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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how presuppositional interviews can develop reflexive transparency in grounded theory methodologies. Grounded Theory aims to generate understanding of a given socio-psychological process using a systematic methodology for gathering, analysing and interpreting data. As the researcher is intrinsic to this process, reflexivity is an essential tool to explore and challenge the researcher unknown presuppositions that influence the research process and findings. Reflexivity in practice is challenging as it aims at identifying unknown influences which are by nature, hidden. In this paper, we demonstrate how presuppositional interviews can be applied to Classic and Constructivist grounded theory, and to qualitative research in general. We illustrate this process with two practical case studies, demonstrating how the presuppositional interview can be utilised to enhance transparent reflexive practice. We suggest the presuppositional interview enables higher levels of reflexivity and subsequent positive impact on praxis and the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers best practice guidance on participatory action research (PAR) methods in modern slavery studies, through sharing the experiences of survivors of modern slavery as active project consultants. By using participatory approaches and engaging in an action learning set model, this paper aims to understand how to meaningfully engage survivors of modern slavery as co-researchers. Inclusion was at the heart of this research study, and thus, this paper was co-produced by survivors of modern slavery. Through their voices, and by engaging in reflexivity, we share the challenges of engaging in meaningful peer research methods, lessons learned as well as the benefits of adopting this approach to provide creative, engaging and empowering opportunities for participation in research and skill development. We share some examples of challenges and successes in our approach to understand what meaningful peer research methods look like, addressing conservative and more liberal views including academic expertise, safeguarding and empowerment. In concluding this paper, we provide some recommendations for best practice, recognising a continual need to reflect and adapt peer research approaches that suits the needs of the peer researchers as well as the subject to be studied. The overwhelming sentiment, is that social science research must look to engage in peer research methods, recognising the expertise of lived experience, and the potential for research to empower others while also creating meaningful change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metainferences, or the insights derived from integrating quantitative and qualitative inferences at the end of a study, are crucial for achieving added value and synergy in mixed methods research. There is an ongoing need to understand how researchers generate metainferences, especially considering their pivotal role in helping researchers achieve full quantitative and qualitative integration. While some examples of metainferences generation are available in the mixed methods literature, more explicit guidance is required. Approaches to developing metainferences must also be contextual, as inferences of this type are contingent on the nature and purpose of the mixed methods study, the type of mixed methods design, and the quality of the research data. This paper describes a seven-step process for generating metainferences using a convergent mixed methods study as an exemplar. These steps consist of identifying knowledge, experience, and data-driven inferences from the quantitative and qualitative data; developing inference association maps to draw metainferences; and assessing the validity of metainferences using backward working heuristics. This paper contributes to mixed methods research by shedding light on the development of metainferences in convergent designs and by providing practical and tangible tools for making sense of the complexity of the analysis and interpretation tasks involved in the process of generating metainferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the open-source Urban Belonging (UB) toolkit, designed to study place attachments through a combined digital, visual and participatory methodology that foregrounds lived experience. The core of the toolkit is the photovoice UB App, which prompts participants to document urban experiences as digital data by taking pictures of the city, annotating them, and reacting to others' photos. The toolkit also includes an API interface and a set of scripts for converting data into visualizations and elicitation devices. The paper first describes how the app's design specifications were co-created in a process that brought in voices from different research fields, planners from Gehl Architects, six marginalized communities, and citizen engagement professionals. Their inputs shaped decisions about what data collection the app makes possible, and how it mitigates issues of privacy and visual and spatial literacy to make the app as inclusive as possible. We document how design criteria were translated into app features, and we demonstrate how this opens new empirical opportunities for community engagement through examples of its use in the Urban Belonging project in Copenhagen. While the focus on photo capture animates participants to document experiences in a personal and situated way, metadata such as location and sentiment invites for quali-quantitative analysis of both macro trends and local contexts of people's experiences. Further, the granularity of data makes both a demographic and post-demographic analysis possible, providing empirical ground for exploring what people have in common in what they photograph and where they walk. And, by inviting participants to react to others' photos, the app offers a heterogeneous empirical ground, showing us how people see the city differently. We end the paper by discussing remaining challenges in the tool and provide a short guide for using it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, Indigenous scientific frameworks and methods have been damaged and derided by 'western' science, a strategy of the colonial project. Contemporary Australia is no exception, with the transmission of the suite of scientific values and practices formed over millennia in and for this place being actively prevented by legislation, government policies and colonial opprobrium. This paper shows how two crucial Indigenous science(s) frameworks, used alongside two Indigenous research methods, can transform hegemonic scientific research and fieldwork priorities and practices. This transformation occurs because of the focus of each framework. The first, centring country, requires decentring the human to bring forth the needs of the web of relationships that is country. The second framework, relational accountability, is about tending to a broad range of relationships, are often kin-based and including the other-than-human, with yindyamarra (or local equivalent). Relational accountability also offers an inbuilt ethic of care superior to institutional ethics protocols. By describing these frameworks and methods and discussing how and when to use them, this paper supports their greater understanding and more widespread use, particularly by Indigenous practitioners, so we may continue to (re)build what colonisation has damaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific innovations for sustainable development often make huge promises about overcoming climate change, or promote technological innovations that have potential development implications. However, the social outcomes of such interventions are often considered superficially; thus potentially reinforcing injustices or producing unforeseen, undesirable outcomes. Increasingly, projects claim to have an interdisciplinary dimension, but processes of interdisciplinary dialogue can be difficult to maintain. This means that researchers have to be prepared to engage in potentially extensive, transformative dialogue and be willing to learn from the disciplinary knowledge of the other. This can be methodologically challenging both for natural and social scientists. This paper reports meta-research exploring the methodological processes and learning experiences of academics involved in research on the implementation of second-generation biofuel technology. Through interdisciplinary meetings, workshops, reflections and interviews we built up sustainable relationships and bridged epistemological divides. Our approach to interdisciplinary dialogue offers insights into the methodological challenges of interdisciplinary work. We used the framework of transformative learning theory to identify key aspects of the interdisciplinary process and reflected on the need for sustained and open opportunities for dialogue in order to find genuine ways to communicate across disciplines. We explicitly revealed and considered our taken-for-granted assumptions to identify what we understood by key terms and processes, including 'sustainable', 'development', 'methodology', 'truth', 'marginal land' and 'outputs'. We found these encounters created opportunities to influence the trajectory of each other's research and thinking, with the ideal of social and environmental justice prominent in all our discussions. It was through ongoing learning and dialogue that we found that the multifaceted challenges of sustainable development research can become more open, more critical and more able to reveal appropriate solutions and promote relevant ongoing scientific research. This interplay between disciplines is an innovative way to influence decision-making directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Securing sustainable and just transition pathways in cities is recognised as key to addressing global environmental challenges. There is increasing acceptance that transformative change in cities must be shaped by the co-production of knowledge between diverse partners. The creation of spaces of collaboration, referred to in the literature as 'third spaces', is integral to such co-production of knowledge. However, evidence to support a direct relationship between third spaces of engagement and securing urban transformation is largely undocumented. This paper deepens and develops the idea of shared spaces for knowledge co-production by drawing on the experiences of City officials and PhD researchers in a City-University knowledge partnership in Cape Town. It uses the data to critique the third space for its limited engagement with how the relationship between individual knowledge brokers and their home institutions effects change. The findings of the paper show that, despite the benefits of boundary crossing between the academy and practice, such crossings also leave individuals peripheralised from their 'home' institutions. This disconnect and sense of 'homelessness' limits the potential of co-production to affect urban transformation. To address the conceptual lacunae of the third space, I develop the idea of the portal to reflect the dynamic exchange required between individuals and their home institutions for realising relevant change. The form of the portal is not spatially bound, but reflects dynamic processes of entering and exiting sites of knowledge exchange to secure a sense of belonging. By highlighting the need to include processes for anchoring institutional learning, the concept of portals for knowledge exchange offers additional scope for securing urban transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the benefits and possibilities of using recorded sound as a tool for expressing the stories behind photographs for archival purposes through an ethnographic study of Lest We Forget (LWF), a grassroots initiative that documents and explores cultural memory pertaining to the United Arab Emirates. The goals of this paper are to further the dialogue about the value of transdisciplinary research toward the end of greater preservation and sustainability of cultural heritage; and to make an argument about the value of community members creatively responding to photographs, and archival materials from their own culture, using sound. What I have found is that creative response is a theory of knowledge that allows a community to retain ownership of their heritage and their imagination of the past, present, and future, and an emerging methodological process that, when used, ensures a living archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Merton proposed middle range theories, not as ends in themselves, but as bases for a consolidation to explain broader phenomenon. More than a half century has passed since Merton's consolidation proposal and in that time a number of experimentally tested middle range theories have been developed. Certainly, the next step should be a consolidation. Yet, to our knowledge, no one has previously offered a consolidation of experimentally tested theories and applied it for explanation. This paper offers a consolidation of middle range theories formulated to explain the rise of the pristine state. Two theories of this consolidation, Status Characteristics Theory and Elementary Theory, form the core of what Analytic Sociologists have called a toolbox of theories. Our toolbox forms an integrated consolidation in two ways. First, the social structures modeled by the theories form a path-dependent process of increasing benefits gained by the elites of the structures. Second, the end conditions of each step of the process are the initial conditions of the next. Whereas the theories in our toolbox have previously been seen as applying exclusively to microstructures, we have encountered no difficulties in scaling them up to apply to macrostructures. While we hope the consolidation has validity in explaining the occurrence of pristine states, this paper's significance lies in its demonstration that today social theories can be consolidated and applied for explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social work case files hold rich detail about the lives and needs of vulnerable groups. Traditional case-reading studies to gain generalisable knowledge are resource-intensive, however, and sample sizes thereby limited. The advent of 'big data' technology, and vast repositories of centrally stored electronic records offer social work researchers novel alternatives, including data linkage and predictive risk modelling using administrative data. Free-text documents, however – including assessments, reports, and case chronologies – remain a largely untapped resource. This paper describes how 5000 social work court statements held by the Child and Family Court Advisory Support Service in England (Cafcass) were analysed using natural language processing (NLP) based on simple rules and mathematical principles. Thirteen factors relating to harm and risk to children involved in care proceedings in England were identified by automated computer techniques, and almost 90% agreement with professional readers achieved when the factors were clear-cut. The study represents an innovative approach for social work research on complex social problems. In conclusion, the paper discusses learning points; practical implications; future research avenues; and the technical and ethical challenges of NLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study inquires into the validity and reliability of dedicated mobile phone diary applications. We developed Watchy, a dedicated mobile viewing diary application, and compared users' compliance and usage patterns with those of users of the paper viewing diaries. Participants received paper diaries or installed mobile diary apps, with or without daily reminders, to document their viewings over a 4-day period. Documentation was more extensive in the smartphone app with reminder group compared to the paper diary group. Reminders increased documentation rates. Extent of documentation decreased as the experiment progressed for mobile app users. Findings suggest that mobile viewing diaries are an important tool for viewing studies, yet their use requires careful planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Albeit the measurement of debate quality is not a new endeavour, this paper raises two research questions for which we still have limited knowledge: What are important and reliable indicators of debate quality on social media? How does debate quality relate to individual factors on social media? First, we empirically analysed how two well-established discourse' quality indices (the DQI and CC index) correlate to each other using a random sample of 1000 tweets selected from the full history of tweets written by Swiss elected politicians between 2011 and 2021. While the sample was automatically coded for CC using LIWC, we manually annotated the tweets according to an adapted version of the DQI for social media texts. Second, we conducted a correspondence analysis to investigate the relations between these dimensions, additional debate quality features, as well as individual political factors. Results show a good correlation between both indices (r up to 0.46), while also highlighting their respective weaknesses. Furthermore, the results highlight the necessity to include alternative dimensions of debate quality (such as emotion and inclusive or exclusive views) to enhance future measurements of debate quality in the realm of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer- and web-based survey technology has enabled the use of question formats and layouts that would be difficult or even impossible to implement with traditional paper questionnaires. The present article investigates context effects—specifically assimilation versus contrast effects—in connection with four web survey question designs. Three traditional types of matrix questions are experimentally tested against a new two-dimensional question format referred to as ZEF. This new question format allows survey practitioners to present two questions at the same time, the responses to which are entered on the x - and y -axes of a two-dimensional chart. The chart also displays a respondent's answers to the preceding two-dimensional questions. This approach accentuates the simultaneous application of two dimensions of a question and encourages the comparison of pairwise items across the dimensions. The two-dimensional format generates a higher number of assimilation effects as compared with the three traditional matrix question formats. This suggests that instead of conceptual interconnection of items, context effect formation in ZEF is dominated by the visual proximity of the item scales and the common region of the two-dimensional chart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to offer methodological insight into the reflexive use of metaphors that assist in revealing the emotional labour of health care staff to themselves and to the researcher. It focusses on the method utilised for these semi-structured interviews, targeting the engrained and emotive experiences of emotional labour using metaphors. Taking metaphors from the ethnographic observation, 'to' the interview setting, proved a stimulating tool for lively discussion and narrative sharing. This approach offered an invaluable and enlightening tool for exploring the nurse's experiences, it gave them a point of reference to discuss their challenging and personal experiences. It can offer other researchers, and particularly those studying 'invisible' labour (by subconscious nature or lack of physicality) a novel approach to data collection. The empirical study underpinning this article set out to explore, in particular, the 'invisible' emotional labour undertaken by nurses working within the emergency department (ED) setting. This is a clinical and nursing speciality facing sustained pressure in the English National Health Service (NHS) – a challenging and distinctive environment to nurse. Two EDs were used as the case studies for an in-depth ethnography (one District General Hospital and one University Teaching Hospital and Trauma Centre). As part of this, the 18 semi-structured, formal interviews were completed with ED nursing staff (to explore their experiences of emotional labour) and data was collected over a 6 month period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relational processes of dialogue in biographical storytelling extend beyond manifest tales. Untold stories of unlived experience are also composed with an audience in mind and performed as communicative acts. This paper considers how and why research participants in a Mass Observation Archive study declined to respond to a life-writing task. Drawing on the sociology of nothing, we argue that their patterns of non-response were motivated by subjective intent and constitute meaningful social action. Despite having little or nothing to say about the substantive content of the topic, these participants told us plenty about how they felt about the challenging methodological process. In their accounts, we identified three modes of disengagement: commissive refusal, omissive avoidance and ambivalent resistance. Respectively, these involved consciously dismissing the task with reference to morals and values; surface amenability masking an evasion of deeper engagement; and confused, uncertain vacillation between approach and retreat. We explore the intrapsychic and interpersonal relational dynamics at play in each of these narrative modes and consider the authorial power of saying 'no'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misalignment between the different levels of complex societal systems (e.g. socio-technical, socio-ecological) are often a barrier to transitioning these systems toward more sustainable behavior. One way to understand alignment is through the Multilevel Perspective Theory of sustainable transitions in sociotechnical systems (MLP) which posits that when a regime (the current "ways of doing" something) exhibits behavior that negatively impacts its surrounding economic, social and environmental landscape, that landscape will exert pressure on the regime to change. This in turn opens the window of opportunity for niche developments such as novel technology adoption or policy changes. Therefore, understanding the relationships between the landscape, the regime and emerging niches can help align these different levels of perspective to facilitate a successful transition toward more sustainable practices. This paper describes a methodology for mapping complex systems such as agricultural systems based on MLP theory, and incorporates a fourth "user" level (e.g. the farm) into this multilevel framework (MLP+ F). The methodology is illustrated with a case study example of North Carolina's lagoon and sprayfield swine waste management regime. By integrating well-established techniques for data collection and analysis, the case study engages a diverse panel of local experts through a modified Delphi approach to identify the relevant concepts and their cause-effect relationships for the current regime. These concepts and relationships are then categorized and organized into a multilevel, multi-perspective conceptual model using fuzzy cognitive maps. The conceptual model identifies how stakeholder groups align in their perception of the system, and provides a foundation for future qualitative, semi-quantitative, and visual analyses of the system and how it can be changed through alternative scenarios. Although this methodology was initially developed for agricultural applications, it has potential for application to other complex societal issues where understanding stakeholder alignment and the potential for sustainability transitions through change are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Disney Princesses are 18 royal characters featured in Disney and Pixar animated films, merchandise, marketing, and consumer experiences, marketed towards young consumers. Whilst much research has focussed on the representation of gender in Disney Princess films, there has been little focus on the rest of princess culture. This article argues that to understand the Disney Princess Phenomenon in its entirety, a new methodology must be introduced to the field. The article introduces Mason's facet methodology as a methodological innovation to the fields of Disney and feminist media studies. A creative and innovative approach that allows researchers to 'play' with different methods to explore cultural phenomenon. Facet methodology imagines the selected phenomenon as a gemstone, where each 'element' or 'part' of the phenomenon is a facet of the overall gem. By using different methods to explore each facet, researchers can use findings to refract and reflect 'light' on each of the different elements of the phenomenon, demonstrating its entwined nature. The paper firstly outlines Jennifer Mason's facet methodology. Secondly, it introduces the facets identified in the Disney Princess Phenomenon: films, merchandising and marketing, and consumer experiences. The article then focuses on how facet methodology enabled a creative and holistic approach to studying each facet of the princess phenomenon through a variety of research methods: textual analysis, interviews, content analysis, and autoethnography. The paper then reflects on the approach of facet methodology for research on the Disney Princess Phenomenon and in feminist media studies and media and communication, arguing that facet methodology provides researchers with insights to phenomena we would otherwise not uncover due to its holistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of this paper is to advocate the use of multidimensional scaling (MDS) preference plot to study relationships among variables and individual differences in these variables. MDS preference plot is not a new visual technique; nevertheless, its application to visualize individual differences in variables for high-dimensional data is rare, particularly in education and social sciences. We illustrated its application using a real example in an educational setting. The results indicate that the MDS preference plot is a viable visualization technique for data mining and analytics. Traditional statistical methods, such as the analysis of variance, can be used to further support the visual analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a combination of text mining and acceptance research as a methodological approach ("acceptance mining") to facilitate the development of innovative technologies in niches. At the example of recharging infrastructures for electric vehicles, the approach is explored on a sample of over 20,000 user comments collected from social media and discussion forums. The results indicate that acceptance mining provides valuable insights into the demands of the public during all phases of niche development which allow shaping niches in socially acceptable ways. In particular, the method reveals requirements and risks of niche-development measures such as shielding, nurturing, and empowering niches as perceived by the public. The results are discussed regarding the potentials of acceptance mining for developing innovations in niches as well as its limitations and possibilities for optimization. Acceptance mining and its application to a case study are especially of interest for researchers and practitioners involved in niche development; the study results provide valuable insights for professionals engaged in developing recharging infrastructures for electric vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the methodological challenge of capturing and comparing children's experiences of everyday life by using a novel rhythmanalysis approach to explore the experiences of a small sample (N = 16) of home based children aged 7–10 in England and Greece during the 2020 global lockdown. The children kept a 1 day diary in which they recorded their activities and feelings at regular intervals during their waking hours. The data collected indicates that the children's lives were both disrupted and synchronised during this period, and highlights how their individual experiences were interconnected in time and space by shared rhythms which underpinned the patterns of their day. The paper highlights the utility of the specially designed rhythmanalysis data collection tool and analytical approach for future comparative international studies of children's everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of what ethnography looks like, and its purpose, is continuously evolving. COVID-19 posed a significant challenge to ethnographers, particularly those working in health-related research. Researchers have developed alternative forms of ethnography to overcome some of these challenges; we developed the Mobile Instant Messaging Ethnography (MIME) adaptation to ethnography in 2021 to overcome restrictions to our own research with hospital doctors. However, for ethnographic innovations to make a substantial contribution to methodology, they should not simply be borne of necessity, but of a dedicated drive to expand paradigms of research, to empower participant groups and to produce change – in local systems, in participant-collaborators and in researchers and the research process itself. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences using MIME, involving collaborative remote observation and reflection with 28 hospital doctors in Ireland from June to December 2021. After reviewing literature on ethnography in COVID-19 and general epistemological developments in ethnography, we detail the MIME approach and illustrate how MIME presents an evolution of the ethnographic approach, not only practically but in terms of its reflexive shift, its connected and co-creative foundations, and its ability to drive change in research approaches, participant life-worlds and real-world improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing use of comic-based approaches within qualitative research as part of an increase in creative and visual methods more generally within social science research. However, whilst increasingly prevalent in dissemination, their use within data collection is less common. This paper examines the dual use of a comic-based approach embedded within a study that explored widening participation in higher education. Initially developed for the triangulation of emergent research findings with a wider group of participants, a comic panel was developed to be used as a focus of discussions within a workshop with 11 practitioners. This was then further developed for wider dissemination and to create a space for dialogue and to engage wider publics with the study's recommendations. Both uses are critically examined, highlighting the affordances of comic-based approaches such as their capacity for supporting dissemination to a wider audience by distilling the findings and presenting them in an engaging way. Furthermore, it argues that the form can allow for creating points of ambiguity that create spaces for the audience to challenge and question taken for granted assumptions on a topic. The paper also sets out possible challenges such the need for specialist skills, the potential for oversimplification and misrepresentation of complex issues. This paper argues that with careful planning, comic-based approaches can add significant value and increase engagement with research. Finally, it offers suggestions for how this approach could be developed by future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the potential for critical theories to contribute towards social transformation through a process of popular education that supports learning and organising. Theory can create a platform of understanding across different communities that are resisting social injustice. This can enhance opportunities for translocal learning to catalyse social transformation at scale. Too often, however, academic theories remain disconnected from contemporary struggles for social justice – and as a result their contribution to social transformation is diminished. Therefore, we must reconsider how critical theories develop. Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that builds theory through social action. It can guide a methodological infrastructure through which to best develop practice-led theory. I will explain how a critical pragmatist approach, anchored in participatory research, is more likely to generate theories that are both resonant to conditions of injustice and relevant for social transformation. The methodological innovations of early 20th century scholars WEB Du Bois and Jane Addams illustrate the key dimensions necessary for a critical pragmatist approach. Du Bois' contestation of structural problems and Addams' commitment to participatory experimentalism can inform an effective approach to these issues. In so doing, the article outlines key foundations for a philosophy of social inquiry to support learning and organising about social transformation. The ideas presented in this paper also contribute to debates about how to re-imagine the civic purpose of the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as its starting point the question of whether there is an inherent tension between co-production and critique. Whilst the former requires engagement, proximity, situatedness, an inclusive definition of expertise and an action-orientation, the latter has traditionally been equated with disengagement, distance, academic expertise and theory-building. Tracing both the critique of co-production and the critique of critique, I suggest that co-producing critique could be one basis for rescuing both from their detractors. Drawing on my experiences in the Realising Just Cities programme (2010–2020), I argue that co-producing critique from within the university requires designing boundary spaces, intermediating between knowledge claims and balancing between articulated and attributed values for co-production. This gives rise to co-production as an epistemic praxis, not method, characterised by boundary work, epistemic choreography and triple shifting. I argue that whilst academics should argue for altogether different kinds of institutions, there is also value in recognising how we are tethered to our institutions. More attention should be paid to choreographing universities into, rather than out, of critical-engaged work, in order to mobilise their privilege and position for social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixed methods research has become an important approach to research worldwide. The combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods has made it possible for a deeper and broader understanding of multifaceted phenomena, thereby offering readers more confidence in research findings and conclusions. The use of mixed method designs became more established in the 1980s and early 1990s, but some controversies surrounding the approach remain. Nonetheless, experts in the field of mixed methods research have continued to work on the central premise that the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches, in combination, provides a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone. This concept paper discusses some of the known controversies around mixed methods with the aim of providing useful insights to emerging researchers interested in learning the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the frequency of midpoint responses in agree/disagree scales in a survey measuring attitudes toward science and scientific policy, a low-salience and difficult topic. It also examines the contribution of individual differences to explain the tendency to select this option. It is assumed that the use of the midpoint "Neither agree nor disagree" (NA/ND) in Agree/Disagree (A/D) scales is to some extent an indication of satisficing. It is also assumed that there are individual differences in respondents' tendency to select the NA/ND response. Using a Generalized Linear Mixed Model we include Krosnick's regulators of satisficing, socio-demographics and individual differences as predictors. We find that the contribution of the regulators of satisficing identified by Krosnick is small. In turn, factors associated with individual differences explain a great amount of variance on the number of NA/ND responses. We conclude that the presence of this option in a survey of a low-salience topic increases satisficing as strategy of the respondents to deal with the cognitive burden of both the A/D scale and the difficulty of the topic. Furthermore, the number of NA/ND responses may be understood as an indicator of individual differences in the propensity of respondents to satisficing when answering a survey on a low-salience or difficult topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the use of a smartphone application ('app') as a method for undertaking diary-based qualitative research with a group of participants with lived experience of multiple disadvantage (experience of two or more of homelessness, offending, mental ill-health and substance misuse). As part of a multi-method approach to the study, an app was designed for participants to capture rich, real-time qualitative data through a variety of media – text, audio, image and video – to make it accessible and interactive for participants. There is an identified gap in the use of apps to collect qualitative data with marginalised groups, and this paper reflects on our experience of designing and implementing an app as part of a wider multi-method research project. We argue that, particularly during the challenges of adapting research methods in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the smartphone app has considerable potential for engaging participants in a flexible way to involve marginalised groups. Qualitative researchers in particular should consider the potential of this approach, and encourage others to share their reflections and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing concern that research is not transparent and that empirical results are often impossible to reproduce. Guidelines for undertaking reproducible research have been proposed in a number of academic areas (e.g. computational economics, psychology and medical research), however currently there are no guidelines for sociological research. This methodological paper provides guidance for undertaking reproducible statistically orientated sociological research. We provide an extended demonstration of the issues associated with reproducing results and undertaking transparent analyses. We draw on suitable concepts and techniques from open research, e-research and computing. We propose a set of Newer Rules of the Sociological Method, for undertaking transparent statistically orientated sociological research that supports reproducibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and salience of an original and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Sensoria, that combines methods and techniques from social science and performance to address the methodological challenges of researching sensory/multimodal experiences. It sets out the core components and methodological principles that underpin the approach and uses an illustrative example to show how it can facilitate research on hard to access sensorial experiences, to access, understand and analyse people's experiences and perspectives of touch, a highly tacit sensory mode. The paper discusses the methodological contribution and challenges of this approach to sensory research for social science and artistic practice and 'more-than-representational' research more generally. It concludes by making a case for more critical research spaces at the intersection of these disciplines to foster multi-dimensional research dialogues and to advance the exploration and understanding of the relationship between the sensory, social and the digital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing use of comic-based approaches within qualitative research as part of an increase in creative and visual methods more generally within social science research. However, whilst increasingly prevalent in dissemination, their use within data collection is less common. This paper examines the dual use of a comic-based approach embedded within a study that explored widening participation in higher education. Initially developed for the triangulation of emergent research findings with a wider group of participants, a comic panel was developed to be used as a focus of discussions within a workshop with 11 practitioners. This was then further developed for wider dissemination and to create a space for dialogue and to engage wider publics with the study's recommendations. Both uses are critically examined, highlighting the affordances of comic-based approaches such as their capacity for supporting dissemination to a wider audience by distilling the findings and presenting them in an engaging way. Furthermore, it argues that the form can allow for creating points of ambiguity that create spaces for the audience to challenge and question taken for granted assumptions on a topic. The paper also sets out possible challenges such the need for specialist skills, the potential for oversimplification and misrepresentation of complex issues. This paper argues that with careful planning, comic-based approaches can add significant value and increase engagement with research. Finally, it offers suggestions for how this approach could be developed by future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and salience of an original and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Sensoria, that combines methods and techniques from social science and performance to address the methodological challenges of researching sensory/multimodal experiences. It sets out the core components and methodological principles that underpin the approach and uses an illustrative example to show how it can facilitate research on hard to access sensorial experiences, to access, understand and analyse people's experiences and perspectives of touch, a highly tacit sensory mode. The paper discusses the methodological contribution and challenges of this approach to sensory research for social science and artistic practice and 'more-than-representational' research more generally. It concludes by making a case for more critical research spaces at the intersection of these disciplines to foster multi-dimensional research dialogues and to advance the exploration and understanding of the relationship between the sensory, social and the digital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Punctuated equilibrium is a characteristic of some natural and social systems that occasionally generate bursts of activity at different scales following periods of stagnation of different durations. This phenomenon can be formalized as pink noise, which is an attribute of self-organized criticality (SOC). This paper outlines the main ideas of the SOC theory and the tools for identifying pink noise. It presents examples of punctuated equilibrium found in computer experiments with artificial societies, as well as in historical and political studies. Such examples are found, in particular, in demographic processes, in the development of markets, in the dynamics of electoral choice, in the Internet activity of network communities, in terrorist and criminal activity, and in protest movements in the past and present. The SOC theory explains why avalanche-like social transformations do not always occur under the influence of some major extraordinary factor. Social cataclysms can be caused by the intrinsic properties of systems as well as by micro-level processes and local impulses. Internal transformational potential can be high enough and, at the same time, subtle. The SOC theory describes the ways in which such avalanche conditions can be identified with mathematic rigor and, at the same time, relatively easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a "small" contextual analysis approach to big data and reports our experimental application of this approach in evaluating the effects of social distancing on focused subpopulations in U.S. society. We recognize the common and critical limitations of big data, especially the unrepresentativeness and the unpublished methodology of accessible datasets. Our proposed methodological approach is built upon recent works on data ontology, especially the recognition that big data are essentially remaining digital footprints of human life in need of additional data of contextual factors for valid and meaningful interpretation. It guides the selection and processing of big data to make big data small and structured and thus articulable with traditional social sciences data and usable to conventional social sciences methods. In our experimental case study, we apply our sampling strategy developed from traditional social science data to Google's mobility dataset for our analysis using primarily a Difference In Difference (DID) model. The results of this case study are of timely value to policy evaluation and public decision-making in the pandemic. We call for more proactive methodological innovations that confront the critical limitations of accessible big data especially in times of urgent needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ex-post harmonization of survey data creates new opportunities for research by extending the geographical and/or time coverage of analyses. Researchers increasingly combine data from different survey projects to analyze them as a single dataset, and while teams engaged in data harmonization continue to expand the information they provide to end users, there are still no commonly agreed standards for the documentation of data processing. Existing harmonization project typically opt for recode scripts that are generally hard to read, modify, and reuse, although some projects make efforts to facilitate verification and reproduction. This paper describes an alternative procedure and a set of simple tools for the exploration, recoding, and documentation of harmonization of survey data, relying on crosswalks. The presented tools are flexible and software-agnostic. The illustrative example uses the programming language R and spreadsheets—both common software choices among social scientists. Harmonization of variables on trust in institutions from four major cross-national survey projects serves as an illustration of the proposed workflow and of opportunities harmonization creates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a series of experimental method workshops that invite participants to enact speculative, craftful, multisensory and performative research techniques. The workshops have taken place across different European university venues with graduate students in a variety of disciplines such as digital humanities, sociology, design, media and art. Drawing on these experiences, the article argues that these workshops serve as an avenue for widening the repertoire of pedagogies for interdisciplinary qualitative inquiry through engagement with material, experiential and embodied ways of knowing. The article articulates the need to widen the repertoire of pedagogies for interdisciplinary qualitative inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional paper-based Q method was introduced to the social sciences in the 1930s. However, despite its unique capability for measuring peoples' subjective opinions, the method has not been broadly employed by researchers. Moreover, despite recent efforts to administer the Q method surveys via the Internet, they have been mostly limited to the usage of textual prompts. Besides, there is no concrete evidence on the usability, reliability, and agreement analysis between the online Q method research tools and the traditional paper-based Q method. Therefore, the visual Q method online research tool was developed to resolve these deficiencies and add new dimensions (audio and video) to the Q method research. The development of the visual Q method platform was a three-stage process that commenced with a usability test on 31 visitors to a local museum. Second, a test–retest reliability analysis with a convenient sample of 37 students resulted in a high reliability coefficient superior to that of the traditional paper-based Q method. Third, the analysis of agreement between the visual Q method and the traditional paper-based Q method on a sample of 10 students revealed substantial similarities between their generated (V)Q sorts. Overall, the study findings provide substantial evidence on the usability and rigor of the visual Q method online research tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]