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Conjoint experiments are fast becoming one of the dominant experimental methods within the social sciences. Despite recent efforts to model heterogeneity within this type of experiment, the relationship between the conjoint design and lower-level causal estimands is underdeveloped. In this article, we clarify how conjoint heterogeneity can be construed as a set of nested, causal parameters that correspond to the levels of the conjoint design. We then use this framework to propose a new estimation strategy, using machine learning, that better allows researchers to evaluate treatment effect heterogeneity. We also provide novel tools for classifying and analyzing heterogeneity postestimation using partitioning algorithms. Replicating two conjoint experiments, we demonstrate our theoretical argument and show how this method helps estimate and detect substantive patterns of heterogeneity. To accompany this article, we provide new a R package, cjbart, that allows researchers to model heterogeneity in their experimental conjoint data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead of being agents of inquiry and change, Southeast Asian American (SEAA; Viet, Hmong, Lao, Cambodian) refugee subjects are often objectified and essentialized by researchers in the social sciences. In this article, we document our collaborative journeys to unlearn colonial and racist ways of thinking about and conducting research on marginalized communities, including our own SEAA communities. Specifically, we present participatory action research (PAR) and testimonios—two examples of counter‐storytelling—as promising critical race methodologies. Using PAR, our team of academic researchers and participant‐researchers collaborated on research to create change in our communities. To assess our experiences with PAR, we used testimonios to share our self‐reflections and stories on the research process and the training relationship. We end by offering suggestions for using PAR and testimonios to engage in anti‐colonial and anti‐racist research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an editorial in which the authors comment on the understanding and use of qualitative research. They discuss the importance of qualitative research in such fields as social sciences and the humanities and describe different types of such research, including case studies, process studies, and discourse studies.

The D-A-CH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) region has traditionally been skeptical toward open educational resources (OER) materials. Despite being strong partners for the open science community, the three German-speaking countries in Europe did not embrace wide-reaching OER policies in the past and offered only a limited number of incentives for supranational or nationwide genuine German-language OER. These missing national initiatives can also be seen in the field of social science research-related materials. As the domain gained much public interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, where attitudes, values, and societal changes—traditionally the domain of social scientific inquiry—were spotlighted in the media and public discourse, it fell to individual universities, organizations, and people to provide free online education materials—be they true OER or at least quasi-OER—that could help people within and outside of academia to understand and gain insights into the statistics and data presented and distributed via various channels. However, mapping the OER materials in this field during the summer of 2021—1 year after the pandemic had begun and the accompanying stream of data had started—revealed that the educational resources covering social science research methods that are offered in the German language are sparse, and those that are available are mostly quasi-OER, not fulfilling all the typical OER criteria. Thus, they have limited application scenarios. If the region wants to truly embrace an open science policy, it needs to strengthen OER in future.

This is a reflection on my 2006 article, "The Essential Impact of Context on Organizational Behavior," which received the 2016 Academy of Management Review Decade Award. I review some studies supporting my earlier contention that the impact of context has been underappreciated in management research and then recount the genesis of the article, particularly emphasizing the capacity of context to explain anomalous and counterintuitive research findings. I offer conjectures as to why the article has been cited and present evidence that contextual appreciation is increasing in management, and that this is part of a general trend in the social and behavioral sciences. I discuss some newer theories and measures of context and consider the desirable properties of theories that incorporate context. Finally, I argue that it is not easy to control away context, that context is about similarities as well as differences and about change as well as stability, and that variables and relationships vary in their sensitivity to context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this essay is in the problematization of the teaching-learning process of the research methodology from the educational point of view to contribute to the comprehensive training of professionals in the social sciences. It starts from the analysis of the methodology of social research as a tool to identify the contradictions implicit in the problems to which a specialist in these disciplines must respond, in his dual condition of subject and object of the research, in order that the formative process allows to critically appropriate the debates that mainstream scientific thought for social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations are widely used in research and evaluation to characterize teaching and learning activities. Because conducting observations is typically resource intensive, it is important that inferences from observation data are made confidently. While attention focuses on interrater reliability, the reliability of a single-class measure over the course of a semester receives less attention. We examined the use and limitations of observation for evaluating teaching practices, and how many observations are needed during a typical course to make confident inferences about teaching practices. We conducted two studies based on generalizability theory to calculate reliabilities given class-to-class variation in teaching over a semester. Eleven observations of class periods over the length of a semester were needed to achieve a reliable measure, many more than the one to four class periods typically observed in the literature. Findings suggest practitioners may need to devote more resources than anticipated to achieve reliable measures and comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding complex systems is essential to ensure their conservation and effective management. Models commonly support understanding of complex ecological systems and, by extension, their conservation. Modeling, however, is largely a social process constrained by individuals' mental models (i.e., a small‐scale internal model of how a part of the world works based on knowledge, experience, values, beliefs, and assumptions) and system complexity. To account for both system complexity and the diversity of knowledge of complex systems, we devised a novel way to develop a shared qualitative complex system model. We disaggregated a system (carbonate coral reefs) into smaller subsystem modules that each represented a functioning unit, about which an individual is likely to have more comprehensive knowledge. This modular approach allowed us to elicit an individual mental model of a defined subsystem for which the individuals had a higher level of confidence in their knowledge of the relationships between variables. The challenge then was to bring these subsystem models together to form a complete, shared model of the entire system, which we attempted through 4 phases: develop the system framework and subsystem modules; develop the individual mental model elicitation methods; elicit the mental models; and identify and isolate differences for exploration and identify similarities to cocreate a shared qualitative model. The shared qualitative model provides opportunities to develop a quantitative model to understand and predict complex system change. Article Impact Statement: Integration of knowledge sets across disciplines improves understanding and conservation of complex systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is increasingly recognized that what makes a theory interesting and influential is that it challenges our assumptions in some significant way. However, established ways for arriving at research questions mean spotting or constructing gaps in existing theories rather than challenging their assumptions. We propose problematization as a methodology for identifying and challenging assumptions underlying existing literature and, based on that, formulating research questions that are likely to lead to more influential theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing scholarly interest in key account management highlights the need for a framework to use in the study of these accounts. This study combines theory from relationship marketing, personal selling, and organizational-level resource allocation studies to build an integrative theoretical framework explaining both relational and performance aspects of key accounts. In building this integrative model, a qualitative study of key account managers revealed that "fit" between the buying and selling company is of great importance. This concept of fit, which has largely been ignored in key account studies, is added as both an antecedent and a moderator in the integrative model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry created by Canadian feminist sociologist Dorothy E. Smith to examine how sequences of texts coordinate forms of organisation. Here we explain how to use IE, and why scholars in criminal justice and socio-legal studies should use it in their research. We focus on IE's analysis of texts and intertextual hierarchy, as well as Smith's understanding of mapping as a methodological technique; the latter entails explaining how IE's approach to mapping differs from other social science approaches. We also argue that IE's terms and techniques can help examine the textual work undertaken in criminal justice and legal organisations, and reveal how people are governed and ruled by these organisational processes. In the discussion, we summarise how IE can productively contribute to criminal justice and socio-legal studies in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note introduces the new Democratization Articles Dataset, a survey of peer-reviewed articles on democratization published over the past 25 years from five of the leading comparative politics journals. The data highlight significant gender and location authorship imbalances, while also noting a steady increase in the proportion of female authors as well as team collaboration over the past 25 years. Democratization studies also appear to be largely event driven, with more attention paid to the Post-Soviet countries and democratic transitions in the 1990s, and increased attention to MENA countries and the study of authoritarianism since 2000. The field is also evolving methodologically, with a greater proportion of articles investigating a causal claim, relying on statistical and experimental techniques, and detailing sample selection criteria. Yet, single and comparative cases studies still compose the overwhelming majority of published research articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a few ideas related to the more recent or older methodological debates: is sociology a science?, is sociological research scientific?, does epistemology offer specific methodological rules?, what's the point of splitting the social research methodology into quantitative and qualitative? The article suggests some answers and an option for more methodological freedom and creativity; it is in favor of a unitary methodology freed from arbitrary rules and pre-established designs and mostly, it tries 'to take the Q out of research'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The four paradigms are influential philosophical stances applied to advocate social research designs since they have been supported by eight different analytical lenses and had various functions for analysing the research nature as well as social phenomena based on two main analytical approaches, objective and subjective viewpoints. After clarifying their application in social research methods, we have concluded that the functionalist paradigm is very compatible with most of quantitative research methods whereas the interpretive paradigm is very fit for the majority of qualitative research designs. In terms of the radical humanist paradigm, it is extremely applicable with participatory action research, emancipatory action research and transformative design while the radical structuralist paradigm is very appropriate with technical action research, experimental research,, quasi-experimental research and embedded design. However, some research designs intertwine between two paradigms; for example, mixed convergent parallel, mixed multiphase design, and mixed embedded design. Therefore, they make the researcher confusing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about different health-related attitudes, beliefs, and risks is of significant interest to scholars in different Social Science disciplines. Usually knowledge is collected in a form of multiple variables and then constructed as a composite indicator. The question any researcher working with knowledge-related variables faces is: what is the best way to measure and summarise different dimensions of health-related knowledge? The main goal of this paper is to evaluate and compare simple score and latent class approaches to measuring and summarising health-related knowledge using population data on HIV knowledge collected in five selected countries (China, India, Kenya, Malawi, and Ukraine). The advantages and shortcomings of both approaches (simple score and latent class approaches) to measuring and summarising health-related knowledge are evaluated and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We assess the potential for mixing social research methods, based upon a materialist and micropolitical analysis of the research-assemblage and of what individual research techniques and methods do in practice. Applying a DeleuzoGuattarian toolkit of assemblages, affects and capacities, we document what happens when research methods and techniques interact with the events they wish to study. Micropolitically, many of these techniques and methods have unintended effects of specifying and aggregating events, with the consequently that the knowledge produced by social inquiry is invested with these specifications and aggregations. We argue that rather than abandoning these social research tools, we may use the micropolitical analysis to assess precisely how each method affects knowledge production, and engineer the research designs we use accordingly. This forms the justification for mixing methods that are highly aggregative or specifying with those that are less so, effectively rehabilitating methods that have often been rejected by social researchers, including surveys and experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Missing data (attrition and non-response) are a feature of most surveys especially longitudinal/panel studies. And many such studies now have multilevel designs and hence multilevel data structures. Recent advances in imputation methodology now offer social researchers opportunities to address issues of missing data in a statistically principled way. Paradata can offer great insights in understanding the nature and causes of missingness and can be used to construct auxiliary variables to be included in imputation models. In this paper we present multilevel multiple imputation which has recently extended MI to incorporate multilevel data, making it a flexible and robust strategy for many research settings. We illustrate the procedures by analysing data drawn from a longitudinal study of prisoners. We show how paradata of that study was instrumental in guiding our approach and subsequent analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researcher reflexivity, meaning the revealing of the researcher’s assumptions and her position vis-à-vis those researched, has by now become commonplace. This article explores such issues in the context of a larger study of transnational adoption for which I conducted interviews with South African birth mothers as both a researcher/interviewer and an adoptive mother. Instead of seeking to eliminate researcher bias, I propose using it as data that could reveal novel aspects of the phenomenon under study. This article specifically explores the use of reverse interviewing, which in this case meant disclosing my double positionality and inviting the interviewees to ask me questions. It is not a matter of merely extracting information: the technique allows participants to air their concerns, and facilitates investigation of the researcher’s reactions to them. All this, in turn, carries implications with regard to how the study area is conceptualised. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Qualitative researchers often have to decide whether to collect data using focus groups or individual interviews. We systematically compare these two methods on their ability to generate two types of information: unique items in a brainstorming task and personally sensitive disclosures. Our study sample consisted of 350 African-American men living in Durham, North Carolina. Participants were randomized into either a focus group arm or individual interview arm, and were asked the same open-ended questions about their health-care seeking behavior. For the item-generating task, we compared data at two levels of analysis – the event and the individual. At the event level, focus groups and individual interviews generated similar numbers of unique items in a free-listing task. When compared on a per-person basis, however, individual interviews were more effective at generating a broad range of items. We also compared the number of data collection events in which personal, sensitive information was disclosed. We found that several types of sensitive and personal disclosures were more likely in a focus group setting, and that some sensitive themes only occurred in the focus group context. No sensitive themes emerged exclusively, or more often in, an individual interview context. Researchers may use these findings to help align their choice of qualitative data collection method with research objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We developed the Geographical Proportional-to-size Street-Intercept Sampling (GPSIS) method in order to obtain a sample of nightlife-goers which accounted for the diversity of spaces, patrons and locations within two Swiss cities. Popular nightlife zones were identified and quantified using social media data and local experts’ knowledge. Young people were recruited in the streets on Friday and Saturday nights on three consecutive weekends using the ‘fixed-line method, pro-rated for the zone’s estimated popularity. Of the 3092 young adults approached, 896 agreed to pre-register. The importance of recruitment in multiple zones and over multiple weekend-days was evidenced by significant variations in participant demographics and registration rates between recruitment zones, times and weather conditions. To conclude, by combining a geographical approach within siturecruitment, GPSIS has considerable potential as a tool for recruiting samples that represent the diversity of the nightlife population and spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The usefulness of the online Skype system for qualitative data collection has been well documented, but its application in qualitative data analysis has been largely ignored. This article provides insight into the use of Skype in the context of interdisciplinary team research, with a focus on the analytical phase of a qualitative investigation. Team members used Skype throughout the implementation of a qualitative study that was informed by the Consensual Qualitative Research process. Research team members found that regardless of proximity to one another, Skype enabled an effective collaborative qualitative data analysis process. The system facilitated team members’ communication and analytical consensus building due to its unique system features that enabled all team members to view data in real time during all phases of the data analysis process, including coding, categorization, and identification of domains. Use of the Skype system increased the efficiency and effectiveness of a team-based qualitative data analysis process that, in this case, was consensual but can be usefully applied to other analytical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pluralism and creativity are inherent and important parts of the qualitative endeavour. The multiplicity of approaches and methods can, however, be confusing. We undertook a focused mapping review and synthesis to obtain a snap-shot profile of the state of qualitative research in health and social science literature. We retrieved 102 qualitative articles published between January and March 2015 from six leading health and social science journals. Articles were scrutinised for alignment between researchers’ reported orientation (methodological or philosophical positioning) and the techniques used (methods). In the sampled articles level of alignment was generally high, with considerable mastery of qualitative approaches evident. However, the complexity of the qualitative landscape highlighted in our review, led us to develop a diagrammatic representation: The Qualitative Research Level of Alignment Wheel™. This educational resource/teaching aid is designed to assist qualitative researchers (particularly those more novice) and research students to locate the orientation and techniques of their studies. As an important contribution to the international field of qualitative inquiry, it will assist in understanding and accounting for points at which techniques are melded and orientations blended. In turn this will lead to the individual and collective qualitative endeavour as being a coherent one. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates three methods to handle dependency among effect size estimates in meta-analysis arising from studies reporting multiple outcome measures taken on the same sample. The three-level approach is compared with the method of robust variance estimation, and with averaging effects within studies. A simulation study is performed, and the fixed and random effect estimates of the three methods are compared with each other. Both the robust variance estimation and three-level approach result in unbiased estimates of the fixed effects, corresponding standard errors and variances. Averaging effect sizes results in overestimated standard errors when the effect sizes within studies are truly independent. Although the robust variance and three-level approach are more complicated to use, they have the advantage that they do not require an estimate of the correlation between outcomes, and they still result in unbiased parameter estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the possibilities and pitfalls of qualitative secondary analysis have been the subject of on-going academic debate, contextualised by the growing availability of qualitative data in digital archives and the increasing interest of funding councils in the value of data re-use. This article contributes to, and extends these methodological discussions, through a critical consideration of how the secondary analysis of thematically related qualitative longitudinal (QL) datasets might be utilised productively in qualitative research design. It outlines the re-use of two datasets available in the Timescapes Archive, that were analysed to develop a primary empirical project exploring processes of continuity and change in the context of men’s care responsibilities in low-income families. As well as outlining the process as an exemplar, key affordances and challenges of the approach are considered. Particular emphasis is placed on how a structured exploration of existing QL datasets can enhance research design in studies where there is limited published evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay provides a review of Bent Flyvbjerg's critique of conventional social science research, including its limitations in applied fields such as social work, followed by a specification of his alternative for a 'phronetic social science.' I detail how I with two colleagues practiced phronetic social science in our collaboration with Philadelphia housing activists, including most especially the role of interpretive narrative analysis as part of our case study research. In conclusion, I discuss the somewhat ironic challenges of trying to increase the legitimacy of such activist research in applied fields like social work where an obsession with being seen as scientific is prevalent as a means to improve prestige of applied research. I discuss how we need less top-down research which focuses on a 'what works' agenda that serves the management of subordinate populations and more research that provides bottom-up understandings of a 'what's right' agenda tailored to empowering people in particular settings. Real social science research needs to listen to how people on the bottom experience their own subordination so that we can help them overcome their subjugation. Good social science includes taking the perspective of the oppressed in the name of helping them achieve social justice. In the end, there are a number of tension points between the model of conventional social science and phronetic social science that starkly highlight how we need to change research in order do research that promotes positive social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how urban nature is important to the public can broaden management objectives and give citizens a say in how nature is managed in the places where they live. However, studies on the topic do not usually integrate multiple research methods: and case studies, or have an opportunity to reflect on an understanding of the value-elicitation process, which is vital for strengthening future research. This article synthesizes multiple qualitative and quantitative research studies that focused on developing an understanding of how the public values the urban forest. Investigating urban-forest public values provides opportunities to understand how the public assigns importance to urban nature in a context where the benefits of nature to humans are less tangible. The studies took place in four Canadian and three Colombian cities, and elicited values from 1289 participants and respondents with the use of field tours, personal diaries, focus groups, photo-elicitation, interviews, and side-walk interception surveys. The synthesis presented here merged the value codes from all case studies to develop a general framework of urban forest public values, and analysed the relationship between the value codes, case studies, and research methods, using qualitative and quantitative meta-analysis techniques. By integrating these rich data sets, we reveal the complex structure of the aesthetic, ecological, economic, environmental, health, psychological, and socio-cultural ideas that these members of the public associate with the urban forest. The quantitative research methods in our studies mostly elicited aesthetic and environmental values, while the qualitative methods elicited all types of values, while enriching descriptions of psycho-social and natural-ecological values. Future research on public values associated with nature can be strengthened by deepening the natural experience of participants, and by using open-ended and collective value-elicitation mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses experimental research in public administration in Canada. Topics include methodology in public administration research, the need for evidence-based decision-making in public administration, and cooperation between social scientists and public administrators. The need for graduate students to be trained in experimental work is noted.

Within social research, moving beyond traditional methods of inquiry and away from numbers, variables, tables and questionnaires researchers can judiciously adopt the narrative inquiry approach of knowing and interpreting. Narratives are a medium for teachers to reflect on their teaching practices and explore options to develop better approaches. This research methodology, when used in the context of teaching and learning, offers a means to reconnoitre teachers? concerns, roles and performance. Narrative is a likely way of making sense into the experience that has a particular value in fostering teachers? reflective thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the methodology being used within a research project auditing concerns and aspirations in an impoverished Indigenous community in North West Australia. The community is in the heart of booming resource industries and it symbolizes the many challenges and opportunities for contemporary Australia. The paper advances the notion that social scientific research with Indigenous communities can be positioned not just as the result of consultation with the communities but as the authorized product of those communities. Although this adds to the complexity of the governing forces that impact on researchers, it also affords new possibilities for meaningful social change. If research starts with the proposition that social scientific research with Indigenous communities can be about what communities want to know, and finding out what they have to say, we may make more progress than by asking what needs to be done. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the Ninth International Conference on Social Science Methodology being organized by Research Committee on Logic and Methodology (RC33) of International Sociological Association (ISA) at University of Leicester, Leicester on 11-16 September 2016.

While shadowing is known in disciplines such as Organizational Studies, there is little reference to shadowing as a qualitative research technique in Education or other social science fields. This paper explores shadowing in the research literature and my experience collecting data using shadowing. Using my researcher journal and reflections, I present five lessons learned as a qualitative shadowing researcher in Education: shadowing is difficult, tiring and time consuming; shadowing is high stakes emotionally for the participants; participants have control during data collection, researchers have control with the results; shadowing researchers must manage relationships with the participants; and ethics in shadowing can be murky and researchers must make continuous ethical judgements while in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article aims to answer questions raised by author João Teixeira Lopes in response to this author's review of Lopes' book, "Geração Europa? : um estudo sobre a jovem emigração qualificada para França," a nonfiction examination of Portuguese immigration to France in the 21st century. Topics discussed include the high level of criticism in the author's initial review; the interdisciplinary nature of social sciences; and Lopes' treatment of skilled and unskilled immigrants in his work.

Building on the seminal work of Linda T. Smith in decolonizing research methodologies, this paper introduces Ancestral Knowledge Systems (AKS) as a conceptual framework for social science research methodologies. We use autoethnography and critical self-reflection throughout the article to make visible the components of AKS. First, we lay out the context in which AKS was re-created after a doctoral course on decolonizing research methodologies. We unpack internalized colonization to address the need to go beyond identity politics and towards AKS thinking as an approach to promote a multiplicity of knowledge systems. Next, we discuss family epistemologies and collective memories as methods for reconnecting accountability systems to ancestral homeland(s). Finally, we discuss our visions for AKS across learning ecologies. The scholarly significance of our research is twofold: (1) it develops a framework for critical introspection and connectivity for decolonizing research, and (2) it promotes a multiplicity of knowledge systems in the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]