Mixed Methods
The focus of social network analysis is on the network of relations. A social network consists of a set of actors together with a set of edges that link pairs of actors. Since edges can share actors (e.g., the A.B edge shares an actor with the B.C edge) this creates a connected web that we think of as a network. Find out more...
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) offers a new, systematic way of studying configurations of cases. QCA is used in comparative research and when using case-study research methods. The QCA analysts interprets the data qualitatively whilst also looking at causality between the variables. Find out more...
Anthropologists use ‘case’ in a slightly different way than some legal scholars or psychoanalysts, either of whom might use cases to illustrate their points or theories. Anthropologists often describe a case first, and then extract a general rule or custom from it, in the manner of inductive reasoning. Find out more...
Weblogs, or ‘blogs’, are websites that allow authors to maintain ongoing, reverse-chronological entries for an audience, link to other webpages and interact with readers via comments. Find out more...
Agent-Based Simulation allows the explicit representation and exploration of the complex relationship between individual behaviour and society – the Micro-Macro link. It does it by representing the states and actions of each relevant social actor within a complex computer simulation. Find out more...
Scoping studies aim to help tackle the danger of information overload from the ever increasing volume of research by producing a high level map of an area of research that can inform future research. Find out more...
In this session we introduce Social Network Analysis (SNA) and consider how social networks can be studied and analyzed from a qualitative perspective. Find out more...
The research methods books of Yin are frequently cited as references to justify the use of case study research. In his early work he defined a case study as:
• an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context;
• when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and
• in which multiple sources of evidence are used (Yin, 1984, p. 23). Find out more...
Fuzzy sets are used in both qualitative and quantitative research and the talk given by Wendy Olsen aims to clarify how you might use fuzzy set analysis in qualitative research. Find out more...
Narrative analysis takes as its point of departure the idea that narrative is the principal mode by which we experience the world, that it is ‘the shape of knowledge as we first apprehend it’ (Fisher 1987:193) rather than a genre or particular type of text. Find out more...
In depth discussion about both YouTube and Twitter, covering a range of methodological approaches as well as the ethics of such research. Find out more...
Some cultural knowledge, like the names of the months, is widely shared but much of it is distributed unevenly. We hear, for example, that women in Western societies tend to know more about fashion than men do and that men tend to know more about cars than women do. We hear that young people in rural areas of the world aren’t learn¬ing the names and uses of medicinal plants as much as their elders did. A lot of research, shows that people who know lot about—are highly com¬petent in—a cultural domain tend to agree with each other about the content of the domain and people who know little tend to disagree. Find out more...