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This article describes a multi-method approach for usability testing. The approach combines paper prototyping and think-aloud with two supplemental methods: advanced scribbling and a handicraft task. The method of advanced scribbling instructs the participants to use different colors for marking important, unnecessary and confusing elements in a paper prototype. In the handicraft task the participants have to tinker a paper prototype of their wish version. Both methods deliver additional information on the needs and expectations of the potential users and provide helpful indicators for clarifying complex or contradictory findings. The multi-method approach and its surplus benefit are illustrated by a pilot study on the redesign of the homepage of a library 2.0. The findings provide positive evidence for the applicability of the advanced scribbling and the handicraft task as well as for the surplus merit of the multi-method approach. The article closes with a discussion and outlook. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs150379

The applied connection between quantitative and qualitative methods of social research, dealt within this paper, is based on a pre-study model. The different levels of quality refer to the quality of structure, process and outcome in this research context. These have to be measured within the complex context of academic life. Only selected information from the entire report on the search for proper indicators of quality using empirical data is presented in this paper. Moreover it exemplifies the challenges of developing new indicators for process quality (here: quality of learning, teaching and consultation). The combination of group discussions and paper & pencil inquiries is a good methodical mixture to generate these specific indicators for quality in the complex and hierarchical setting of academia. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs040231

In this paper, we explore the use of a generative metaphor for analyzing qualitative interviews on abortion attitudes. U.S. abortion attitudes are notably complex and multidimensional, thus, requiring subtle, complex, and multidimensional tools of study. We used the generative metaphor of a "doorway" as an analytic tool to enable new understandings of abortion attitudes as expressed across 24 one-on-one semi-structured qualitative interviews with U.S. adults. The doorway metaphor gave us an understanding of the ways in which participants thought of their abortion attitudes as open to revision or change to some degree while also being closed to revision in other ways. This spectrum of openness and closedness does not come into view when examining abortion attitudes through the dichotomous framings. In this methodological paper, we thoroughly describe how we used the metaphor to explicate the complexities and multi-dimensionalities of a person's abortion attitudes.

In this paper, we present and discuss mixed methods research in the context of research on learning and instruction. Education as a field of research can be viewed as highly complex. This complexity is reflected at various levels of the educational system, which are highly interrelated, and where multiple perspectives must be considered, as well as in the reciprocal and intertwined relationships between factors related to learning and instruction. Therefore, we first introduce one of the central theories on the quality of learning and instruction: the offer-and-use model. Second, we review the methodological foundations of research on learning and instruction. Two methodological approaches are discussed in more detail and their strengths and weaknesses are elaborated. Third, we present two studies from our research program and focus on their methodological implementation. Thus, we illustrate significant challenges and opportunities for implementing a mixed methods study in schools. Finally, we discuss the implications for school-based mixed methods research. We conclude the paper with general suggestions on how mixed methods approaches might be further advanced in applied school-based research.

Recording and transcribing interviews in qualitative social research is a vital but time-consuming and resource-intensive task. To tackle this challenge, researchers have explored various alternative approaches; automatic transcription utilising speech recognition algorithms has emerged as a promising solution. The question of whether automated transcripts can match the quality of transcripts produced by humans remains unanswered. In this paper we systematically compare multiple automatic transcription tools: Amberscript, Dragon, F4x, Happy Scribe, NVivo, Sonix, Trint, Otter, and Whisper. We evaluate aspects of data protection, accuracy, time efficiency, and costs for an English and a German interview. Based on the analysis, we conclude that Whisper performs best overall and that similar local-automatic transcription tools are likely to become more relevant. For any type of transcription, we recommend reviewing the text to ensure accuracy. We hope to shed light on the effectiveness of automatic transcription services and provide a comparative frame for others interested in automatic transcription.

Q methodology was created as a means to explore and map subjective viewpoints in a systematic, relational and holistic manner. In this paper, we discuss Q methodology as a promising hybrid approach and present methodological takeaways from an online Q study on the meanings of reconciliation in Colombia, based on data obtained in 2021. Q is a method of capturing subjectivity that conveys an aura of objectivity, because researchers seldom explicitly engage subjectivity We provide a brief overview of our research project, showcase some results, and offer a lens through which to reflect on the entanglement of qualitative and quantitative moments in Q methodology. We spell out its interpretive layers, highlighting the role of subjectivity in two key phases of the research: the design of the study (image-based Q items) and the interpretive process (factor analysis). Although the quantitative moments of Q are seductive in their promise of objective factor analytical measurement, we argue that Q requires researchers to practice reflexivity and to explicitly engage with their subjectivity.

Since the early 2000s, personalized medicine (PM) has been a much-hyped field of healthcare. HIV treatment optimization tools were one of the first successful examples of PM, and have since their development been used to find tailored and optimized treatment for HIV-positive people. In this paper on a case study of the social arena of personalized HIV therapy I show how social worlds worked on both shared and distinct goals within the arena. I highlight the simultaneous centering and marginalization to which people seeking HIV therapy were subjected discursively in the social worlds. I also demonstrate that the further patients were from practitioners' daily work, the more they were reduced to their blood samples, rather than being constructed as complex and human.

In this paper, I reflect upon the methodological implications of digitization and digital methods for situational analysis. I carefully read Noortje MARRES's argument for and development of what she called situational analytics. I ask how her proposal would be incorporated within a situational analysis project of digitization and funerals. I develop a provisional research design, as a kind of thought experiment, weaving my reflections on situational analysis and digital methods through an autoethnographic account of mourning in the enforced digital of the COVID-19 pandemic. I conclude with the argument that such digital methods are necessary for situational analysis to reckon with, and yet also pose a risk of erasing the embodied and affective elements of a situation. I contend that the poiesis of ethnographic research—where mediated and embodied interactions qua situations are experienced and written into language, and writing forms a necessary but always also impossible task—remains rooted in bodies and affects that are always also elements in situational analysis. We cannot lose track of those elements that also defy the digitized elements of any given situation.

In this paper, we explore urban cultural politics and policy-making in Austria through the conceptual lens of the arena. In relation to this, we apply the methodological toolbox of Adele CLARKE's situational analysis. With a focus on the dynamics of cultural political conflicts and negotiation, we analyze urban cultural policies and programming. A particular focus is placed on a city-wide cultural program in the city of Graz. Via interpretive analysis of interviews and situational mappings, we aim to analytically unpack the continuous and contingent processes of cultural political negotiation with conflictual consensus as a sensitizing concept. With this objective, our analytical engagement is situated at the intersection between radical democratic theory, referring mainly to Chantal MOUFFE and Oliver MARCHART on the one hand, and social worlds and arenas theory by Adele CLARKE on the other. We hope to contribute to a theoretically sensitized and empirically informed cultural policy research effort by operationalizing the notion of conflictuality in constellations of cultural political actors and negotiation processes in cultural policy-making.

In this paper, I reflect on various ethical, practical and methodological challenges encountered in the field during my anthropological inquiry into the legacies of the Bosnian genocide at home and abroad. I focus on the importance of the researcher's honesty and self-reflexive engagement with the subject(s), particularly in sensitive contexts such as genocide. I discuss my experience of negotiating various social roles ascribed to me in the field, and how they shaped my research process. I also consider the methodological challenges of working with difficult stories of surviving the genocide and the absences of family members who perished in it. Drawing upon a mixed ethnography approach in combination with narrative inquiry and elements of participatory action research (PAR), I demonstrate complexities inherent in long-term ethnographic engagement with the community life that almost vanished. I reflexively engage with the question of how we maintain intellectual, emotional and ethical engagement with the subject of research without sacrificing our academic integrity or human connection embedded within these interactions? Subsequently, I argue for a supportive scholarly space that welcomes discussion about vulnerabilities, ambiguities and fears encountered in the ethnographic field and emerging subjectivities which further shape the final interpretation of cultures.

In our paper we discuss and criticize an idea which is often taken for granted in methodological discourses about mixed methods: namely that social researchers in general and mixed methods researchers in particular have to adopt a specific epistemological paradigm (a set of beliefs which have to be accepted a priori) before they can meaningfully perform research. By examining different versions of this model of paradigm-bound methodology which Yvonna LINCOLN and Egon GUBA had developed between the 1980s and 2010s, we will discuss implications of the notion paradigm and show that several of the paradigms proposed as the basis of research (e.g., positivism or constructivism) are ill-defined, lack coherence and are only superficially related to actual developments in the history of philosophical thought or contemporary epistemological debates. As an alternative to paradigm-bound methodology we will propose that researchers apply methods in an epistemologically informed way by employing epistemological concepts not as immutable givens but as heuristic devices which are used to identify and solve methodological problems. We will exemplify our approach by means of data from our own mixed methods study in which we simultaneously drew on realist and constructivist concepts to foster the understanding of contradictory statistical results.

In this paper I explore processes of knowledge production and circulation within a specific research community: the self-identified community of mixed methods scholars—i.e., the group of researchers adopting a mixed methods approach and using the label mixed methods—during the phase of its emergence and institutionalization. I focus on citations within this community, considering that the act of citing is linked to the intention of scholars to position their work not only within a research area but also within a community contributing to that specific area. I employed strategies from citation network analysis (CNA) to understand the fields involved, as well as the structure of the community in relation to citation practices. I identified the most common subjects and methodological fields in which mixed methods are mentioned by isolating sub-communities and the most influential authors in the network. I discuss the implications of this network structure with regard to power relations and hegemony. This also includes the function of nodes which appear to be marginal, but are relevant in citation practices since these authors play a bridging role across the various sub-communities.

Mit performativen Sozialwissenschaften erhalten Fragen von Wissenschaftskommunikation und von Gegenstandsangemessenheit neue Bedeutung. Dies wird in diesem Beitrag veranschaulicht, indem wir den Entstehungszusammenhang und die Hintergründe des Webcomics "Pragmatism Reloaded. Die Siedlerinnen von Chicago" in den Blick nehmen, in dem die Geschichte des Forscherinnenkollektivs des Chicagoer Hull House Settlements und insbesondere die Entstehung der "Hull-House Maps and Papers" (RESIDENTS OF HULL-HOUSE 2007 [1895]) erzählt wird. Für unsere Auseinandersetzung mit dem Gütekriterium der Gegenstandsangemessenheit verbinden wir Aspekte der Wissenschaftskommunikation mit der Debatte um performative Sozialforschung und performatives Lernen und argumentieren, dass durch den Webcomic und seinen Entstehungsprozess wesentliche Merkmale der Lebenspraxis von Hull House – methodische Pionierinnenarbeit durch die Nutzung von Visualisierung und die Bedeutung von Kunst für die Gestaltung demokratischen Zusammenlebens – aufgegriffen und in neuer Form verarbeitet wurden.

Causal (aka cognitive) mapping emerged in the late 1970s as an innovative method for capturing and analyzing political decision-makers' and organizational phenomenological and causal belief patterns. Since then, in particular comparative causal mapping (CCM) has become widely used especially in management and organization (MOC) and IT-studies in the UK and USA. This paper provides an overview of the conceptual underpinnings and main variants of CCM to introduce the approach to qualitative researchers interested in new methods and research tools. Next, the paper presents new non-commercial Windows software, CMAP3, designed for small and medium size-N CCM-studies. Finally, to describe CCM-methods' versatility and potential, the paper discusses six types of CCM-studies, which represent different conceptions of target phenomena and research objectives and apply different modifications of the basic CCM-platform. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1202133

This article focuses on the experiences of two researchers, Wolff-Michael ROTH and Luis RADFORD, using cultural-historical activity theory in mathematics education. The aim is to provide insights into the ways these researchers see and engage with activity theory, how they have come to adopt and expand it, and some of the challenges and concerns that they have had using it. These questions are not usually addressed within typical scientific papers. Yet, they are important for understanding both the dynamics of research and the practical use of cultural-historical activity theory. Since the format of research report papers is not necessarily well suited to convey personal experiences and thinking, the present article takes the form of a conversation, which provides an effective vehicle for exploring and articulating these matters. This provides a basis for understanding more deeply the underlying assumptions of this theory; its dynamics and how it is applied in research of mathematics practice, thinking, and learning; and insights into the manner in which experienced researchers grapple with the theoretical dimensions of their research. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1202232

Over recent years, the new sociology of knowledge has become increasingly interested in issues and debates about the ways in which the body features in people's actions and experience of the social world—debates that over the past two decades have also arisen within the sociology of the body. The edited collection reviewed here is based on the contributions to a conference jointly organised in 2010 by two sections of the German Sociology Association's (DGS): the section "Sociology of Knowledge" and the section "Sociology of the Body and Sociology of Sport." The book contains a variety of theoretical and empirical papers that analyse how "knowledge of the body" features in people's actions and everyday experiences, as well as how it is communicated. To guide the debate, the editors use their introductory chapter to differentiate between "knowledge of the body" and "knowledge about the body." This distinction proves very useful in drawing relationships between the individual contributions, which are based on studies from very diverse domains, including the discourse on sexuality, cosmetic surgery and General Practice, as well as exhibitions about the body, pedagogical concepts of the body and the body in martial arts training. It also supports linkages between the theoretical papers in the first part of the volume and the empirical analyses of the later contributions. This edited volume will be of interest to anyone with a background in the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of the body conducting research and contributing to sociological debates on the relationship between the body and knowledge. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs120216

Research in young people by young people is a growing trend and considered a democratic approach to exploring their lives. Qualitative research is also seen as a way of redistributing power; with participatory research positioned by many as a democratic paradigm of qualitative inquiry. Although participatory research may grant a view on another world, it is fraught with a range of relationships that require negotiation and which necessitate constant self-reflection. Drawing on experiential accounts of participatory research with young people, this paper will explore the power relationship from the perspective of the adult researcher, the young peer researcher and also that of the researched. It will explore the self-conscious exchange of power; and describe how it is relinquished and reclaimed with increasing degrees of compliance as confidence and security develops. Co-authored by a peer researcher and adult researchers, this paper will illustrate a range of practical examples of participatory research with young people, decode the power struggle and consider the implications. It will argue that although the initial stages of the research process are artificial, self-conscious and undemocratic it concludes that the end may justify the means with the creation of social agency knowledge, experience and reality. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs120192

The key epistemological assumption in participatory research is the belief that knowledge is embedded in the lives and experiences of individuals and that knowledge is developed only through a cooperative process between researchers and experiencing individuals. There are various notions about the nature and processes of participation in this type of research. This paper focuses on specific processes that are used for a "genuine" participation by experiencing individuals as research participants. It also identifies processes that are critical for researchers to engage with, in order to become pro-participatory in their approaches to qualitative research. The paper draws on a particular project as an exemplar—"The Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Project." This project uses various participatory research processes to elicit and include voices of health-care professionals, service users, and family members. The main objective of the research project is to develop knowledge for new forms of community-based practices for people experiencing mental health crisis. We present the participatory research methodology applied in this research, and discuss two sets of processes used to enhance "participation" in research—one set to encourage and elicit participation by research participants; and the other set to engage researchers in reflection within the participatory research process. This will mitigate the paucity of literature regarding the processes and approaches necessary to make participatory research truly "participatory" both for research participants and researchers. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs120117

This paper addresses the application of observation to online settings with a special focus on observer roles. It draws on a study of online observation of a virtual community, i.e. an open source software (OSS) community. The paper examines general and specific advantages and disadvantages of the observer roles in online settings by relating these roles to the same roles assumed in offline settings. The study suggests that under the right circumstances online and offline observation may benefit from being combined as they complement each other well. Quality issues and factors important to elicit trustworthy observational data from online study settings, such as OSS communities, are discussed. A proposition is made concerning how threats to credibility and transferability in relation to online observation (i.e. lack of richness and detail, risk of misunderstandings) can be diminished, while maintaining the level of dependability (which is potentially high due to a greater degree of anonymity and "isolation" in online settings). The paper thus suggests that the less participative the researcher's online observer role is, the more s/he should consider introducing offline data collection techniques rather than adopting a more participative role in the observed online setting. This methodological discussion forms the basis for making a well-considered choice of online observer role rather than passively sliding into a role assigned by the setting. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs110358

This paper addresses science communication problems: How do researchers convey social science representations and findings to the researched? How are the latter described in research reports? How do they react when they read or hear such reports and when they subsequently engage in discourse with researchers? Typically, social science researchers approach a field site with an attitude of curiosity that is unburdened by an immediate pressure to act. The field inhabitants, by contrast, are subject to the practical constraints of these everyday worlds; they identify personally with their milieu and its protagonists, and they are correspondingly sensitive. The present paper describes their defensive reactions, taking as an example the reception of a research project presented at conferences attended by a mixed audience. It highlights the reactions and strategies displayed by the researched in the contexts of discourse and meaning negotiation in response to unwelcome representations. And it offers several interpretations of the interactions between the researchers and the researched. Field members may oppose the revelation of contextual and causal factors construing it as "washing dirty laundry in public". Researchers react to this in their textual representations, and their reactions may take the form of score-settling. The present paper asks how such contradictory, conflict-laden constellations and perspectives in the discourse between the observers and the observed can be productively dealt with. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1102233