Good listening: A key element in establishing quality in qualitative research

What is “good” qualitative research? Considerable literature articulates criteria for quality in qualitative research. Common to all these criteria is the understanding that the data gathering process, often interviews, is central in assessing research quality. Studies have highlighted the preparation of the interview guide, appropriate ways to ask questions, and especially the interaction between interviewer and interviewee. To a lesser extent, qualitative scholars mention the importance of the interviewer’s listening abilities in obtaining the interviewee’s cooperation. Based on results of listening studies in the fields of psychology and organizational behavior, we argue that good listening is crucial for assessing the quality of qualitative research, yet remains a blind spot in qualitative data gathering. Drawing on our experience as qualitative researcher and listening researcher, we present practices for enhancing good listening in qualitative research, thereby enabling researchers to calibrate themselves as research instruments and obtain richer data.

Central auditory processing in bilinguals

Background and Aim: The majority of the world’s population is bilingual. Bilingualism is a form of sensory enrichment that translates to gains in cognitive abilities; these cognitive gains in attention and memory are known to modulate subcortical processing of auditory stimuli. Sec­ond language acquisition has a broad impact on various psychological, cognitive, memory, and linguistic processes. Central auditory processing (CAP) is the perceptual processing of auditory information. Due to its importance in bilingu­alism, this study aimed to review the CAP of bilinguals. Recent Findings: The CAP was studied in three areas: dichotic listening, temporal processing, and speech in noise perception. Regarding dicho­tic listening, studies have shown that bilinguals have better performance in staggered spondaic word (SSW) test, consonant-vowel dichotic test, dichotic digits test (DDT), and disyllable dichotic test than monolinguals, although similar results have also been reported in SSW and DDT. Reg­arding temporal processing, the results of bilin­guals do not differ from those of monolinguals, although in some cases, it is better in bilinguals. Regarding speech in noise perception, the results between bilinguals and monolinguals are varied depending on the amount of linguistic infor­mation available in the stimuli. Conclusion: Bilingualism has a positive effect on dichotic processing, no effect on temporal processing, and varied effect on speech in noise perception. Bilinguals have poor performance using meaningful speech and better performance using meaningless speech. Keywords: Central auditory processing; bilingual; dichotic listening; temporal processing; speech in noise perception

How Do You Listen?: The Relationship Between How Men Listen and Women’s Power and Respect in the U.S.

As American culture confronts the issues raised by #MeToo, some ask, what can men do in interpersonal interactions to become allies and empower women? Building on research in linguistics, communication, sociology, as well as psychology, seven pre-registered studies investigate the relationship between how men listen during troubles talk (i.e., communication about problems) and women’s sense of power and respect. We theorize and compare two styles of effective listening: more other-focused interdependent listening (e.g., asking a question) and more self-focused independent listening (e.g., giving advice). We find that though men are less likely than women to do interdependent listening during troubles talk (Study 1), men can be encouraged to ask questions (Study 2). When investigating the effect on women of how men listen, we found that women anticipate feeling more powerful and respected when listened to by a man friend doing interdependent (vs. independent) listening (Studies 3a – 3c), particularly those women who do not endorse stereotypic gender roles (Study 3c). We partially replicated these findings in two live interaction studies involving strangers communicating over text: women felt more powerful and respected when listened to by men who asked open-ended questions compared to men who gave prescriptive, unsolicited advice (Study 5), though they did not when men simply asked more questions (Study 4). We suggest that listening can assume multiple productive forms, but that compared to independent listening, interdependent listening can serve as an everyday anti-sexist practice to attenuate rather than accentuate the gender hierarchy.

Evaluation of college students’ English performance considering Roche multiway tree clustering

In this study, the questionnaire survey, diversified classroom teaching, and multivariate evaluation are carried out on college students of non-English majors based on the Roche multiway tree clustering method. The SPSS statistical software is used for statistical analysis. The results show that Roche multiway tree cluster distribution of non-English major college students is at a medium level. There is no significant correlation between the comprehensive English performance and the overall Roche multiway tree clustering, and there is a low positive correlation between Roche multiway tree clustering and English listening. Studies have suggested that in comprehensive English classroom teaching, teachers should pay attention to the weak intelligence of students, teach students according to their intelligence difference, build a diversified classroom teaching evaluation model, and promote the all-round development of student intelligence.

Perception of stationary wind noise in vehicles

Predictors of people's responses to noise inside cars are used by car companies to identify and address potential noise problems from tests. Because significant improvements have been made in engine, powertrain, and tire/road noise, it is now important to pursue improvements in wind or aerodynamic noise. While models of loudness are commonly used to predict people's responses to stationary wind noise, some wind noises are less acceptable than is predicted by loudness metrics. Additional sound characteristics may account for this. Three listening studies were designed to examine the usefulness of including additional sound quality metrics with loudness in models used to predict acceptability for stationary wind-noise sounds. Test sounds were based on recordings made in cars in a wind tunnel. Signal modification techniques were developed to decorrelate metrics across a set of sounds and to examine how acceptability changes with strengths of particular sound characteristics. Models of acceptability for stationary wind noise are significantly improved when a metric that predicts the sharpness of a sound is included in the model with the loudness metric.

Listening and Deliberation

One key idea in the history of deliberative theory is that citizens must listen to one another, though the fullest accounts of listening come from the broader field of democratic theory. Bickford’s (1996) theory is enlightening, but more compatible with agonistic democracy. Dobson’s (2014) exhortations to take listening seriously are important, even if he distances himself from deliberation. In practice, scholars of mini-publics have examined the importance of moderators, structures, and dispositions, including empathy, for outcomes related to listening. Studies using the Deliberative Quality Index reveal factors that improve listening in legislatures. Research examining reciprocity utilize measures that could help us better understanding deliberative listening. Work by Hendriks and Sercan (2017) has even directly examined listening in deliberation. Notwithstanding these developments, we must continue refining the conceptualization and operationalization of listening if we are to understand this aspect of a successful deliberative democracy.

Auditory Hallucinations and Reduced Language Lateralization in Schizophrenia: A Meta-analysis of Dichotic Listening Studies

Reduced left-hemispheric language lateralization has been proposed to be a trait marker for schizophrenia, but the empirical evidence is ambiguous. Recent studies suggest that auditory hallucinations are critical for whether a patient shows reduced language lateralization. Therefore, the aim of the study was to statistically integrate studies investigating language lateralization in schizophrenia patients using dichotic listening. To this end, two meta-analyses were conducted, one comparing schizophrenia patients with healthy controls (n = 1407), the other comparing schizophrenia patients experiencing auditory hallucinations with non-hallucinating controls (n = 407). Schizophrenia patients showed weaker language lateralization than healthy controls but the effect size was small (g = −0.26). When patients with auditory hallucinations were compared to non-hallucinating controls, the effect size was substantially larger (g = −0.45). These effect sizes suggest that reduced language lateralization is a weak trait marker for schizophrenia as such and a strong trait marker for the experience of auditory hallucinations within the schizophrenia population. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–9.)