the course of development of the European Social Survey. The paper also touches upon some related issues in the implementation and maintenance of quality standards.
Whilst there is an extensive literature on the use of self-completion questionnaires as a research tool, very little attention has been paid to the influence of the social context in determining the ways in which questionnaires are used in practice. This paper describes our experiences of working with 27 English, mixed sex, state schools to carry out a questionnaire survey with 4754 students aged 13–14 years. The survey was part of a randomized controlled trial of peer led sex education. Using data from the questionnaires and from researcher fieldnotes, we highlight ways in which aspects of the social context affected the administration of the questionnaire, students' participation in the survey and the quality of the data collected.
Transcribed archived interviews are a data source which are becoming more widely used across a range of disciplines. Their use raises important ethical issues, particularly in the areas of relationships with research participants; informed consent; and confidentiality. The existing ethical guidelines that are available for social scientists or historians refer to the carrying out of interviews, but not to the secondary use of the transcripts that sometimes result from oral history or qualitative social research projects. This paper therefore questions whether the ethical relationship between interviewer and interviewee can be adopted and maintained by the reader of a transcripted interview and suggests that the ethical use of transcripted life-narratives cannot be governed by legal or contractual rules of possession, nor solely by the regulations laid down by oral history/archival organisations. The article concludes by asserting a need for social scientists and historians to develop and negotiate a shared ethical practice in the use of transcribed archived material and suggesting some approaches that may be taken.
Drawing on current doctoral research in the UK, this paper discusses the benefits, challenges and dilemmas associated with adopting a collaborative approach to exploring the experiences of women offenders as consumers of community-based health and social care services. The initial focus is on the rationale for setting up an advisory group of 'expert advisers/knowers', as a means of collaborating with women with direct and personal experience of the criminal justice system. In addition, the group's role in supporting, advising and guiding the research process is explored with particular emphasis on examining the practice of building long-term relationships with 'vulnerable' groups of women. Both short and long-term ethical issues are considered, for example, the implications of adopting an approach based on reciprocity, mutual disclosure and 'friendship' and the impact of 'role reversal' where it is the researcher who ultimately feels powerless and abandoned in the relationship. A key theme that underpins the work is the notion that in this context, 'doing' collaborative research essentially embraced 'doing' what fundamentally 'felt right' and 'made sense' thus ensuring that the study was meaningful to all involved.
This article considers a number of important issues raised in the growing literature with regard to the place of ethnicity in feminist research methodology and the woman-to-woman interview. Drawing on examples from the author's experiences of conducting interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants, the article firstly illustrates that because of a different ethnicity, a white feminist researcher is likely to be regarded as an outsider by the minority-ethnic interviewees, regardless of the sharing of gender. Secondly, using the ideas of 'personal' and 'structural' power the article discusses how the researcher's outsider status complicates the power relations between the interviewer and the participants.
This article introduces examples of transcripted archived life histories analysed as part of a research project on the meanings of violence in the late nineteenth- and early twentiethcenturies. The article reveals commonly occurring narrative forms in the life stories of those interviewed, particularly those expressing loss. The article uses transcripted Australian oral histories, particularly the narration of Millie W., who describes the death of her parents in a boating tragedy in 1905, to suggest that individual life-story narratives can only be interpreted within socio-historical contexts. It then discusses the methodological problems this raises, and how they can be negotiated through the adoption of appropriate interpretative strategies.
Research exploring the emotional responses to crime experienced by the citizens of several major European and North American countries has suggested that a significant proportion of the residents of these countries 'fear' or feel 'angry' about the possibility of criminal victimization. It has ceased to appear incredible to us that we are regularly finding that between a quarter and two thirds of our citizens are fearful or 'angry about crime' 'all of the time'. The argument put forward in this contribution to the work in this field is that the emotional responses to crime have been exaggerated by the inappropriate use of the survey as a measurement tool. Ethnographic and qualitative data suggest that experiences of 'fear' and 'anger' are less common. Suggestions for improving the ability of the questions used in surveys to accurately capture these emotional responses are advanced.
Critical appraisal of research studies forms a central role within the application and uptake of evidence‐based approaches within health and social care. While there are established checklists for evaluating quantitative research, this is not the case for qualitative research. This article outlines the process of developing an evaluative tool for qualitative studies, reflecting the uniqueness of the associated paradigm, and illustrates its use by reference to three qualitative research papers appraised within a systematic review of community‐based rehabilitation services. At its centre are concerns with the context of the study and the way the data are collected and analysed. Use of such an evaluative template opens the way for the quality of qualitative research to be judged in a systematic manner and for qualitative research to take its rightful place within debates over what works, where, when and how within health and social care policy and practice.
Obtaining feedback from service users is a key element of the UK Labour Government's agenda for modernization of the public sector. This reflects a growing international trend in Europe and North America. Recognized difficulties in taking an approach to performance assessment based on the concept of user satisfaction are outlined. Ascertaining the views of people who use personal social services poses particular challenges which result from the levels of impairment and illness in the population, local variations in service provision and the 'care and control' functions of social care. It is argued that cognitive testing of questions, based on research knowledge about user views, provides a way of overcoming some of the pitfalls of traditional satisfaction surveys, while developing questions that are meaningful to respondents. The origins and principles of cognitive testing are described, followed by an example of their application in the development of a questionnaire for home care users. Strengths and limitations of the approach are identified.
Reflecting on a research project on workplace learning amongst low-grade staff in the public sector, this paper identifies a number of key issues arising from the research process. The theme which runs throughout the paper is a concern with the nature of power, both in the workplace and in the research process. The research itself focused on a relatively powerless section of the workforce. The process of securing access contributed to the research team's understanding of power relations in the work place and to consideration of the nature of the relationship between the researcher and the researched. The paper identifies a range of sources of power and concludes that researchers must use an understanding of the research process as a part of the findings, not merely a route to findings.
Drawing upon research with therapeutic bodywork practitioners in which the researcher's naked or semi-clad body was deployed as a 'touch tool' in order to access the field and generate grounded theory, this paper explores the various meanings that inhere in producing embodied research. Through unpicking a number of problems and paradoxes, a plethora of (dis)embodied bodies/selves are identified. This allows for a more nuanced exploration of the researching body since although the body is very present and visible in therapeutic body/fieldwork, it is simultaneously constituted as ephemeral, permeable and unstable; in effect, the ultimate 'disappearing act'. It is also argued that such erasure of the researching body creates tensions in terms of securing and maintaining an analytical, cerebral and sceptical researcher-self. The paper explores these problems and paradoxes in terms of seeking to achieve detachment without dissolution, and further contextualizes the discussion by drawing upon holistic, feminist and postmodern approaches to the body. Finally, the paper concludes that therapeutic bodywork gives rise to productive possibilities for embodied research endeavours and highlights the epistemological and methodological protocols that might be employed in attempting to 'bring the body back in'.
This paper addresses issues in the use of biographical materials in writing about the contribution about Alva and Gunnar Myrdal to the history of sociology and of research methods. After presenting a brief summary about the Myrdals' sociological research works and the biographical material available about them, the paper discusses a series of methodological dilemmas facing the biographical researcher, dilemmas identified by methodologists writing at the time of the Myrdals' own major period of sociologically informed research during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and by more recent debates in history on the impact of postmodernist approaches to evidence. The paper argues that the use of biographical material as evidence in intellectual history, and elsewhere, needs to be guided by the same principles of the search for validity and representativeness as in other areas of social research, even though the frameworks of relevance chosen in the process of interpretation may be set by contemporary concerns.
In this article we problematize the dualistic and binary model of researcher/researched interaction in the feminist methodological literature, which suggests that manipulation and exploitation only take place by the researcher. We contest assumptions that research participants occupy only one axis of identity, namely, ‘oppressed victimhood’. Through our position as non‐white/non‐western and nonwhite/western researchers in a non‐western research setting, we were able to closely examine the operation of power as it flows and ebbs in the context of a multiplicity of potential identities of both researchers and research participants. Identities were continuously negotiated on issues of national location, age, generation and reciprocity. While we are aware of our power in the ‘final product’, we have explored the different ways in which research participants can also exercise power in the production of the ‘product’. However, our intention is not to place the latter into another rigid category of ‘oppressors’ but to provide a framework for analysis of qualitative research results. By demonstrating that power resides with the research participants, we also seek to challenge the tendency within white western feminism to construct ‘third world’ women as passive recipients.
This article examines the dynamics between the author and an interviewee called ‘Brian’. The article explores how the author's pursuit of a coherent account in a narrative interview reduced Brian's willingness to ‘open up’. Brian's case is used to explore the impact of the author/researcher's defensiveness on the interview and the process of analysis. The article demonstrates the importance of theorizing the intersubjective dynamics that enable respondents to tell coherent stories, and, in so doing, draws especially on Hollway and Jefferson's concept of the ‘defended subject’. The article concludes by arguing that reflexivity is best achieved when researchers return to their data having relinquished some of their investment in their research projects as they were originally conceived.
Despite extensive discussion and analysis over the past three decades, researchers are still divided over the preferability of rating or ranking systems for measuring values. However, the debate originates from the false premise that one method must be used to the exclusion of the other. A conceptualization of the value structure that uses characteristics of both rating and ranking systems opens up theory and research to a more complex understanding of values. Data from the 1995–1997 World Values Survey demonstrate how using both rating and ranking systems can lead to distinct and equally valid conclusions about the differences in value importance among the nations of the world. This suggests that either method by itself provides an incomplete understanding of the value structure. While the potential methodological complications of using both ratings and rankings must be explored, the additional cost would be a productive investment for moving beyond the rating–ranking impasse.
The essay explicates a pedagogical methodology for teaching empirical research methods, employing the principles of feminist pedagogy in the facilitation of research teams composed of a teacher and multiple graduate students. The described pedagogy is consistent with six principles of feminist pedagogy deduced from a meta‐analysis of the extant US literature on feminist pedagogy: reformation of the relationship between teacher and student, empowerment, building community, privileging voice, respecting diversity of personal experience, and challenging traditional views. The authors illuminate their pedagogy via a detailed description of one feminist research group undertaking a large sample survey. The authors contend that the feminist research group constitutes a practicum‐style educational opportunity that represents a practical alternative to the traditional classroom teaching of empirical research methods to graduate students.
This paper first describes the provisions of the UK Freedom of Information Act, 2000. It then looks at how freedom of information legislation has been used by researchers in other countries (particularly the United States), and, finally, assesses possible uses that social scientists in the United Kingdom might make of the Freedom of Information Act, 2000, following its full implementation in January 2005.
This paper focuses on scoping studies, an approach to reviewing the literature which to date has received little attention in the research methods literature. We distinguish between different types of scoping studies and indicate where these stand in relation to full systematic reviews. We outline a framework for conducting a scoping study based on our recent experiences of reviewing the literature on services for carers for people with mental health problems. Where appropriate, our approach to scoping the field is contrasted with the procedures followed in systematic reviews. We emphasize how including a consultation exercise in this sort of study may enhance the results, making them more useful to policy makers, practitioners and service users. Finally, we consider the advantages and limitations of the approach and suggest that a wider debate is called for about the role of the scoping study in relation to other types of literature reviews.
If we accept that social research is not simply a matter of representation, but involves actively intervening in and constructing our current social and political conditions, we are then presented with a set of problems about representation and intervention. The methodology, memory‐work, is introduced here as one specifically developed for the purposes of undertaking politically engaged social research. In this paper, I describe the rationale and method of memory‐work, emphasizing the ways in which it involves undoing the subject of linear, causal, biographical narratives and a notion of the subject as collectively constituted. I elucidate the method by drawing on an example from research about HIV subjectification in which the notion of individual responsibility arose as a problem for memory‐workers—it simultaneously enables and constrains actively working on oneself and one's world. Discussing this research leads to a consideration of the ways in which the methodology needs to be adapted to reflect the specific concerns of one's time and place. I conclude with a discussion of the important but limited notion of history entailed in the original conception of memory‐work.
This paper explores snowball sampling, a recruitment method that employs research into participants' social networks to access specific populations. Beginning with the premise that research is ‘formed’, the paper offers one account of snowball sampling and using social networks to ‘make’ research. Snowball sampling is often used because the population under investigation is ‘hidden’ either due to low numbers of potential participants or the sensitivity of the topic, for example, research with women who do not fit within the hegemonic heterosexual norm. This paper considers how the recruitment technique of snowball sampling, which uses interpersonal relations and connections between people, both includes and excludes individuals. Following this, the paper contends that due to the use of social networks and interpersonal relations, snowball sampling (in)forms how individuals act and interact in focus groups, couple interviews and interviews. Consequently, snowball sampling not only results in the recruitment of particular samples, use of this technique produces participants' accounts of their lives. Doctoral research with (rather than on or for) 28 non‐heterosexual women is used to examine the inclusions and exclusions of snowball sampling and how interpersonal relations form research accounts.
This paper examines in some detail the influence of the questionnaire design on the ratio and quality of responses to mail surveys. To this end an investigation using Dillman’s total design method for mail surveys was used and carried out in Spain. To minimize the effort required in filling in the questionnaire, Dillman proposes that the questionnaire should be easy to fill in, and stresses the importance of its having an attractive and pleasing off‐set. This paper will outline a series of elements to take into consideration on the dimensions and size of the questionnaire, on its cover pages, on the type and colour of paper used, on the ordering of the questions, the envelope and stamps used to send off the questionnaire. This paper lays out the the suggestions made by Dillman as well as those of others who have written on this theme.
Personalizing correspondence has often shown to significantly increase survey response rates in mail surveys. This study experimentally tests whether personalization of email invitations acts correspondingly to web survey response rates. Also, it is investigated whether personalization influences data quality. The results of the study, using a large student sample, show that personalization significantly increases the web survey response rate by 8.6 percentage points. The data quality does not appear to be affected in any major way by personalizing the email invitations. However, the analyses do show that respondents of the personalization condition tend to respond with more social desirability bias to sensitive questions. Therefore, it is concluded that personalization has positive effects on the survey response rate, but one should carefully consider whether or not to personalize when a survey on sensitive topics is conducted.
The experience of racism is variegated and the methods used in collecting data in this area are widely acknowledged to be flawed. This article reflects on the experience of interviewing older people from minority ethnic backgrounds about their quality of life, with specific reference to how individuals report their experience of racism, the reasons for reporting, and the circumstances surrounding the reporting of such experience. It demonstrates that data on the experience of racism are very much a consequence of the process of research. A more reflexive approach to research is recommended. The type of questions posed, the way in which they are asked, the manner in which they are understood, the interpretation of answers provided, and the representation and writing up of interview data can all have significant impact on the way data are generated, interpreted, and understood. A more holistic and contextualized approach to data is required.
This paper addresses some methodological and theoretical issues of the role that concepts and conceptualization play in the process of analysing qualitative data. Studying children as research subjects, and reflecting upon their movement and relational dynamics in day‐care institutions in Norway, led to a critical consideration of the process of conceptualization and the concepts themselves. It is argued that reflexivity and a dialectical relationship between empirical data, theory and relevant literature are vital components in this process. This is illustrated and discussed in relation to two main approaches of analysing empirical data: a top–down approach, where established theoretical concepts are applied; and a bottom–up approach, where theoretical concepts grounded in empirical data are generated. Two concepts from ethnographic research in day‐care centres are introduced to illustrate both approaches and to illustrate the effort of avoiding adult‐centricism.
Drawing on original research, this paper considers the value of interpretive sociology for exploring clerical skill and knowledge and the role of the clerical function in organizations. It offers a critique of both the received view on clerical skill and knowledge and the epistemology generating such a view, and presents an examination of the notion of ‘common sense’. The paper draws to a close by demonstrating how an interpretive methodology can generate fresh insights to clerical work, skill and knowledge and to the clerical function.
This article describes the exploratory use of professional therapeutic support by social researchers working on a sensitive topic. Talking to recently bereaved parents about the financial implications of their child’s death was expected to be demanding work, and the research design included access to an independent psychotherapeutic service. Using this kind of professional support is rare within the general social research community, and it is useful to reflect on the process. There are likely to be implications for collection and interpretation of data, research output and the role and experience of the therapist. Here, the primary focus is the potential impact on researcher well‐being.
Qualitative and quantitative research are often presented as two fundamentally different paradigms through which we study the social world. These paradigms act as lightning conductors to which sets of epistemological assumptions, theoretical approaches and methods are attracted. Each is seen to be incompatible with the other. These paradigmatic claims have a tendency to resurface from time to time, manifesting themselves in the effects of different cultural traditions upon intellectual styles of research. There are pressures to view research in terms of this divide but perhaps more pressures to ignore such a divide.
A central question in evaluation research is ‘what works and why?’ It suggests a need not only to estimate the average effect of a programme or intervention but also to estimate and understand variability around this average. Statistical models are good at estimating overall effects and, when extended into a multilevel framework, enable the variability of effects to be estimated. If, however, we aim for an understanding of just why this variability arises then data generated from qualitative approaches such as case studies are valuable. This paper draws on our experiences of working on the national evaluation of the Children’s Fund—a UK government programme aimed at children aged 5–13 and their families—to set out how qualitative data can enhance the quantitative data used in statistical models and so lead to a better understanding of the strengths of a programme that is certainly heterogeneous in terms of its delivery and is likely to be heterogeneous in terms of its outcomes.
This paper describes a multi‐method approach to data collection used in a large‐scale seven‐year longitudinal study of the effect of class size differences on classroom processes. There were five main types of process and the paper concentrates on the results from one of these: teaching interactions with pupils. It was felt that integration of results from quantitative and qualitative methods would help reconcile inconsistencies and limitations in previous research on this topic. Quantitative information was collected from systematic classroom observations and teacher completed time estimates to address relationships between class size and teacher time allocation, and teacher and pupil behaviour in class. But we also wanted a more qualitative assessment of relationships between class size and teaching through the use of methods that captured practitioners’ experiences, and through detailed case studies. Examples of integrated results from these four methods are given, along with some reflections on lessons learned.
The Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project is a longitudinal study of young children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. Research began in 1997 and both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to explore the effects of pre‐school education on children’s attainment and social/behavioural development at entry to school, and of any continuing effects on such outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7). The sample included over 3,000 children and 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six different types of providers. In addition, a home sample of children who had not attended a pre‐school centre was included. In order to identify the processes that might influence centre effectiveness, observational data were collected and centre managers interviewed. In‐depth case studies of 12 more effective centres were used to explore and illuminate the processes, particularly in relation to pedagogy, associated with better child outcomes. A mixed method approach was adopted to simultaneously answer both confirmatory and exploratory questions, to support user engagement and provide triangulation. The paper argues that the mixed method approach supported the development of stronger research inferences.
In this paper, we describe research that combined quantitative and qualitative methods in order to investigate how students’ mathematical explanations change over time and to identify factors underlying any changes. The quantitative methods used included tracing trends in hierarchically ordered categorical data, and multi‐level analyses of student scores to identify significant predictors of students’ progress. Qualitative methods used included interviews with selected students in schools identified from the multi‐level modelling as those in which students performed significantly better than would be predicted. By reference to these analyses as applied to one geometrical item, the paper points to how the mixing of methods shed light on trends in patterns of student response as well as on unexpected results, and led to reflexive testing of some initial assumptions about the development of mathematical reasoning.
This paper examines the advantages of combining quantitative and qualitative findings concerning the wider benefits of adult learning. The research issue is a broad one that was under‐researched when the projects were conducted. Quantitative and qualitative projects addressed different facets of this issue. Mostly, they were designed and conducted separately, and combined only at the stage of interpreting findings. We therefore refer to the project as multi rather than mixed method research. The advantages of combining methods in this research fall into the five categories presented as purposes of mixed methods research by Greene, Caracelli, and Graham (1989): initiation, triangulation, complementarity, development and expansion. I suggest that initiation, which refers to the new perspectives that are developed when researchers attempt to combine apparently contradictory quantitative and qualitative findings, is conceptually distinct from the other advantages. Unlike the other four advantages, it is not associated with particular and concrete outcomes, such as additional evidence for validity (triangulation), developing a fuller picture of the research issue (complementarity) or expanding the scope of the research (expansion), its design and implementation (development). Rather, initiation is a process through which the reconciliation of apparently contradictory findings leads to triangulation, complementarity, development and expansion. The ease with which findings from different methods are reconciled is a dimension that applies to multi‐method research, which is highlighted by initiation. It bears on the creativity and innovation associated with triangulation, complementarity, development and expansion.
In this paper we discuss mixing methods at the level of reviews of research, combining the findings of multiple, already existing, studies that are labelled broadly as using either ‘qualitative’ or ‘quantitative’ methods. We define systematic reviews and outline the ‘mixed methods’ we have developed for combining diverse study types within them. Traditional systematic reviews usually answer a single question, use one type of study and, hence, only require one method of synthesis to combine the findings of studies. Our methods involve conducting three types of synthesis: (1) a statistical meta‐analysis to pool trials of interventions tackling a particular health, social or educational problem; (2) a synthesis of studies examining people’s perspectives or experiences of that problem using qualitative analysis; and (3) a mixed methods synthesis bringing the products of (1) and (2) together. We discuss the strengths of these mixed methods at the review level, reflect on their lessons for the concept of ‘triangulation’ and raise questions about the utility of the terms ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ and ‘mixed methods’ for classifying different types of research.
This paper questions the prescription of emancipatory participatory research for studying disability espoused by some disability researchers and activists. The paper argues that the advocacy of participatory and emancipatory research can be criticised on several grounds including problems of internal inconsistency and contradiction, an overly selective use of the works of feminist researchers and that research using such an approach could constitute an exercise of power that potentially marginalises some voices and potentially oppresses some disabled people and researchers. Ultimately, it is suggested, the emancipatory paradigm may serve to undermine the generation of knowledge that can be used by disabled people for self‐emancipation. The paper concludes that rather than prescribe emancipatory research as the only legitimate methodology for disability research, disability writers should, as feminists have in researching gender, adopt a more pluralist and eclectic approach to theorising and researching disability.
This study assesses the scaling properties of some new measures of the fear of crime. The new conceptualization—a range of distinct but related constructs that constitute the fear of crime—comprises the interplay between emotion, risk perception and environmental perception. Data from a small‐scale survey are analysed using confirmatory factor analysis showing good scaling properties of the multiple indicators. Two implications of the new conceptualization for the rationality of the fear of crime are discussed. First, perceptions of the risk of crime seem to be a product of how individuals make sense of their social and physical environment. Second, the fear of crime may constitute such evaluations of community cohesion and moral consensus as well as specific experiences of ‘fear’ of ‘crime’—a way of seeing as well as a way of feeling. The conclusions consider ramifications for the rationality of the fear of crime, particularly in the context of reassurance policing in England and Wales.
Educational research in Britain has been subject to substantial government intervention in recent years. The rationale for this has been the demands made by a model of evidence‐based policymaking and practice that carries implications for other fields of social research as well. In this paper, the growing influence of this model is sketched, and it is argued that it relies on some very questionable assumptions about what research can offer policymakers and practitioners. It is concluded that the consequences of enforcing this model are likely to be negative for both sides, but especially for research.
This article discusses whether the focus group method can be employed with troubled groups and for the discussion of high‐involvement topics. It analyses focus groups' discourse of high‐involvement topics, such as ‘the body’, ‘relationships’, and ‘sexuality’, conducted with female adolescents aged 15–20 years at a detention home. Contrary to the traditional belief that the focus group method is designed for low‐involvement topics and mainstream groups, our analyses of the discursive devices employed suggest that the method can indeed be used for high‐involvement topics. We also argue that other methods would not have given us ‘deeper’ insights and that the focus group method can be seen as a less intrusive method to be used in this setting.
Studying policy networks raises challenges in three important areas: identifying members of the policy network, gaining access to the network, and reporting findings from the study while maintaining confidentiality. Using the tobacco control policy and health policy networks in Victoria, Australia as a case study, the article describes how to use a reputational snowball to identify a policy network. I argue that the reputational snowball not only presents a useful tool for identifying micro‐level network members, but also provides a means for assessing which members of the policy network are core, and which ones are on the periphery. Issues around reporting in studies of policy influentials are also discussed.
This paper explores some of the problems and opportunities that may derive from the development of working relationships between disabled and non‐disabled researchers. First a number of key barriers that face disabled researchers from the outset of research are sketched out. However, these barriers are not dwelt on as they have been documented and challenged well by others. Rather, in seeking to identify good research practice that can challenge such barriers, it is suggested that enabling modes of research production may often be uncovered through a careful examination of the working relationships between members of research teams. This approach is illustrated through a discussion of a range of relational issues that have impacted upon the authors’ own research partnership: (i) Relating in research: Tackling fears and issues around self‐disclosure; (ii)Psychoanalytic sensitivity: Privileging ontological experience and reflexivity; (iii) Towards a feminist ethics of care: Challenging methodological individualism; and (iv) Interdependence in research: towards enriched analysis. In terms of advancing an agenda for inclusive disability research, it is believed that making explicit the complexity of disabled/non‐disabled research relationships like this is one practical way in which general assumptions of a binary disabled/non‐disabled split may be challenged, whilst simultaneously recognizing that equitable working partnerships can only derive from the equal valuing of difference.
The last 100 years have witnessed a fervent debate in the USA about quantitative and qualitative research paradigms. Unfortunately, this has led to a great divide between quantitative and qualitative researchers, who often view themselves as in competition with each other. Clearly, this polarization has promoted purists, namely, researchers who restrict themselves exclusively either to quantitative or to qualitative research methods. Mono‐method research is the biggest threat to the advancement of the social sciences. Indeed, as long as we stay polarized in research, how can we expect stakeholders who rely on our research findings to take our work seriously? Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the debate between quantitative and qualitative is divisive and, hence, counterproductive for advancing the social and behavioural science field. This paper advocates that all graduate students learn to utilize and to appreciate both quantitative and qualitative research. In so doing, students will develop into what we term as pragmatic researchers.
This article describes and presents a framework for an under‐used evaluation technique in the context of an evaluation of a programme for disaffected young people. Shadow controls—the use of expert judgement to estimate the success of a programme—are often dismissed in research design as an unreliable form of comparison, but can be useful in situations where there is limited scope for a control group or to enhance the causal inference attributable to non‐experimental evaluations. The exercise described uses a practice tool as a structure for making predictions about the situations of the young people on the programme, assuming they do not receive an intervention. These predictions (shadow controls) are then compared to outcome data for the young people at the end of the programme. The results of the exercise provide some important messages about the programme’s effectiveness and the potential for strengthening non‐experimental evaluation methods. The article also discusses how the method can usefully inform evaluations of social programmes and encourage agency and user collaboration.
This paper consists of a critical reflection of a research study carried out by a white researcher documenting black Muslim women’s experiences of victimisation and the management of their personal safety. It is argued that whilst some aspects of the researcher’s subjectivity can be linked to marginalised, outsider positions, which helped to produce oppositional knowledge, other aspects of her self‐identity served to maintain and re‐produce dominant racial and cultural discourses and power relations.
This paper reflects on and theorizes strategies to design and teach an introductory qualitative research class to US doctoral students. My orientation towards learning theory as an educational psychologist shapes my analysis in fundamental ways. The course blends elements of philosophy, method, skill‐building and reflection to explore both ‘why’ and ‘how to’ elements of qualitative research. Four process components are examined: (1) the construction of my own beliefs about research, (2) the evolution of course readings and skill‐building activities, (3) an analysis of quotations from students’ work, and (4) implications for teaching research methods courses. Class members unearthed moral and ethical dilemmas in every aspect of the research process, and we worked to excavate ways to do quality work in respectful ways. My reflection concludes with two personal insights: (1) social science graduate students in the US need more opportunities to think theoretically and write interpretively and (2) self‐knowledge is integrally connected to issues of openness, voice, and seeing the world with new eyes through the research process.
What do you do when you want to participate and let the other participants in a participative action research study ‘lead’ the process, but feel you know what needs to be done and are motivated to ‘lead’ the process yourself? What are some of the key issues for the participant action researcher to consider in relation to this nexus? I might suggest it is like trying to drive the bus from the rear passenger seat—wanting to genuinely participate as a passenger but still wanting some degree of control over the destination. This paper presents reflective empirical ‘practice data’ supporting insights into this dilemma concerning control and participation faced by participative action researchers. The dilemmas and concluding considerations presented are founded on a two‐year participative action research study on learning within a project team undertaking an organizational change project.
The challenges in sampling older people from minority ethnic backgrounds are considerable. This article assesses critically an approach that involves ‘piggy‐backing’ on an existing national survey in order to generate a sample. It reflects on the experience of a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under its Growing Older programme that required a representative sample of older people from different ethnic groups, including a control group of ‘white’ majority respondents. The General Household Survey, the British Household Panel Survey, the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities and the Family Resources Survey (FRS) were assessed for their suitability as ‘host’ surveys. The FRS was eventually selected and further efforts were made to assess its suitability by observing an FRS briefing session for field workers, as well as observing a field worker in action. The process of securing a sample is outlined. The lessons learnt from the experience have wider applicability and raise issues surrounding informed consent, response and attrition rates, as well as time and resource implications.
This paper presents an account of an access encounter, and uses this case to reinforce the potential for access meetings to provide a rich source of ethnographic data. The paper originates from one of the authors' experience of negotiating research access in a UK local authority social services department. In response to a summary research proposal sent in advance that expressed interest in social work with men, a gatekeeper expressed his concern during an initial meeting that the author might be a ‘paedophile’ wanting to make contact with others of a similar persuasion. This encounter, and the issue of sexual abuse that it introduced, highlights a number of ethical, epistemological and gendered tensions for ethnographic work, which this paper attempts to negotiate. Some of the potential implications of this specific access meeting are discussed, and set within broader methodological and empirical contexts.
A wealth of literature exists that calls for an end to the dichotomous relationship between quantitative and qualitative research and closer integration of research methodologies. Many social and behavioural sciences have reaped the benefits of mixing methods. However, few methodological papers examine the specific benefits a mixed‐method approach can have for humour researchers. This paper illustrates that humour studies are an appropriate vehicle through which to advance the debate on mixed methods. The paper discusses practical, theoretical and methodological benefits of using mixed methods, demonstrates how a mixed‐method approach was innovatively used during a research project into the ethics of humour, and highlights how combining methods provided a more comprehensive understanding of the ethics of humour than would be gleaned from a reliance on one or two methods.
This paper discusses the practicalities of doing social research. It draws on the author’s field experiences in four African countries during postgraduate training. It discusses physical risk, visible or invisible, that can be encountered during fieldwork and highlights other conceptual issues that are necessary for postgraduate students as first‐timers or ‘naïve’ researchers to consider. The reason(s) for doing this is to demonstrate a reflexive stance, i.e. the relationship between the theory and practice of qualitative research. The discussion thus offers an insight into what new researchers are likely to face when undertaking fieldwork abroad and issues that can act as a deterrent to the researcher as ‘novice’ or ‘naïve’.
Patterns of research governance are changing rapidly in the field of social research. In current debates about these changes one issue of particular concern is the impact that new patterns of research governance will have on the quality of the data collected. The ‘optimistic’ scenario on this issue is that more ethical research practice will lead to better‐quality data, but a more ‘pessimistic’ scenario exists in which the unintended outcome is poorer‐quality data. Drawing on material from a study of researchers’ experiences of dealing with the process of gaining informed consent from research participants, this article identifies the various ways in which the researchers position themselves in relation to the competing ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ scenarios. It concludes by seeking to develop a synthesis of the two positions in which ethical research practice is treated neither as an automatic guarantee of, nor as an inevitable obstacle to, the collection of good‐quality data.
Support for inclusion of verbatim quotations from research participants in reporting qualitative applied social research is strengthened by evaluative tools which point to presentation of extracts of original data as an indication of clarity of links between data, interpretation and conclusion. This article contributes to discussion about ‘quality’ criteria and the role of verbatim quotations from the perspectives of those who speak the words. The authors describe an exploratory empirical study to test the impact on research participants of seeing their words in a report. This small study is part of a wider, Economic and Social Research Council‐funded study of the theory, practice and impact of using verbatim quotations in reporting applied social research. Findings from the exploratory study raise important issues. Research participants preferred the version of the report which included spoken words, and saw ways in which spoken words contributed positively to interpretation and reporting. However, the ‘quality indicators’ perceived in relation to the verbatim quotations sometimes did not reflect the authors’ intentions in selecting and using the words. Participants had strong views on ethical issues associated with use of their spoken words. Maintaining anonymity was important, as was the way they perceived themselves represented as a result of the authors’ editing decisions and the form of the attributions at the end of the quotations. The study raises questions about how far and in what way the perspectives of research participants should be taken into account in judging the ‘quality’ of qualitative research.
In this article it is shown that the paradigm wars that raged concerning the incompatibility of quantitative and qualitative research have largely subsided. In the process, discussions of epistemological and ontological issues have become less prominent. The peace that has broken out has proved to be more favourable to research combining quantitative and qualitative research than was the case during the paradigm wars. Drawing on interviews with social researchers who employ a mixed‐methods approach and on the literature, it is shown that a spirit of pragmatism with regard to combining quantitative and qualitative research prevails which encourages researchers to consider using mixed‐methods research when the research question is suited to it. However, the issue of which quality criteria should be employed in investigations combining quantitative and qualitative research has not been given a great deal of consideration. The author argues for a contingency approach, in which issues to do with quality are decided in relation to the nature of the study.
A good systematic review is often likened to the pre‐flight instrument check—ensuring a plane is airworthy before take‐off. By analogy, research synthesis follows a disciplined, formalized, transparent and highly routinized sequence of steps in order that its findings can be considered trustworthy—before being launched on the policy community. The most characteristic aspect of that schedule is the appraise‐then‐analyse sequence. The research quality of the primary studies is checked out and only those deemed to be of high standard may enter the analysis, the remainder being discarded. This paper rejects this logic, arguing that the ‘study’ is not the appropriate unit of analysis for quality appraisal in research synthesis. There are often nuggets of wisdom in methodologically weak studies and systematic review disregards them at its peril. Two evaluations of youth mentoring programmes are appraised at length. A catalogue of doubts is raised about their design and analysis. Their conclusions, which incidentally run counter to each other, are highly questionable. Yet there is a great deal to be learned about the efficacy of mentoring if one digs into the specifics of each study. ‘Bad’ research may yield ‘good’ evidence—but only if the reviewer follows an approach that involves analysis and appraisal.
This paper identifies some of the many decision‐making stages in the analysis of survey data and some of the ways in which results are affected by analysis decisions. It argues for greater transparency in reporting the details of both the data and the methods of analysis used. This not only enables replication but also allows a much more critical appraisal of the research than is usually possible. This is particularly important where research makes claims about causal processes that may influence policy decisions. Achieving this requires a greater willingness by some journal editors to allow details of data collection and analysis to be fully reported, for example by greater use of associated websites. Appendix 1 lists a proposed set of reporting criteria that could be adopted by editors.
If we are to encourage the use of research evidence in policy and practice, our notion of research quality must go wider than the robustness of the research itself. We need to address both internal and external validity. Therefore, ‘evidence‐based policy and practice’ has a simple logic which belies the complexity of the relationship. It is both a difficult and challenging one, which demands change in culture and practice on both sides in order to achieve its potential. There are many examples of the positive contribution that research, and researchers themselves, can make and some positive evidence that barriers are being addressed. We argue for a continued effort on both sides, so that the contribution that research can make to policy and practice can be fully realised.
This paper highlights what psychoanalysis can add to discussions of reflexivity, by specifically describing how reflexivity is conceptualized and fostered on psychoanalytic observation methods courses at the Tavistock Clinic, London. It is demonstrated that this psychological form of reflexivity is relevant to empirical and conceptual work and shown that it shares interesting parallels with debates about reflexivity in social research methods, while also being able to contribute to discussions of what constitutes reflexivity and what kinds of methods course might facilitate it. Reflexivity is often discussed in relation to a researcher’s empirical work, but this paper argues that reflexivity is equally needed in relation to the academic context in which most research and learning takes place. This paper demonstrates how psychoanalytic approaches to learning stimulate a reflexive relation to empirical and conceptual work and it provides examples of reflexivity from a two‐year infant observation and a research project on romantic love (involving conceptual and biographical research).
This paper describes the methods and methodology used in a nine‐month‐long empirical study, exploring the constructions of masculinity amongst 10–11‐year‐old boys in three junior schools in the UK. It considers issues arising around sampling and the principal methods of data collection used, which were small‐group interviews and semi‐participant observation. Approaches to writing fieldnotes are also discussed. The second part of the paper looks at the role of the researcher learning to carry out ethnography, and the tensions and dilemmas that occur when working with a young age group in a school setting. Some of the issues that are examined are maintaining relationships, power relations, and the multiple positionings taken by the researcher as an ex‐teacher and gendered adult with a growing awareness of his own masculine identity.
In this paper the results of a validation study of the Dutch and Norwegian versions of the Illegal Aliens (IA) Scale are discussed. The main objective is to evaluate the usefulness of the Three‐Step Test‐Interview (TSTI) as a pre‐testing method in a validation study. The TSTI is a new technique specifically developed to detect problems with self‐completion questionnaires. The study’s aims were twofold: (1) to evaluate the usefulness of the TSTI for detecting problems regarding attitude measurement; and (2) to identify potential problems with the IA Scale. The IA Scale is a Likert‐type attitude scale consisting of 20 parallel interval items. Its main purpose is for large comparative sample studies of political and ideological attitudes, for example between subgroups within populations or between countries. The TSTI procedure appeared to be very productive in terms of the number and kind of problems that were found regarding the Dutch and Norwegian versions of the IA Scale. It is concluded that the TSTI is useful as a diagnostic tool in validation studies of instruments that are aimed at measuring attitudes.
Longitudinal data are used to explore the reliability of long‐term illness measures using information on ‘long‐term/permanent sickness or disability’ as recorded via the question on economic activity in the Census of England and Wales. Specifically it is asked ‘what evidence is there that individuals answer the item on long‐term sickness or disability in the same way at different time points?’. The research is based on data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (LS) and the responses of persons who reported long‐term sickness or disability in 1971 are tracked to see if they also reported long‐term sickness or disability in 1981 and 1991. That a large number of people reported long‐term sickness or disability at three Census points suggests that the measure was reliable. In addition, it is suggested that a degree of content validity has been achieved with respect to the understanding of the concept of ‘long‐termness’. It is concluded that longitudinal data provide a valuable way of investigating the reliability and validity of frequently used categorical measures and can help to distinguish between the extent to which a phenomenon such as long‐term sickness is ‘new’ or ‘ongoing’.
The Health Plus Project funded six qualified advice workers to provide welfare advice for patients in 30 general medical practices throughout the inner city of Bradford, England. The advice workers assisted patients with a range of welfare issues particularly relating to disability benefits and housing. When patient interviews were conducted to evaluate the service, they were also videotaped for presentation at a national conference on welfare advice in primary care. Filming the interviews raised a number of issues relating to the recruitment of patients, obtaining consent, and managing the communicative dynamics of the interviews. The video was, however, perceived as a very effective means to demonstrate the impact of the service on patients, and is recommended as a potential strategy for the dissemination of project outcomes.
Drawing on texts written by young people aged 14–17 years in a school context in response to an invitation to write a page describing themselves and their vision of Ireland and to use the reverse side creatively for drawings, poems or songs, this article illustrates the methodological difficulties of exploring globalization and individualization in such texts. The indicators of globalization were global entertainment and consumer culture, global technology, references to international travel, and global concerns. The indicators of individualization were the absence of references to structural location, or the presence of references to choices, hopes or plans and related images. There were insurmountable methodological difficulties in differentiating between individualization in these terms and stereotypical ways of ‘doing boy/girl’. Hence, the typology that was created focussed on the global content of the main texts and back pages and their gendered content.
The paper deals with a highly controversial issue in survey data collection: the standardization of the interviewer’s behaviour during the interviewee’s selection of response alternatives. In the light of a large set of data drawn from several methodological studies published in the last 50 years, the author documents a counter‐intuitive issue: (1) interviewer’s errors are of secondary importance and far smaller than respondents’ errors; and (2) in order to minimize respondent’s errors, we need to broaden the interviewer’s tasks. Focusing on the unsolved problem of multiple word meanings of response alternatives as a relevant part of response bias, the author argues that data quality can be achieved by entrusting to the interviewer a more active role. Of course, the aim of reducing respondent’s errors by broadening interviewer’s tasks will surely produce an increase in the interviewer’s effects on answers. However, the dilemma to be faced is which kind of errors we prefer (and are more useful) to minimize.
Since the 1990s, research with children has witnessed epistemological changes which have challenged traditional research methods and have attempted to deconstruct notions of children as passive and incompetent. Such changes, epitomized by children‐centred research methods, aim to redress power imbalances by encouraging participants to select their own forms of communication. Participation and innovation are central to this approach. Simultaneously, but quite distinct from research methodology, community radio has become an important mechanism in promoting social inclusion. Globally, this means of community participation has been advocated by organizations that have utilized radio as an educational tool for promoting children’s rights. This paper suggests that the synthesis of radio phone‐in discussions with the ‘New Social Studies of Childhood’ forms a constructive basis for developing a participatory research method. Methodological issues arising from a teenage‐centred radio phone‐in will be explored. The paper concludes by discussing the viability of the radio phone‐in as a meaningful method for promoting teenagers’, often unheard, voices.
Formal independent ethics review has rarely been required for social research, but in England this has changed with the implementation of the Department of Health’s Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care. Permission to conduct research with populations relating to the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Health now depend on a process of independent review. A clear definition of social care research seems vital in implementing the Framework, but establishing such a definition is not straightforward. This paper reports on two data‐gathering exercises conducted in councils with social services responsibilities: a survey of all councils about their systems for recording and monitoring research undertaken within their organizations, and case studies in eight councils on the range, nature and volume of social care research. These exercises form the basis of a broader theoretical discussion about which activities should require independent regulation, and how best to define what counts as research.
Kaupapa Maori research developed as part of a broader movement by Maori to question westernized notions of knowledge, culture, and research. Kaupapa Maori research has been used as both a form of resistance and a methodological strategy, wherein research is conceived, developed, and carried out by Maori, and the end outcome is to benefit Maori. This piece reviews the development and main principles of kaupapa Maori research, and it also describes and critiques the main processes of kaupapa Maori research. Three exemplars of research carried out by Maori researchers are provided to illustrate these principles and processes. We conclude that kaupapa Maori research is a relevant approach for research involving Maori and that it can enhance the self‐determination of Maori people. Kaupapa Maori research also has implications for research with indigenous people more generally.
This paper presents a case study to illustrate the range of decisions involved in designing a sampling strategy for a complex, longitudinal research study. It is based on experience from the Young Lives project and identifies the approaches used to sample children for longitudinal follow‐up in four less developed countries (LDCs). The rationale for decisions made and the resulting benefits, and limitations, of the approaches adopted are discussed. Of particular importance is the choice of sampling approach to yield useful analysis; specific examples are presented of how this informed the design of the Young Lives sampling strategy.
This paper offers a theoretical ‘action research spiral’ model to guide reflection on the dual client focus of action research. While theoretically exploring and highlighting the tensions and dilemmas created by this dual client focus, this paper will argue for a greater degree of reflection on action research practice and utilize vignettes from action research cases to illustrate those reflective processes. It is concluded that further discussion and reflection on the process of action research is an important component of social science’s contribution to phronetic knowledge.
This reflective paper draws on a range of experiences developed over the last 11 years regarding the way in which qualitative data analysis (QDA) software (QSR NUD∗IST and NVivo) is taught and used within doctoral research. The existing separation of qualitative methods training from QDA software training can result in disconnected technical and methodological learning curves. This can cause a number of problems for doctoral students because a ‘methods revolution’ is being experienced and current students are not necessarily exposed to the support they require via the methods literature, their postgraduate training programme or their supervisor. Three key influences on the use of QDA software are discussed within the context of teaching and learning QSR NVivo: the increased popularity of QDA software amongst those from traditionally positivistic backgrounds; the promise of improved levels of transparency; and the reliance upon the free tutorials, which are distributed with the software, to learn qualitative research methods as well as software processes. Implications for doctoral students, supervisors and examiners are discussed.
This paper explores some of the benefits of pursuing difficult, antagonistic, research relationships in the context of biographical interviewing methods that are sensitive to spatial relationships. It argues that confronting sources of tension between researchers and informants and being more open about the emotional baggage we bring to the field as researchers yields more rigorous fieldwork with more insightful results. The argument is developed from a particularly difficult research relationship: an encounter between the author and a British expatriate diving instructor living in Hong Kong. The broader context of the research is the production of white privilege through migration and the operation of global/postcolonial landscape.
This paper reviews the currently rapid changes in research ethics governance affecting many kinds of social research. Arguments for and against single‐discipline and multidisciplinary research ethics committees will be considered, with examples of how medical and social research ethics can inform one another. We conclude that the use of multidisciplinary research ethics committees, guidance and governance can be an effective and necessary part of social research methodology.
The paper discusses the ethical dilemmas of conducting feminist participatory action research (O’Neill, M., 2001) on the links between local authority care and routes into selling sex whilst I was working for an outreach service for women in the sex industry. All of the women who participated in the research were women who were users of the service. As such the processes of access, maintaining follow up support and the vulnerability of women who disclosed experiences of care (but were primarily in need of professional intervention), were qualitatively different to those faced by external researchers. The research was supplemented by my knowledge of the women and yet was also hindered by my concern for the women as their support provider first and foremost; some women’s valuable stories remain untold. The paper goes on to show how resolution of the ethical dilemmas was an integral part of methodology design and implementation, and ultimately prioritising the women’s welfare was lent an added dimension by my dual role.
This paper addresses the role of the research question in social research. It outlines what is taken to be the conventional view in many methodological discussions, namely, that research questions guide decisions about research design and research methods. This position is taken to imply that social researchers typically take the view that research methods need to be tailored to the research questions that guide an investigation. The paper questions how far this position pertains to actual research practice. Drawing on interviews with researchers about their practices in relation to mixed‐method research, two discourses were found in the transcripts. A particularistic discourse that reflects the traditional view, whereby mixed‐method research is viewed as only appropriate when research questions warrant it, was uncovered. In addition, a universalistic discourse, which sees mixed‐method research as more generally superior, was also uncovered. The implications of these viewpoints for understanding the role of research questions are then discussed.
This paper discusses key methodological issues for qualitative research with learning disabled children, based on the author’s experience of involving learning disabled children in her doctoral study. The study was founded on the social model of disability and a sociological understanding of childhood that recognizes the abilities of disabled children as competent research participants. Issues that arose throughout the research process, from the early stages of gaining access to children, to communication challenges for interviewing learning disabled children, and the analysis and dissemination of data, are discussed. Within this context, this paper explores key methodological issues for researchers with regard to interviewing learning disabled children and actively involving them in qualitative research.
Ethnographies of policing have referred to the difficulties that researchers face as they encounter corruption, malpractice and police deviance. This paper reflects on the author’s ethnographical work with a British police force and suggests that while only relatively minor instances of misbehaviour were witnessed, these nonetheless raised challenging ethical issues. In addition to exploring the practicalities of negotiating access to the field and the difficulties of securing informed consent, the paper highlights the importance of anticipating the ethical dimensions of the mundane realities encountered during fieldwork.
Four specific problems are discussed that relate to selecting comparable cases in cross‐national political research. First, to manage the so‐called Galton's problem, which is about the assumption of autonomous units, two strategies are discussed. The one is to abandon the assumption and study the mechanisms of diffusion, the second is to choose cases for comparison which can be assumed to have influenced each other to a minor extent only. Second, it is suggested that the method of paired comparisons be applied more than before to minimize the ‘many variables, small N problem’ (Arend Lijphart). Third, the tendency of the comparable cases strategy to over‐determine the dependent phenomenon throws an unfavourable light on binary comparisons, which are much too popular in comparative political science. Finally, the task of explaining by means of variances in several independent variables the variance in one dependent variable requires the use of several and not only one set of cases.
Gambling expenditure is a commonly asked question in jurisdiction‐wide surveys of gambling behaviour and in surveys of household spending. However, the validity of self‐reported gambling expenditure is questionable due to the fact that these expenditures usually do not match actual gambling revenue. The present study asked a random sample of 2424 Ontario adult gamblers, in 12 different ways, about past month gambling expenditure. The relative validity of each question format was subsequently established by the correspondence of reported gambling expenditures with actual Ontario gambling revenue, as well as with amounts obtained by prospective diaries. Slight variations in question wording resulted in significant variation in reported expenditure amounts. However, certain question wordings elicited amounts closer to actual revenues and are therefore recommended for use in future surveys.
This paper reports on the experiences of a female transcriber involved in a narrative inquiry into the lives and identities of people who have been traumatized in childhood and subsequently misused drugs. It addresses the potential and actual impact of transcribing traumatic life stories and the need for researchers to consider ethical responsibilities ‘to do no harm’. It also shows how the transcriber’s witnessing of the participant’s stories, when taken back to the participant, enabled the researcher to validate her interpretation and check the focus of her analysis, in line with the participant’s expectations: it also helped the participant develop new stories of resourcefulness and strength. The paper uses taped conversations between the transcriber and the researcher, and between the researcher and the participant, to illustrate a rich unfolding process that enhanced understanding and created new meanings. It offers some ways forward to ensure that transcribers come to no harm through their work with traumatized subjects.
Pre‐testing is a standard tool to increase appropriateness and to capture the audience, yet rarely is this technique employed for population surveys. This study aimed to examine parental views on the content and methodology of a population child health survey. Forty‐eight Australian families of children aged 0–12 years were interviewed about the content and proposed data collection methods of the draft Victorian Population Survey of Child Health and Wellbeing. Concerns with instructions and items of several commonly used child health measures were identified. Parents preferred face‐to‐face methods rather than telephone interviews due to survey legitimacy; however, 72% of parents indicated that they would participate in a telephone survey. This study provided new findings about respondent views on child health measures and the conditions under which CATI versus face‐to‐face methods for child health data collection methods would be acceptable.
This article explores the relationship between methodologies used for sex research and the way sex is represented in everyday life. Drawing on a cross‐generational study of heterosexuality, this article asks how the relationship between researcher and participant contributes to the production of knowledge around sexuality and how this then relates to the practices and concepts which constitute ‘sex’. Working amongst women and men aged between 15 and 90, analysis involves comparing data drawn from interviews where a 60‐year age gap may separate the researcher and the participant; and those where both are similarly aged. Questions addressed within the article include: Does the researcher’s adaptation of her sexual terminology reflect sensitivity or ageism? How might it direct rather than enable the speaker? How can the data be interpreted as an account of sexual experience? How have participants sought to represent experience which they found emotionally charged, taboo or have difficulty translating into words? What the article argues, therefore, is that an adequate analysis of such data can be achieved only if they are recognised as the outcome of complex layers of social negotiation between two individuals whose aged, gendered and class‐based identities are sometimes shared and, sometimes, widely divergent.
This article discusses emotions and research from a number of perspectives to unearth the ways that emotions are implicated in the research process. The emergence of the Sociology of the Emotions urges rethinking of the relation between knowledge and emotion, arguing that emotion is necessary for knowledge. We discuss memory work in a study of emotion, and the psychosocial approach of Walkerdine and her colleagues, concerned with their own subjectivity in the research process and emotion and unconscious processes. Ethical issues raised by feminists in the case of women establishing rapport in researching women are considered, as is the emotion work demanded by particularly qualitative research. Some examples from researchers’ field experiences and potential solutions to the pains of emotions and emotion work in the field are given. The argument is made that emotions are important in the production of knowledge and add power in understanding, analysis and interpretation.
The more recent interpretation of triangulation in social and educational research was summarised and examined with reference to theory triangulation applied in an empirical study. The construction of special educational needs (SEN) from the individual experiences of a sample of SEN co‐ordinators and SEN teachers, parents, and adolescents with emotional and behavioural difficulties or physical disabilities were interpreted from the perspectives of personal construct theory, bio‐psycho‐social model, socio‐psychological analysis, bioecological model of human development and a developmental model of self‐understanding. Their points of convergence and divergence enriched and extended theoretical understanding. The focus on the ‘verstehen’ psychological level of analysis and on forging closer theory, concept and data connections influenced the range of theory choice. This instance of theory triangulation casts doubts on the Duhem‐Quine thesis of underdetermination.
Many approaches are used to prepare instruments for multicultural administration, depending on the scope, schedule and budget of the study. Sequential questionnaire development, the most common approach to developing cross‐cultural instruments, is also the most affordable. Designers formulate and pretest an instrument in the source language, then translate it into the target language(s) using culture‐specific tailoring. In contrast, parallel development incorporates target cultures throughout the design and pretesting process. The disadvantages to parallel development are that it is expensive, time‐consuming and subject to version control problems. Question Appraisal System (QAS) is a coding tool for pretesting instruments. The QAS is supported by an item taxonomy of the cognitive demands of a question and documents the features that may lead to response error. Results of the appraisal are used to revise question wording, response wording, questionnaire format and question ordering. This article describes research conducted to update the QAS to identify problems due to cross‐cultural and cross‐linguistic application of questions.
This article provides a candid account of the challenges two researchers faced while collecting qualitative in‐depth interview data on two different studies of emotionally sensitive topics. These studies involved asking participants to describe their feelings about a difficult experience—the loss of a loved one to murder and the termination of a pregnancy. We build on the literature on feminist methodology by offering a backstage look at qualitative research on an emotional topic and with an emotionally vulnerable population. Using illustrations from our respective studies, we share some of the insights we gained on recruitment problems, interview question development and participant compensation (e.g., financial, interpersonal and follow‐up contacts). We also discuss the need for monitoring and attending to the participants’ emotions as well as our own throughout the data collection process.
This paper describes how optimal matching or sequence analysis can be used to empirically evaluate the use of ideal typologies to describe the lifecourse. In our illustration, the lives of over 250 individuals, originally members of the Boyd Orr study as children in the 1930s, now in early old age (aged 65–75 years) have been reconstructed using sequence data derived from life grid interviews. Individuals are allocated to various ideal types for three distinct pathways or trajectories describing a person’s labour market, relationship and housing histories. Finally, these allocations are examined in relation to an individual’s self‐reported quality of life (QoL) in an attempt to explore the extent to which the experience of structurally advantaged or disadvantaged states are related to a good QoL in later life. Our findings suggest that individuals assigned to structurally advantaged statuses, in each of the trajectories, generally experience higher levels of QoL compared to those assigned to structurally disadvantaged positions. In particular, the single best predictor of high levels of self‐reported QoL is for those who became owner–occupiers late in life (typically council property purchasers). This suggests that the experience of stability during earlier parts of the lifecourse can provide opportunities within a de‐institutionalised lifecourse that we are witnessing at the beginning of the 21st century. The results suggest that the contemporary circumstances of older people are more important for their QoL. Yet, these circumstances are, in part, conditioned by their lifecourse.
Studies on Muslim communities in Britain have flourished in the 1990s and early 2000 mainly in the form of ethno‐anthropological accounts. In what is a critical moment for multicultural relations in Britain after September 11th and July 2005 bombings in London, however, social researchers are allegedly struggling in gaining access. The article explores this research scenario through reflection on doctoral fieldwork in the Pakistani community of Bradford, Northern England. Here, it will be argued that access can still be gained through traditional ethnographic methods, classic ‘research bargaining’ and what will be called ‘reciprocal exposure’, or more simply the researcher’s will to be questioned by the potential respondents. In the conclusion it will be argued first, that the reliability of the research is improved through the personal rapport between researcher and respondents. Secondly, participant observation seems to offer an alternative to formal interviews. Respondents in fact tend to be influenced by the burden they feel is imposed onto them as representative of Islam. In the current public value discourses faith is never disenfranchised from political pressures and researchers and funding bodies should acknowledge it to enhance the quality of their data.
This article discusses a study of residence and contact disputes in court which utilised a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods in order to gain a multidimensional picture of these disputes. It is argued that in a study such as this, the different datasets are best viewed as complementary, rather than as a means of validating each other. The data from each stage address a different aspect of these court disputes, thus offering a better understanding of the complexity of what goes on at court. I examine the ways in which the mixed methods approach improved the research team’s ability to interpret the findings. I conclude that the study has highlighted that because there is not just one view of how well the courts work, a variety of criteria needs to be used in evaluating this: when, for whom, for which problems and on which measures.
There is a common assumption that a postal questionnaire is an inappropriate research instrument for collecting rich qualitative data. In this article we challenge this and argue that in some circumstances such instruments can be used to yield rich thick descriptions of the kind normally associated with interviewing. We give the example of research into lesbian identities. Our experience led us to question what we call the epistemology of presence and the assumption that presence guarantees authenticity. We also suggest that the ethics of the face‐to‐face encounter may be different from those occurring at a distance. We conclude by arguing that researchers should be more open to the possibilities that postal questionnaires may be capable of generating authentic qualitative data, and that interviewing should be an explicit choice not the default position in qualitative research.
The advantages that birth cohort data offer researchers interested in the measurement and explanation of change across the life course are tempered by the problem of non‐response that becomes progressively larger as cohorts age. This article sets out the extent of this problem for the first two waves of the fourth in the series of UK birth cohorts: the Millennium Cohort Study. The response rate at Wave 1 is 72%, declining to 58% at Wave 2. Sample loss between Waves 1 and 2 was due to the failure to trace families who had moved, to contact families at a known address and to refusal. The correlates of these three kinds of non‐response are different. Although non‐respondents are systematically different from respondents at Waves 1 and 2, these differences in the propensity to respond are small compared with the unequal selection probabilities built into the sample design. It is, therefore, unlikely that weighting adjustments will have a substantial effect, over and above the effect of the sample design, on longitudinal analyses based on the first two waves of the study.
This is a study investigating feeding and growth in infancy. Its principal aim was to examine the joint influence of infant feeding behaviour and maternal psychological characteristics on weight gain. Infants of mothers resident in Gateshead, UK, born in pre‐specified weeks in 1999–2000 were eligible, and 1029 were recruited. Routine clinic weights were collected, and heights and weights were measured by research nurses at 13 months for 82% of the cohort. Parental postal questionnaire completion rates varied from 81% at 6 weeks to 63% at 12 months and to 49% at 30 months. The strength of the study was that many data were collected at routine clinical contacts. The main difficulties were maintaining up‐to‐date contact details and keeping the families involved, for which direct contact was more successful than postal contact. Support from health professionals, telephone reminders, media involvement, birthday cards and newsletters helped the success of the study. More recently, 83% of the cohort has been traced to local schools. The overall result is a unique longitudinal dataset of early feeding patterns and maternal characteristics from birth which will form the basis of further investigation and analysis of the cohort.
Growing Up in Australia is a national longitudinal study of the development and wellbeing of 10,000 Australian children. The study has been committed since inception to support data linkage to other datasets, to value‐add to the primary modes of data collection from parents and others. It can increase the efficiency of data collection by reducing respondent and interviewer burden as well as adding new dimensions to addressing key research questions. The viability of data linkage needs to take into account the relevance of the data for research and policy, as well as data quality and cost, privacy and consent issues and the ease of access. This article documents the various sources for data linkage considered for Growing Up in Australia, including government health and education records, child care accreditation data, and community‐level data, and examines the strengths and challenges associated with each.
Dietary assessment is an important component of longitudinal studies, allowing examination of the role of nutritional factors on health and societal outcomes. Dietary intake can be assessed by a number of methods, varying in respondent and interviewer burden, cost, and detail of type and quantity, as well as frequency of foods consumed. Many longitudinal studies utilise Food Frequency Questionnaires (FFQs) because of ease of administration and low cost, but these lack food detail, rely on good memory and have been questioned in terms of their capability to show diet–disease relationships. Estimated diet diaries are growing in popularity because of lower respondent burden than weighed records yet providing equally valid information, with more detail than FFQs. Costs of coding and translation to nutrients can be built into study budgets; estimated diaries should be considered for longitudinal studies to enable the role of diet in health and lifestyle to be accurately investigated.
The recent establishment of two national, longitudinal studies of contemporary birth cohorts in the UK and USA creates a valuable opportunity for cross‐national research on the experiences of young children and their families. This article describes these new datasets and highlights the potential advantages and challenges of their combined use. To illustrate some of the issues involved in comparative research, we describe our study of the patterns and predictors of UK and US mothers’ (re)entry into the labour force during infants’ first 9 months of life. Similar to previous studies, we find that US mothers engage in paid work much sooner after childbirth than UK mothers. In both samples, greater financial and human capital predict higher rates (and earlier entries) of post‐birth employment; however, among the subset of US mothers who were employed pre‐birth, it is socioeconomic disadvantage that predicts sooner returns. We consider how different policy environments in the UK and USA help to explain these findings, and discuss directions for future research with these data.
The aim of this article is to propose a methodological basis for the analysis of audio-visual, media-produced data. Based on the difference between the use of audio-visual material as a ‘lens’ through which a certain phenomenon is studied and the study of audio-visual data as a phenomenon in itself, ways are suggested to make use of the grounded theory research method for the study of this specific kind of data, while at the same time still respecting its nature. After discussing the difference between these two possible uses of audio-visual data for research purposes (as a ‘lens’ or as the phenomenon itself), a research procedure based on the grounded theory and Herbert Blumer’s ‘analytical elements’ is proposed for the study of audio-visual media data as a phenomenon in itself.
The purpose of this article is to address the interpretive synthesis of qualitative research. The article discusses the potential to develop a ‘meta-interpretation’ approach which attempts to maintain an interpretive epistemology congruent with the majority of primary qualitative research. The article identifies and discusses a range of issues in the synthesis of interpretive qualitative research (objectivity, evaluation of studies, sampling, context, interpretation and integrity) that emerge from a review of nine research methods involving synthesis and a broader review of the research synthesis literature. Seven fundamental features of meta-interpretation are outlined and the meta-interpretation procedure is presented. In conclu-sion, the aims of synthesis procedures in general and meta-interpretation in particular are discussed.
Linkage of household survey responses with administrative data is increasingly on the agenda. Unique individual identifiers have clear benefits for making linkages but are also subject to problems of survey item non-response and measurement error. Our experimental study that linked survey responses to UK government agency records on benefits and tax credits elucidates this trade-off. We compare five linkage criteria: one based on a respon-dent-supplied National Insurance Number (NINO) and the other four using different combinations of sex, name, address and date of birth. As many linkages were made using non-NINO-based matches as were made using matches on NINO and the former were also relatively accurate when assessed in terms of false-positive and false-negative linkage rates. The potential returns from hierarchical and pooled matching are also examined.
Discussions of reflexivity tend to ignore issues of practice, and those addressing practice are likely to presume a sole researcher. In this paper, we respond to the need for attention to reflexive practice in qualitative research teams. Drawing on our experience of working ‘separately together’, we identify reflexivity as an embedded feature of team-based research. We discuss how reflexivity can be used as a collective interpretive resource in the construction of the research subject/object, and we highlight reflexive possibilities unique to team-based research. We include in the article a presentation of the orientations and research practices that supported our reflexive teamwork.
The methodological issues involved in parental reporting of events in children’s everyday lives are discussed with reference to the development and validation of an incident diary, collecting concurrent data on minor injuries in a community study of children under eight years old. Eighty-two mothers participated in a comparison over nine days of daily tele-phone interviews and structured incident diaries. Telephone methods resulted in more missing data, and participants in both groups expressed a preference for the diary method. This diary was then validated on a sample of 56 preschool and school-aged children by comparing injury recording by a research health visitor with that of their mothers. Each failed to report some injuries, but there was good agreement overall, and in descriptive data on injuries reported by both. Parental diaries have the potential to provide rich data, of acceptable validity, on minor events in everyday life.
This article examines recent rural community studies by considering, in turn: comparisons, methods, theories and community studies as vehicles for developing social scientific arguments. ‘Recent’ is defined as from 1980 onwards. ‘Rural’ is taken to include research conducted in country towns. And ‘community studies’ is understood as an inclusive term embracing various research methodologies. Because this field cannot be covered exhaustively, attention is focused on research that has a special bearing on the future of community studies. Particular reference is made to the work of Colin Bell, which helped to shape recent research agendas.
This article draws on research undertaken in Inner London on gentrification and focuses on one particular community in South‐East London. It argues that there is a complex interaction in this community which values diversity in relation to both other social groups in the neighbourhood and other gentrifiers. This is constructed by the creation of strong social networks, often formed around the local school, which see the area as having many of the facets of a traditional village community in which everybody knows each other and everybody has their place. Diversity and otherness have a crucial place in this narrative although such people, though present, are spectacularly absent in respondents' narratives of their lives that are almost entirely constructed around the descriptions of their peer group. They contrast themselves with middle‐class groups elsewhere in gentrified London which are characterised as much more urban and aspirational than the more gentle and diverse middle class of Telegraph Hill. This, it is argued, reflects the unease that confronts respondents as they come to terms with how neo‐liberalism is felt to be impacting on their sense of social and economic security.
This article uses a range of qualitative sources, stretching from Mass‐Observation to the 1960s research of Brian Jackson and Ray Pahl to examine how far there are shifts in the way people identify with their local communities. The article shows that there is evidence of the rise of aesthetic and ethical orientations to place, whereby individuals provide developed narrative accounts of their choice of residence. I argue that the distinction, much discussed in the 1960s, about the difference between ‘locals’ and ‘incomers’ neglects the fact that they actually both had a functional orientation to locale. The article discusses how the concept of ‘elective belonging’ offers a valuable way of understanding the contemporary politics of local attachment.
This article is concerned with current understandings of the relevance of urban community studies within sociology. It starts by revisiting some of the major critiques made of community studies in the 1960s and 1970s, and briefly reviews whether network analysis, and in particular a focus on ‘personal communities’, provided a satisfactory alternative approach. The main part of the article argues that despite the criticisms there have been there is still much to be gained from a focus on people's attachments to locality, including the networks to which they are linked. Taking processes of globalization and migration as its major themes, the article explores how research has demonstrated the continuing relevance of ‘locality’ and ‘community’ for understanding the ways that contemporary social and economic transformations shape people's experiences. As well as considering different aspects of social exclusion, the article reviews how recent studies have explored the increasingly complex interplay of locality and identity.
Life course researchers have increasingly explored optimal matching analysis (OMA) as a tool for the analysis of sequences, such as sections of people’s status biographies. OMA is usually employed in combination with cluster analysis (CA) to create classifications of sequences. In this article, we introduce an analytic strategy that allows assessing the classification’s internal validity. Using ideal typical sequence representations, we test different cluster algorithms and are able to optimise the fit to the data. An application analyses economic activity sequences collected for two British birth cohorts born in 1958 and 1970, investigating historical changes in passages to adulthood. The results suggest that passages into adulthood have become more diverse since the 1970s. The analytic strategy produced a classification with better fit than straightforward CA.
Recent perspectives in childhood research have tended to emphasise the use of participatory techniques as a method of reducing the unequal power balance between researcher and researched. Increasingly researchers have been concerned with developing inclusive and participatory, young people centred methodologies which place their voices at the centre of the research process. But is the ideal of young people’s active involvement in the research process truly achievable or desirable with socially excluded young people in practice? This article reflects on a range of ethical, methodological and practical issues which arose from a study which investigtaed the lives of a group of young women who were excluded from secondary school. The article concludes with reflections on the necessity to overcome such difficulties for the production of in‐depth data on some of the most vulnerable, socially excluded young people.
This article shows that one longitudinal youth transition study has attempted to draw on the idea to ‘work the hyphen’ of researcher‐researched relations by paying attention to a second hyphen—that of policy‐research. The article argues that this second hyphen is equally important in a study which challenges the positioning of young people as both the problem and solution of transition by asking different questions, and telling different stories, about transition. The article shows the study’s researchers have attempted to ‘work’ both hyphens and re‐think relationships, not only with youth participants, but also with tertiary study organisations, employers and government policy managers.
In this paper, we discuss a problem in qualitative interviewing labeled by Bourdieu as ‘false, collusive objectification’. As described by Bourdieu, interviews where this occurs appear authentic because they often echo social science concepts and terminology and therefore may please the interviewer; however, they are actually unusable. We evaluate Bourdieu’s claim for the existence of ‘false’ interviews in light of the predominant postmodern position in qualitative research, offer examples from our own research on people diagnosed with mental illness and raise the issue of whether, when and how qualitative researchers should concern themselves with the shortcomings of interviews. We conclude with suggestions derived from Bourdieu’s view on how to address the problem he described.
This study presents a technique for enhancing causal validity in in‐depth interview research. The technique is based on the logic of control, as applied in various research contexts such as experiments and statistical analyses. According to this logic, to detect the real effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable, all other variables must be held constant. By using interview control questions (ICQs), this study applies this principle in in‐depth interviewing. An ICQ is a probe question that controls an independent variable in the participant’s thinking. Two modes are presented: simple control (neutralizing an independent variable to examine whether it is a necessary condition for an outcome) and parallel control (isolating an independent variable to examine whether it is a sufficient condition for an outcome). In both modes, the method allows for additional independent variables to surface. Applications in in‐depth interviews exploring attitudes toward victimless deviance are presented.
This article reports some findings from an investigation of social policy researchers in the UK. The findings relate to the quality criteria that social policy researchers deem to be appropriate to quantitative research, qualitative research and mixed methods research. The data derive from an e‐survey of researchers which was followed up by semi‐structured interviews with a purposively selected sample from among those e‐survey respondents who agreed to be interviewed. The article emphasises the findings that relate to quality criteria for mixed methods research, since this is an area that has not attracted a great deal of attention. Greater agreement was found regarding the criteria that should be employed for assessing quantitative than qualitative research. The findings relating to mixed methods research point to a preference for using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research criteria and for employing different criteria for the quantitative and the qualitative components.
This article examines the methodological challenges encountered while interviewing older adults in India for the purpose of understanding the effect of adult child emigration on the older family members left behind. This article explores the impact of cultural influences on the interview process. Twenty‐nine older parental units were interviewed. The presence of extended family, social desirability, the older adult's familiarity with questionnaire items and interviewer effects are explored. Strategies used to overcome methods bias are presented. Understanding cultural elements allowed for adaptation of interviewing techniques in the field and produced interviews that yielded reliable and valid data.
This article considers the possibilities for change through participation in research. Reflecting on findings from a study of South African young people's perspectives about violence, it explores how research may have consequences—both planned and unintended—for its participants. For example, in the course of this study, verbal problem solving and collaboration increasingly replaced systems of punishment as children's preferred solutions to problems of violence. The article considers how elements of the research process and, in particular, the subtle interplay of power and pleasure, generated shifts in perspectives. It reflects on the ethical implications for participatory research with children, including the tension between empowerment within and marginalisation outside the research space, and discusses the implications for researchers in general and for interventions which seek to work with young people to contest violence.
This article examines the influence of dynamic situational factors on responses to fear of crime questions in a street survey carried out in the city of Malaga, Spain. Pedestrians in two popular and well‐defined commercial centres were asked about their assessments of crime rates and their fear of victimisation during the day within the two geographical areas. Multi‐variate analysis suggests that the time of day, the physical character of the street in which the interview took place, and perhaps also the flow of people, each had effects on at least one of the two fear of crime measures. The research reinforces the view that survey measurement of attitudes, including fear of crime, has important sources of instability. It also draws attention to a neglected class of variables potentially important in structuring survey measured attitudes.
During the past two decades we have witnessed a rather impressive growth of theoretical innovations and conceptual revisions of epistemological and methodological approaches within constructivist‐qualitative quarters of the social sciences. Methodological discussions have commonly addressed a variety of methods for collecting and analyzing empirical material, yet the critical grounds upon which these were reformulated have rarely been extended to embrace sampling concepts and procedures. The latter have been overlooked, qualifying only as a ‘technical’ research stage. This article attends to snowball sampling via constructivist and feminist hermeneutics, suggesting that when viewed critically, this popular sampling method can generate a unique type of social knowledge—knowledge which is emergent, political and interactional. The article reflects upon researches about backpacker tourists and marginalized men, where snowball sampling was successfully employed in investigating these groups' organic social networks and social dynamics. In both studies, interesting interrelations were found between sampling and interviewing facets, leading to a reconceptualization of the method of snowball sampling in terms of power relations, social networks and social capital.
The article examines the use of photo‐elicitation methods in an ESRC‐funded study of young consumers. Participants were asked to take photographs of consumer items that were significant to them. These were subsequently used in recorded interviews as a trigger to elicit the discussion of the relationship between consumer goods and identity. The analysis focuses on how the features of visual representation influence the versions of identity that are presented. We show how participants both accommodate to and exploit aspects of the photographic image in creating their accounts. This is achieved by using the visual image to bolster identity claims and employing the verbal accounts to edit and contextualise the identity implications of the visual image. We suggest that the photo interview offers participants an opportunity to show rather than ‘tell’ aspects of their identity that might have otherwise remained hidden. It may therefore be a useful tool for researching contentious or problematic identity positions.
In comparative political research we distinguish between the ‘Most Similar Systems Design’ (MSSD) and the ‘Most Different Systems Design’ (MDSD). In the present work, I argue that the applicability of the two research strategies is determined by the features of the research task. Three essential distinctions are important when assessing the applicability of the MSSD and the MDSD: (1) whether or not variable interactions are studied at a systemic level or at a sub‐systemic level; (2) whether we use a deductive or inductive research strategy and (3) whether or not we operate with a constant or varying dependent variable. The article argues that the combination of these dimensions is essential for how the MSSD and the MDSD can and should be used in comparative research.
While qualitative interviewing methods based on story telling are powerful in eliciting narrations that are structured according to interviewees’ relevance systems, topical interviewing can build upon existing knowledge resulting from prior (interpretational) work. The problem‐centred interview (PCI) is an attempt to integrate both styles of qualitative interviewing and is presently in wide use in the German‐language social scientific community. It is especially helpful for research endeavours that focus on biographical experiences and orientations from individuals’ perspective. Within one interview session, the PCI combines an open narrative beginning with a more structured thematic interview. This article discusses the advantages and limitations of such a combination by introducing an example of its potential use within a research project on biographical orientations in migration processes. The PCI is also placed within the existing canon of qualitative interview methods and methodologies, highlighting its merits as well as its crucial problems.
This article explores the ways in which social researchers manage issues of confidentiality and the contexts in which deliberate and accidental disclosures occur. The data are drawn from a qualitative study of social researchers’ practices in relation to informed consent. It comprised 31 individual interviews and six focus groups as well as invited email responses with researchers working with vulnerable groups or with an interest in research ethics. Researchers reported feeling compelled to break confidentiality when participants were perceived as being at risk of harm but not in cases of involvement in illegal activity. Situations in which accidental disclosures occurred were also identified. Researchers reported varying ways in which they protected the confidentiality of their participants in the dissemination of their research, including omitting data and changing key characteristics of participants. The implications of researchers’ practices on data integrity and relationships with participants are discussed.
The ‘Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care’ has recently been implemented in England and provides a set of standards to be used nationally in the conduct of health and social care research. Explicit and universal standards are to be welcomed in so far as they increase transparency in the contract between researchers and the agencies that participate in research, reiterate the importance of the ethical conduct of studies and the protection of participants. However, there have been some unanticipated consequences of the implementation of the framework which may serve to undermine the quality of research, the comparability of data and the timeliness of findings to inform policy and practice. This article examines these issues with reference to a recently established study involving vulnerable children and families. The potential implications for other studies are also explored and recommendations are made about how these issues may be overcome.
This article explores whether it is possible to understand the perspectives of people with whom we find it difficult or impossible to empathise, because their moral and political views are very different to our own. Focusing on our dilemmas in carrying out qualitative research with conservative evangelicals and anti‐abortion activists, we take issue with the assumption that understanding is connected with the presence of rapport and empathy in research interviews. This article argues instead that a reflexive approach, which considers researchers’ orientations towards their subject and their respondents and their emotional journeys through the research process, will enable more comprehensive interpretation of our research material.
This article is prompted by fieldwork undertaken on the ‘Muslims in Prison’ (MIP) project from July 2001 to July 2002. In addition to a discussion of general methodological considerations for prison research, the article evaluates key challenges and sensitivities encountered during the project. The points for discussion include issues of access, confidentiality, security, health and ethics. In particular, the article discusses the significance of the researcher’s biography—himself a British Muslim—and how these impacted on the qualitative research methods. The fieldwork straddles the events of 9/11, and the article includes a discussion of the impact of this event on the research. The observations will be of interest to researchers of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) prison populations and the changing and developing role of the researcher in secure settings.
This article contributes to a long‐overdue discussion about research with adolescents. While young people are now recognised as competent and reliable participants, there are particular difficulties associated with using adolescents as respondents. Furthermore, it is rare for young people’s reactions to the research process to be heard. This article reports on some of the methodological challenges faced in designing and administering a Web‐based survey to 15‐year‐old school students in Perth, Western Australia, in an attempt to gain insight into meals practices and beliefs among adolescents and their families. Using empirical data, we discuss issues concerning the competence of adolescents to participate in social research. We conclude that using a Web‐based survey actively facilitates high levels of adolescent engagement in the research process, allowing them to be both subject and object of the research.
This article presents analyses of how different definitions of disability affect the outcomes of studies of disabled people’s living conditions. Three different definitions of disability are compared using six rather common variables: gender, age, living arrangements, education, labour market participation and income. Selected definitions of disability are administrative definitions, a subjective definition and a functional definition. Analyses were conducted using compilations of several databases in Sweden. Recurrent differences between administrative definitions, on the one hand, and functional and subjective definitions, on the other, are found in relation to educational and labour force variables. People defined by an administrative definition are more likely to be younger and single than the people defined by the other two definitions. More research on the impact of disability definitions is needed. However, a first step in resolving this question would be to improve the methodological awareness of disability researchers.
Over the last decade there has been a significant growth in comparative, cross‐national research and recognition of its potential significance in responding to globalisation pressures. A range of methodological approaches have been documented. However, whilst a growing literature exists on undertaking comparative research generally, less has been published on the experiences of undertaking qualitative research in a cross‐national context, particularly in social and housing policy. Qualitative research provides opportunities to gain more detailed understandings of behaviour, attitudes and experiences across countries, but it also raises some of the greatest challenges with respect to interpreting data. This article utilises an eight nation study on housing security and insecurity to make transparent some of the key issues raised in qualitative, cross‐national work, including the selection of locations and interviewees, interviewing and analysing material within an institutional context. It argues that further critical sharing of research accounts is required in this important area.
This article aims at illustrating the circumstances in which Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and its ramifications, fs/QCA and MVQCA, become particularly useful tools of analysis. To this end, we discuss the most pertinent problem which researchers encounter when using QCA: the problem of contradicting observations. In QCA analysis, contradictions arise from the sheer number of cases and the problem of dichotomisation. In order to handle contradictions, the method for analysing middle‐sized‐N situations should therefore be chosen according to two parameters: the size of a dataset, and the need to preserve raw‐data information. While QCA is an apt tool for analysing comparatively small middle‐sized datasets with a correspondingly reduced necessity to preserve cluster information, the opposite holds true for fs/QCA. MVQCA strikes a balance between these two methods as it is most suitable for analysing genuinely middle‐sized case sets for which some cluster information needs to be preserved.
Reflexivity is a key aspect of qualitative research. Considerable attention has been given to the ways in which gender mediates the production and analysis of qualitative data; however, much of this has been focused on qualitative interviews with women and the influence of the interviewer’s gender in this specific context. Very little work has been done on comparing different interviewer–interviewee contexts such as male‐to‐female, male‐to‐male or female‐to‐male interviewing. Moreover, the interplay of gender with environmental, psycho‐social and other biographical factors within the interview has received little attention. Drawing on four different studies on cancer care, work and family, and parenting, this article examines how each of these factors potentially mediate the collection of qualitative data in a range of interviewer–interviewee contexts. Moreover, it explores gender as both resource and delimiting factor, examining the use of impression management as a researcher tool to mediate potentially problematic interpersonal dynamics. It is concluded that greater attention should be paid to the complex intersectionality of gender, environmental, biographical and psycho‐social factors in qualitative data analysis and write‐up.
Much has been written about participatory approaches in planning and implementing research. The process and practice of participatory data interpretation and analysis is, however, less discussed. This article explores the value of the Voice‐Centred Relational (VCR) method of data analysis and interpretation in the context of participatory research with socially excluded teenagers. Focussing on participatory data analysis, the implementation of the method with teenagers in a West of Ireland town who have left school early is described. Written from the perspectives of academic researchers, members of a research team that included teenagers and a Community Arts artist, this article introduces the VCR method and describes the participatory processes, practices and pitfalls. The challenges of doing participatory interpretation with VCR method are considered.
The success of any intervention study is dependent on the ability of investigators to recruit and retain appropriate and sufficient numbers of research participants. Yet, investigators sometimes overestimate their ability to address the methodological issue of participant recruitment. This is detrimental to scientific integrity and especially challenging when a study's recruitment resources are limited. This article describes the research recruitment process and provides an analysis of issues and strategies for scientifically responsible participant recruitment. Four phases of the recruitment process are explored as they relate to recruiting scientifically appropriate and sufficient samples. The four phases are as follows: (1) generating initial contacts; (2) consenting; (3) screening; and (4) enrolment and retention. Generalizability of study findings while ensuring human subjects' protections and addressing issues of cost efficiency also are discussed in relation to these phases. Additionally, cost‐effectiveness data are presented for a recently completed intervention study.
The growth and employment of non‐traditional research methods have increased dramatically over the last few decades, especially within the USA and the UK. With the increase of globalisation of research these new methodologies are gaining use and credibility within the human disciplines in Australia. The following paper examines the new methodologies movement from an historical context, funding perspective and as part of the wider, morally oriented ‘culture wars’ that have been playing out on the main arena of Australian socio‐political life over the past decade. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of some of the issues, challenges and benefits of these new methodologies the paper proceeds to examine some of the methods involved in arts‐based social inquiry. It argues that regardless of the increased call to employ engaged and innovative research, the constraints of the Australian funding and political environment has resulted in the maintenance and dominance of traditional methodological approaches.
In response to the theories of empowerment and social justice, research involving Indigenous peoples often demands participatory and collaborative methodologies. Consequently, researchers need to engage with reflexive evaluation of collective and negotiated design, data collection and data analysis to consider inter‐personal and collective dynamics during the research process. What this means for those attempting counter‐colonial research is that we cannot rely on a singular application of reflexivity to situate knowledge. Additional political and relational layers of reflexivity are essential to critically evaluate empowerment and participation by working ‘the spaces between’ through reflection about collaboration. By exploring ‘relationality’ as a methodology, this paper discusses three layers of reflexivity (self‐reflexivity, inter‐personal reflexivity and collective reflexivity). This reflexive work entails resisting essentialist positions while also recognising difference within a collective. The result is the ability to see that the Self‐Other hyphen both connects and distinguishes between us, in processes of collaborative counter‐colonial research.
This paper demonstrates a method of collaborative drawing‐based enquiry used to elicit experiential narratives in qualitative research. In the health sciences the method, which uses a drawing strategy embedded within in‐depth interviews, can illuminate experiences of illness, treatment and interaction with health practitioners. Here it is applied to the experience of chronic vaginal thrush and associated use of complementary and alternative medicine. In the study reported here, images were created and interpreted by participants as part of the interview process and transcripts were analysed according to narrative methods. The results yielded themes in three areas of inquiry: the experience of chronic vaginal thrush and uses of bio‐medical and complementary alternative medicine therapies. We argue that the method can be applied more widely to access and represent participant experiences of illness and that it has particular utility for researchers in health sciences who are working on sensitive topics and with vulnerable participants.
In this paper, we explore how the use of critical creativity as methodology can democratise, and enliven, both process and product of qualitative research. This, we believe, is important if we are concerned with inclusive, collaborative research which aims to change the material circumstances of people's lives and, simultaneously, nurture the human flourishing of participants in the research. One of our concerns is to find ways which enable more people to be more fully involved in the processes of such research and to speak, and be heard, thus enlarging conversations for change. This can be achieved, to some extent, by using the creative arts, intuition, performance, imagination and the wisdom of the body. Here, we use three examples from our practices as critically creative social researchers to explore and illustrate these themes in addition to offering ideas for researchers wishing to enlarge their practices.
In‐depth interviewing research methods traditionally rely upon face‐to‐face or telephone conversation between investigator and participant. Participation of people with verbal communication impairments has often been restricted in research studies using these methods; their stories have all too frequently been left unheard or told by proxies. This paper describes the use of email interviewing to rectify this gap and facilitate research participation by people with impaired verbal communication. Issues related to this method are detailed using literature, previous scholarship and the author's research that explored the experience of people aged 18–25 years who have cerebral palsy. Recruitment, informed consent, rapport development, data collection, storage and analysis techniques are described. Benefits and potential limitations of email interviews for both participant and researcher are identified. Offering an alternative to traditional verbal interviews can increase opportunities for participant involvement and enhance the quality and inclusiveness of research data.
Even though web surveys have become increasingly popular, considerable efforts are necessary to obtain acceptable response rates. This explains the proliferation of experiments aimed at improving levels of participation in web surveys. The current study is not aimed at increasing web survey response by means of experimental research, but instead uses a general psychological theory to explain web survey response. More specifically, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is used to explain the intention to participate in a web survey. Previous studies have used this theory to explain survey participation in specific populations (students), but the current study extends that scope by targeting a general population. The results show that the TPB is capable of explaining people’s intentions to participate in a web survey in the context of a general population.
There is an increasing incidence of new HIV‐1 diagnoses among black Caribbeans in the UK, but there has been limited research in this area. The LIVITY study is the first in‐depth epidemiological and behavioural study to examine the impact of HIV among black Caribbeans in the UK. The UK black Caribbean community has traditionally been regarded as less likely to participate in clinical research and surveys. We identified three major challenges to recruitment to the LIVITY study: general distrust of the research process; the considerable stigma surrounding HIV in the black Caribbean community and the sensitivity of obtaining detailed sexual histories. The strategies devised to help overcome these barriers to optimise recruitment included: the establishment of a black Caribbean Community Advisory Group to facilitate communication between the community and the researchers and assist in questionnaire design to improve acceptability to the participants; use of healthcare practitioners as gatekeepers; extensive piloting and modification of the questionnaire among black Caribbean patients; reassurances of confidentiality during recruitment; and ethnic matching between interviewer and study participants. Another challenge was the high rate of loss to follow‐up among eligible patients, potentially compromising the study’s generalisability. Nevertheless, use of the above strategies resulted in a satisfactory enrolment rate of 57%, who were representative of all eligible patients.
Ethical regulation of social research has increased considerably in the UK in the past few years, not least as a result of the ESRC’s Research Ethics Framework. This article questions whether ethics committees are capable of making sound judgments about the ethics of what is proposed and practised in particular research projects. In addition, the legitimacy of such regulation is questioned, on ethical grounds. Finally, it is argued that increased regulation will not raise the ‘ethical standard’ of social science and will probably worsen the quality of what it produces.
Ethical review and governance of health services research in the UK have undergone significant changes in recent years. Tracing this incremental development helps to understand the rationale for introducing a more standardised process. Reflecting on our experience of approval for a national, multi‐centred, qualitative study provides useful insights into both the advantages and disadvantages of this new approach. Advantages include promoting awareness of ethical issues and timely review of proposals. However, excessive bureaucracy and inconsistency in obtaining local governance approvals can lead to unacceptable delays. There is also a danger that the current focus on the process of applying for ethical approval may overshadow debate about the principles of ethical research practice. Over‐reliance on a checklist approach may perpetuate an erroneous notion of ethical approval being a ‘hurdle’ to negotiate instead of an ongoing consideration. Unanticipated theoretical and methodological implications for future health services research are critically examined. Given the continued globalisation of health services research, this discussion may help inform debates and decisions about restructuring ethical review processes in other countries.
This article focuses on the problems faced by researchers carrying out participant observation in fields where the committal of criminal offences is the norm. Can participation in criminal activity by a researcher be justified on the grounds that it is necessary to prevent the distortion of the field? Alternatively, can the difficulties in gaining and maintaining access in such spheres excuse such conduct? The article considers the current guidance given to researchers in the social sciences and the peculiar pressures placed on them when carrying out fieldwork in ‘criminal’ areas. Examples from the author’s own experiences carrying out covert participant observation within crowds of ‘risk’ football supporters are used to illustrate that in such fields the committal of offences can be unavoidable and that further guidance – but not regulation – is required to protect academics carrying out this type of research.
There is a concern in the UK about a lack of research methods skills among social researchers, especially in relation to quantitative methods. This article draws on findings of a study exploring the training needs of social scientists across the lifespan in the UK and focuses on the research training needs identified by PhD students and the research skills sought by academic employers. The data reported comprises a survey of PhD students, a survey of directors of research centres/holders of large grants and a content analysis of social science research posts. The findings indicate that students in several social science disciplines have a preference for qualitative methods in their PhDs while academic employers and job vacancies for academic posts indicate a need for researchers with skills in quantitative methods. The findings have important implications for training and supervision of research students and identify a need to narrow the gap between early‐career researchers’ skills and employers’ needs.
Item non‐response rates are a significant factor affecting the quality of questionnaire data. This article looks at the impact that the mode of administration might have on item non‐response rates. Using closely matched groups of respondents (n = 466) it compares item non‐response rates for near‐identical versions of online and paper questionnaires. The research also analyses the difference between fixed‐choice and open‐ended questions in terms of their respective item non‐response rates. Findings from the research indicate that the administration of questionnaires online, while it might have relatively little impact on the item non‐response rates for fixed‐choice questions, would seem to reduce item non‐response rates where the questions are open‐ended and require respondents to provide unstructured text‐based answers.
Nonresponse is a major problem often faced by social scientists when analysing survey data. A range exists to impute the missing responses but the choice between these methods may be difficult. This paper reviews advantages and disadvantages of a range of imputation methods and provides guidance on how to use such methods in practice. The paper introduces the reader new to the imputation literature to key ideas and methods. For those already familiar with imputation, the paper highlights some new developments and recent debates. The paper discusses an example from the social sciences, applying several imputation methods to a missing earnings variable. The objective is to illustrate in a real data example basic considerations when choosing between methods and to advise practitioners in the use of such methods.
An audit trail can enhance the rigor and transparency of qualitative research. It can serve as a means of holding up to scrutiny the methodological and theoretical decisions made throughout the research process. However, what constitutes an audit trail is often narrowly conceived and inadequately explained. This article elucidates the process of creating an audit trail as a trustworthiness technique applied to the grounded theory methodology. In particular, it presents, as an illustration, an audit trail that supports a theory of stakeholder collaboration developed from a study of community‐based antipoverty projects in Jamaica. The antipoverty projects were supported by social funds – special grants from the national government to non‐governmental and community‐based organizations, which sponsored and organized the projects.
It has been claimed that grounded theory is the most widely used qualitative method in social science research presenting a distinct approach to generating theories about substantive areas for which there are few existing theories. The method has been continually reinvented causing some to question its usefulness for educational researchers. Children’s physical activity has become an area of great interest to researchers in conjunction with increasing concerns about the health of the nation. There are, however, few studies in this area which have employed grounded theory. Using case study material from two separate projects relating to children’s attitudes towards physical activity, this paper highlights some of the issues associated with using particular versions of the method and the realities of working with children using recommendations from Glaser and Strauss and Corbin.
It appears that the practice of giving cash or gift vouchers to research participants is becoming increasingly common; however, this practice has received little attention from social researchers. Paying participants has implications in terms of the ethical requirement for consent and may have consequences in terms of recruitment for research projects and for the data collected. In this paper I consider how these issues arose in a research project with lone mothers and the way in which offering payments might help with gaining access to participants. I argue that the possible impact of making payments to research participants should be considered in research accounts and the possible impacts of payments should be more widely debated.
This article outlines the development and implementation of participatory research methodology centred on observational techniques. It discusses theoretical understandings of the methodology and how it works in practice. The research explored the use of public spaces by different social, ethnic and activity groups across the course of a 12‐month period, drawing on the experiences of, and data collected by local non‐academic researchers who were trained in a non‐participatory semi‐structured observation method. The article discusses how this method was developed and implemented and considers some of the issues around how participatory research works in practice.
People living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) in Canada are a highly researched population, yet their inclusion in the research process is minimal. Community‐based research (CBR) has become a recognized tool for addressing issues of power and exclusion within researcher/community relationships by inviting the community's equitable involvement as research partners. Within the context of HIV/AIDS research, this includes a commitment to the Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA) at all stages of the research process. One way of adopting GIPA principles within CBR is through providing employment, research training, and capacity building opportunities for PHAs as peer research assistants (PRAs). Drawing on data from two in‐depth focus groups with seven PRAs from the Positive Spaces, Healthy Places: Community‐based Research Study, this paper will highlight important methodological practices for academic and community‐based researchers who are working with and supporting PRAs.
The authors argue that population‐level data should be used to advance interdisciplinary research about community effects on early development. These data permit the identification of neighborhoods in which development patterns deviate from predictions based on local socioeconomic status (SES). So‐called ‘off‐diagonal’ places signal where researchers are likely to discover processes that either deflect the risks of low SES or dampen the salutary impact of favorable SES. Since such neighborhoods will be best understood relative to nearby ‘on‐diagonal’ neighborhoods where macro‐economic and/or public policy factors are constant, the authors present a methodology for illuminating these regional clusters. The method is deployed in British Columbia, Canada, where a team has collected developmental observations from two censuses of kindergarten children (n = 82,632). The article discusses how these clusters can be used to coordinate sampling decisions among academics representing the range of disciplines needed to study child development from cell‐through‐society, as is recommended in the literature.
While approaches to the analysis of multiple perspectives have been explored, the earlier stage of arranging fieldwork with multiple family members has received relatively little reflection within the literature. Drawing on data from a qualitative study exploring family communication about sex and sexuality, this paper examines parents' and children's accounts of how their families became involved in the research. A key finding notes how dynamics of parent–child communication about sex were played out through families' interactions concerning research participation. Particular focus is paid to the ways in which information about the study was mediated between parents and children and also individuals' differential agendas for participation. Evidence of the persuasive practices of some parents to engage their families in research underlines the importance of accessing all potential participants directly. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of sensitisation to interactions between family members themselves when engaging families in research.
The Last Refuge by Peter Townsend is a seminal study of residential care for older people. The fieldwork was carried out in the late 1950s and the data are now deposited in the National Social Policy and Social Change Archive at the University of Essex. We have undertaken research, funded by the ESRC, which has revisited Townsend's work and some of the homes he studied in order to conduct an overtime comparison. In this paper we focus on Townsend's use of photography and our subsequent use of photography in our revisiting study. We argue that although Townsend did not analyse his photographs, they were significant data for use in his arguments critiquing residential care. They were, however, the product of a different socio‐historical context to our own and as such posed considerable practical and ethical challenges for us when attempting to use this aspect of his methodology for an overtime comparison. We argue that despite the resulting constraints, photography was an important part of our methodology, enabling comparisons and illuminating historical patterns in residential care for older people.
Standard industrial classification systems are the cornerstone of quantitative research in several fields. Data collected and coded on the basis of such systems often provide the most complete and accessible material with which to investigate, quantify and map the industrial landscape, and understand the economy at large. However, as relatively static classifications, they present researchers attempting to capture new, emerging and growth industries with a number of problems. Our understanding of the dynamics of economic development is largely based on aggregated firm data, often categorised and identified using an intertwined system of national and international industrial classification standards. This paper uses the example of the biotech industry in testing the ongoing appropriateness of one such industrial classification system, namely the Swedish industrial classification system.
The author has reflected on her experience in facilitating three participatory research (PR) projects to identify key issues surrounding participation, method and power. The three PR projects in health, all undertaken in the same region in southeast Australia, assessed the needs of women who have experienced breast cancer, evaluated an Indigenous healthy lifestyle programme and developed and documented a model of coordinated care by a consumer group. In particular, the three participatory projects suggested that participants do not always want to maximise their own participation and may prefer external researcher involvement – relationships, confidentiality, anonymity and time‐impacted perspectives of participation. In one study, quantitative methods were selected and time and previous knowledge of research shaped participants' selection of method. In the projects, power relations were complex and issues of negotiation, inclusion, quality of research, agendas, roles and integrity are discussed. The lessons learned here are that participatory researchers can be open to differing levels of participation and methods while also comfortable with sharing decision‐making in research, even if it alters the research outcome.