A methodological pilot for gathering data through text-messaging to study question-asking in everyday life

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren Gergle ◽  
Eszter Hargittai
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Text Messaging ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Question Asking ◽  
Gathering Data

How do people find answers to questions they encounter in everyday life? While extensive research has examined how people go about finding answers to questions online, there has been little work investigating the issue from a more holistic, in situ perspective that covers the various devices, resources, and contextual factors that influence everyday question-asking experiences. To address this, we developed a text-messaging-based data-collection framework. This paper details our approach including reflections on both the benefits and challenges of the methodology for researchers seeking to apply similar approaches to social science research. In doing so, we demonstrate how our methodology helps establish a contextually rich understanding of information-seeking processes. We also demonstrate our approach to analyzing data from a small but diverse group of adults across the United States about their everyday question-asking experiences.

Making Nano Matter

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 604-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Simakova
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
University Campus ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Societal Relevance ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Interpretive Flexibility

The article examines science-policy conversations mediated by social science in attempts to govern, or set up terms for, scientific research. The production of social science research accounts about science faces challenges in the domains of emerging technosciences, such as nano. Constructing notions of success and failure, participants in science actively engage in the interpretation of policy notions, such as the societal relevance of their research. Industrial engagement is one of the prominent themes both in policy renditions of governable science, and in the participants’ attempts to achieve societally relevant research, often oriented into the future. How do we, as researchers, go about collecting, recording, and analyzing such future stories? I examine a series of recent interviews conducted in a number of US universities, and in particular at a university campus on the West Coast of the United States. The research engages participants through interviews, which can be understood as occasions for testing the interpretive flexibility of nano as “good” scientific practice and of what counts as societal relevance, under what circumstances and in view of what kind of audiences.

scholarly journals STATEMENT FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE W. E. B. DU BOIS INSTITUTE

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Louis Gates
Keyword(s):  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The Past ◽  
Considerable Work ◽  
Public Policy Decisions

In 1903, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois famously predicted that the problem of the twentieth century would be the problem of the color line. Indeed, during the past century, matters of race were frequently the cause of intense conflict and the stimulus for public policy decisions not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The founding of the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race at the beginning of the twenty-first century acknowledges the continuing impact of Du Bois's prophecy, his pioneering role as one of the founders of the discipline of sociology in the American academy, and the considerable work that remains to be done as we confront the “problem” that Du Bois identified over a century ago.

Book Reviews: Behavioral Sociology: The Experimental Analysis of Social Process, Balance in Small Groups, Racial Violence in the United States, The Education of Borstal Boys, The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom, IV, Types of Religious Man, Men in Mid-Career: A Study of British Managers and Technical Specialists, The Family and the Handicapped Child: A Study of Cerebral Palsied Children in Their Homes, The Assessment of Social Research: Guidelines for the Use of Social Research in Social Work and Social Science, The Conditions of Social Performance: An Exploratory Theory, Families and Their Relatives: Kinship in a Middle-Class Sector of London, The Population Census: A Social Science Research Council Review, Introduction to Social Work, Theories of Social Psychology, Put Away: A Sociological Study of Institutions for the Mentally Retarded, City Lads in Borstal: A Study Based on 100 Lads Discharged to Addresses in Liverspool, Science, Industry and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Science, Interaction Concept of Personality, Hightown Grammar: The School as a Social System, Causes of Delinquency, towards a Sociology of the Cinema: A Comparative Essay on the Structure and Functioning of a Major Entertainment Industry

1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-456
Author(s):  
A. P. M. Coxon ◽  
Patrick Doreian ◽  
Robin Oakley ◽  
Ian B. Stephen ◽  
Bryan R. Wilson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Population Census ◽  
Sociological Study

Legacies of the 1960s: The American “Rights Revolution” in an Era of Divided Governance

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Davis Graham
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
The 1960S

Scholarship on the political development of the United States since the 1960s is dominated, not surprisingly, by social scientists. Such recent events fall within the penumbra of “contemporary history,” the standard research domain of social scientists but treacherous terrain for historians. Social scientists studying American government and society generally enjoy prompt access to evidence of the policy-making process–documents from the elected and judicial branches of government, interviews with policy elites, voting returns, survey research. Historians of the recent past, on the other hand, generally lack two crucial ingredients–temporal perspective and archival evidence–that distinguish historical analysis from social science research. For these reasons, social scientists (and journalists) customarily define the initial terms of policy debate and shape the conventional wisdom. Historians weigh in later, when memories fade, archives open, and the clock adds a relentless and inherently revisionist accumulation of hindsight.

Energy Consumption as Part of Social Practices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Horta
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Practice Turn

This chapter examines social practices as an alternative and promising approach to conventional social science research on energy consumption. It highlights the emergence of practice theory in social science research on energy consumption that focuses on the interaction between social structures and everyday life, including materiality. After providing an overview of the evolution of social science research on energy consumption, the chapter summarizes the “practice turn” in sociology and its extension to research on energy consumption. It then considers the most prominent features of practice theory used in the field of research on energy consumption and concludes by describing the process of formation of the practice of managing the mobile phone as an example of how energy consumption can be analyzed using a practice theory approach.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document