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The purpose of this paper is to explain and describe the use of presuppositional interviews as means of the researcher being able to expose their own, often unknown, assumptions about the phenomena of interest. Within this, we provide a philosophical and practical account for the development and use of a presuppositional interview from an insider perspective to expose insights which influence researcher reflexivity and directly impact on the research process. Author A's hermeneutic phenomenological study seeks to gain insights into the lived experience of children learning mathematics in outdoor environments, such as forests and woodland. The paper describes how the reflexive method of presuppositional interviewing helped him to understand more about his research position and find a clearing in his 'Being in the Wood.' A template for a presupposition interview schedule is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Email is a born-digital form of communication, which can be studied in a number of ways using a variety of methods, as with any other socially and culturally mediated phenomenon. However, despite a great number of studies, the methodologies of the studies have attracted only little attention. In this paper, we wish to extend our knowledge regarding methodological challenges in studying emails. In particular, we will consider the methodological challenges, which any scholar will encounter when email in its digital form is transformed to and preserved as an object of study. Based on a review of existing studies' archiving strategies as well as our own study on email consultations in a healthcare setting, we will examine and discuss analytical and methodological consequences of different approaches to archiving and data management of emails. We demonstrate that the archived record is shaped by its context of creation. Since collection methods and archiving tools are not neutral, we call for a greater attentiveness to this part of the research process. We conclude by outlining implications for systematic empirical research into emails as a form of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the value of diary methods in the context of a qualitative, longitudinal narrative inquiry exploring the higher education decision-making of further education students in England. Event-based diaries were used alongside interviews and focus groups over a 14-month period to gain in-depth insights into the reasons and influences informing their decision-making trajectories. I explore the challenges, successful approaches and advantages of employing diary methods with young people in this context. Challenges consisted of maintaining participant engagement, which was overcome by combining methods and incorporating a reactive co-participatory element. Yet, a number of advantages emerged from participants' engagement with diary keeping which enhanced the richness of the data; this inspired deeper reflections on decision-making and influences and provided a private space for participants to disclose personal difficulties that could not be obtained via interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out some problematic aspects of qualitative research based on interviews and uses examples from mental health. The narrative approach is explored while inquiring if the reality of life here is forced into the formula of a chronological story. The hermeneutic approach, in general, is also examined, and we ask if the reality of life in this scenario becomes caught up in a web of interpretations. Inspired by ideas from Bakhtin and phenomenology, we argue for interview-based research that stays with unresolvedness and constantly question the web of interpretations and narratives that determine our experiences. This also chimes with certain dialogical practices in mental health in which tolerance of uncertainty is the guiding principle. Concludingly, we suggest that interview-based research could be a practice of 'un-resolving' in which researchers, together with the participants, look for cracks, contradictions, and complexities to prevent the qualitative fallacies of well-organized meanings and well-composed stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of audio recordings has become a taken-for-granted approach to generating transcripts of in-depth interviewing and group discussions. In this paper we begin by describing circumstances where the use of a recorder is not, or may not be, possible, before sharing our comparative analysis of audio-recorded transcriptions and interview scripts made from notes taken during the interview (by experienced, well-trained interviewers). Our comparison shows that the data quality between audio-recorded transcripts and interview scripts written directly after the interview were comparable in the detail captured. The structures of the transcript and script were usually different because in the interview scripts, topics and ideas were grouped, rather than being in the more scattered order of the conversation in the transcripts. We suggest that in some circumstances not recording is the best approach, not 'second best'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solicited diaries/journals are increasingly popular as an innovative qualitative method in the social sciences for better understanding people’s everyday lived experiences. In this article we create a framework for maintaining rigour while using such diaries. First, we systematically evaluate 43 research papers focusing on the method, drawing on Baxter and Eyles’ (1997) seminal evaluation of rigour in qualitative human geography research. We ascertain that significant improvements could be made to procedures for obtaining and analysing diary content. Second, we develop a framework to encourage rigour in diary research. We test our framework by evaluating research conducted by two of our authors who employed solicited diaries with street vendors in Vietnam. We propose that our analysis and framework can help social scientists improve the rigour of solicited diaries as a research method, and provide a model for enhancing rigour in other emerging qualitative approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details a narrative analysis strategy called critical resistance analysis (CRA). The aim of a CRA is to bring forward the kinds of subjects participants draw on when talking about themselves in narrative interviews and to make explicit how those subjects are resisted and desired. The CRA is distinguished from other narrative analyses of self in that it focuses on resistance in both its structural, anti-hegemonic and ‘poststructural’, self-refusal forms. The latter kind of resistance is what Hoy (2005) refers to as ‘critical’ resistance; the desire to undo oneself. A CRA looks for participant resistance in narrative and antenarrative (Boje, 2001) data. Antenarratives are incomplete stories that are often too fragmented to analyze using traditional narrative methods and can be seen as powerful examples of meaning-making in progress. A CRA newly brings an antenarrative understanding to the study of self in four analytic foci: deconstruction trace, discourse-argument, resistance and intersubjectivity analysis. Together these analytic foci reveal the subjects narrative participants seek (not) to be and afford a more complex understanding of how participants struggle with and against themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the foundations, introduces a conceptual model, and discusses uses of the commonplace journey methodology, an innovative and mobile qualitative research and pedagogical approach based on existential hermeneutic phenomenology. Using this mobile methodology, the researcher placed a theoretical approach to human–environment relations from outside the scholarly field of outdoor recreation and education in dialogue with travellers’ lived experience, activities, and understandings during an extended canoe expedition. Examples from the data and findings are used to further describe the processes, benefits, and challenges of this phenomenological methodology. Finally, the author describes four analytical techniques used to anchor interpretation and written theoretical accounts in lived practice and physical context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]