In The Science and Art of Interviewing, Kathleen Gerson and Sarah Damaske offer a new overview of why interviewing is a useful and powerful research tool and how we can make better use of it. Guiding us through the process, from identifying our researc…
Category: qualitative research
Is it ethical to be friends with research participants?
In qualitative research building a rapport and friendships with participants is often presented as a means to gain access and data from research participants. However, as Helen Kara discusses, using friendship in an instrumental way presents serious et…
Book Review: Transnational Black Feminism and Qualitative Research: Black Women, Racialization and Migration by Tanja J. Burkhard
In Transnational Black Feminism and Qualitative Research: Black Women, Racialization and Migration, Tanja J. Burkhard explores Transnational Black Feminism as a qualitative research framework that centres the narratives of Black women. This book is a v…
Eight components for ‘open social science’ – An agenda for cultural change
The open science movement has been gathering force in STEM disciplines for many years, and some of its procedural elements have been adopted also by quantitative social scientists. However, little work has yet been done on exploring how more ambitious …
Neurodiversity in Academia: The Autistic advantage in qualitative research
Across society, higher education and research, neurodivergent people face barriers to working and achieving their aims. In this post, Helen Kara and Aimee Grant, draw on their experience to discuss how being Autistic has enhanced their approaches to qu…
An Innocuous Quote by Interviewee 11: Re-thinking interviews in social research
In this cross-post, Shamser Sinha discusses the limitations of traditional forms of qualitative analysis and suggests social researchers have much to learn from creative professions, where are wider range of sensory and temporal inputs contribute to ne…
Reflecting on discomfort in research
Feelings of discomfort can arise in research, especially research that works across differences in social power and status. In this post Rachelle Chadwick discusses the role of discomfort in research methods and how recognising and ‘staying with’ discomfort can positively shape qualitative research methods. I’ll start with a confession: I didn’t want to write this … Continued
The re-use of qualitative data is an under-appreciated field for innovation and the creation of new knowledge in the social sciences
The value and potential of data re-use and the associated methodology of qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) is often overlooked. Dr Anna Tarrant and Dr Kahryn Hughes propose, that as COVID-19 limits opportunities for qualitative research for the foreseeable future, now, more than ever the social sciences need to address the under-use of existing qualitative data. … Continued
Carrying out qualitative research under lockdown – Practical and ethical considerations
How can qualitative researchers collect data during social-distancing measures? Adam Jowett outlines several techniques researchers can use to collect data without face-to-face contact with participants. Bringing together a number of previous studies, he also suggests such techniques have their own methodological advantages and disadvantages and that while these techniques may appear particularly apt during the … Continued
Diary of an app! Will using mobile devices in qualitative research become the norm?
Researchers have been asking participants to record their experiences and thoughts in traditional, paper-based diaries for many years. But the advent of digital technologies, especially apps for mobile devices, has encouraged some to ask whether these could become the new norm for capturing diary-based data for qualitative research. Laura Radcliffe and Leighann Spencer have pioneered the use of diary apps […]