Is qualitative resarch software an artifact of colonial social sciences?

Does qualiltative research software have a colonial dimension built into it?  That is, if it was developed by the Anglo/American/Euro block of qualitative researchers, embedded as they are in the histories of their field (colonial to colonized; center to margins)...does it stand, then, that the software they created from this context would also reflect this?

It's a question I've been pondering as I worked with Cesar Cisneros on editing the recent FQS issue (described below in the abstract). 

Qualitative computing has been part of our lives for thirty years. Today, we urgently call for an evaluation of its international impact on qualitative research. Evaluating the international impact of qualitative research and qualitative computing requires a consideration of the vast amount of qualitative research over the last decades, as well as thoughtfulness about the uneven and unequal way in which qualitative research and qualitative computing are present in different fields of study and geographical regions. To understand the international impact of qualitative computing requires evaluation of the digital divide and the huge differences between center and peripheries. The international impact of qualitative research, and, in particular qualitative computing, is the question at the heart of this array of selected papers from the "Qualitative Computing: Diverse Worlds and Research Practices Conference." In this article, we introduce the reader to the goals, motivation, and atmosphere at the conference, taking place in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2011. The dialogue generated there is still in the air, and this introduction is a call to spread that voice.
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1202285

The conference that Cesar, in part, brought about--was to help create a more international sense of the use of qualitative research software, but at the same time, it had to raise the underlying issue related to the beliefs that we have about the way technologies may be developed, with embedded perspectives, and how this shapes the users.

A part of me thinks that this argument about the potential colonialized stance of qualitative research software is much akin to the concerns that were and are still voiced about the ways qualitative research software may be a tool for certain research strategies--grounded theory, ethnomethodology, narrative analysis, phenomenology, etc.  Software developers were accused of creating a software that reflected their methodological inclinations.  It was thought that innocent users would be unconsciously dragged into using that methodology, despite their intentions to resist.

Renate Tesch in her early book on qualitative computing, offered the best refute to this argument, but it still surfaces in conversation with researchers and in various writings.  We, Davidson & diGregorio, go back to Tesch's arguments in our chapter in Denzin and Lincoln Qualitative Research Handbook (4th edition).

When Cesar asks these questions, I listen, because he has long been a lone voice pleading for understanding of the international picture of qualitative research.  He has also been a leader in bringing qualitative research software into the Spanish context.  I am intrigued by the questions and don't think they should be dismissed immediately.  If we probe, we may find more here of interest. 

Keywords

CAQDAS; diversity; peripheries; global qualitative research

Full Text: HTML PDF

© 1999-2012 Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research (ISSN 1438-5627)
Supported by the Institute for Qualitative Research and the Center for Digital Systems, Freie Universität Berlin

QR Archiving yes? But Qualitative Software no? What gives?

I have become obccesed with interest in the new wave of work regarding the archiving of qualitative research data.  Once, a UK/Euro issue, it has now crossed the pond and is coming to be a US matter of interest. With many major federal groups now requiring that this material be archived, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a necessity for everyone--like the development of the Institutional Review Board.

 I am working on this concern with Joseph Fisher, digital archivist at UMass Lowell.  We have been a great time talking to many people in many places about this issue.  We will be discussing some of our findings at the upcoming QSR trainers conference in Boston in early August. 

Archivists are concerned with the overall notion of qualitative research data, but as a qualitative researcher with interest in qualitative research software--I am concerned with the issues that this software raises for archiving, in particular.  I have been surprised to find that many of the same prejudices researchers hold about qualitative research software sans archiving seem to be translating into the archiving issue.  In other words, the archiving issue is yet another place where these prejudices can be voiced.

Louise Corti illustrates this concern (she is reporting the concern) in her fantastic article about digital archiving and qualitative research in FQS  http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/498/1072, the 2011special issue on secondary use of qualitative research data.  Some qualitative researchers, she found, have concerns about using qualitative research resources that are in the form of an e-project, the neat little digital package that qualitative research software creates for the user.

I have been thinking hard about this.  It seems that such qualitative researchers are concerned that they need to approach the data afresh, look at it with clear eyes, and avoid being contaminated by the views of others.  Some worry, I suppose, that the technical shaping of the software package will itself skew their understanding of the data.  They seek freedom from the shackles of externally imposed standards of organization.

Here are some responses I would make to these arguments.

1.  Qualitative research software does not force the researcher to look at the data in the manner that it was formatted by a previous researcher.  You can simply choose to look at the sources themselves, and ignore the codes.  You have the flexibility, if you wish (and have knowledge of how to read that software) to look at the codes, to study the memos, and hyperlinks, but that is up to you.

2.  It is a fallacy to think that if you are using qualitative data sources outside of qualitative research software that you are free of standards and technical specifications.  When you read an interview transcript, we expect it to have the question and the answer...right?  Well, that's a technical specification.  You are never free of those specifications--we need them because they help us make efficient senses of text.  It is also true that these specifications are always evolving based upon new concerns re: genre and standards.  It is the same in qualitative research as in other forms of literate endeavor. 

3.  If you were studying an English novel or novelist (as a specialist in the field), wouldn't you read the novel AND everything you could find related to its analysis and production?  Why is it different in qualitative research?  For some reason when it comes to our qualitative research data, it appears that it has to be in pristine condition--a fresh site.  It's kind of like a perversion of the prime directive--now instead of leaving the field untouched, the people in their original state, now we have to enter the field in our own pristine mental condition. 

BUT, it is not only the user side that has got to examine assumptions--there is a desperate need for software developers to step up to the plate.  By that, I mean that they must accept standards for a meta-language that will allow flexible use of their packages across platforms and into the future.  I know this implies added expenses.  But if this is not done, they are adding yet another nail to the coffin.  Stand alone software developers know that their days are numbered, and they must jump to the mother ship of the Internet at some time in the future.  As they make this transition, it will add to their usefulness if they can also demonstrate their attentiveness to the needs of archiving qualitative research data for future generations.

Arts Based Research Days in Spring 2012

Ryan Trecartin, seated and laughing in Miami, FL, inside the production house for Trecartin's Any Ever 2009/2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kara Walker, Cut, Cut paper and adhesive on wall, Brent Sikkema NYC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Adlestrop Church Adlestrop Church is dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. It is likely that Jane Austin would have visited this church during her three visits to Adlestrop in 1794, 1799 and 1806, she was related to the parish vicar. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This spring I was able to participate in two full-day arts-based research days. 

In April I attended the pre-conference day of the Arts-Based Research Special Interest group of the American Educational Research Association on the University of British Columbia Campus.  I had the opportunity to learn about the founding and history of this group, to hear a presentation from a Vancouver artist who works in public sustainable art, and to think with a great group of old and new friends with interest in this topic.

In May, there was an Arts in Qualitative Research pre-conference day at the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois.  This was the first such event at ICQI.  Organized by Liora Bresler, it brought together a diverse group of researchers. 

I presented a paper that brought together my art interests with the sexting research.  Here is the title and abstract.  A paper will be forthcoming!

Gender, Technology, Power, and Sexuality:  Jane Austin, Kara Walker, and Ryan Trecartin as Social Theorists for Making Sense of Teens Views of Sexting

For the past year I have been engaged as the qualitative researcher in a three-state, focus group study of teens views of sexting and adults perceptions of those views.  Findings from this study demonstrate the complex ways in which gender, technology, and social power are intertwined with young people’s developing sexuality and their notions of status and intimacy.  As I searched for theoretical frameworks to understand the materials I was analyzing, I began to consider three artists—Jane Austin-novelist; Kara Walker-visual artist; Ryan Trecartin-video artist--as theoretical mentors to my analysis process and what I was learning about the issues of teens and their private and social worlds.  Questions that these three artists raised for me in regard to the focus group material included:  How is social role set in place by the performance of race/class/gender and the mediation of technology?  How is sexuality and technology combined to position the subject and object of desire?  What are the contexts in which one’s desire can be performed?  What are the aesthetics of such performances?

In this paper, I will provide a brief overview of the study of teen views of sexting.  Then, I will discuss the three artist’s and the ways their work provides social theory that is applicable—both individually and collectively—to the analysis of the materials I have been examining.  Of particular interest to me is the reflexive way in which I worked with analysis of the focus group materials and my three artist theorists and how this process deepened my understanding of teens’ views as it expanded my understanding of the artist theorist’s social message.   In concluding the paper, I champion the arts-based research view that artists’ works be considered as theory with equal weight to the theory presented in social science textual resources (for example:  Bakhtin, Giddens, Marx, etc.), as opposed to being relegated to the role of illustration. 

American Educational Research Association Presentation 2012

A Japanese cell phone with various stickers and charms attached to it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sexting and teens continues to be a focus of my qualitative research work, as I continue to work with the "Building a Prevention Framework to Address Teen Sexting Behaviors" project funded by the US Department of Justice.

I presented a paper on the topic at the 2012 American Educational Research Association Meeting in April in Vancouver BC--Sexting, teens, and education:  What teens have to say and the implications for education policy and practice (Davidson, Harris, Paternite, Tusinski-Miofski, and Thompson).  The presentation was an opportunity to share the first round of findings that have emerged from the project (analysis of youth data) and consider the ways the findings apply to the concerns of educators. 

I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the work with a great table of co-presenters. 

FQS--Qualitative Computing: Diverse Worlds and Research Practices

I am very pleased to announce the publication of the FQS issue devoted to the 2011 qualitative computing conference held in Istanbul,  Turkey.

You can link to that issue here:
FQS June 2012
(Vol 3, No 2, 2012)

It has been an intense year, working with Ceasar Cisneros (an FQS editor) to develop this issue. The introduction provides a good description of the focus of the conference as an opportunity to think about qualitative computing from an international context, that is, outside the boundaries of the American/Anglo picture that often dominates the discussion of qualitative research, and, hence, qualitative computing. 

At the conference I presented a piece about my Journal Project, and the related article is available in this publication.

The Journal Project: Qualitative Computing and the Technology/Aesthetics Divide in Qualitative Research


I loved the experience of the conference (you can read about that in postings from Istanbul in this blog--February 2011), but I found the experience of editing the work of a diverse group of international scholars to be equally interesting.  I had to think through their concerns from a new perspective. 
 
Finally, working through the introduction with Cesar brought the experience around full circle as we rethought the ideas that brought the conference into being in the first place.  Cesar has long been a champion of the world of qualitative research that is emerging outside of the Anglo world.  He continues to raise provocative questions about the classical qualitative research myoptic view of how our work has evolved and how our traditions can be applied to every national or regional location. 
 
Thank you Cesar and all the other great participants and organizers. 

What is a Qualitative Research Project?

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Farsi Wikipedia for the 13th week, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I've been pondering this question this morning:  What is a Qualitative Research Project?

I think the question may have been provoked by a sub-conscious question that I have been holding in my head for some time now, which is, Is the Journal Project over?  Bringing this to the surface...brought me to:  What is a Qualitative Research Project?  and a host of other questions, such as...

What do Qualitative Research Projects contain?
How are they similar or different?
What are the visible, as well as the invisible, products of a project?
How is the data base counted as a product?
How do you conclude a project? 

As invariably happens when I start asking myself questions...I find myself sketching out my ideas in some visual form...and then searching for ways to compare one example to another. 

I ended up comparing three projects that I have been engage in over the last several years:
1.  The Journal Project
2.  Qualitative Research and Technology Project
3.  The Sexting Project

In comparing them I realized that #1 and #3 both required the development of a classical QR data base of some sort.  #2 was more focused on the research literature and the Internet--it was a study of methodology in transition. 

None of "the projects" were discrete in terms of their construction/contents/or relationship to each other.  They all bled across each other, and yet they were extremely distinct. 

Looking at the contents of the different projects got me thinking about the lack of attention/recognition/acknowledgement we give to the data bases of qualitative research.  They are recognized when peer reviewed publications emerge, but they are not shared nor made public.  As a result they often languish in the background.  I thought the emergence of qualitative research software would change this, but it hasn't.  For the most part, while the construction of the data base may take vast amounts of effort, we don't credit ourselves for that work--we only get credit for publications. 

Sketching things out and comparing products across projects, made me realize that different products emerge from different projects, and that many good products that come out of projects are not all that visible in the standard vita.  Vita are linear and organized by product, not project.  Yet, I find that I am organizing my life and my work by project.  Good readers of vita follow the ebb and flow of projects within the description of products fairly well.  However, given the ratings of different categories of products, they "see" some pages more clearly than others. 

Here's an example...Journal Project, outputs are
DataBase
Articles
Presentations
Blog Entries
Art Exhibitions
Integration of autoethnography and arts-based research in courses taught
Appointment as Associate at the Center for Women and Work

Here's the QR and Technologies Project
Co-Authored Book
Presentations
Articles
Webinar
Judge of an Award
Blog Entries
Integration of  QDAS in various forms of Coursework
Facilitation of Qualitative Research Network on Campus and Supervision of Campus-wide NVivo License
Chaired numerous dissertations that explored use of NVivo

Each project has completely different timeline and personnel configurations.  The Sexting Project is huge compared to the Journal Project, and it is externally funded.  For the Sexting Project there are many researchers, they combine in different ways to create products.  But in this project, like the Journal Project, the creation of an original data base was an essential component.  This is not to say that a methodology project like the QR and technology project doesn't have a data base--I actually don't know yet how to express that difference in clear terms. 

So my final conclusion is that as qualitative researchers we need to do two things:
1.  Start to acknowledge the creation of an original data base as a highly significant contribution on the order of writing many peer-reviewed journal articles (and recognize the responsibility this shift entails--sharing our data bases and making that available for review).
2.  Insist upon being viewed for our whole(s)--the projects--that center our professional work.  Let us find ways to make projects and their multiple products visible at the level of professional review (tenure/promotion/job selection). 

And so the day begins...

Dan McAdams at UMass-Lowell: A great success!

Last Friday, February 24, 2012, UMass-Lowell's Qualitative Research Network (QRN) sponsored the visit of psychologist Dan P. McAdams.  McAdams is Professor of Psychology and Human Development and Social Policy AND Director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives at Northwestern University. 

About 50 individuals--faculty, staff, and students--from UMass-Lowell and other institutions in the area were present for a morning presentation...and an afternoon workshop. 

McAdams topic was his signature take on Life Stories.  His visit was timed to coincide with Black History Month.  He spoke specifically to his experience exploring the life stories of highly generative black and white adults.  This work is described in his book--The Redemptive Self:  Stories American Live By.  (Oxford University Press, 2006). 

I was fascinated to hear the way his work moves back and forth from qualitative to quanitative measures.  He undertakes intense one-to-one interviews, gathering thick descriptive data, but he also 'works' this data using various numerical tools.  He validates his qualitative work with the use of various survey instruments. 

In the afternoon, he listened to the research challenges the audience members faced and offered resources and thoughts based upon his experience.  He helped us to where and how our work might intersect with the life story approach. 

This is a picture of the group that joined him Thursday evening for dinner.  From left to right:
--MJ Kim, Graduate School of Education, UML
--Khanh Dinh, Psychology Department, UML
--Allyssa McCabe, Psychology Department (and the driving force bringing McAdams to campus)
--Dan McAdams himself from Northwestern University
--Andy Hostetler, Psychology Department, UML
--Judy Davidson, Graduate School of Education, UML

This event was sponsored by the Qualitative Research Network working with the Center for Women and Work (where we are now located).  The CWW administrative support was fantastic. 

McAdams morning presentation was videotaped by our media library and will be available soon on their web site. 

All in all, I can say this was an extremely successful event for the Qualitative Research Network.  Thank you to all whom were involved.