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NCRM Annual Lecture 2024
Full text linkThe NCRM Annual Lecture 2024 was held at the Royal Society in London on Tuesday, 21 May 2024.
The keynote speaker for the event, which was streamed online, was Professor Noortje Marres of the University of Warwick. She was joined by two discussants: Dr Carrie Friese, of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Rachel Coldicutt, of Careful Industries.
Professor Marres discussed the new challenges that AI poses to the sciences of society.
Her talk, After the Automation of Methods: the Case for Situational Analytics, described the debates surrounding the use of AI in social research and showed how new AI tools challenge the ability of the social sciences to engage with contexts and communities in society.
Professor Marres presented a new set of methods and strategies that social researchers across disciplines have developed to address these challenges: situational mapping.
The event included an introductory presentation from NCRM's Director, Professor Gabriele Durrant, who provided an overview of NCRM's core activities. The event closed with questions from the audience, but this section is not included in this recording
Do respondents using smartphones produce lower quality data? Evidence from the UK Understanding Society mixed-device survey
Full text linkSome social surveys in the UK have either transitioned to online data collection or are in the process of transitioning. The COVID-19 pandemic forced rapid moves to online data collection for some surveys. There are still some concerns regarding the quality of data produced by respondents using smartphones for survey questionnaire completion.
This paper uses the first available in the UK, large-scale mixed-device survey, Understanding Society Wave 8, where 40% of the sample were assigned to an online mode of data collection. It allows comparison of data quality between different devices. Different data quality and differential reporting indicators are assessed.
The results suggest that even when the questionnaire is not optimised for a smartphone, we should not be concerned about respondents using smartphones in social surveys, even for longer surveys, such as Understanding Society, as break-off rates are very low and data quality between devices is not very different
Equitable Practice in Lived Experience Storytelling: Challenges, Learning and Practical Ideas
Full text linkPeople’s stories help us to make sense of our world. They help us to see things from different perspectives and to understand society. Recently, there has been an increased interest in working with lived experience stories as data, and an openness to co-production techniques.
Stories can help to bring different voices into research and decision-making arenas. They can enable people with lived experience to influence research agendas and findings, and shift power dynamics. However, we shouldn't think of this as a perfect solution.
While such work can help to address power imbalances and enable different perspectives to be heard, it can also exacerbate divides and problems. For example, when not approached with care, storytelling can reinforce systemic issues, further marginalisevoices, and re-traumatisepeople. It is therefore crucial to think carefully and be ready to question and improve these methods.
With this in mind, in May 2024, People’s Voice Media convened their 6thAnnual Community Reporter Conference. With support from the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM), the conference was run as hackathon. A hackathon is an event where people come together to collaborate intensively on solving problems, creating innovative solutions, or developing new ideas. They foster creativity, experimentation, and rapid development of ideas. At the event, a group of 56 experts working with lived experience expertise in research from the academia, policy and practice came together at the People’s History Museum in Salford to tackle the central questions. These experts included people with lived experience, researchers, creative practitioners and storytellers, public engagement professionals, evaluators, and third and public sector workers.
The event explored the central question of: "How can we make lived experience storytelling practice more accessible and inclusive?"
It focused specifically on how storytelling could be accessible for people who do not use spoken word, inclusive for people who are neurodivergent and actively anti-racist. The event began with a range of ‘welcomes’ that decentered whiteness, platformed diversity and set the tone for a day of curiosity, creativity, and learning.
The hackathon was underpinned by a ‘design-thinking’ approach. Design thinking is a human-centered, iterative process used to solve complex problems by prioritizing empathy, creativity, and collaboration. It involves five key stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, encouraging continuous feedback and refinement to develop innovative solutions (Brown, 2009). This approach places emphasis on understanding people’s experiences and encourages cross-disciplinary teamwork, often leading to more sustainable and user-friendly outcomes (Dorst, 2011).
The hackathon also used future-thinking methods to help attendees think beyond the present day. Such approaches help to “unblock decision-making and action on contentious, long-term challenges” (Ramos et al, 2019: 7). Activities in the hackathon included sharing of experiences, problem analysis, serious play and vision building, and storyboarding of future scenarios.
This report synthesises the results of the hackathon and is structured to highlight key challenges, learnings, and practical ideas for equitable practice in lived experience storytelling
Transhumanism
Full text linkThis Methods Futures brief focuses on transhumanism. The topic was selected by surveying various futures-related literature and chosen for the range of issues it can raise for social research methods and for its own visions of the future, particularly those related to human capacities.
The brief first outlines definitions of transhumanism. The following sections discuss transhumanist concepts, the potential social research methods-related issues that arise with transhumanism, and finally close with a consideration of methods futures in the context of transhumanism
Exploring Social Inequalities through National Datasets
Full text linkThis video features presentations from three researchers at UK data resources who discuss ways of exploring social inequalities through national datasets.
The presentations focus on gender pay gaps and ethnic inequalities.
The speakers are: Dr Jools Kasmire, who gave an introduction to the UK Data Service, the data sets available and how to access them; Professor Nissa Finney, who discussed new evidence on ethnic inequalities in Britain from the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS); Dr Bozena Wielgoszewska, who described the main findings from the ESRC-funded project The Gender Wage Gap.
The presentations were recorded for a webinar hosted by the Data Resources Training Network, titled Exploring Social Inequalities through National Datasets, which took place on Wednesday, 2 October 2024
Methods Futures Report – Sea, Sky, and Land: Engaging in Solidarity in Endangered Ecologies – 4S Conference Nov 2023
Full text linkThis is a report of the 4S 2023 conference.
The 4S (Society for the Social Studies of Science) conference 2023 was a large, disciplinarily diverse gathering with over 400 sessions spread over four days. Navigating a particular route through the conference, this document makes of use of different forms of reporting (personal, anecdotal, analytical, summative) and makes links between elements of the conference and the National Centre for Research Methods’ (NCRM) current methodological engagement foci in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and socio-environmental sciences. Those different reporting strategies aim to give an impression of attending the 4S conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i
Opportunities and Challenges of Live Video Interviewing: Experiences from across Seven Major UK Social Surveys
Full text linkUse of live video interviewing as a method to conduct surveys became more common during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the UK, this mode of data collection was implemented in major social surveys for the first time. This paper investigates the use of LVI, focussing on opportunities and barriers, and collating evidence and experiences from seven major social surveys in the UK, with an emphasis on longitudinal surveys.
The specific aims are the investigation of: uptake and response rates to LVI, the characteristics of those that responded via LVI, and the feasibility of collecting complex elements via LVI, such as consent, cognitive assessments and sensitive questions. One of the main findings is that LVI in the UK surveys analysed was used in different ways: either as the only/primary survey mode when in-person/face-to-face data collection was not possible, or as a complementary mode in mixed-mode designs.
The results suggest that, if LVI were the only or primary data collection mode, response rates would be notably lower than in alternative modes – for both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. There is also some evidence that lower response rates in LVI could potentially lead to an increase in representation bias. On the other hand, there are encouraging findings, including that once respondents agree to participate via LVI, this mode proves to be a suitable approach for collecting complex elements. This is a key finding since previous research has identified limitations of other remote methods for collecting this kind of data, which is an important component of many studies, especially longitudinal studies.
Overall, the evidence from this study suggests that LVI, under certain conditions, can be a suitable complementary data collection mode in a mixed-mode survey design, offering potentially more cost-efficient fieldwork. We identify particular feasibility advantages for longitudinal surveys. An increase in LVI uptake in both longitudinal and cross-sectional surveys may be expected over time as online working becomes increasingly common and some barriers to LVI can be addressed. Further LVI development of fieldwork procedures are required.
This is a draft document. An earlier version of this working paper has been submitted for peer-review. Please do not cite without permission of authors
Sound as Method
Full text linkThis webinar was organised by QUEST (Qualitative Expertise at Southampton) in collaboration with the National Centre for Research Methods and the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership. It was held on 7 February 2024.
The speakers were: Dr Rishika Mukhopadhyay of the University of Southampton, Dr Elona Hoover of the University of Brighton, and Dr Matilde Meireles of the University of Oxford
NCRM's reflections and recommendations following the 2023 ESRC Data Driven Research Skills Report and Response
Full text linkThis document outlines the initial reflections of the UK’s National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) to the ESRC’s Autumn 2023 publication of their Data Driven Research Skills (DDRS) report and their response to this report. The below sections reflect on these published documents and make suggestions towards achieving the planned vision and published commitments.
As might be expected given its remit, NCRM offers already a wide range of activities and infrastructure in support of DDR and in the training of DDRS. The document outline areas where NCRM could further support the DDRS agenda. Thus, given its relevant infrastructure, on-going training activities, and expertise, NCRM is well placed to help shape and support the investment in DDRS training recommended within the ESRC’s Report
NCRM Bitesize Lessons for Teaching Social Science Research Methods 5: Teaching Quantitative Social Science Research Methods Online
Full text linkQuantitative social science research methods involve the measurement of social phenomena to produce statistical descriptions of populations of interest. Quantitative methods of data collection include surveys, polls and systematic observations. Data generated from these methods or from existing data are analysed using statistical, mathematical and computational techniques.
Online teaching refers to the use by teachers and their students of online, digital technologies to teach and learn quantitative social science research methods courses. The term includes online-only delivery, the use of online resources to supplement place-based, in-person teaching (blended delivery), and the combination of online and place-based, in person teaching (hybrid delivery). Online teaching and learning can involve students and teachers being in the same temporal (synchronous) space or occupying different temporal spaces (asynchronous online teaching)