Tooltip Categories: Site glossary

the process of producing a transcript, a written record of an event or episode – for example a research interview

See: Transcription conventions

when asking someone to recall an event or experience, a relevant stimulus, such as a video recording of the event, is used

For example: when a research participant is observed using a think aloud protocol, the think aloud session may be recorded, and extracts used as foci for subsequent interviews

See: Think aloud

Questionniares are data collection instruments that seek to elicit subjective information – views, opinions, values…

Read more about Questionnaires

(as opposed to leading questions) are designed not to suggest any particular responses is seen as more desirable or logical

See: Question types

Closed questions invite a limited range of potential responses. Closed (rather than open) questions are more suited for interviews and questionnaires when the researcher is seeking to elicit responses within specific predetermined categories (e.g., in nomothetic research)

Read about question types

invite a wide range of potential responses

Open (rather than closed) questions are more suited for interviews and questionnaires when the researcher is seeking to learn about the opinions, values etc., of respondents in terms of what is important to them and how they construe their experience (e.g., in idiographic research)

See: Question types

a person's fund of personal constructs for construing experience, and their organisation

See: Personal construct theory

a paradigmatic commitment where it is understood that analysis of data inevitably involves inter-subjectivity, relying on interpretation

however, the term is also sometimes used more loosely for any research with qualitative (i.e., not numerical) data

See: Paradigms

See: Qualitative research

a strategy for identifying subjective opinions involving the analysis of data collected by asking participants to organise/rank statements on cards

See: Q methodology

Pseudonyms are (and are acknowledged as) fictious names that are often used in reporting research to maintain the anonymity of research participants (informants).

Read about research ethics

Read about the anonymity of research participants

a perspective on research that rejects naive positivism and recognises inherent challenges to science reaching certain knowledge of the world

A paradigmatic stance

See: Paradigms

See: Postpositivism

See: Positivistic research

is the potential effect of an observer on the observed situation (such that what is observed may be different form what would happen in the absence of the observer)

See : The observer effect