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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Communication studies > Research methods
A New Concept for Tuning Design Weights in Survey Sampling: Jackknifing in Theory and Practice introduces the new concept of tuning design weights in survey sampling by presenting three concepts: calibration, jackknifing, and imputing where needed. This new methodology allows survey statisticians to develop statistical software for analyzing data in a more precisely and friendly way than with existing techniques.
Due to its potential transformative nature, empathy has increasingly received attention in business, psychology, neuroscience, education, medicine, social sciences and design, to mention only a few. During the last two decades, discussions about the role of empathy in design and creative research and practice have developed, with empathy perceived as a key instrument in human-centred design and design thinking. This book revisits the powerful concept of empathy in the new post-pandemic era in which ubiquitous digitalisation presents challenges to retaining human-centredness when developing products and services. The book presents a practical four-step approach to the challenges presented concerning how organisations can turn from merely feeling empathy with or for people, to actions of empathy and compassion that can be implemented with and by communities. A wide range of organisations and organisational settings can benefit from the presented case studies and research methods. Through them, the book explores how to discover, share and act with empathy and compassion in the new digitally driven post-pandemic era to innovate across a wide range of organisations, including for-profit and not-for-profit businesses and those in the public and third sectors. This edited volume will appeal to global researchers in the fields of product and service design and digital, social innovation, as well those interested in organisational development. The practical, interdisciplinary nature of the book and innovative four-step approach will also appeal to upper-level students.
This book offers first-person accounts of the experience of psychosis from the inside and the outside, through the eyes of two doctors, one of whom has experienced psychosis and both of whom have worked for decades in the field of psychiatry. Underpinned by rigorous academic analysis using an evocative duo-ethnographic approach, the book explores the cultural and subcultural influences from childhood onwards - both traumatic and resilience-building - that have shaped their lives. Both authors reflect on strategies they learned early in life for dealing with challenges, each managing to function at a high level while avoiding awareness of their vulnerability. They reflect on the potential dangers of using their expertise and position of power in psychiatry simply to diagnose mental illness and prescribe medication. The differences and similarities in the authors' stories provide a productive tension highlighting the complexities of this paradigm shift that is happening in psychiatry. Written in the form of two interacting memoirs, this book is of great interest to researchers, clinicians, and practicing psychologists, as well as a general audience with interest in psychosis.
Showcasing fuzzy set theory, this book highlights the enormous potential of fuzzy logic in helping to analyse the complexity of a wide range of socio-economic patterns and behaviour. The contributions to this volume explore the most up-to-date fuzzy-set methods for the measurement of socio-economic phenomena in a multidimensional and/or dynamic perspective. Thus far, fuzzy-set theory has primarily been utilised in the social sciences in the field of poverty measurement. These chapters examine the latest work in this area, while also exploring further applications including social exclusion, the labour market, educational mismatch, sustainability, quality of life and violence against women. The authors demonstrate that real-world situations are often characterised by imprecision, uncertainty and vagueness, which cannot be properly described by the classical set theory which uses a simple true-false binary logic. By contrast, fuzzy-set theory has been shown to be a powerful tool for describing the multidimensionality and complexity of social phenomena. This book will be of significant interest to economists, statisticians and sociologists utilising quantitative methods to explore socio-economic phenomena.
Industrialisation has brought great benefits to humankind but now, after 200 years of fossil fuel use, land clearance and pollution, the planet's boundaries are being stretched to their limits. Going beyond these confines would have severe consequences for humankind. To prevent this from happening, government, corporate and community initiatives must focus on reducing the environmental impact of approximately 400 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), given that they produce approximately 70% of the world's pollution, 60% of carbon emissions and have a significant impact on land. To date, research shows that SMEs have been environmental laggards and more needs to be understood to improve sustainability in the SME sector. Broadening the researcher's methodological focus, beyond traditional singular approaches, improves knowledge generation and better informs policy and practice. This book paves the way by showing the reader that a mixed method research design is able to provide a deep, diverse and holistic understanding of sustainability and SMEs. Importantly, the book also provides an in-depth mapping of mixed method sustainability and SME research at a regional level. As this book is about environmental sustainability framed in a business context, it will be of interest to researchers, academics, students and those in industry who are enquiring about the environmental sustainability of SMEs.
Social change in the twenty-first century is shaped by both demographic changes associated with ageing societies and significant technological change and development. Outlining the basic principles of a new academic field, Socio-gerontechnology, this book explores common conceptual, theoretical and methodological ideas that become visible in the critical scholarship on ageing and technology at the intersection of Age Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Comprised of 15 original chapters, three commentaries and an afterword, the book explores how ageing and technology are already interconnected and constantly being intertwined in Western societies. Topics addressed cover a broad variety of socio-material domains, including care robots, the use of social media, ageing-in-place technologies, the performativity of user involvement and public consultations, dementia care and many others. Together, they provide a unique understanding of ageing and technology from a social sciences and humanities perspective and contribute to the development of new ontologies, methodologies and theories that might serve as both critique of and inspiration for policy and design. International in scope, including contributions from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, Socio-gerontechnology is an agenda-setting text that will provide an introduction for students and early career researchers as well as for more established scholars who are interested in ageing and technology.
This is a compilation of contributions to the study of the Portuguese playwright Gil Vicente (1465-1536) which appeared between 2005 and 2015. Entries are grouped under three main headings: Editions and Adaptations, Translations, and Critical Studies. The scholarly interest in the father of the Portuguese theater continues unabated, as it can be seen in the great numbers of scholarly works, both editorial and critical, which appeared in the decade under question. The modest aim of this work is to alert scholars as to which of Gil Vicente's works have not received adequate critical attention. New names are constantly added to the list of established vicentistas and new ways of looking at the dramatist's works are introduced.
The Meeting of Aesthetics and Ethics in the Academy provides a deep understanding of the nuances of ethics in the creative environment and contributes to the critical exploration of the nature of research ethics in higher education. Written by world-renown academics with a wealth of experience in this field, this volume explores ethical challenges and responses across a range of creative practices and disciplines including design, documentary film making, journalism, socially engaged arts and the visual arts. It addresses the complex negotiations that creative practice researchers in higher education undertake to ensure that the ethical compliance required does not undermine the research integrity and artistic aspirations. By presenting carefully considered challenges to accepted models of research, this book illustrates critical analysis through a variety of case studies and anecdotal examples that provide an insight into improved ethics practices and policies in higher education. This book is perfect for academics, ethics administrators, higher degree research candidates and supervisors looking to engage further in creative practice research and wanting to explore and understand its ethical oversight.
Visual Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Awakening Visions is an indispensable resource for students, researchers and teachers seeking to use visual sources in their research and understand how images work. This fully updated edition adds questions and activities for studies and many new images and models as well as additional exploration of social and theoretical contexts and examples of current visual and multimodal research. Due to the proliferation of image-centric social media and the growing potential for 'fake news', being able to critically assess media and other visual messages is more important than ever. For researchers embarking on visual research this book offers useful practical guidance and real-world examples from seasoned researchers exploring cultures as varied as: religious cults in Venezuela, the Beer Can Regatta in Darwin, Mapuche Indians in Chile and graffiti artists in Sheffield. It offers an integrated approach to visual research, building compelling case studies using a wide range of visual forms, including: archive images, media samples, maps, objects, video, photographs and drawings alongside traditional qualitative approaches. Examples of the visual construction of 'place', representations of social identities and different approaches to analysis are explored in the first section of the book, whilst the essays in the second section highlight the creativity and innovation of four leading visual researchers. This new edition will prove valuable for both experienced visual researchers and those embarking on visual research in the social sciences for the first time.
* Discusses the unusual application of the phenomnological method through visual media * Beautifully illustrated with the authors' and other drawings to bring together text and image * Part of the prestigious series Phenomenology of Practice series, edited by Max van Manen
The use of simulation modeling in criminal justice dates back to
the 1970s. Early models were developed to capture the realities of
the criminal justice system, to identify what changes were needed,
and how small changes would affect the overall picture. Significant
time and effort were devoted to these projects and although they
achieved some success, the complex nature of the criminal justice
system and the difficulties associated with improving and
maintaining the models prohibited wide spread adoption in the
field. Some of the problems with early simulation projects were the
lack of data to validate models, the lack of technical skills
needed by staff to design and build the models, and the technical
difficulties with software programming to transform models into
computerized representations.
This textbook guides the reader on how to undertake high-quality literature reviews, from traditional narrative to protocol-driven reviews. The guidance covers a broad range of purposes, disciplines and research paradigms. Whether the literature review is part of a research project, doctoral study, dissertation or a stand-alone study, the book offers approaches, methods, tools, tips and guidelines to produce more effective literature reviews in an efficient manner. The numerous examples are drawn from an array of subject areas, such as economics, healthcare, education, medicine, psychology, software engineering amongst others. This makes it worthwhile for a wide range of studies and for reviews into evidence-based interventions, policies, practices and treatments. There is attention given to presenting, reporting and publishing literature reviews. With the additional clarity brought about by explanatory tables and graphs, this textbook is a 'must-have' for all students, researchers, academics and practitioners at any stage of their project or career when engaging with literature. In addition, citizens, policymakers and practitioners will benefit from the guidance with better insight into how literature reviews could and should have been conducted.
Aimed at scholars interested in engaging the public with their research and postgraduate students exploring the practical aspects of research communication, this book provides a theoretically grounded introduction to new and emerging approaches to public engagement and research communication. Split into three sections, the reader first explores the historical approaches and current drivers for public engagement with research. Part two explores practical approaches to research engagement, from face-to-face communication in novel settings, such as festivals, through to artistic approaches, before considering new and emerging digital tools and approaches. Each practical chapter is theoretically grounded, exploring issues such as audience, interactivity, and impact. The final section explores ethical considerations in relation to public engagement as well as discussing the way that research communication fits into wider discussions about the impact of research, before concluding with a discussion around disseminating the success (or otherwise) of novel approaches to public engagement to wider groups, including public engagement practitioners. -- .
Narrative Portraits in Qualitative Research offers an analytical approach to qualitative data. Through narrative portraiture, research findings can be contextualised in broader social narratives without losing sight of the unique personal qualities of the research encounter. Drawing a parallel between the artistic work of a portrait maker in depicting a subject - sometimes an object - and the work of the researcher in exploring people's experiences, narrative portraiture invites a close-up into a person's narrated and embodied experience and argues that one of the main research findings in qualitative research is the person themselves; their circumstances, and their life story. The book proposes four approaches to narrative portraiture: (1) a systematic approach to narrative analysis, (2) the use of phronesis in narrative portraiture, (3) the concept of 'imagined portraits' as a collaborative approach between visual arts and social sciences, and (4) the use of 'performative portraits' both as an analytic tool and product for research communication. This book will help qualitative researchers create first-person narratives that will give a glimpse into the participants' lives in a way that is simultaneously deep, concise, and evocative. This book will be suitable for those interested in narrative methods and qualitative research in health care, education, and the social sciences.
Narrative Portraits in Qualitative Research offers an analytical approach to qualitative data. Through narrative portraiture, research findings can be contextualised in broader social narratives without losing sight of the unique personal qualities of the research encounter. Drawing a parallel between the artistic work of a portrait maker in depicting a subject - sometimes an object - and the work of the researcher in exploring people's experiences, narrative portraiture invites a close-up into a person's narrated and embodied experience and argues that one of the main research findings in qualitative research is the person themselves; their circumstances, and their life story. The book proposes four approaches to narrative portraiture: (1) a systematic approach to narrative analysis, (2) the use of phronesis in narrative portraiture, (3) the concept of 'imagined portraits' as a collaborative approach between visual arts and social sciences, and (4) the use of 'performative portraits' both as an analytic tool and product for research communication. This book will help qualitative researchers create first-person narratives that will give a glimpse into the participants' lives in a way that is simultaneously deep, concise, and evocative. This book will be suitable for those interested in narrative methods and qualitative research in health care, education, and the social sciences.
Disruptive and creative research methodologies proposed in this book are designed to dismantle neoliberal narratives deployed in tourism studies and wider social sciences. Progressing criticality in tourism studies, this volume showcases cutting-edge contributions ranging from reflexivity, subjectivities, and dreams; to messy emotions in auto-ethnographic accounts of fieldwork; 'motherhood capital' accessing Inuit communities; collective memory work; ethnodrama and creative non-fiction, amongst others. Disruption and creativity are the two ideas around which tourism geographers challenge and begin dismantling hegemonic ideologies in tourism studies. The chapters in this book provide a vantage point from where to disrupt first, before tourism geographers can engender progress and transformation within and outside of the field. In tourism studies in general, and tourism geography in particular, the years of the 2000s have witnessed an emphasis on qualitative methodological research, both in terms of the topics addressed and the types of methodological tools. In many ways, this legitimisation of qualitative work mirrors developments in other areas such as human geography, sociology and anthropology, in which this book is anchored. The authors debate in more depth how tourism studies offer multidimensional, multilogical and multi-emotional approaches to research design. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Tourism Geographies.
This book sets out duoethnography as a method of research, reflective practice and as a pedagogical approach in English Language Teaching (ELT). The book provides an introduction to the history of duoethnography and lays out its theoretical foundations. The chapters then address duoethnography as a research method which can be used to explore critical and personal issues among ELT teachers, discuss how duoethnography as a reflective practice can aid teachers in understanding themselves, their colleagues or their context, and demonstrate how duoethnography can be used as a pedagogical tool in ELT classrooms. The chapters are a range of duoethnographies from established and emerging researchers and teachers, which explore the interplay between cultural discourses and life histories with a focus on ELT in Japan.
The last 15 years has seen an explosion of studies that use cognitive science to understand theatre, whilst at the same time theatre-makers are using their artistic practice to address research question. This book looks at the current discourse around these emerging fields.
Exploring the mechanisms underlying performance comparisons, Performance Comparison and Organizational Service Provision investigates how such assessments shape hospitals' service provision and medical professionals' work. With a focus on U.S. health care, this study outlines how medical quality was defined and compared in the hospital sector from the late 19th century to the present. Developing a novel theoretical framework to investigate performance comparisons, several different forms of internal and external performance assessments are contrasted throughout this period. The transformative effects of these comparisons on hospitals' relationships to patients, insurers, regulators, and staff are analyzed and their ramifications for current hospital care are explored. Drawing on this analysis, the book examines the controversial nature of these measures and the struggles among hospital managers, patients, physicians, and policy makers to determine hospital quality. Affording a deeper understanding of how performance comparisons influence organizational service provision, the book will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of fields including organization studies, accountability and evaluation, health care, and policy research as well as practitioners in hospital care and management.
In Engaging in Narrative Inquiry, Second Edition, D. Jean Clandinin, a pioneer in narrative research, updates her classic formulation on narrative inquiry, clarifying, extending, and refining methods. This updated edition looks at changes and developments in the field since the publication of the first edition in 2013, exploring how narrative inquiry explores human lives through a narrative lens that honors experience as a source of important knowledge and understanding. The book includes several exemplary cases with the author's critique and analysis of the work. The following are new to this edition: New exemplary cases, including Menon's autobiographical narrative inquiry as the starting point for framing a research puzzle and justifying a study, Chung's account of a study that begins with living alongside participants, and a paper from Swanson's autobiographical narrative inquiry An expanded discussion of the philosophical grounding of narrative inquiry An expanded discussion of relational ethics in narrative inquiry that highlights links to a relational ontology An updated account of the field of narrative inquiry that highlights future directions, including the necessity of response groups, and questions of responsibility and community The increasing interest in narrative inquiry as research methodology across disciplines makes this book an essential guide and an excellent text for graduate courses in qualitative inquiry, education and nursing research, sociology, and all courses in autobiographical and narrative research and inquiry.
Capstone projects have long been used in other disciplines but are now being seen within psychology courses. This textbook is a one-stop-shop for anyone looking to undertake a capstone project or other final project. In a friendly and collaborative style, this book guides the student through everything they need to know to ensure a successful capstone or other final project.
Every three years, researchers with interest and expertise in transport survey methods meet to improve and influence the conduct of surveys that support transportation planning, policy making, modelling, and monitoring related issues for urban, regional, intercity, and international person, vehicle, and commodity movements. This book compiles the critical thinking on priority topics in contemporary transport policy and planning contexts. The contributed papers cover two key themes related to types of decision-making of importance to the development of data collection on both passenger travel and freight movements: the first theme, Selecting the Right Survey Method, acknowledges the fact that transport survey methods are evolving to meet both changing uses of transport survey data and the challenges of conducting surveys within contemporary society. The second theme, Supporting Transport Planning and Policy, recognizes that the demands on transportation data programs to support decision-making for transport planning and policy making clearly have evolved.The chapters have been selected with particular emphasis on the challenges of the near and medium term future to the design of transport surveys. Rapidly evolving problems and policy contexts are compelling transport researchers to advance the state-of-the-art of methods, tools, strategies and protocols, while assuring the stability and coherence of the very data from which trends can be tracked and understood and on which important decisions can be made.
Research Methods: A Practical Guide for Students and Researchers is a practical guide on how to conduct research systematically and professionally. The book begins by distinguishing between causal and interpretive sciences. It then guides the reader on how to formulate the research question, review the literature, develop the hypothesis or framework, select a suitable research methodology, and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data.The book uses classic examples as exemplars. It also uses many examples from different disciplines and sectors to demonstrate and showcase the inter-connections and wider applications of research tools.The book emphasizes integration. It does not merely provide a smorgasbord of research designs, data collection methods, and ways to analyze data. Instead, it shows how one could formulate research strategies given the outcomes the researchers are required or tasked to deliver.The revised edition includes three new chapters on time series (including spatial models), machine learning, and meta-analysis. In addition, existing chapters have been expanded to include more examples, digital research, and new material.
Theory and Method in Higher Education Research contains contemporary contributions to international debates regarding the application and development of theory and methodology in researching higher education. Higher education research is a developing field internationally, which is attracting more and more researchers from a great variety of disciplinary backgrounds within and beyond higher education institutions. As such, it is an arena within which a wide range of theories, methods and methodologies is being applied. As an expanding multidisciplinary area of interest, we may also expect increased development of theory and method. This volume aims to offer a channel for discussion, critique and innovation. It should become essential reading for the growing numbers of researchers engaging with higher education across the globe |
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