scholarly journals “Maybe this is Speculative Now” Negotiating and Valuing Interpretations in Qualitative Research

Human Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Berli
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Interpretation Process ◽  
Social Scientific

AbstractInterpretation groups, which meet on a regular basis for jointly analysing qualitative data, are well-established in sociology and related disciplines. There are currently at least 71 interpretation groups in German-speaking countries, and there are more if one includes project teams, which meet on a regular basis for data sessions. Yet, there is relatively little knowledge based on empirical research about these groups and their practices. Inspired by studies on social sciences and humanities (SSH), this article examines how “good” interpretations are jointly created in these groups. Prior studies underlined that social scientific methods are productive, i.e., performative. Following this lead, my study turns data analysis in qualitative research into an object of inquiry by investigating how interpretation groups work on textual data. More specifically, this article discusses how these groups negotiate different interpretative options and at the same time evaluate the quality of their results as well as the interpretation process as a whole. In this regard, the approach presented in this article also contributes to the growing literature on valuation and evaluation in science by focusing on communicative devices for valuing and evaluating interpretations.

scholarly journals Creating a reflective space in higher education

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Katina Thelin
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Quality Of Learning ◽  
Significant Patterns ◽  
The University

This article considers the conditions, possibilities, and challenges of creating what is referred to here as a ‘reflective space’ within a higher education course for principals. It is informed by the findings of a qualitative research inquiry conducted in the interests of enhancing the principals’ learning and professional praxis and the university educators’ pedagogical praxis, within a Swedish course for school and preschool principals. Analysis of the findings highlighted two significant patterns. The first relates to the transformative benefits of creating a ‘reflective space’ for the principals attending the course. The second is more ambiguous and reflects their relation to and engagement with scientifically constructed knowledge. Based on these findings, the article offers considerations relevant for creating ‘reflective spaces’ as a means to enhance the quality of learning in higher education. Additionally, some guiding pedagogical implications are included in the final remarks.

Strategic threats to energy security as risks of quality of people's life

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 730-744
Author(s):  
V.I. Loktionov
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Economic Well Being ◽  
The Way

Subject. The article reviews the way strategic threats to energy security influence the quality of people's life. Objectives. The study unfolds the theory of analyzing strategic threats to energy security by covering the matter of quality of people's life. Methods. To analyze the way strategic threats to energy security spread across cross-sectoral commodity and production chains and influences quality of people's living, I applied the factor analysis and general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. Results. I suggest interpreting strategic threats to energy security as risks of people's quality of life due to a reduction in the volume of energy supply. I identified mechanisms reflecting how the fuel and energy complex and its development influence the quality of people's life. The article sets out the method to assess such quality-of-life risks arising from strategic threats to energy security. Conclusions and Relevance. In the current geopolitical situation, strategic threats to energy security cause long-standing adverse consequences for the quality of people's life. If strategic threats to energy security are further construed as risk of quality of people's life, this will facilitate the preparation and performance of a more effective governmental policy on energy, which will subsequently raise the economic well-being of people.

The Practice of Solving Product Quality Problems Obtained through the Use of Design Activities at Car Assembly Plants

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-61
Author(s):  
V.N. Kozlovsky ◽  
◽  
D.I. Blagoveshchensky ◽  
A.V. Kritsky ◽  
U.V. Brachunova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Product Quality ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Assembly Plants

The paper presents the results of the development and implementation of design approach tools for solving quality problems of new cars in operation. The generalization of the experience of the project teams in solving problems in the field of the quality of new vehicles in operation.

Getting out of the Field

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeasik Cho
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Research Community

This chapter provides a review of the book, which explores how to conceptually understand and practically evaluate the quality of qualitative research. Despite the fact that there are few scholarly pieces regarding qualitative research, the depth and creativity that the pioneering researchers have demonstrated are profound, and the extent to which they cover not only the broad quality of qualitative research but also most of the specific qualities expected by many different kinds of qualitative research is incredible. This chapter summarizes the major topics of this book. Final remarks on this exciting, creative, but difficult topic are preceded by the following summary: Fortunately, There are commonly agreed, bold standards for evaluating the goodness of qualitative research in the academic research community. These standards are a part of what is generally called “scientific research.”

Evaluating Qualitative Research

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeasik Cho
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Journal Editors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Grant Proposals

This book provides the qualitative research community with some insight on how to evaluate the quality of qualitative research. This topic has gained little attention during the past few decades. We, qualitative researchers, read journal articles, serve on masters’ and doctoral committees, and also make decisions on whether conference proposals, manuscripts, or large-scale grant proposals should be accepted or rejected. It is assumed that various perspectives or criteria, depending on various paradigms, theories, or fields of discipline, have been used in assessing the quality of qualitative research. Nonetheless, until now, no textbook has been specifically devoted to exploring theories, practices, and reflections associated with the evaluation of qualitative research. This book constructs a typology of evaluating qualitative research, examines actual information from websites and qualitative journal editors, and reflects on some challenges that are currently encountered by the qualitative research community. Many different kinds of journals’ review guidelines and available assessment tools are collected and analyzed. Consequently, core criteria that stand out among these evaluation tools are presented. Readers are invited to join the author to confidently proclaim: “Fortunately, there are commonly agreed, bold standards for evaluating the goodness of qualitative research in the academic research community. These standards are a part of what is generally called ‘scientific research.’ ”

scholarly journals Stationary Traffic as a Factor of Tourist Destination Quality and Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3965
Author(s):  
Robert Maršanic ◽  
Edna Mrnjavac ◽  
Drago Pupavac ◽  
Ljudevit Krpan
Keyword(s):  
Synthesis Method ◽  
Hotel Industry ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Tourist Destination ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Tourist Destinations ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Method Analysis

Since the Republic of Croatia is one of the most popular European and world tourist destinations, the aim of this paper is, from the user’s (n = 596) point of view, to research the importance of stationary traffic in tourist destinations. The purpose of this paper is to point out the possibilities of improving the tourist destination quality and sustainability through an adequate parking service. In order to corroborate constructed scientific hypotheses, a larger number of scientific methods were used from which a polling method, analysis and synthesis method, descriptive statistics method, t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) should be singled out. The major finding of this paper indicates a relatively big importance of stationary traffic (M = 6.51; SD = 2.21) as an element of tourist destination quality. Moreover, regarding the quality of tourist destination, the results of this paper suggest that the parking space availability is more important than the way parking or parking payment are organized. Between the experienced parking problem in a tourist destination and age on one side and evaluation of the importance of stationary traffic as an element of tourist destination quality on the other side, a statistically important connection was established. Gained knowledge can be particularly helpful to hotel industry managers but also to traffic managers whose duty is to provide an adequate number of parking spaces in tourist destinations.

Grassroots Archive Collection at CDRCSL

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780042110146
Author(s):  
Yunxiang Yan ◽  
Tian Li ◽  
Yanjie Huang
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Special Collection ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
Written Materials

This article aims to introduce the value of grassroots archives at the Center for Data and Research on Contemporary Social Life (CDRCSL) at Fudan University for qualitative research in social sciences and humanities. This special collection includes written materials on various aspects of social life that are left outside the official archive system. We first introduce the types and features of the grassroots archives collection and then briefly review the values of these primary sources, illustrated by two examples. We conclude with brief discussion on some case studies based on the primary data from the CDRCSL collection and our reflection on the tension between the protection of subject privacy and preservation of historical truth.

scholarly journals Machine Learning for Dissimulating Reality

Proceedings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Andrea Giussani
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Generative Adversarial Network ◽  
Adversarial Network ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
Musical Scores ◽  
Mathematical Formulas

In the last decade, advances in statistical modeling and computer science have boosted the production of machine-produced contents in different fields: from language to image generation, the quality of the generated outputs is remarkably high, sometimes better than those produced by a human being. Modern technological advances such as OpenAI’s GPT-2 (and recently GPT-3) permit automated systems to dramatically alter reality with synthetic outputs so that humans are not able to distinguish the real copy from its counteracts. An example is given by an article entirely written by GPT-2, but many other examples exist. In the field of computer vision, Nvidia’s Generative Adversarial Network, commonly known as StyleGAN (Karras et al. 2018), has become the de facto reference point for the production of a huge amount of fake human face portraits; additionally, recent algorithms were developed to create both musical scores and mathematical formulas. This presentation aims to stimulate participants on the state-of-the-art results in this field: we will cover both GANs and language modeling with recent applications. The novelty here is that we apply a transformer-based machine learning technique, namely RoBerta (Liu et al. 2019), to the detection of human-produced versus machine-produced text concerning fake news detection. RoBerta is a recent algorithm that is based on the well-known Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers algorithm, known as BERT (Devlin et al. 2018); this is a bi-directional transformer used for natural language processing developed by Google and pre-trained over a huge amount of unlabeled textual data to learn embeddings. We will then use these representations as an input of our classifier to detect real vs. machine-produced text. The application is demonstrated in the presentation.

scholarly journals Evaluation of a highly refined prediction model in knowledge-based volumetric modulated arc therapy planning for cervical cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingli Wang ◽  
Huikuan Gu ◽  
Jiang Hu ◽  
Jian Liang ◽  
Sisi Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cervical Cancer ◽  
Prediction Model ◽  
Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy ◽  
Model Evolution ◽  
Prediction Ability ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Arc Therapy ◽  
Knowledge Based Planning

Abstract Background and purpose To explore whether a highly refined dose volume histograms (DVH) prediction model can improve the accuracy and reliability of knowledge-based volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) planning for cervical cancer. Methods and materials The proposed model underwent repeated refining through progressive training until the training samples increased from initial 25 prior plans up to 100 cases. The estimated DVHs derived from the prediction models of different runs of training were compared in 35 new cervical cancer patients to analyze the effect of such an interactive plan and model evolution method. The reliability and efficiency of knowledge-based planning (KBP) using this highly refined model in improving the consistency and quality of the VMAT plans were also evaluated. Results The prediction ability was reinforced with the increased number of refinements in terms of normal tissue sparing. With enhanced prediction accuracy, more than 60% of automatic plan-6 (AP-6) plans (22/35) can be directly approved for clinical treatment without any manual revision. The plan quality scores for clinically approved plans (CPs) and manual plans (MPs) were on average 89.02 ± 4.83 and 86.48 ± 3.92 (p < 0.001). Knowledge-based planning significantly reduced the Dmean and V18 Gy for kidney (L/R), the Dmean, V30 Gy, and V40 Gy for bladder, rectum, and femoral head (L/R). Conclusion The proposed model evolution method provides a practical way for the KBP to enhance its prediction ability with minimal human intervene. This highly refined prediction model can better guide KBP in improving the consistency and quality of the VMAT plans.

scholarly journals Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the 22-item sinonasal outcome test (SNOT-22) in German-speaking patients: a prospective, multicenter cohort study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Albrecht ◽  
Achim Georg Beule ◽  
Tanja Hildenbrand ◽  
Kathrin Gerstacker ◽  
Mark Praetorius ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sinus Surgery ◽  
Health Related Quality ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Specific Question ◽  
Related Quality ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Snot 22 ◽  
Disease Specific

Abstract Purpose Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a common condition associated with a significant reduction of the health-related quality of life. One of the most widely used assessment tools in CRS is the disease-specific, health-related questionnaire SNOT-22. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the SNOT-22 into the German language. Methods The questionnaire was translated using the forward–backward translation technique. After the translation its reliability, validity, and sensitivity were evaluated. For this purpose, the questionnaire was completed by patients diagnosed with CRS before, 3 months and 1 year after endoscopic sinus surgery and by healthy individuals as controls at three university hospitals in Germany. The individual scores of the questionnaire before surgery was correlated with the Lund–Mackay score as well as a global disease-specific question. Results A total of 139 CRS patients and 31 healthy individuals participated in the study. Internal consistency at all timepoints was very good, with Cronbach’s alpha scores of 0.897, 0.941, and 0.945. The questionnaire was able to discriminate between CRS patients and control subjects (p < 0.0001) and scores improved significantly 3 month and 1 year after sinus surgery (p < 0.0001), indicating a good test–retest reliability, validity, and responsiveness. A significant correlation to the single global disease-specific question could be found (p < 0.0001), but no correlation with the Lund–Mackay score. Conclusion The German Version of the SNOT-22 is a reliable, valid, and sensitive instrument for measuring health-related quality of life in patients with CRS. It can be recommended for clinical practice and outcome research for German-speaking patients.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document