1,721,819 research outputs found
Beyond mixed methods? : The ‘inter-vey'
Full text linkFor decades, the dilemma between open-ended and closed-ended response alternatives occupied the methodological debate. Over the years, dominant approaches in survey have reacted to this dilemma by opting for fixed response alternatives and the standardization of interviewer’s behavior. If this methodological decision has been the survey’s fortune, making it the methodology most widely used in the social sciences, however it produces a large amount of biases well known in the literature: misunderstanding of the response alternatives by the interviewees, the multiple word meanings of response alternatives due the communicative functions of quantifiers, the invented opinions (or lies) phenomenon, the influence of the response alternatives on formation of the judgment, social desirability effects, the yea-saying and response set phenomena, etc..
In order to remedy these biases an alternative proposal can be designed by re-discovering and adapting two “old” proposals: Likert’s technique called “fixed question/free answers” (1940s), and Galtung’s (1967) procedure named “open question/closed answer”. Both procedures are guided by the same discursive principles: make the interview into a conversation, let the interviewee answer freely in his/her own words, and thus release him/her from the researcher’s schemes, making an “interviewee-centered” survey.
These principles have been recently blended in an innovative technique for collecting survey data, which has been named “inter-vey” (Gobo and Mauceri 2014), blending in-depth and survey interview (or unstructured & structured interview). “Inter-vey” is based on the idea of the “conversationalzing survey” (Schober and Conrad 1997; Maynard and Schaffer 2002, Gobo 2011).
An experimentation (and a procedural example) of this technique will be presented
Constructing Survey Data. An Interactional Approach
No full textEngaging and informative, this book provides students and researchers with a pragmatic, new perspective on the process of collecting survey data. By proposing a post-positivist, interviewee-centred approach, it improves the quality and impact of survey data by emphasising the interaction between interviewer and interviewee. Extending the conventional methodology with contributions from linguistics, anthropology, cognitive studies and ethnomethodology, Gobo and Mauceri analyse the answering process in structured interviews built around questionnaires. The following key areas are explored in detail: An historical overview of survey research The process of preparing the survey and designing data collection The methods of detecting bias and improving data quality The strategies for combining quantitative and qualitative approaches The survey within global and local contexts. Incorporating the work of experts in interpersonal and intercultural relations, this book offers readers an intriguing critical perspective on survey research.Engaging and informative, this book provides students and researchers with a pragmatic, new perspective on the process of collecting survey data. By proposing a post-positivist, interviewee-centred approach, it improves the quality and impact of survey data by emphasising the interaction between interviewer and interviewee. Extending the conventional methodology with contributions from linguistics, anthropology, cognitive studies and ethnomethodology, Gobo and Mauceri analyse the answering process in structured interviews built around questionnaires. The following key areas are explored in detail: An historical overview of survey research The process of preparing the survey and designing data collection The methods of detecting bias and improving data quality The strategies for combining quantitative and qualitative approaches The survey within global and local contexts. Incorporating the work of experts in interpersonal and intercultural relations, this book offers readers an intrigu
Ethnographic practices : Theory, Method, Trends
No full textEthnography as a methodology is more than a century old (see Gobo and Molle, 2017). It
emerged in the Western world as a specific form of knowledge regarding distant cultures
(typically non-Western ones) that were considered impenetrable to analysis due to only
fleeting contact or brief exchanges. Despite its seemingly admirable intentions, such as gaining
a deeper understanding of other cultures and their people, ethnography remains a colonial
method that must be decolonialized (for a detailed analysis, see Gobo, 2011). Over the
last twenty years, the need for a postcolonial methodology – including a reimagined ethnography
– has become increasingly urgent. Several attempts have been made in this direction
(see Haris, 2022; Manning, 2016; Thobani, 2015), aiming to produce ethnographic reports
that are less influenced by the observer’s stereotypes and prejudices
Con giustificato ritardo : la nascita della ricerca qualitativa in Italia
No full textLa ricerca qualitativa in Italia ha una lunga tradizione e viene alla luce a cavallo tra gli anni Quaranta e Cinquanta. Tuttavia la sua nascita fu ritardata perché sul cammino incontrò diversi ostacoli fra cui il Ventennio fascista, le posizioni dominanti (prima) dell’idealismo filosofico e (dopo) della ricerca quantitativa. In questa introduzione cercherò di ripercorrere le tappe di questo cammino, nello stesso tempo, travagliato e appassionato. Ovviamente per chi l’ha vissuto
Merged methods as a step beyond mixed methods: an utopian proposal
No full textIn the last twenty years, we have observed a decline of quantitative (QT) methods (see Payne et al. 2004; Williams et al. 2008; Erola et al. 2015). The recent dominant position of qualitative (QL) methods can be noticed also at the Conferences of ISA and ESA where the presentations of QL-research-based papers are the majority.
One effect of the rebalance between QL and QT is (also) the recent ‘resurgence’ of mixed methods. Resurgence because they are not a real novelty (Gobo and Mauceri 2014).
The rationale for mixing both kinds of data within a single study is that neither QT nor QL methods are sufficient in themselves to fully capture the phenomenon. When used in combination, QL and QT methodologies supplement each other and permit a more forceful analysis with benefits from the strengths of each.
However, combining them within the same research project may be costly and time-consuming. In addition, merging diverse methods in a single study raises the problem of what should be done when the findings of one investigation method conflict with those of another. Whilst this conflict might be considered an enrichment, in the sense that it yields additional insights useful to the researcher, it may be problematic when a study.
A new challenge faces social research: creating new methods, which could combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches in a single instrument, squeezing the advantages of both in a single technique. With the benefit of lowering the costs and making more consistent the research findings. Some “integrated” methods already exist: ‘Delphi’ (Dalkey and Helmer 1963, Fletcher and Marchildon 2014), ‘mystery shopper’ (Wiele van der, Hesselink and Iwaarden, van 2005), ‘calendar and time diary methods’ (Belli and Callegaro 2009), ‘conversational survey’ (Gobo and Mauceri 2014, 184ff). Still others may be invented.
References
Belli, R. F. and Callegaro, M. (2009). The emergence of calendar interviewing: A theoretical and empirical rationale. In R. F. Belli, F. P. Stafford, & D. F. Alwin (Eds.), Calendar and time diary methods in life course research (pp. 31-52). Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dalkey, N. and Helmer O. (1963). An experimental application of Delphi method to the use of experts. Management Science, 9, 458–67.
Erola I., Reimer D., Räsänen P. and Kropp K. (2015), No Crisis but Methodological Separatism: A Comparative Study of Finnish and Danish Publication Trends between 1990 and 2009. Sociology, 49(2): 374-94.
Fletcher A.J. and Marchildon G.P. (2014). Using the Delphi method for qualitative, participatory action research in health leadership. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 13(1): pp.1-18.
Gobo G. and Mauceri S. (2014), Constructing Survey Data. An interactional approach, London, Sage.
Payne G., Williams M. and Chamberlain S. (2004), Methodological Pluralism in British Sociology. Sociology, 38(1): 153-63.
Wiele, A. van der, Hesselink, M.G. and Iwaarden, J.D. van (2005). Mystery shopping: A tool to develop insight into customer service provision, in Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, 16(4), 529-41.
Williams, M., Payne G., Hodgkinson L. and Poade D. (2008), Does sociology count: student attitudes to the teaching of quantitative methods. Sociology 42(5): 1003-21
La nueva encuesta : Sondeo discursivo y enfoque interactivo
No full textSe vuelve cada vez más necesario recuperar el espíritu originario de la encuesta [survey], junto al pensamiento y a la enseñanza de sus padres fundadores. Espíritu y enseñanza gradualmente marginalizados por aquello que podríamos llamar enfoque estándar de la encuesta (EEE) [approccio standard alla survey (ASS)], el cual ha terminado por producir un modelo simplístico de investigación social, que la vuelve particularmente vulnerable, sea desde el punto de vista metodológico como sustantivo (cfr. Primera parte y Segunda parte).
Con este libro nos proponemos, entonces, una ampliación de la EEE mediante una perspectiva interaccional y pragmática. Ésta considera (adecuándola al método) la naturaleza contextual de las acciones sociales estudiadas por la encuesta, superando el atomismo y el micro-reduccionismo sociológico del enfoque estándar de la encuesta, proponiendo un enfoque multinivel e integrado a la encuesta misma (emie [amis], cfr. Gobo y Mauceri 2014: cap. 2). De acuerdo con esta perspectiva, el contexto social de las acciones adquiere un valor específico, frecuentemente ignorado por el enfoque estándar
Decolonizing methodologies
No full textIn 1999, the seminal work of Linda Tuhiwai Smith brought to light the numerous ways in which colonial attitudes are imbedded in Western epistemologies and called for the creation and celebration of indigenous research practices. Over the last 15 years, there has been a slow but steady growth in scholarship focusing on decolonizing methodologies, but, to date, very little has been published in mainstream Western methodology journals. This Special Issue of Societies seeks to create a space for researchers from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and indigenous communities in North America, Australia and Oceania to submit manuscripts reflecting on their decolonizing research practices particularly in terms of:
(1) the cultural context within which their research projects are conducted;
(2) the limitations of western methodologies
(3) the creation of new indigenous epistemological perspectives
(4) new data collection methods
(5) new data analysis techniques.
Readers of Societies are encouraged to forward this call for papers to colleagues who engage in non-Western research practices and who face limited venues for featuring their work.
Prof. Dr. Madine VanderPlaat
Prof. Dr. Giampietro Gobo
Guest Editor
Glocalizing methodology? The encounter between local methodologies
Full text linkEurope and USA have been the cradle of methodology. Consequently most of
the contemporary methodological knowledge has been invented by Western academic
culture. Throughout the twentieth century this indigenous culture has
been transformed into a type of general knowledge, and social science methodology
has become one of the most globalized knowledge. However the limits of
globalization are evident in many fields, from economy to politics, from marketing
to culture and social life. Methodology is not free from these limits. There
is an emerging need for finding postcolonial methodologies and making culturally
flexible contemporary research methods. The author explores the proposal
for a glocal methodology, the possibility of thinking (methodologically) global
and acting (methodologically) local, and its ambiguity. Finally, indigenous methodologies
and participatory action research are questioned as effective ways out
of methodological colonialism
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