National Centre for Research Methods
National Centre for Research Methods: NCRM EPrints RepositoryNot a member yet
3516 research outputs found
Sort by
Visual And Creative Methods – Methods Matter: Series 2, Episode 3
No full textIn expert corner for this episode is Dr Kahryn Hughes, from University of Leeds. Dr Hughes is Director of the Timescapes Archive, Editor in Chief of Sociological Research Online, Convenor of the MA Qualitative Research Methods and a Senior Fellow for the NCRM. In researcher ranch is Dr Sarah Campbell, Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Dr Campbell has worked on various projects funded through a range of different funders from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), to local funders such as NHS Salford CCG – the underlying theme being to explore ways to understand the lived experiences of dementia and ageing, and explore ways to improve social care and their lives.
Methods Matter – from Dementia Researcher and the National Centre for Research Methods – is a podcast for people who don't know much about methods, those who do and those who just want to find news and clever ways to use them in their research. In this second series, Clinical Research Fellow Dr Donncha Mullin from the University of Edinburgh brings together leading experts in research methodology, and the dementia researchers that use them, to provide a fun introduction to five qualitive research methods in a safe space where there are no such things as dumb questions. In this season, the podcast covers oral histories and story telling, grounded theory, visual and creative methods, focus groups and surveys and questionnaires
Focus Groups – Methods Matter: Series 2, Episode 4
No full textIn expert corner for this episode is Dr Kahryn Hughes, from University of Leeds. Dr Hughes is Director of the Timescapes Archive, Editor in Chief of Sociological Research Online, Convenor of the MA Qualitative Research Methods and a Senior Fellow for the NCRM. In researcher ranch is Nadine Mirza is a Postgraduate Researcher and Research Assistant in the Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research at The University of Manchester and also work with the Department of Clinical Neuropsychology at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. Nadine’s research explores cognitive testing in ethnic minorities and the experience of dementia diagnosis and access to dementia services in British South Asians.
Methods Matter – from Dementia Researcher and the National Centre for Research Methods – is a podcast for people who don't know much about methods, those who do and those who just want to find news and clever ways to use them in their research. In this second series, Clinical Research Fellow Dr Donncha Mullin from the University of Edinburgh brings together leading experts in research methodology, and the dementia researchers that use them, to provide a fun introduction to five qualitive research methods in a safe space where there are no such things as dumb questions. In this season, the podcast covers oral histories and story telling, grounded theory, visual and creative methods, focus groups and surveys and questionnaires
Decolonial Research Methods: Resisting Coloniality in Academic Knowledge Production (Webinar 5)
Get PDFThis is the fifth webinar in a six-part series from NCRM called Decolonial Research Methods: Resisting Coloniality in Academic Knowledge Production.
The speaker is Professor Sujata Patel, from Umeå University.
The webinar took place on 30 November 2021
Follow the Money: Inside the Black Box of the Corporation
Get PDFIn this paper, Whyte illustrates how the edifice of the corporation acts as a black box – a relatively enclosed system of social relationships – by ensuring that the internal and external workings of the organisation are generally obscured from view. Whyte proposes that it is the researcher’s task to open the black box in ways that enable us to “see” beyond the boundaries that very structure imposes on our knowledge and to establish ways to “follow the money.
Changing Social Research Practices in the Context of Covid-19: Updated Rapid Evidence Review – Synthesis of the 2021 Literature
Get PDFThis Rapid Evidence Review synthesises evidence available in academic publications from 2021 to update the review of evidence from 2020 https://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/id/eprint/4458/. Once again the aim has been to chart how social research methods have been successfully adapted for, or designed for use within, the pandemic conditions of Covid-19. Searching six databases for 2021 papers identified a potential 4,354 papers of interest (compared with the 922 of 2020). Of these papers, 2,006 met the inclusion criteria (compared to 95 from the 2020 literature). The papers span 45 countries and discuss many of the same methods from 2020 review: surveys and rapid surveys, interviews, group interviews and focus groups, autoethnographic and ethnographic methods, and expressive and participatory methods. Additionally, papers address workshop-based methods via videoconferencing and whiteboarding platforms, outdoor and hybrid outdoor/online methods, adaptation of home visit methods to online and adaptation of randomised control trials. Key methods learning from 138 publications were synthesised to address the main aim, adding to the knowledge base from the 64 papers synthesised in 2020.
Much of the 2021 literature reinforces the key messages from 2020 about methods that have apparently thrived or were well-suited to the social conditions of Covid-19 and those that have been minorly, through to radically, adapted. New topics have also arisen, including conducting in-person interviews with masks and from a distance, hygiene/safety protocols for in-person survey and other methods, and participant preferences when give the option of being interviewed in person or online. The evidence indicates that the impact of changes to the social world from Covid-19 on social research practices involves more than just the pivot to online methods. It includes: adapting recruitment processes, innovation in methods, designing for flexibility and speed and for research from people’s homes, coping with different impacts on different groups and the potential to miss engagement of some groups, and strengthening relationships with stakeholders and within research teams. The 2021 literature shows not just the stress on urgency of methodological response (making research happen), but continuing concern with research quality (making research valid and trustworthy) and research relationships (making research ethical). A new theme in the literature is the longevity or permanence of changes to methods in the face of uncertainty about what social changes will last and what new changes will arise (making research sustainable). We conclude that methodological discussion has expanded to consider the future and that researchers have found ways not just to get through a crisis, but to carry on over a prolonged period of disruption, better prepared for further contextual crises
Disinformation in Brazil: The 2019 Amazon Fires on Social Media
Get PDFIn this paper, Lyndon, Tse, Moore, and May-Hobbs examine the online spread of disinformation about the Amazon fires in Brazil in 2019. They outline the tactics used by supporters of Jair Bolsonaro to spread a disinformation narrative across social media platforms about the causes of the Amazon fires. This is used as a case study into the various tactics that actors use to spread disinformation online and the methodologies researchers can utilise to track the spread of disinformation. The authors discuss the methods used to analyse disinformation techniques, emphasising the importance of qualitative research in addition to the use of digital tools, and set out how the process of identification can be used in future studies into the spread of disinformation online
The Digital Panopticon: Contemporary Investigative Methods in Historical Research
Get PDFIn this contribution, Godfrey highlights the importance of the digital revolution in expanding access to historical documents. Through projects such as the Digital Panopticon, digitisation has not only aided academic research but also enabled citizen investigation. Using a number of life history examples, the author illustrates the value of data democratisation, but also warns of issues that arise when autobiographies contradict official records. Godfrey ends by noting that, whilst invaluable – particularly given the closure of physical archives during the pandemic – digital archives should be an addition, not a substitute, for archival study
Investigative Methods: An Editorial Introduction
Get PDFIn our role as editors, in this introduction we draw on and extend the work of the historian Carlo Ginzburg (esp. 1980, 1989, 2013) to set out what we see as some of the main characteristics of investigative methods as a distinctive if heterogeneous field of research practices in their own right and explore their relevance in, to and for the social sciences. With reference to the ten contributions that make up the collection, we identify five such characteristics. As we perceive them, investigative methods have:
1. particularity, specificity or concreteness of focus;
2. the objects of investigation which provide that focus are typically unavailable to direct observation meaning investigations must take at least part of their lead from ‘trace’ data as a critical source of evidence that can be repurposed to access and reconstruct them indirectly;
3. that trace data acquires significance not on its own but by being linked to other data in bespoke evidentiary chains, catenaries or assemblages worked up as part of the investigation in question;
4. where the investigative targets are particularly complex, the process of data gathering, assessment and analysis is typically distributed and collaborative, something which demands its own methods; and
5. the ultimate aim is not just to know or understand the objects of investigation better, important as that is, but to intervene, whether by challenging an existing account or by opening up space for action on the issues the investigation has identified (something which itself can take many forms in relation to the contemporary politics of evidence).
Based on this ideal-typical rendering of these practices, we argue the kinds of investigative methods detailed in our ten contributions can offer powerful contributions to contemporary research repertoires in the social sciences by offering a distinctive approach to knowledge making, increasingly through creative work with digital data and technologies that puts them to previously unanticipated ends
Johnny Saldaña on qualitative longitudinal research
Get PDFIn this episode of the Methods podcast, host Catherine McDonald talks to Johnny Saldaña, Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University’s School of Film, Dance and Theatre, and a leading authority on qualitative and qualitative longitudinal methods.
Johnny discusses his research methodology model and shares advice his advice on research questions, analytical approaches and writing. He also shares his experience of an ethical dilemma he faced and tells us what his key bit of advice would be to his younger self.
This series of the Methods podcast is produced by the National Centre for Research Methods as part of the EU Horizon2020 funded YouthLife project, and is looking at how researchers can do better longitudinal research on youth transitions.
Content warning: This episode includes a reference to suicide.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, you can call Samaritans for free on 116 123, email them at [email protected], or visit www.samaritans.org to find your nearest branch.
For further information on the YouthLife project, visit www.EUqualimix.ncrm.ac.u
The Emergence of New Diseases: Hybrid Methodological Approaches and the Case of CKDnt
Get PDFIn this paper, Glaser and Kierans provide an account of two closely aligned investigative trajectories reflecting new forms of kidney disease and how those trajectories have led them to propose an integrated framework for assessing and addressing these emergent epidemics. The authors show that the problem of kidney failure without warning or explanation cannot be addressed by single or unitary disciplinary approaches but requires genuine collaboration and alignment. Achieving this requires challenging disciplinary imperatives, entrenched biases and assumptions through investigations