importance of qualitative research in history

Qualitative study design: Historical

• Qualitative study design
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Looking at the past to inform the future.

Describing and examining past events to better understand the present and to anticipate potential effects on the future. To identify a need for knowledge that requires a historical investigation. Piecing together a history, particularly when there are no people living to tell their story.  

• Oral recordings

Can provide a fuller picture of the scope of the research as it covers a wider range of sources. As an example, documents such as diaries, oral histories and official records and newspaper reports were used to identify a scurvy and smallpox epidemic among Klondike gold rushers (Highet p3).

Unobtrusiveness of this research method.

Limitations

Issues with validity – can only use the historical information that is available today.

Primary sources are hard to locate.  

Hard to triangulate findings (find other resources to back up the information provided in the original resource). 

Example questions

• What caused an outbreak of polio in the past that may contribute to the outbreaks of today? 
• How has the attitude to LGBTQIA+ changed over the past 50 years?

Example studies

• Hallett, C. E., Madsen, W., Pateman, B., & Bradshaw, J. (2012). " Time enough! Or not enough time!" An oral history investigation of some British and Australian community nurses' responses to demands for "efficiency" in health care, 1960-2000 . Nursing History Review, 20, 136-161. 
• Navarro, J. A., Kohl, K. S., Cetron, M. S., & Markel, H. (2016). A tale of many cities: a contemporary historical study of the implementation of school closures during the 2009 pA(H1N1) influenza pandemic. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 41(3), 393-422. Retrieved from  http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=lhh&AN=20163261834&site=ehost-live&scope=site   

Edith Cowan University Library. (2019). Historical Research Method. Retrieved from  https://ecu.au.libguides.com/historical-research-method   

Godshall, M. (2016). Fast facts for evidence-based practice in nursing: Implementing EBP in a nutshell (2nd ed.). New York: Springer Publishing Company. 

Highet, M. J. (2010). "It Depends on Where You Look": The Unusual Presentation of Scurvy and  Smallpox Among Klondike Gold Rushers as Revealed Through Qualitative Data Sources. Past Imperfect, 16, 3-34. doi:10.21971/P7J59D 

Saks, M., & Allsop, J. (2012). Researching health: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods (2nd ed.). London: SAGE. 

Taylor, B. J., & Francis, K. (2013). Qualitative research in the health sciences: methodologies, methods and processes. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 

University of Missouri-St. Louis. Qualitative Research Designs. Retrieved from http://www.umsl.edu/~lindquists/qualdsgn.html   

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Historical Research – Types, Methods and Examples

Table of Contents

Historical Research

Definition:

Historical research is the process of investigating and studying past events, people, and societies using a variety of sources and methods. This type of research aims to reconstruct and interpret the past based on the available evidence.

Types of Historical Research

There are several types of historical research, including:

Descriptive Research

This type of historical research focuses on describing events, people, or cultures in detail. It can involve examining artifacts, documents, or other sources of information to create a detailed account of what happened or existed.

Analytical Research

This type of historical research aims to explain why events, people, or cultures occurred in a certain way. It involves analyzing data to identify patterns, causes, and effects, and making interpretations based on this analysis.

Comparative Research

This type of historical research involves comparing two or more events, people, or cultures to identify similarities and differences. This can help researchers understand the unique characteristics of each and how they interacted with each other.

Interpretive Research

This type of historical research focuses on interpreting the meaning of past events, people, or cultures. It can involve analyzing cultural symbols, beliefs, and practices to understand their significance in a particular historical context.

Quantitative Research

This type of historical research involves using statistical methods to analyze historical data. It can involve examining demographic information, economic indicators, or other quantitative data to identify patterns and trends.

Qualitative Research

This type of historical research involves examining non-numerical data such as personal accounts, letters, or diaries. It can provide insights into the experiences and perspectives of individuals during a particular historical period.

Data Collection Methods

Data Collection Methods are as follows:

• Archival research : This involves analyzing documents and records that have been preserved over time, such as government records, diaries, letters, newspapers, and photographs. Archival research is often conducted in libraries, archives, and museums.
• Oral history : This involves conducting interviews with individuals who have lived through a particular historical period or event. Oral history can provide a unique perspective on past events and can help to fill gaps in the historical record.
• Artifact analysis: This involves examining physical objects from the past, such as tools, clothing, and artwork, to gain insights into past cultures and practices.
• Secondary sources: This involves analyzing published works, such as books, articles, and academic papers, that discuss past events and cultures. Secondary sources can provide context and insights into the historical period being studied.
• Statistical analysis : This involves analyzing numerical data from the past, such as census records or economic data, to identify patterns and trends.
• Fieldwork : This involves conducting on-site research in a particular location, such as visiting a historical site or conducting ethnographic research in a particular community. Fieldwork can provide a firsthand understanding of the culture and environment being studied.
• Content analysis: This involves analyzing the content of media from the past, such as films, television programs, and advertisements, to gain insights into cultural attitudes and beliefs.

Data Analysis Methods

• Content analysis : This involves analyzing the content of written or visual material, such as books, newspapers, or photographs, to identify patterns and themes. Content analysis can be used to identify changes in cultural values and beliefs over time.
• Textual analysis : This involves analyzing written texts, such as letters or diaries, to understand the experiences and perspectives of individuals during a particular historical period. Textual analysis can provide insights into how people lived and thought in the past.
• Discourse analysis : This involves analyzing how language is used to construct meaning and power relations in a particular historical period. Discourse analysis can help to identify how social and political ideologies were constructed and maintained over time.
• Statistical analysis: This involves using statistical methods to analyze numerical data, such as census records or economic data, to identify patterns and trends. Statistical analysis can help to identify changes in population demographics, economic conditions, and other factors over time.
• Comparative analysis : This involves comparing data from two or more historical periods or events to identify similarities and differences. Comparative analysis can help to identify patterns and trends that may not be apparent from analyzing data from a single historical period.
• Qualitative analysis: This involves analyzing non-numerical data, such as oral history interviews or ethnographic field notes, to identify themes and patterns. Qualitative analysis can provide a rich understanding of the experiences and perspectives of individuals in the past.

Historical Research Methodology

Here are the general steps involved in historical research methodology:

• Define the research question: Start by identifying a research question that you want to answer through your historical research. This question should be focused, specific, and relevant to your research goals.
• Review the literature: Conduct a review of the existing literature on the topic of your research question. This can involve reading books, articles, and academic papers to gain a thorough understanding of the existing research.
• Develop a research design : Develop a research design that outlines the methods you will use to collect and analyze data. This design should be based on the research question and should be feasible given the resources and time available.
• Collect data: Use the methods outlined in your research design to collect data on past events, people, and cultures. This can involve archival research, oral history interviews, artifact analysis, and other data collection methods.
• Analyze data : Analyze the data you have collected using the methods outlined in your research design. This can involve content analysis, textual analysis, statistical analysis, and other data analysis methods.
• Interpret findings : Use the results of your data analysis to draw meaningful insights and conclusions related to your research question. These insights should be grounded in the data and should be relevant to the research goals.
• Communicate results: Communicate your findings through a research report, academic paper, or other means. This should be done in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner, with appropriate citations and references to the literature.

Applications of Historical Research

Historical research has a wide range of applications in various fields, including:

• Education : Historical research can be used to develop curriculum materials that reflect a more accurate and inclusive representation of history. It can also be used to provide students with a deeper understanding of past events and cultures.
• Museums : Historical research is used to develop exhibits, programs, and other materials for museums. It can provide a more accurate and engaging presentation of historical events and artifacts.
• Public policy : Historical research is used to inform public policy decisions by providing insights into the historical context of current issues. It can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of past policies and programs.
• Business : Historical research can be used by businesses to understand the evolution of their industry and to identify trends that may affect their future success. It can also be used to develop marketing strategies that resonate with customers’ historical interests and values.
• Law : Historical research is used in legal proceedings to provide evidence and context for cases involving historical events or practices. It can also be used to inform the development of new laws and policies.
• Genealogy : Historical research can be used by individuals to trace their family history and to understand their ancestral roots.
• Cultural preservation : Historical research is used to preserve cultural heritage by documenting and interpreting past events, practices, and traditions. It can also be used to identify and preserve historical landmarks and artifacts.

Examples of Historical Research

Examples of Historical Research are as follows:

• Examining the history of race relations in the United States: Historical research could be used to explore the historical roots of racial inequality and injustice in the United States. This could help inform current efforts to address systemic racism and promote social justice.
• Tracing the evolution of political ideologies: Historical research could be used to study the development of political ideologies over time. This could help to contextualize current political debates and provide insights into the origins and evolution of political beliefs and values.
• Analyzing the impact of technology on society : Historical research could be used to explore the impact of technology on society over time. This could include examining the impact of previous technological revolutions (such as the industrial revolution) on society, as well as studying the current impact of emerging technologies on society and the environment.
• Documenting the history of marginalized communities : Historical research could be used to document the history of marginalized communities (such as LGBTQ+ communities or indigenous communities). This could help to preserve cultural heritage, promote social justice, and promote a more inclusive understanding of history.

Purpose of Historical Research

The purpose of historical research is to study the past in order to gain a better understanding of the present and to inform future decision-making. Some specific purposes of historical research include:

• To understand the origins of current events, practices, and institutions : Historical research can be used to explore the historical roots of current events, practices, and institutions. By understanding how things developed over time, we can gain a better understanding of the present.
• To develop a more accurate and inclusive understanding of history : Historical research can be used to correct inaccuracies and biases in historical narratives. By exploring different perspectives and sources of information, we can develop a more complete and nuanced understanding of history.
• To inform decision-making: Historical research can be used to inform decision-making in various fields, including education, public policy, business, and law. By understanding the historical context of current issues, we can make more informed decisions about how to address them.
• To preserve cultural heritage : Historical research can be used to document and preserve cultural heritage, including traditions, practices, and artifacts. By understanding the historical significance of these cultural elements, we can work to preserve them for future generations.
• To stimulate curiosity and critical thinking: Historical research can be used to stimulate curiosity and critical thinking about the past. By exploring different historical perspectives and interpretations, we can develop a more critical and reflective approach to understanding history and its relevance to the present.

When to use Historical Research

Historical research can be useful in a variety of contexts. Here are some examples of when historical research might be particularly appropriate:

• When examining the historical roots of current events: Historical research can be used to explore the historical roots of current events, practices, and institutions. By understanding how things developed over time, we can gain a better understanding of the present.
• When examining the historical context of a particular topic : Historical research can be used to explore the historical context of a particular topic, such as a social issue, political debate, or scientific development. By understanding the historical context, we can gain a more nuanced understanding of the topic and its significance.
• When exploring the evolution of a particular field or discipline : Historical research can be used to explore the evolution of a particular field or discipline, such as medicine, law, or art. By understanding the historical development of the field, we can gain a better understanding of its current state and future directions.
• When examining the impact of past events on current society : Historical research can be used to examine the impact of past events (such as wars, revolutions, or social movements) on current society. By understanding the historical context and impact of these events, we can gain insights into current social and political issues.
• When studying the cultural heritage of a particular community or group : Historical research can be used to document and preserve the cultural heritage of a particular community or group. By understanding the historical significance of cultural practices, traditions, and artifacts, we can work to preserve them for future generations.

Characteristics of Historical Research

The following are some characteristics of historical research:

• Focus on the past : Historical research focuses on events, people, and phenomena of the past. It seeks to understand how things developed over time and how they relate to current events.
• Reliance on primary sources: Historical research relies on primary sources such as letters, diaries, newspapers, government documents, and other artifacts from the period being studied. These sources provide firsthand accounts of events and can help researchers gain a more accurate understanding of the past.
• Interpretation of data : Historical research involves interpretation of data from primary sources. Researchers analyze and interpret data to draw conclusions about the past.
• Use of multiple sources: Historical research often involves using multiple sources of data to gain a more complete understanding of the past. By examining a range of sources, researchers can cross-reference information and validate their findings.
• Importance of context: Historical research emphasizes the importance of context. Researchers analyze the historical context in which events occurred and consider how that context influenced people’s actions and decisions.
• Subjectivity : Historical research is inherently subjective, as researchers interpret data and draw conclusions based on their own perspectives and biases. Researchers must be aware of their own biases and strive for objectivity in their analysis.
• Importance of historical significance: Historical research emphasizes the importance of historical significance. Researchers consider the historical significance of events, people, and phenomena and their impact on the present and future.
• Use of qualitative methods : Historical research often uses qualitative methods such as content analysis, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis to analyze data and draw conclusions about the past.

Advantages of Historical Research

There are several advantages to historical research:

• Provides a deeper understanding of the past : Historical research can provide a more comprehensive understanding of past events and how they have shaped current social, political, and economic conditions. This can help individuals and organizations make informed decisions about the future.
• Helps preserve cultural heritage: Historical research can be used to document and preserve cultural heritage. By studying the history of a particular culture, researchers can gain insights into the cultural practices and beliefs that have shaped that culture over time.
• Provides insights into long-term trends : Historical research can provide insights into long-term trends and patterns. By studying historical data over time, researchers can identify patterns and trends that may be difficult to discern from short-term data.
• Facilitates the development of hypotheses: Historical research can facilitate the development of hypotheses about how past events have influenced current conditions. These hypotheses can be tested using other research methods, such as experiments or surveys.
• Helps identify root causes of social problems : Historical research can help identify the root causes of social problems. By studying the historical context in which these problems developed, researchers can gain a better understanding of how they emerged and what factors may have contributed to their development.
• Provides a source of inspiration: Historical research can provide a source of inspiration for individuals and organizations seeking to address current social, political, and economic challenges. By studying the accomplishments and struggles of past generations, researchers can gain insights into how to address current challenges.

Limitations of Historical Research

Some Limitations of Historical Research are as follows:

• Reliance on incomplete or biased data: Historical research is often limited by the availability and quality of data. Many primary sources have been lost, destroyed, or are inaccessible, making it difficult to get a complete picture of historical events. Additionally, some primary sources may be biased or represent only one perspective on an event.
• Difficulty in generalizing findings: Historical research is often specific to a particular time and place and may not be easily generalized to other contexts. This makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions about human behavior or social phenomena.
• Lack of control over variables : Historical research often lacks control over variables. Researchers cannot manipulate or control historical events, making it difficult to establish cause-and-effect relationships.
• Subjectivity of interpretation : Historical research is often subjective because researchers must interpret data and draw conclusions based on their own biases and perspectives. Different researchers may interpret the same data differently, leading to different conclusions.
• Limited ability to test hypotheses: Historical research is often limited in its ability to test hypotheses. Because the events being studied have already occurred, researchers cannot manipulate variables or conduct experiments to test their hypotheses.
• Lack of objectivity: Historical research is often subjective, and researchers must be aware of their own biases and strive for objectivity in their analysis. However, it can be difficult to maintain objectivity when studying events that are emotionally charged or controversial.
• Limited generalizability: Historical research is often limited in its generalizability, as the events and conditions being studied may be specific to a particular time and place. This makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions that apply to other contexts or time periods.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Through oral history and life history, researchers are able to gain a deeper understanding of a historical experience.  Oral history involves interviewing people about their historical lived experiences. Similar methodologies include narrative analysis and biography.  

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• Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History A primer on how to do oral history.

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Qualitative Methods in Health Care Research

Vishnu renjith.

School of Nursing and Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland - Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain), Al Sayh Muharraq Governorate, Bahrain

Renjulal Yesodharan

1 Department of Mental Health Nursing, Manipal College of Nursing Manipal, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India

Judith A. Noronha

2 Department of OBG Nursing, Manipal College of Nursing Manipal, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India

Elissa Ladd

3 School of Nursing, MGH Institute of Health Professions, Boston, USA

Anice George

4 Department of Child Health Nursing, Manipal College of Nursing Manipal, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India

Healthcare research is a systematic inquiry intended to generate robust evidence about important issues in the fields of medicine and healthcare. Qualitative research has ample possibilities within the arena of healthcare research. This article aims to inform healthcare professionals regarding qualitative research, its significance, and applicability in the field of healthcare. A wide variety of phenomena that cannot be explained using the quantitative approach can be explored and conveyed using a qualitative method. The major types of qualitative research designs are narrative research, phenomenological research, grounded theory research, ethnographic research, historical research, and case study research. The greatest strength of the qualitative research approach lies in the richness and depth of the healthcare exploration and description it makes. In health research, these methods are considered as the most humanistic and person-centered way of discovering and uncovering thoughts and actions of human beings.

Introduction

Healthcare research is a systematic inquiry intended to generate trustworthy evidence about issues in the field of medicine and healthcare. The three principal approaches to health research are the quantitative, the qualitative, and the mixed methods approach. The quantitative research method uses data, which are measures of values and counts and are often described using statistical methods which in turn aids the researcher to draw inferences. Qualitative research incorporates the recording, interpreting, and analyzing of non-numeric data with an attempt to uncover the deeper meanings of human experiences and behaviors. Mixed methods research, the third methodological approach, involves collection and analysis of both qualitative and quantitative information with an objective to solve different but related questions, or at times the same questions.[ 1 , 2 ]

In healthcare, qualitative research is widely used to understand patterns of health behaviors, describe lived experiences, develop behavioral theories, explore healthcare needs, and design interventions.[ 1 , 2 , 3 ] Because of its ample applications in healthcare, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of health research studies undertaken using qualitative methodology.[ 4 , 5 ] This article discusses qualitative research methods, their significance, and applicability in the arena of healthcare.

Qualitative Research

Diverse academic and non-academic disciplines utilize qualitative research as a method of inquiry to understand human behavior and experiences.[ 6 , 7 ] According to Munhall, “Qualitative research involves broadly stated questions about human experiences and realities, studied through sustained contact with the individual in their natural environments and producing rich, descriptive data that will help us to understand those individual's experiences.”[ 8 ]

Significance of Qualitative Research

The qualitative method of inquiry examines the 'how' and 'why' of decision making, rather than the 'when,' 'what,' and 'where.'[ 7 ] Unlike quantitative methods, the objective of qualitative inquiry is to explore, narrate, and explain the phenomena and make sense of the complex reality. Health interventions, explanatory health models, and medical-social theories could be developed as an outcome of qualitative research.[ 9 ] Understanding the richness and complexity of human behavior is the crux of qualitative research.

Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Research

The quantitative and qualitative forms of inquiry vary based on their underlying objectives. They are in no way opposed to each other; instead, these two methods are like two sides of a coin. The critical differences between quantitative and qualitative research are summarized in Table 1 .[ 1 , 10 , 11 ]

Differences between quantitative and qualitative research

Qualitative Research Questions and Purpose Statements

Qualitative questions are exploratory and are open-ended. A well-formulated study question forms the basis for developing a protocol, guides the selection of design, and data collection methods. Qualitative research questions generally involve two parts, a central question and related subquestions. The central question is directed towards the primary phenomenon under study, whereas the subquestions explore the subareas of focus. It is advised not to have more than five to seven subquestions. A commonly used framework for designing a qualitative research question is the 'PCO framework' wherein, P stands for the population under study, C stands for the context of exploration, and O stands for the outcome/s of interest.[ 12 ] The PCO framework guides researchers in crafting a focused study question.

Example: In the question, “What are the experiences of mothers on parenting children with Thalassemia?”, the population is “mothers of children with Thalassemia,” the context is “parenting children with Thalassemia,” and the outcome of interest is “experiences.”

The purpose statement specifies the broad focus of the study, identifies the approach, and provides direction for the overall goal of the study. The major components of a purpose statement include the central phenomenon under investigation, the study design and the population of interest. Qualitative research does not require a-priori hypothesis.[ 13 , 14 , 15 ]

Example: Borimnejad et al . undertook a qualitative research on the lived experiences of women suffering from vitiligo. The purpose of this study was, “to explore lived experiences of women suffering from vitiligo using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach.” [ 16 ]

Review of the Literature

In quantitative research, the researchers do an extensive review of scientific literature prior to the commencement of the study. However, in qualitative research, only a minimal literature search is conducted at the beginning of the study. This is to ensure that the researcher is not influenced by the existing understanding of the phenomenon under the study. The minimal literature review will help the researchers to avoid the conceptual pollution of the phenomenon being studied. Nonetheless, an extensive review of the literature is conducted after data collection and analysis.[ 15 ]

Reflexivity

Reflexivity refers to critical self-appraisal about one's own biases, values, preferences, and preconceptions about the phenomenon under investigation. Maintaining a reflexive diary/journal is a widely recognized way to foster reflexivity. According to Creswell, “Reflexivity increases the credibility of the study by enhancing more neutral interpretations.”[ 7 ]

Types of Qualitative Research Designs

The qualitative research approach encompasses a wide array of research designs. The words such as types, traditions, designs, strategies of inquiry, varieties, and methods are used interchangeably. The major types of qualitative research designs are narrative research, phenomenological research, grounded theory research, ethnographic research, historical research, and case study research.[ 1 , 7 , 10 ]

Narrative research

Narrative research focuses on exploring the life of an individual and is ideally suited to tell the stories of individual experiences.[ 17 ] The purpose of narrative research is to utilize 'story telling' as a method in communicating an individual's experience to a larger audience.[ 18 ] The roots of narrative inquiry extend to humanities including anthropology, literature, psychology, education, history, and sociology. Narrative research encompasses the study of individual experiences and learning the significance of those experiences. The data collection procedures include mainly interviews, field notes, letters, photographs, diaries, and documents collected from one or more individuals. Data analysis involves the analysis of the stories or experiences through “re-storying of stories” and developing themes usually in chronological order of events. Rolls and Payne argued that narrative research is a valuable approach in health care research, to gain deeper insight into patient's experiences.[ 19 ]

Example: Karlsson et al . undertook a narrative inquiry to “explore how people with Alzheimer's disease present their life story.” Data were collected from nine participants. They were asked to describe about their life experiences from childhood to adulthood, then to current life and their views about the future life. [ 20 ]

Phenomenological research

Phenomenology is a philosophical tradition developed by German philosopher Edmond Husserl. His student Martin Heidegger did further developments in this methodology. It defines the 'essence' of individual's experiences regarding a certain phenomenon.[ 1 ] The methodology has its origin from philosophy, psychology, and education. The purpose of qualitative research is to understand the people's everyday life experiences and reduce it into the central meaning or the 'essence of the experience'.[ 21 , 22 ] The unit of analysis of phenomenology is the individuals who have had similar experiences of the phenomenon. Interviews with individuals are mainly considered for the data collection, though, documents and observations are also useful. Data analysis includes identification of significant meaning elements, textural description (what was experienced), structural description (how was it experienced), and description of 'essence' of experience.[ 1 , 7 , 21 ] The phenomenological approach is further divided into descriptive and interpretive phenomenology. Descriptive phenomenology focuses on the understanding of the essence of experiences and is best suited in situations that need to describe the lived phenomenon. Hermeneutic phenomenology or Interpretive phenomenology moves beyond the description to uncover the meanings that are not explicitly evident. The researcher tries to interpret the phenomenon, based on their judgment rather than just describing it.[ 7 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]

Example: A phenomenological study conducted by Cornelio et al . aimed at describing the lived experiences of mothers in parenting children with leukemia. Data from ten mothers were collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews and were analyzed using Husserl's method of phenomenology. Themes such as “pivotal moment in life”, “the experience of being with a seriously ill child”, “having to keep distance with the relatives”, “overcoming the financial and social commitments”, “responding to challenges”, “experience of faith as being key to survival”, “health concerns of the present and future”, and “optimism” were derived. The researchers reported the essence of the study as “chronic illness such as leukemia in children results in a negative impact on the child and on the mother.” [ 25 ]

Grounded Theory Research

Grounded theory has its base in sociology and propagated by two sociologists, Barney Glaser, and Anselm Strauss.[ 26 ] The primary purpose of grounded theory is to discover or generate theory in the context of the social process being studied. The major difference between grounded theory and other approaches lies in its emphasis on theory generation and development. The name grounded theory comes from its ability to induce a theory grounded in the reality of study participants.[ 7 , 27 ] Data collection in grounded theory research involves recording interviews from many individuals until data saturation. Constant comparative analysis, theoretical sampling, theoretical coding, and theoretical saturation are unique features of grounded theory research.[ 26 , 27 , 28 ] Data analysis includes analyzing data through 'open coding,' 'axial coding,' and 'selective coding.'[ 1 , 7 ] Open coding is the first level of abstraction, and it refers to the creation of a broad initial range of categories, axial coding is the procedure of understanding connections between the open codes, whereas selective coding relates to the process of connecting the axial codes to formulate a theory.[ 1 , 7 ] Results of the grounded theory analysis are supplemented with a visual representation of major constructs usually in the form of flow charts or framework diagrams. Quotations from the participants are used in a supportive capacity to substantiate the findings. Strauss and Corbin highlights that “the value of the grounded theory lies not only in its ability to generate a theory but also to ground that theory in the data.”[ 27 ]

Example: Williams et al . conducted a grounded theory research to explore the nature of relationship between the sense of self and the eating disorders. Data were collected form 11 women with a lifetime history of Anorexia Nervosa and were analyzed using the grounded theory methodology. Analysis led to the development of a theoretical framework on the nature of the relationship between the self and Anorexia Nervosa. [ 29 ]

Ethnographic research

Ethnography has its base in anthropology, where the anthropologists used it for understanding the culture-specific knowledge and behaviors. In health sciences research, ethnography focuses on narrating and interpreting the health behaviors of a culture-sharing group. 'Culture-sharing group' in an ethnography represents any 'group of people who share common meanings, customs or experiences.' In health research, it could be a group of physicians working in rural care, a group of medical students, or it could be a group of patients who receive home-based rehabilitation. To understand the cultural patterns, researchers primarily observe the individuals or group of individuals for a prolonged period of time.[ 1 , 7 , 30 ] The scope of ethnography can be broad or narrow depending on the aim. The study of more general cultural groups is termed as macro-ethnography, whereas micro-ethnography focuses on more narrowly defined cultures. Ethnography is usually conducted in a single setting. Ethnographers collect data using a variety of methods such as observation, interviews, audio-video records, and document reviews. A written report includes a detailed description of the culture sharing group with emic and etic perspectives. When the researcher reports the views of the participants it is called emic perspectives and when the researcher reports his or her views about the culture, the term is called etic.[ 7 ]

Example: The aim of the ethnographic study by LeBaron et al . was to explore the barriers to opioid availability and cancer pain management in India. The researchers collected data from fifty-nine participants using in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document review. The researchers identified significant barriers by open coding and thematic analysis of the formal interview. [ 31 ]

Historical research

Historical research is the “systematic collection, critical evaluation, and interpretation of historical evidence”.[ 1 ] The purpose of historical research is to gain insights from the past and involves interpreting past events in the light of the present. The data for historical research are usually collected from primary and secondary sources. The primary source mainly includes diaries, first hand information, and writings. The secondary sources are textbooks, newspapers, second or third-hand accounts of historical events and medical/legal documents. The data gathered from these various sources are synthesized and reported as biographical narratives or developmental perspectives in chronological order. The ideas are interpreted in terms of the historical context and significance. The written report describes 'what happened', 'how it happened', 'why it happened', and its significance and implications to current clinical practice.[ 1 , 10 ]

Example: Lubold (2019) analyzed the breastfeeding trends in three countries (Sweden, Ireland, and the United States) using a historical qualitative method. Through analysis of historical data, the researcher found that strong family policies, adherence to international recommendations and adoption of baby-friendly hospital initiative could greatly enhance the breastfeeding rates. [ 32 ]

Case study research

Case study research focuses on the description and in-depth analysis of the case(s) or issues illustrated by the case(s). The design has its origin from psychology, law, and medicine. Case studies are best suited for the understanding of case(s), thus reducing the unit of analysis into studying an event, a program, an activity or an illness. Observations, one to one interviews, artifacts, and documents are used for collecting the data, and the analysis is done through the description of the case. From this, themes and cross-case themes are derived. A written case study report includes a detailed description of one or more cases.[ 7 , 10 ]

Example: Perceptions of poststroke sexuality in a woman of childbearing age was explored using a qualitative case study approach by Beal and Millenbrunch. Semi structured interview was conducted with a 36- year mother of two children with a history of Acute ischemic stroke. The data were analyzed using an inductive approach. The authors concluded that “stroke during childbearing years may affect a woman's perception of herself as a sexual being and her ability to carry out gender roles”. [ 33 ]

Sampling in Qualitative Research

Qualitative researchers widely use non-probability sampling techniques such as purposive sampling, convenience sampling, quota sampling, snowball sampling, homogeneous sampling, maximum variation sampling, extreme (deviant) case sampling, typical case sampling, and intensity sampling. The selection of a sampling technique depends on the nature and needs of the study.[ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ] The four widely used sampling techniques are convenience sampling, purposive sampling, snowball sampling, and intensity sampling.

Convenience sampling

It is otherwise called accidental sampling, where the researchers collect data from the subjects who are selected based on accessibility, geographical proximity, ease, speed, and or low cost.[ 34 ] Convenience sampling offers a significant benefit of convenience but often accompanies the issues of sample representation.

Purposive sampling

Purposive or purposeful sampling is a widely used sampling technique.[ 35 ] It involves identifying a population based on already established sampling criteria and then selecting subjects who fulfill that criteria to increase the credibility. However, choosing information-rich cases is the key to determine the power and logic of purposive sampling in a qualitative study.[ 1 ]

Snowball sampling

The method is also known as 'chain referral sampling' or 'network sampling.' The sampling starts by having a few initial participants, and the researcher relies on these early participants to identify additional study participants. It is best adopted when the researcher wishes to study the stigmatized group, or in cases, where findings of participants are likely to be difficult by ordinary means. Respondent ridden sampling is an improvised version of snowball sampling used to find out the participant from a hard-to-find or hard-to-study population.[ 37 , 38 ]

Intensity sampling

The process of identifying information-rich cases that manifest the phenomenon of interest is referred to as intensity sampling. It requires prior information, and considerable judgment about the phenomenon of interest and the researcher should do some preliminary investigations to determine the nature of the variation. Intensity sampling will be done once the researcher identifies the variation across the cases (extreme, average and intense) and picks the intense cases from them.[ 40 ]

Deciding the Sample Size

A-priori sample size calculation is not undertaken in the case of qualitative research. Researchers collect the data from as many participants as possible until they reach the point of data saturation. Data saturation or the point of redundancy is the stage where the researcher no longer sees or hears any new information. Data saturation gives the idea that the researcher has captured all possible information about the phenomenon of interest. Since no further information is being uncovered as redundancy is achieved, at this point the data collection can be stopped. The objective here is to get an overall picture of the chronicle of the phenomenon under the study rather than generalization.[ 1 , 7 , 41 ]

Data Collection in Qualitative Research

The various strategies used for data collection in qualitative research includes in-depth interviews (individual or group), focus group discussions (FGDs), participant observation, narrative life history, document analysis, audio materials, videos or video footage, text analysis, and simple observation. Among all these, the three popular methods are the FGDs, one to one in-depth interviews and the participant observation.

FGDs are useful in eliciting data from a group of individuals. They are normally built around a specific topic and are considered as the best approach to gather data on an entire range of responses to a topic.[ 42 Group size in an FGD ranges from 6 to 12. Depending upon the nature of participants, FGDs could be homogeneous or heterogeneous.[ 1 , 14 ] One to one in-depth interviews are best suited to obtain individuals' life histories, lived experiences, perceptions, and views, particularly while exporting topics of sensitive nature. In-depth interviews can be structured, unstructured, or semi-structured. However, semi-structured interviews are widely used in qualitative research. Participant observations are suitable for gathering data regarding naturally occurring behaviors.[ 1 ]

Data Analysis in Qualitative Research

Various strategies are employed by researchers to analyze data in qualitative research. Data analytic strategies differ according to the type of inquiry. A general content analysis approach is described herewith. Data analysis begins by transcription of the interview data. The researcher carefully reads data and gets a sense of the whole. Once the researcher is familiarized with the data, the researcher strives to identify small meaning units called the 'codes.' The codes are then grouped based on their shared concepts to form the primary categories. Based on the relationship between the primary categories, they are then clustered into secondary categories. The next step involves the identification of themes and interpretation to make meaning out of data. In the results section of the manuscript, the researcher describes the key findings/themes that emerged. The themes can be supported by participants' quotes. The analytical framework used should be explained in sufficient detail, and the analytic framework must be well referenced. The study findings are usually represented in a schematic form for better conceptualization.[ 1 , 7 ] Even though the overall analytical process remains the same across different qualitative designs, each design such as phenomenology, ethnography, and grounded theory has design specific analytical procedures, the details of which are out of the scope of this article.

Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS)

Until recently, qualitative analysis was done either manually or with the help of a spreadsheet application. Currently, there are various software programs available which aid researchers to manage qualitative data. CAQDAS is basically data management tools and cannot analyze the qualitative data as it lacks the ability to think, reflect, and conceptualize. Nonetheless, CAQDAS helps researchers to manage, shape, and make sense of unstructured information. Open Code, MAXQDA, NVivo, Atlas.ti, and Hyper Research are some of the widely used qualitative data analysis software.[ 14 , 43 ]

Reporting Guidelines

Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) is the widely used reporting guideline for qualitative research. This 32-item checklist assists researchers in reporting all the major aspects related to the study. The three major domains of COREQ are the 'research team and reflexivity', 'study design', and 'analysis and findings'.[ 44 , 45 ]

Critical Appraisal of Qualitative Research

Various scales are available to critical appraisal of qualitative research. The widely used one is the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) Qualitative Checklist developed by CASP network, UK. This 10-item checklist evaluates the quality of the study under areas such as aims, methodology, research design, ethical considerations, data collection, data analysis, and findings.[ 46 ]

Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research

A qualitative study must be undertaken by grounding it in the principles of bioethics such as beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. Protecting the participants is of utmost importance, and the greatest care has to be taken while collecting data from a vulnerable research population. The researcher must respect individuals, families, and communities and must make sure that the participants are not identifiable by their quotations that the researchers include when publishing the data. Consent for audio/video recordings must be obtained. Approval to be in FGDs must be obtained from the participants. Researchers must ensure the confidentiality and anonymity of the transcripts/audio-video records/photographs/other data collected as a part of the study. The researchers must confirm their role as advocates and proceed in the best interest of all participants.[ 42 , 47 , 48 ]

Rigor in Qualitative Research

The demonstration of rigor or quality in the conduct of the study is essential for every research method. However, the criteria used to evaluate the rigor of quantitative studies are not be appropriate for qualitative methods. Lincoln and Guba (1985) first outlined the criteria for evaluating the qualitative research often referred to as “standards of trustworthiness of qualitative research”.[ 49 ] The four components of the criteria are credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.

Credibility refers to confidence in the 'truth value' of the data and its interpretation. It is used to establish that the findings are true, credible and believable. Credibility is similar to the internal validity in quantitative research.[ 1 , 50 , 51 ] The second criterion to establish the trustworthiness of the qualitative research is transferability, Transferability refers to the degree to which the qualitative results are applicability to other settings, population or contexts. This is analogous to the external validity in quantitative research.[ 1 , 50 , 51 ] Lincoln and Guba recommend authors provide enough details so that the users will be able to evaluate the applicability of data in other contexts.[ 49 ] The criterion of dependability refers to the assumption of repeatability or replicability of the study findings and is similar to that of reliability in quantitative research. The dependability question is 'Whether the study findings be repeated of the study is replicated with the same (similar) cohort of participants, data coders, and context?'[ 1 , 50 , 51 ] Confirmability, the fourth criteria is analogous to the objectivity of the study and refers the degree to which the study findings could be confirmed or corroborated by others. To ensure confirmability the data should directly reflect the participants' experiences and not the bias, motivations, or imaginations of the inquirer.[ 1 , 50 , 51 ] Qualitative researchers should ensure that the study is conducted with enough rigor and should report the measures undertaken to enhance the trustworthiness of the study.

Conclusions

Qualitative research studies are being widely acknowledged and recognized in health care practice. This overview illustrates various qualitative methods and shows how these methods can be used to generate evidence that informs clinical practice. Qualitative research helps to understand the patterns of health behaviors, describe illness experiences, design health interventions, and develop healthcare theories. The ultimate strength of the qualitative research approach lies in the richness of the data and the descriptions and depth of exploration it makes. Hence, qualitative methods are considered as the most humanistic and person-centered way of discovering and uncovering thoughts and actions of human beings.

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9 methodologies for a successful qualitative research assignment

Qualitative research is important in the educational and scientific domains. It enables a deeper understanding of phenomena, experiences, and context. Many researchers employ such research activities in the fields of history, sociology, and anthropology. For such researchers, learning quality analysis insights is crucial. This way, they can perform well throughout their research journey. Writing a qualitative research assignment is one such way to practice qualitative interpretations. When students address various qualitative questions in these projects, they become efficient in conducting these activities at a higher level, such as for a master’s or Ph.D. thesis.

The FormPlus highlights why researchers prefer qualitative research over quantitative research. It is faster, scientific, objective, focused, and acceptable. Researchers who don’t know what to expect from the research outcomes usually choose qualitative research. In this guide, we will discuss the top methodologies that students can employ while writing their qualitative research assignments. This way, you can write an appealing document that perfectly demonstrates your qualitative research skills.

However, being stressed with academic and daily life commitments, if you find it challenging to manage time exclusively for such projects, availing of assignment writing services can make it manageable. Instead of doing anything wrong in the hustle, get it done by the professionals specifically working to handle these academic write-ups. Now, let’s define quality research before we discuss the actual topic.

What is meant by qualitative research?

Quality research is a market research method that gathers data from conversational and open-ended communication. In simple words, it is about what people think and why they think so. It relates to the nature or standard of something rather than dealing with its quantity. Such researchers collect nonnumerical data to understand opinions, concepts, and ideas.

How do you write a qualitative research assignment? Top 9 methodologies

Writing an assignment requires your command of various tasks. Qualitative research assignment design involves research, writing, structuring, and providing citations of the resources used. Assignment writing plays a crucial role in upgrading your grades.

So, you must make it accurate and authentic. Write it with the utmost care without skipping any important aspects. Sometimes, it can be hard, but it becomes easy if you correctly use effective methodologies. This is why we have brought together some of the common methodologies you can use to write your qualitative research assignments.

1. Interviews

A qualitative interview is mostly used in projects that involve market research. In this study personal interaction is required to collect in-depth information of the participants. In qualitative research for assignment, consider the interview as a personal form of research agenda rather than a focused group study. A qualitative interview requires careful planning so that you can gather meaningful data.

Here are the simple steps to consider for its implementation in a qualitative research assignment:

• Define research objectives.
• Identify the target population.
• Obtain informed consent of participants.
• Make an interview guideline.
• Select a suitable location.
• Conduct the interview.
• Show respect for participant’s perspectives.
• Analyse the data.

2. Observation

In qualitative observation, the researcher gathers data from five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. It is a subject approach that depends on the sensory organ of the researcher. This method allows you to better understand the culture, process, and people under study. Some of its characteristics to consider for writing a qualitative research assignment include,

• It is a naturalistic inquiry of the participants in a natural environment.
• This approach is subjective and depends on the researcher’s observation.
• It does not seek a definite answer to a query.
• The researcher can recognise their own biases when compiling findings.

3. Questionnaires

In this type of survey, the researcher asks open-ended questions to participants. This way, they price the long written or typed document. In writing qualitative research assignments, these questions aim to reveal the participants’ narratives and experiences. Once you know what type of information you need, you can start curating your questionnaire form. The questions must be specific and clear enough that the participants can comprehend them.

Below are the main points that must be considered when creating qualitative research questionnaires.

• Avoid jargon and ambiguity in the questions.
• Each question should contribute to the research objectives.
• Use simple language.
• The questions should be neutral and unbiased.
• Be precise, as the complex questions can overwhelm the respondents.
• Always conduct a pilot test.
• Put yourself in the respondent’s shoes while asking questions.

4. Case Study

A case study is a detailed analysis of a person, place, thing, organisation, or phenomenon. This method is appropriate when you want to gain a contextual, concrete, and in-depth understanding of the real-world problem for writing your qualitative research assignment. This method is especially helpful when you need more time to conduct large-scale research activities.

The four crucial steps below can be followed up with this methodology.

• Select a case that has the potential to provide new and unexpected insights into the subject.
• Make a theoretical framework.
• Collect your data from various primary and secondary resources.
• Describe and analyse the case to provide a clear picture of the subject.

5. Focus Groups

Focused group research has some interesting properties. In this method, a planned interview is conducted within a small group. For this purpose, some of the participants are sampled from the study population to record data for writing a qualitative research assignment. Typically, a focused group has features like,

• At least four to ten participants must meet for up to two hours.
• There must be a facilitator who can guide the discussion by asking open-ended questions.
• The emphasis must be put on the group discussion rather than the discussion of the group members with the facilitator.
• The discussion should be recorded and transcribed by the researchers.

6. Ethnographic Research

It is the most in-depth research method that involves studying people in their natural environment. It requires the researcher to adopt the target audience environment. The environment can be anything from an organisation to a city or any remote location.

However, the geographical constraints can be a problem in this study. For students who are writing their qualitative research assignment, some of the features of ethnographic research to write in their document include,

• The researcher can get a more realistic picture of the study.
• It uncovers extremely valuable insights.
• Provides accurate predictions.
• You can extend the observation to create more in-depth data.
• You can interact with people within a particular context.

7. Record Keeping

This method is similar to going to the library to collect data from books. You consult various relayed books, note the important points, and take note of the referencing. So, the researcher uses already existing data rather than introducing new things in the field.

Later on, this data can be used to conduct new research. Yet, when faced with the vast resources available in your institution’s library, seeking assistance from UK-based assignment writing services is an excellent solution if you need help pinpointing the most relevant information for your topic. Proficient in data gathering and adept at structuring qualitative research assignments, these professionals can significantly elevate your academic results.

This method is mostly used by companies to understand a group of customers’ behaviour, characteristics, and motivation. It allows respondents to ask in-depth questions about their experience. In a business market, it helps you understand how your customers make decisions. The intent is to understand them at their level and make related changes in your setup. The researcher must ask generic and precise questions that have a clear purpose.

Consider the below examples of qualitative survey questions. It can be useful in recording data and writing qualitative research assignments.

• Why did you buy this skin care product?
• What is the overall narrative of this brand?
• How do you feel after buying this product?
• What sets this brand apart from others?
• How will this product fulfil your needs?
• What are the things that you expect from this brand to grant you?

9. Action Research

This method involves collaboration and empowerment of the participants. It is mostly appropriate for marginalised groups where there is no flexibility.

The primary characteristics of the action research that can be quoted in your qualitative research assignment include,

• It is action-oriented, and participants are actively involved in the research.
• There is a collaborative process between participants and researchers.
• The nature of action research is flexible to the changing situation.

However, the survey also accompanies some of the limitations, including,

• The researcher can misinterpret the open-ended questions.
• The data ownership between the researcher and participants needs to be negotiated.
• The ethical considerations must be kept.
• It is not considered a scientific method as it is fluid in data collection. Consequently, it may not attract the finding.

What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative research?

Both research types share the common aim of knowledge acquisition. In quantitative research, the use of numbers and objective measures is used. It seeks answers to questions like when and where.

On the other hand, in qualitative research, the researcher is concerned with subjective phenomena. Such data can’t be numerically measured. For example, you might conduct a survey to analyse how different people experience grief.

What are the 4 types of qualitative research?

There are various types of qualitative research. It may include,

● Phenomenological studies:

It examines the human experience via description provided by the people involved. These are the lived experiences of the people. It is usually used in research areas where little knowledge is known.

● Ethnographic studies:

It involves the analysis of data about cultural groups. In such analysis, the researcher mostly lives with different communities and becomes part of their culture to provide solid interpretations.

● Grounded theory studies:

In this qualitative approach, the researcher collects and analyses the data. Later on, a theory is developed that is grounded in the data. It used both inductive and deductive approaches for theory development.

● Historical studies:

It is concerned with the location, identification, evaluation, and synthesis of data from the past. These researchers are not concerned with discovering past events but with relating these events to the present happenings.

The Research Gate provides a flow chart illustrating various qualitative research methods.

What are The 7 characteristics of qualitative research?

The following are some of the distinct features of qualitative research. You can write about them in your qualitative research assignment, as they are collected from reliable sources.

• It can even capture the changing attitude within the target group.
• It is beyond the limitations associated with quantitative research
• It explains something that numbers alone can’t describe.
• It is a flexible approach to improve the outcomes.
• A researcher is not supposed to become more speculative about the results.
• This approach is more targeted.
• It keeps the cost of data collection down.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research?

The pros of qualitative research can’t be denied. However, some cons are also associated with this research.

• Explore attitudes and behaviours in depth.
• It encourages discussions for better results.
• Generate descriptive data that can formulate new theories.
• The small sample size can be a problem.
• Bias in the sample collection.
• Lack of privacy if you are covering a sensitive topic.

Qualitative research assignment examples

The Afe Babalola University ePortal provides an example of a qualitative assignment. Here is the description of quality questions and related answers. You can get an idea about how to handle your quality research assignment project with this sample.

The questions asked in the paper are displayed below.

The Slide Team presents a template for further compressing other details, such as the qualitative research assignment template. You can use it to make your presentation look professional.

Writing a qualitative research assignment is crucial, especially if you want to engage in research activities for your master’s thesis. Most researchers choose this method because of the associated credibility and reliability of the results. In the above guide, we have discussed some of the prominent features of this method. All of the given data can help you in writing your assignments. We have discussed the benefits of each methodology and a brief account of how you can carry it.

However, even after going through this whole guideline, if the concepts of the Qualitative Research methods assignment seem ambiguous and you think you can’t write a good project, then ask professional to “ write my assignment .” These experts can consult the best sources for the data collection of your project. Consequently, they will deliver you the winning document that can stand out among other write-ups.

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16 Oral History Interviewing with Purpose and Critical Awareness

Valerie J. Janesick University of South Florida Tampa, FL, USA

• Published: 02 September 2020
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Oral history interviewing is a viable qualitative research orientation for many qualitative researchers in various disciplines. Oral history is the collection of stories, statements, and reminiscences of a person or persons who have firsthand knowledge of any number of experiences. It offers qualitative researchers a way to capture the lived experiences of participants. The techniques of oral history are those of the qualitative researcher, including interviews, document analysis, photographs, and video. The current digital era offers many opportunities to address critical issues and possibilities for the oral historian as qualitative researcher. Major issues that emerge are those of understanding the purpose of power structures in participants’ lives, arts-based approaches to oral history aware of transdisciplinarity, and developing critical consciousness or awareness of one’s place in societal structures. Possibilities are endless in terms of using digital techniques and arts-based techniques for data presentation, data analysis, and dissemination. The power of oral history is the power of storytelling. By using current technology and working in a transdisciplinary context, oral history may now be more readily accessible and available to a wider population, thus moving toward a critical social consciousness.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. —Maya Angelou

Introduction

Many think of oral history as one recorded interview stored in a library or an archive and left on a shelf. In this chapter, I propose an active view of oral history that appreciates the techniques of the past and moves into the digital era with a critical eye toward analysis and interpretation of the oral history interview or set of interviews. In other words, we should consider moving beyond the oral history interview while incorporating it into any given narrative. In addition to interviews and besides using documents in any given report, this chapter will treat the use of current technologies to augment the storytelling of any oral history project. This is with an eye to understanding the power structures of our participants’ situations and to develop a critical awareness in ourselves as researchers and in our participants as active agents. Current writers have awakened us to using a transdisciplinary approach to qualitative research in general, and that will be a major issue for consideration here. I use the metaphor of choreography to describe and explain the current state of oral history with an eye to the future and punctuate the value of arts-based approaches to oral history. The strength of oral history is that it offers a firsthand view of the lived experience of any number of participants in any moment of history. Oral history is a powerful technique for qualitative researchers. It is powerful because it tells a story of one or more person’s lives. Furthermore, it renders a historical record for future generations. From these unique cases, we can learn more about what it means to be part of the human condition.

Oral history enables us to capture lived experience. In recent memory we have a huge database of examples of completed oral histories following the disasters of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina, all of which are available online. These examples are also in print and on the Web, with free and open access. This is another admirable quality of oral history. Oral history is for the most part openly accessible in digital form, written text, and visual text. For more information, visit http://www.oralhistory.org/ .

This site will lead you to journals, books, articles, blogs, and social media devoted to oral histories and the description of the history and process of oral history. You do not have to pay to read an oral history; you may visit any library and view completed oral histories, and most recently, you may view on the World Wide Web 2.0 many classic and new examples of oral history. Oral history archives are available online from virtually every corner of the earth. In this section of the handbook I discuss the issues and possibilities facing oral history in this digital era through the metaphor of choreography, beginning with the basics of the oral history interview through the analysis, interpretation, and usefulness of oral history, moving toward a critical consciousness. Furthermore, in this digital era, free and moderately priced software is available to make interviewing and transcribing user-friendly. Finally, future directions and possibilities in oral history will be discussed, specifically, oral history as a critical awareness project, the value of transdisciplinarity approaches, and the value of arts-based approaches to oral history.

The Choreography of Oral History

There are many resources on the Web and in print defining oral history and describing basic techniques of interviewing. Here, I use the term oral history as the collection of stories and reminiscences of those persons who have firsthand knowledge of any number of experiences (Janesick, 2010 ). I use this definition because it casts a wide net, is inclusive, and is moving toward oral history as a social justice project. The heart and soul of oral history is to find the testimony of someone with a story to tell. In this chapter, the term testimony is used in its generic meaning, giving testimony, oral or written, as a firsthand authentication of any event. Oral history and testimony provide us with an avenue of thick description, analysis, and interpretation of people’s lives through probing the past to understand the present. The postmodern and interpretive appreciation of the study of people and their stories, those stories from persons generally on the outside or periphery of society, offer a unique opportunity to view oral history as a social justice project (Janesick, 2007 ). For example, women, minorities, and any person or group categorized as the Other may find a benefit from recording their stories, not just for themselves but also for future generations. As a social justice record is kept, the stories cannot be lost. While oral history as a genre is most often associated with the field of history, since the 20th century it has been readily used by the social sciences and most recently in the field of education. Many oral histories are written to describe firsthand witness accounts of traumatic events, such as Hurricane Katrina survivors’ oral histories or the first responders to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. Other types of oral history include long interviews with soldiers returning from war fronts to document the trauma of war. The U.S. military has been documenting these stories for over a century and they are cataloged in military libraries, to use just one example. Initially, the oral histories collected by the military were from generals. Then, over time, a gradual movement toward documenting the experiences of the everyday soldier became a goal. Likewise, throughout history, oral histories have been documented by virtually every group and every possible category of individuals who have a story to tell. Another example of oral histories in a complete rendering of an era or experience are the oral histories of the Holocaust survivors. Most often noticed is the project completed by Steven Spielberg, who filmed all survivors of the Holocaust over a lengthy time period; these histories are available for viewing through his project. If we view oral history as a continuum of stories, we find elite participants’ stories on one end and ordinary participants’ stories on the other. In the middle of the continuum there is a median of combinations of stories, from the stories of elite participants to those of everyday citizens. To use an example from the dance world, before his death, Merce Cunningham’s dances were recorded, as well as lengthy interviews with him about his art. Thus, a new database will provide future dancers and choreographers with a rich and textured archive about choreography, artistic expression, improvisation, and performance. This is what we are trying to do in the early 21st century in the field of oral history. We are documenting the lived experience of individuals who experience life in any of its stages.

Oral History as Technique

Like the choreographer, all oral historians and qualitative researchers have to come to grips with the central techniques needed to tell a story. For oral historians, the well-tested techniques of interviewing and document analysis are first and foremost. Furthermore, in this postmodern era, the visual image through photography and videotaping may take prominent roles in terms of technique. Since interviewing is the heart and soul of oral history, the discussion begins here. There are literally thousands of articles in print and hundreds of books on interviewing.

Interviewing has taken hold in the social sciences, the arts, the sciences, society at large, business, and journalism. For the purposes of this chapter, we will look at interviewing in multiple ways. The first way is metaphorically, by conceptualizing an interview much like a choreographer conceptualizes a dance. Both the choreographer and the interviewer are working toward a performance activity: one a completed dance and the other a completed interview. Both are connected to some individual or group of individuals communicating through a regular feedback loop. Both work with social context, social boundaries, what to include and exclude, and what to eventually present in the form of a narrative or story.

Another way to look at interviewing is in terms of a creative habit. Like the dancer or choreographer who sees dance and its technique as a creative habit, the oral historian as interviewer may view the interview as a creative habit (see Janesick, 2011 ). Many choreographers have written about the creative habit (De Mille, 1992 ; Hawkins, 1992 ; Tharp, 2003 ). In my own field of education, it was John Dewey who wrote extensively on this topic, featuring the idea of habits of mind (Dewey, 1934 ). I mention this to point out the transdisciplinary nature of the ideas of habits of mind and body. Transdisciplinarity has been described extensively and is influencing our understanding of research (see Leavy, 2009 , 2011 ). Transdisciplinary approaches are problem based, methodologically sensitive, and responsive to voices outside and inside the margins of society. They represent a holistic approach to research methods. For oral history, that means stretching to collaborate with at least one other discipline with high levels of integration. It means thinking in a new way about oral history and its borders. Thus, it is an evolution toward developing new theoretical, conceptual, and methodological frameworks. For the oral historian, this is a custom fit. We already have at least two defined disciplines, oral history and qualitative research methodology, to begin with. Usually and most often, another discipline, such as the performing or visual arts, sociology, or anthropology, may provide a third part of the triangle. If we use arts-based approaches such as film, photography, painting, dance, sculpture, theater, or graphic arts in our work, we add another textural layer. For the purposes of this chapter, I will focus on interviewing as a creative habit dependent on a collection of good habits of mind as well as practical habits. I have written about qualitative techniques as creative habits previously (Janesick, 2011 ). These habits include the creative habit, the writing habit, the interview habit, the observation habit, and the analysis and interpretation habit. I extend these ideas throughout this essay. Furthermore, the work of Elliot Eisner ( 1991 , 2002 ) has been profoundly influential. His career was devoted to clarifying the importance of arts-based approaches to education and cannot be overlooked.

Interviewing as a Creative Habit

If we think about the creative act of interviewing, it may be a useful tool for oral historians and other qualitative researchers. Creativity is essentially about discovery, and interviewing allows us a great deal of room to discover the meaning of a person’s life or portion of a life, as well as allowing for an understanding of ourselves as researchers. I use creativity here in the sense that Csikszentmihaly ( 1996 ) viewed creativity, which is as a process by which a symbolic domain in the culture is changed. The creative act of interviewing is such a process because the symbolic meaning of the interview, its analysis and interpretation, and its final narrative form change the landscape of the historical record. Each researcher, dancer, choreographer, or social scientist is called on to develop habits of mind and body that change the culture. Some practical habits for the interviewer may include preparing materials for the interview, such as testing the digital voice recorder, bringing an extra thumb drive for the recorder, and bringing a battery charger if the recorder is chargeable. In other words, all the technical components must be in order to facilitate the creative habit of interviewing. In addition, the habit of being at the site of the interview ahead of time to test equipment and see that the setting is in order is good to develop. Another habit is to compose as many thoughtful questions as possible. It is far better to be overprepared than to be caught in an interview without questions. Usually five or six holistic broad questions are reasonable and may yield etc. A simple question like, “Tell me about your day as an airline pilot” once yielded nearly 2 hours of interview data, leaving all the other questions for another interview time. You will learn to develop a sense of awareness and timing about your participants in the study and rearrange accordingly. All these habits help to make way for the creative act of interviewing.

Probably the most rewarding component of any qualitative research project, especially oral history, is interviewing, because it is a creative act and often requires the use of imagination, much like a choreographer imagining what a dance will look like. In addition to the habits already noted, another useful habit to develop before the interview is the reading of recent texts and articles on interviewing. For example, see Rubin and Rubin ( 2012 ). Oral history texts and feminist research methods texts also have described interviewing in great detail. A good deal of what can be learned about interviewing ultimately may come from trial and error within long-term oral history projects by practicing the interview act. I defined interviewing earlier (2011) as a meeting of two persons to exchange information and ideas through questions and responses, resulting in communication and joint construction of meaning about a particular topic. With that in mind, because we are always researchers in the process of conducting a study, we rely on different kinds of questions for eliciting various responses.

The How: Active Interviewing

Many agree that the mainstay of oral history is interviewing. Interviewing is well described in all fields, but for this chapter I agree with those who view interviewing as a type of guided conversation (Rubin & Rubin, 2012 ). Furthermore, I see interviewing as a creative act. Just as the choreographer must know the technique and components of a dance, the interviewing must prepare questions. All of us, as oral historians or qualitative researchers, practice our craft and presumably improve over time. In addition, we are prepared with the latest digital equipment and have done research prior to the interview about the social context in which the interviewee is immersed. Depending on the stage of our own development as researchers, we may construct various types of interview questions.

Types of Interview Questions to Consider

Basic descriptive or help-me-understand questions

Can you talk to me about the recent decision you spoke of earlier that gave you such stress concerning reporting child abuse? Tell me what happened following this decision. Help me understand what you meant by the statement, “They are always with me.” Basically, you, the interviewer, probe further into the meaning of the experience of the participant.

Structural/paradigmatic questions

Of all the things you have told me about being a social worker, what keeps you going every day? Can you walk me through a typical day? What are some of your proudest achievements? Are there days that were more difficult and can you describe such a day?

Follow-up/clarifying questions

You mentioned that “time for meditation is important” to you. Can you tell me how you use this time? Another example might be, Tell me more about what you mean about your description of yourself as a “technology nut.”

Experience/example questions

You mentioned that you are seeing students succeed in ways you never imagined. Can you give me an example of this success? Can you give me an example of your most difficult day during your interviews for this position? You said, “High-stakes testing is killing our school.” Can you say a bit more about this?

  comparison/contrast questions

You said there was a big difference between a great leader and an ordinary one. What are some of these differences? Can you describe a few for me? You mentioned that there is no simple board meeting and at the same time you can almost predict what will be the point of contention at the meeting. Can you say more about this?

Closing the interview

Closing an Interview Is Often Difficult for Both Interviewer and Interviewee

Another good rule of thumb for this situation is to ask questions that indicate the end of the interview and enable the participant to keep thinking about the information already given and quite possibly look forward to another interview. Here are two solid questions for closing an interview: Is there anything you wish to add to our conversation today? Is there anything I have forgotten to ask that you feel is important? Notice that there is always room for the participant to elegantly deal with the end of the interview in the moment with such a closing set of questions. In fact, many oral historians and other researchers report that participants will later say they are still thinking about these closing questions and want to tell the researcher something that was forgotten at the time of the interview. If this occurs, there is a serious opportunity for rich data to complement the existing interview or set of interviews through a follow-up interview.

While the interview is the mainstay of oral history, many oral historians go further to augment and support the interview data. This can be done by collecting other types of data. For example, the use of demographics to develop and describe the social context is always helpful. In addition, photographs, videos, newspaper clippings of the day, and any other written documents relevant to the main themes are also useful. Documents are a mainstay and can be analyzed just as interviews are analyzed through the constant comparative method, looking for themes and coming to some interpretation of the interviews and documents. In fact, emergent document analysis has been described by Altheide, Coyle, DeVriese, and Schneider ( 2008 ) as a way to study and deconstruct power. In this sense, emergent document analysis moves toward a critical awareness orientation.

Here, I list some additional ideas that may be helpful as you design your interview project:

Remember the categories of culture that affect how you frame a question, deliver the question, take field notes as the tape is recording, and ultimately make sense of the data.

Cognitive culture: how the interviewer and interviewee perceive their own context and culture.

Collective culture: how both see themselves as part of a collective culture including gender, race, class, religion, ethnicity.

Descriptive culture: all those written works and works of art and science that have had an effect on both the interviewee and the person who takes the role of interviewer.

Assumptions to be aware of while interviewing someone:

Assumption of similarities: just because you may professionally act in a role as, say, an educator and you are interviewing another educator, do not assume similarity of thoughts, beliefs, values, etc.

Language difference: the importance of one’s own first language and the misinterpretation of meaning in other language usage is critical.

Nonverbal misinterpretation: we may all read nonverbal language incorrectly—that is why you interview someone more than once, for example, why you keep coming back to find the answer to your questions.

Stereotypes: before any interviewing, check yourself for any stereotypes and be clear about their description in your role as a researcher.

Tendency to evaluate: while most educators continue to evaluate every spoken or written word even outside the classroom, try to avoid an evaluation of the content of given remarks.

Stress of interviewing: if you are stressed, the person being interviewed may pick up on those cues. Be prepared, use all your active listening skills, relax, and enjoy the interview. Be still and listen.

Thus, we see the what and how of interviewing. But, you may ask, Why do we do oral history?

The Why of Doing Oral History

For the purpose of this chapter, I will work predominately from a postmodern perspective to emphasize the evolution of oral history. In this perspective, oral history takes on more texture and possibly more credibility. Thus, postmodern oral history is characterized by:

An interpretive approach that may include the participant in the project as a co-researcher or at least an active participant in terms of member checking the material to be included in the final report, attempting to raise a critical awareness and consciousness of persons left on the margins of society.

Both interviewer and interviewee use ordinary language in the final report to make the story understandable to the widest possible audience.

Technology is used to enhance the power of the story being told and may include multiple uses of technology and the written word to complete the storytelling. Digital cameras, digital video cameras, cell phones, and other devices are regularly used as part of the narrative itself. Possible posting on YouTube or another Internet site for more rapid access to a larger audience is an option. The use of blogs, wikis, and social networks and the potential use of computer-assisted software for data analysis is ever-present.

Ethical issues are discussed and brought to the forefront of the project and throughout the project. Once again, raising a critical awareness of participants and their situations culturally and economically becomes important.

Oral history is the approach to qualitative research work that continually persists and prevails and is available in public spaces such as libraries and websites. It is one of the most transparent and most public approaches, regardless of the discipline base, be it history, sociology, education, gerontology, medicine, anthropology, business, etc.

Oral history validates the subjectivities of participants and is proud of it. We acknowledge subjectivity and celebrate it to reach new understanding of someone’s lived experience. This, in turn, helps us make more sense of the human condition. It also presumably can lead to wider and global projects.

Voices and stories of those members of society who are typically disenfranchised and marginalized are included for study and documentation. In that regard, oral history may be seen as a social justice project, moving toward a critical awareness of one another.

Oral history is viewed as a democratic project, acknowledging that any person’s story may be documented using accessible means to the data. In other words, oral history focuses not only focus on elites in society, but also on a broad spectrum of participants.

In addition, to use the metaphor of choreography to help in understanding oral history, it is helpful to understand something about the work of choreography. Often, the choreographer asks the following questions as a general beginning to any dance/artwork. Many dance teachers frame it this way:

Who (or what) is doing

What to whom (or what) and

Where , in what context, and

Why , what were the difficulties?

Thus, oral history stands as a noteworthy approach to understanding the lived experience of any number of individuals. It is a user-friendly list of questions to guide an oral history project.

Furthermore, like the choreographer whose aim is to communicate a story of some kind to an audience, the oral historian has to communicate a story. This means that writing is critical for a person who is becoming an oral historian. Like the choreographer and the dancer who train the body to perform, the prospective oral historian also is in training, particularly as a writer. In fact, writing is an athletic activity in the same way that dance and choreography are athletic activities. To write oral history, as in dance, you are engaging your mind, memory, and your body parts, such as the hands, muscles, nervous system, spine, joints, eyes, ears, and brain.

Many may ask questions, such as, Why do oral history at all? Many wonder about the qualities that may assist an oral historian and the characteristics of oral history. In reflecting on the characteristics of oral history, the following points may serve as a guideline as you become an oral historian in the field and as you begin interviewing someone.

Oral history is holistic. Even if you are telling the story of a vignette of someone’s life, that vignette gives the entire picture. Oral history takes into account the social context, the emotional context, the economic and historical context, and the big picture.

Oral history, by virtue of telling a story, looks at relationships. It is a people-centered occupation. In fact, many oral historians also interview participants who know the main participant in a study. You may wish to view the latest dissertations on Dissertation Abstracts for the latest in developments on oral history interviewing. For example, interviewing a teacher who is the main focus of the study might include interviews with a colleague and with significant others in the given context. Looking at the power relationships in any given study is a must. For example, deconstructing the power of family, culture, economics, and workplace dynamics can only help in the analysis of the data.

Oral history usually depends on face-to-face immediate interactions, particularly in the interview and then later with member checking. Thus, oral historians should possess good communications skills. This applies whether the interview is done digitally on Skype or in person.

Oral history, like all qualitative work, demands equal time for analysis as the time spent in the field. Interviews do not interpret themselves. Part of the job of oral historians should be to analyze and interpret the data.

Oral history acknowledges ethical issues that may arise in the interview. Also, oral historians recognize that ethics come into play when deciding what stays in the report and what is left out. Issues of confidentiality, protecting the rights of the participant, and other such questions are always a potential reality.

Oral history relies on the researcher as the research instrument.

Oral history seeks to tell a story as it is, without reference to prediction, proof, control, or generalizability. We are researching subjectivity and proud of it.

Oral history incorporates a description of the role of the oral historian/researcher.

Oral history incorporates informed consent and release forms or any formal documentation needed to protect persons involved in the oral history.

Oral historians check back with participants as a member check to share transcripts and converse about the meaning of data.

Oral historians read widely and do all that is possible to understand the social context of the person being interviewed. Collecting artifacts or written documents often is part of an oral history project. Having an outlook of transdisciplinarity is helpful in oral history projects. This demands awareness of more than one discipline and a deep use of the disciplines involved as a basis for the final narrative report.

Oral historians use all sorts of data. Even though oral history is a qualitative research technique, demographic information, documents, and other pertinent information may be used. Arts-based representations are useful and powerful tools for oral history projects. Photos, videos, posting stories on social media outlets, and YouTube are helping to disseminate a great deal of oral history. Archives store multiple types of data.

Oral historians write every day and practice writing on a regular basis.

Oral historians have a deep appreciation for history and the historical context and appreciate other disciplines and what they may offer in terms of understanding oral history.

Oral historians may use the technology of the day, such as the Internet, to learn from YouTube, blogs, written and posted diaries and journals, letters, and any other documentation to tell a story. Digital oral history examples are widely available on the World Wide Web 2.0 and beyond.

Oral historians may use photography and film to capture someone’s lived experience and to augment the narrative. As a result, oral historians must use up-to-date digital equipment and software that allows for incoming data appropriate to the level of sophistication of the software.

Oral historians may decide to tell the narrator’s story using poetry, drama, or other art forms found in documents and in the transcripts or craft their own poetry or use other art forms in their storytelling.

Oral historians, by virtue of doing oral history research, are gaining knowledge and insight into the human condition by understanding some aspect of someone else’s lived experience. They also learn from the research they are undertaking.

This information is not new, but as individuals discover this for themselves, they can set about the task of becoming an oral historian. Many who shy away from oral history need not be intimidated.

Writing Up Oral History as a Narrative

It goes without saying that to do oral history one must be an above-average writer. Think of the great storytellers in print. Recall your favorite writer as you read this. Most likely, this writer is adept at storytelling through a written narrative. To do oral history, a good strategy to employ in terms of writing is to keep a researcher’s reflective journal. By writing a journal of reflections, you clarify your position and situate yourself in the oral history. Writing up the narrative story depends on the interview transcripts, any documents being analyzed, and any other supporting data sets such as photographs, demographic data, artifacts, videos, and the researcher’s reflective journal, as well as any observations on the scene. These may help fill out the context of the story. Likewise, the researcher’s reflective journal is a valuable tool. I wrote in more detail earlier (1999, 2011) on the importance of the researcher’s reflective journal. Let us turn once again to that topic to clarify some points on writing and the researcher’s reflective journal.

The Researcher’s Reflective Journal

Journal writing as a reflective research activity has been called reflective journaling; it is also called reflexive by many sociologists and researchers in training. It has been most used by qualitative researchers in the social sciences, education, medicine, health, business, mental health, gerontology, criminal justice, and other fields since these professionals seek to describe a given social setting or a person’s life history in its entirety. The researcher’s reflective journal has proven to be an effective tool for understanding the processes of research more fully, as well as the experiences, mindsets, biases, and emotional states of the researcher. Thus, it may serve to augment any oral history reporting. This inclusion of the description of the role of the researcher and any reflections on the processes of the oral history project can be a valuable data set for any final reporting.

Many qualitative researchers advocate the use of a reflective journal at various points in the research project timeline. To begin, a journal is a remarkable tool for any researcher to use to reflect on the methods of a work in progress, including how and when certain techniques are used in the study. Likewise, it is a good idea to track the thinking processes of the researcher and participants in study. In fact, writing a reflective journal on the role of the researcher in any qualitative project is an effective means to describe and explain research thought processes. Often, qualitative researchers are criticized for not explaining exactly how they conducted a study. The researcher’s reflective journal writing is one device that assists in developing a record of how a study was designed, why certain techniques were selected, and subsequent ethical issues that evolved in the study. A researcher may track in a journal the daily workings of the study. For example, did the participant change an interview appointment? How did this change subsequently affect the flow of the study? Did a serious ethical issue emerge from the conduct of the study? If so, how was it described, explained, and resolved? These and other such questions are a few examples of the types of prompts for the writer. In addition, this emphasizes the importance of keeping a journal on the role of the researcher and the research process throughout the project, in this case an oral history project.

The inclusion of the use of the reflective journal as part of the data collection procedure indicates to some extent the credibility and trustworthiness of this technique. Does it not also act as a source of credibility and descriptive substance for the overall project? As a research technique, keeping a journal is user-friendly and often instills a sense of confidence in beginning researchers and a sense of accomplishment in experienced researchers. Many researchers verify that the use of a reflective journal makes the challenge of interviewing, observations, and taking field notes much more fluid. Researchers who use a reflective journal often become more reflective actors and better writers. Writing in a journal every day instills a habit of mind that can only help in the writing of the final research report. In the field of education, for example, many researchers ask participants to keep a reflective journal and end up relating to each other as co-researchers in a given project. In this type of work, journal writing becomes an act of empowerment and illumination for both the researcher and the participants.

In beginning the researcher’s reflective journal, regardless of the project, it is always useful to supply all the basic descriptive data in each entry. Information such as the date, time, place, participants, and any other descriptive information should be registered to provide accuracy in reporting later in the study. Especially in long-term projects, specific evidence that locates members and activities of the project can become most useful in the final analysis and interpretation of the research findings. Journal writing has an elegant, long, and documented history itself, which is useful to recall.

Journal writing began from a need to tell a story. Famous journal writers throughout history have provided us with eminent examples and various categories of journals (see Progoff, 1992 ). Progoff, for example, suggested using a dialogue journal where you and I as writers imagine a dialogue going on with the self and society. In this format, one writes a dialogue and answers the thoughtful questions posed. No matter what orientation is taken by the journal writer, it is generally agreed that reflexive journal writing is utilized for providing crispness of description and meaning, organizing one’s thoughts and feelings, and eventually achieving understanding. Thus, the oral history researcher has a valuable tool in reflective journal writing. In a sense, the journal writer is interacting with one’s self.

Thus, the art of journal writing and subsequent interpretations of journal writing produce meaning and understanding that are shaped by genre, the narrative form used, and personal cultural and paradigmatic conventions of the writer, who is the researcher, participant, and/or co-researcher. As Progoff ( 1992 ) noted, journal writing is ultimately a way of getting feedback from ourselves. In so doing, this enables us to experience in a full and open-ended way the movement of our lives as a whole and the meaning of the oral history project. Journal writing allows one to reflect, to dig deeper into the heart of the words, beliefs, and behaviors we describe in our journals. The act of writing down one’s thoughts will allow for stepping into one’s inner mind and reaching further for clarity and interpretations of the behaviors, beliefs, and words we write. The journal becomes a tool for training the research instrument, the person. Since qualitative social science relies heavily on the researcher as research instrument, journal writing can only assist researchers in reaching their goals in any given project, especially in oral history projects. I see journal writing as a critical tool in becoming a solid narrative writer and a good oral historian.

Major Issues Facing Oral History Researchers

I wish to focus on three key issues facing oral historians in the early 21st century. First, how can we use the many digital technologies, software, and equipment more readily and in a critically aware manner? Second, how can transdisciplinarity enrich our narratives? Third, how might we use arts-based approaches to oral history that work in a transdisciplinary way, incorporate digital arts–based approaches, and arrive closer to a critically aware social project? These issues may present us with a few problems. As many will attest, when doing oral history interviews, some information is shared that is basically private; the participant would like to keep it private, and video and audio materials must be protected just as any research report in hard text would be protected. In other words, ethics is an overriding umbrella for oral history researchers in terms of our work. At the same time, with the proliferation of social media, YouTube, and the readily available technology to use these media, the current generation of researchers seems dedicated, if not glued, to computers and other handheld devices that open up to the world what previously might have been private.

Oral History in the Digital Era: A Way to Use Arts-Based Approaches

Technology is a welcome addition to the oral historian’s toolkit. Using technology is like choreographing a dance. You begin with the basics, as discussed earlier, and determine how to tell someone’s story in photographs, video, etc. In addition, some researchers use social media networks such as Facebook or Twitter, blogs, wikis, YouTube, and TeacherTube to collect data and represent that data through technology. Following are some potential assistive devices for the oral historian or any qualitative researcher. By the time this book goes to press, it is highly probable that other sites will have emerged. What is happening is a move to go beyond the interview transcript/s to make full use of the transcript/s. See the following resources and sites on the World Wide Web 2.0. for strategies that will enable the oral historian to do exactly that.

Conducting Oral History in the Digital Era

In this digital era, conducting oral history takes on new forms, yet remains true to its original intent. Boyd and Hardy ( 2012 ), for example, wrote an overview of collecting in the digital era on the well-known and instructive site for oral historians, http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/ .

This site is a treasure trove for anyone doing oral history. It is housed at Michigan State University and contains so many links and websites that you will want to travel there yourself. For example, they suggest these sample links.

SAMPLE Links

American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress

American Folklore Society

Michigan State University

Oral History Association

Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University

Michigan State University Museum

Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History University of Kentucky Libraries

This is only part of what you will find here to assist you in conducting critical oral history interviews. As you get to know these centers and archives, you will have additional data for your oral history project. In addition, get to know your own community and university library. You may be surprised by what you uncover. That data may add to your own knowledge base about the critical social awareness of your participants. This listing is not meant to be exhaustive or complete. Even digital sites change remarkably in just a few years. The point is to get to know what is out there on the Web and in your own libraries.

Additional Resources

As mentioned earlier, because of the many resources available digitally, here I will present just three major resources.

Using VoiceThread

What is voicethread.

A VoiceThread ( http://voicethread.com ) is a collaborative, multimedia slideshow that is stored and accessed online that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in five ways—using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). A VoiceThread can be shared with other professors, researchers, students, and the wider community for them to record comments as well. Think of it as having a conversation with someone in the Cloud. VoiceThreads can also be downloaded in a movie format, but there is a cost for this function. VoiceThread supports PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (including Office 2007 formats), images, and videos. VoiceThread also imports photos from Flickr, Facebook, or the Web. Each of these formats allows for artistic expression, including incorporation of photography and video.

VoiceThread is a flexible tool that can be applied to a wide variety of uses, such as:

orally publishing written work with matching artwork displayed on the slide;

uploading interviews for analysis;

describing qualitative methods and techniques in a research class;

displaying videos for comment and feedback;

art portfolios describing processes used at each step or just as a simple art gallery;

gathering perspectives on an idea or concept from participants indicating a more active role for participants; or

creating an archive of interview responses.

By going to the wikis that house VoiceThread information, you can save yourself a great deal of time. Please go to https://voicethread.com/ .

Creating a Blog with WordPress to Tell a Story

WordPress is an open-source blog publishing application. It features integrated link management; a search engine–friendly, clean permalink structure; and the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles. In addition, multiple author capability is built into the system. There is support for tagging posts and articles. Some researchers have made posters using WordPress to display data at conferences and other sites. In addition, WordPress is advertised as having beautiful graphics and photos available for use. It is worth exploring: http://www.wordpress.com .

WordPress allows you to publish almost anything in just about any field. For the oral historian, the possibility of blogging with your participants is one avenue of collecting additional data. The WordPress site is filled with ideas, directions for setting up your own blog, pricing, when applicable, etc. As you read and understand the value of WordPress, you may be able to enhance the final narrative of your project.

Using Photography in Oral History Projects

Photography is a powerful research tool for oral historians and other researchers (Harper, 2003 ; Rose, 2007 ). Researchers in many fields are recognizing the value and use of photography to augment the final narrative of a qualitative research project. To give an example, since many libraries are adding to their digital collections, doctoral students in the early 21st century can expect that they will be doing completely digital dissertations. Thus, current doctoral students have the opportunity to use photography in the final dissertation product. Hard-text copies are going the way of the dinosaur for many individuals. In many fields, including oral history, researchers are using photovoice as a key technique.

Photovoice is a technique used in some projects to allow participants to photograph, describe, and explain their social context, particularly groups most often on the margins of society. This project began as a way for underprivileged students and parents to capture, using photography, neglect, abuse, and other aspects of the social context that give witness to those on the outskirts of society. For a more involved description and examples of photovoice, please do a Google search for photovoice. You will find numerous articles on this activity. Photovoice is most often described as a process. People can identify, photograph, and explain their community through a specific photographic technique. Photovoice has various goals, including: (a) enabling an individual to keep a record and reflect a community’s strengths and concerns, such as the photographs taken after Hurricane Katrina; (b) promoting critical dialogue about community issues within a given community and; (c) eventually reaching policy makers through the power of the photograph. A growing body of photovoice examples can be found on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shrFa2c305g .

Since this is a visual medium, it is helpful to view these many examples for a model of what is possible for oral historians. Familiarity with many of these sites can be helpful in crafting the final narrative, much like the choreographer improves his or her craft by photographing and making videos of segments of a dance or an entire dance performance. Photovoice allows for understanding your community more fully. It has been used for the following: activity-focused research, needs assessment, problem-finding, problem-solving, solution implementation activity, project analysis, and evaluation. Photovoice has been used successfully in projects related to issues as diverse as infectious disease, health education, homelessness, economic barriers, sexual domination, diasporas, population isolation, and political violence (Catalani & Minkler, 2010 ).

Oral historians strive to capture the voice of their participants, for which photovoice is a powerful technique. The leading site is https://photovoice.org on Google or https://photovoice.org/projects/ .

Transdisciplinarity: Crossing Boundaries in Oral History

I like to think of transdisciplinarity as an insurance policy. It allows for crossing borders and boundaries of more than two disciplines to arrive at a strong holistic description and explanation of the data gathered during the project.

In the 1970s, there was a push for multidisciplinary approaches to research, particularly in the qualitative arena. In oral history, life history, and biography projects, this was a welcome balm to the traditional one-shot interview taped and left on a shelf. In a way, the past 50 years have shown us that in fact more is more. By using more than two disciplines to view one’s data, the chances are high that the story becomes richer, more textured, and multilayered. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, it is possible to see this as yet another creative habit for the interviewer. If you google the word transdisciplinarity, you will find many articles on the topic from France, Germany, and Canada, where a great deal of thinking and writing about transdisciplinarity has occurred. This leads me to conclude that transdisciplinarity is here to stay. Why should we not take advantage of it?

Future Directions and Final Reflections

To make sense of oral history, choreographing the story we tell as historians and researchers includes art, experience, and inquiry. I return historically to the third chapter of Art as Experience , a groundbreaking text by John Dewey (1859–1952) that suggests,

Experience occurs continuously because the interaction of live creature and environing conditions is involved in the very process of living. (Dewey, 1934 , p. 35)

While Dewey speaks in theory as a philosopher, Erick Hawkins (1909–1994), a choreographer, writes in the here and now of an actual dance in progress. Hawkins wants us to see the body as the perfect instrument of the lived experience.

Several times so called critics have judged the dancers of my company as being “too graceful.” How can you be too graceful? How can you obey the laws of movement too much? … The answer is a kind of feeling introspected in the body and leads one into doing the correct effort for any movement. The kinesiological rule is to just do the movement.… The tenderness in the mind takes care of the movement in action. (Hawkins, 1992 , pp. 133–134)

Similarly, Hawkins wrote,

One of the reasons we are not accustomed as a culture to graceful movement is because we do not treasure it. The saying among the Greeks of the Athenian supremacy was that the body was to be treasured and great sensitivity was used in the observation of movement. They treasured the body by having many statues of deity … maybe they understood that the body is a clear place. (p. 134)

We can learn from these writers as we look ahead to our qualitative oral history research projects. We can see the lessons here.

We learn about the critical importance of experience, curiosity, and imagination, and the resulting artifact, the oral history narrative, is layered and connected.

We learn about the power and value of the subjective experience in interpretation of the oral history interview and documents, and these may be artistically rendered.

We learn that the landscape of feeling and emotions cannot and should not be avoided when expressing art or artifact. In fact, these are embraced in oral history.

For researchers to “have the experience” of telling someone’s story, the researcher must acknowledge the experience component of empathy, understanding, and the story itself. The oral historian must be prepared with the best possible tools and techniques of our craft.

We celebrate narrative storytelling in whatever form it may take, but appreciate the visual options through digital media and arts-based approaches to storytelling.

Because we are bombarded by images through multimedia, it makes sense to use these multimedia to effect a powerful story using photography, video, and other arts-based approaches to assist in using our research to move toward a more socially just world.

We can feel comfortable in returning to a true appreciation of storytelling, a space from which oral history derived.

One of the reasons I do qualitative research and specifically oral history is that it is multifaceted and may include more than one art form, such as writing, poetry, and/or photography. In fact, I see oral history as an art form itself. A larger audience is more likely to be reached through the arts than through any other curricular or cultural arena. The arts can meet the need of nearly every person, no matter who that person is or where the person is in the world, and so there are social justice implications. In fact, the digital revolution we are experiencing is filled with art, dance, music, poetry, collage, and other art forms stored in the largest digital archives of Google and YouTube. Oral history provides us with understanding the power of experience, art as experience, and artifacts resulting from the experience, all of which transcend the day-to-day moments of life. In fact, storytelling is its own art form. As we tell stories about the lived experience of our narrator and our participants, art illuminates that experience. For me, using poetry, photography, and video whenever possible helps to widen the repertoire of techniques for a person who wishes to become an oral historian and document and interpret a story. It seems to me that as we practice oral history, we keep a digital record, a reflective record, and move ahead to carve out our place in the inquiry process as we are building a record of lived experience.

Three Questions for the Field

To conclude this piece, I will discuss three questions for oral historians to think about in terms of shaping the future directions in the field.

How Might Our Work Be Used to Advance Critical Awareness of the Power Structures We Inhabit?

One of the strengths of oral history is that a diverse and multicultural knowledge base is being built through the use of oral history interviewing. To use just one example, that of truth commissions across the globe, there is a steady stream of documenting injustice and exposition of power struggles and structures. Thus, this ironically can lead us to more of a movement toward social justice. By way of explanation, think about the critical testimony of the victims of apartheid in South Africa. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was the major vehicle for capturing what occurred throughout this difficult period. Ordinary citizens came forward and faced their abusers. They gave long interviews, all of which are recorded, and the perpetrators of the various crimes asked for forgiveness. The person being interviewed had to forgive the individual. Torturers, murderers, and transgressors admitted their crimes and they were interviewed as well. There was an understanding that once the testimony was given by both parties, forgiveness was given, the case was closed, and both/all parties moved on. Desmond Tutu was the originator and overseer of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and he wrote of the experience (Tutu, 1999 ). What these testimonials as oral history gave us was a powerful understanding of the cultural, political, emotional, and psychological aspects of apartheid that had never been seen before. Furthermore, we could see the agonizing tales of brutality and its aftermath. It was an example for the world of what is possible and how it is possible to move toward critical awareness of one’s culture, at least in these overt, clear cases.

As oral historians, we see how, when, where, and why people were able to recount their stories. Tutu ( 1999 ) reminded us of what he calls his four types of truths. First, he described factual or forensic truth, or the actual evidence of what occurred. Second, he mentioned the personal or narrative truth of the interviewee: the story told by the witness giving testimony. Thus, we have the actual human story and the description of the lived experience, which is the goal of oral history. Third, Tutu described the social or cultural truth, that is, the context of what occurred historically and up to the present time. This is the documentation of the power structures involved in the various cases. Here, this may also include the forensic and personal truth. Finally, he discussed the restorative or healing truth, which describes what is needed to heal the wounds of the three previously outlined truths. Thus, testimony as oral history becomes a way to move toward a new kind of critical awareness. This is a unique case and one in which the entire world was updated as the hearings unfolded. But in the everyday lives of those we live and work with, there are many injustices that may be documented through oral history methods.

How Might We Think about Arts-Based Approaches to Improve Our Practice?

Writers have already outlined many arts-based approaches to qualitative research, and it makes sense to use arts-based approaches to enhance oral history narratives as well. After all is said and done, the oral historian is part artist, part historian, part ethnographer, and part active agent. Why not take advantage of arts-based approaches to research to disseminate the stories of our participants? For example, many possibilities for arts-based approaches include using the digital technology so readily available today for photography and videos, as described earlier in this chapter. Using performing arts such as play-making and reader’s theater to augment data presentation offers many opportunities to integrate arts-based approaches to oral history as well. Likewise, using poetry to represent our data and our processes makes sense. Because of space allotted for this section, I want to focus on another type of arts-based approach, that of found data poetry or any form of poetry. Found data poetry is poetry found in the data itself, such as interviews and documents from the site of the study. This means using words found in the data and making poetry from the meaning of the text. Poetry offers us a new way to look at our data and a new way to express it. See the following short example from a transcript of an oral history project I am currently completing on oral histories of female leaders. In this excerpt, a female school assistant superintendent from a north central state is explaining one of the challenges in a case regarding attempted censorship of a middle school reading text. The text included a story about a young, ostracized, obese student who contemplated suicide but then realized he was good at music, so he put his energy into music. The story of redemption rather than suicide was appreciated by students. However, some fundamentalist parents tried to mount an email campaign from around the United States and Canada to object to this optional text being included on the school’s summer reading list. Following this excerpt, which was used as an example of how leaders deal with multiple public stakeholders, you will see poetry constructed from the interview.

Sample excerpt from a transcript of an interview with a female assistant superintendent of schools in a north central state

q: Think about yesterday and today, not necessarily as typical days, but what does your day look like? Tell me about the things you deal with. a: Well, it’s been a typical days so that’s … And that’s something I’ve been thinking about. There isn’t … There are typical days and they’re boring. The typical days are the days when you’re sitting and working on paperwork for the state and working on budgets and trying to analyze test scores to make them meaningful to the teachers and to the … and whatever. So those are the typical boring days. This is our second week of school so there’s no typical beginning of the school year. Now I’m spending more time supporting teachers, right now new staff. Right now I’m doing … pulling on my Special Ed background. I have a little guy who is in one of our self-contained classrooms but he’s struggling with the transition coming back to school and mornings aren’t good for him and he’s got a new teacher. And the principal in that school is on maternity leave. And the principal who is filling in was a little panicked. And so we met and talked about strategies for this little guy that, no, you know in first grade he’s not ready for therapeutic day school. He’s not hurt anybody. Everything’s fine. It will be okay. We have a controversy going on right now related to curriculum materials that have been selected for students’ optional use, optional reading. So we’ve been laughing and … on one hand … and cringing on the other because we’re responding to one parent’s concern. We have only heard from one parent who has a concern about a book that was on the summer reading list. Kids take home a list of six or seven books that are optional. The kids give a synopsis of the book at school. They talk about them. And if you don’t like any of those books you can read any other book in the whole wide world to choose from. And this one is, as much young adult literature is, has controversial themes because it gives us the opportunity to support kids as they worry about these things. q: Can you tell the name of the book? a: It’s Fat Kid Rules the World by Kale Going. And the themes really are friendship, not giving up, perseverance. A student in there contemplates suicide. He’s had a very tough time. His mom’s died from cancer. His dad’s an alcoholic. He’s in an abusive home situation. And he is befriended by a homeless teen who is a gifted guitarist who asks this kid to join his band and play the drums. And it basically is about acceptance and you know it’s a great story of Redemption. It’s a wonderful story. And the parent that objects is objecting based on the proliferation of the “f” word. And it is in there and it … kids are in Brooklyn. And interestingly enough, but it’s not really spoken out loud. It’s in this kid’s thoughts. That she’s objecting to the normal sexual fantasies of teenagers. He’s describing a person and saying no not this one, not the one with the large breasts you know the other one … physical features. So you know things like that. This parent has you know not accepted that the fact that her child was not required to read the book and … She did not ask for the book to be banned from the library. I think she just asked for it to come off the summer reading list. However that has snowballed to some right-wing websites …Concerned Women for America, the Illinois Family Network. I don’t know which all … SaveLibraries.org. And we have been getting interesting emails from basically all over the country and Canada. q: What would be an interesting email? a: Oh some that are saying … One was, you know, “If I knew where Osama Bin Laden was, I would turn him in but first I would tell him where your school was so that he could bomb it. Hopefully when there was no children … on the weekends when no children were present.” You know, “You’re responsible for the moral degradation of children and the increase in rapes and murders and school shootings because children have read … because we have forced children to read this book.” q: Have you been threatened or has anybody? a: I have not personally been threatened. The junior high principal has been threatened. You know “When someone comes and murders your family, it’ll be because of how you taught them.” Rather interesting. No one from the immediate community … No other parents in the community … There’s an article in today’s paper, we had a prepared statement to share with people who called anticipating … And we did end up sending a note home today you know saying that you know we didn’t believe that the threat was really credible but that we did have, you know, that there was a police presence. … It was on the book list for incoming 8th graders, so that would be 13 and 14 year-olds. They talk about these things. And some statistic that I had recently come across said three to five … Three out of five teenagers contemplate suicide at one point. So, um …yeah, it’s kind of important to maybe say, yeah, there’s a place to talk about this. It was … It’s probably towards the young end of the age spectrum that the book might be appropriate for. And we did have a parent come and talk in support of the book. Her student had read it during 7th grade. He’s a very capable student. And as a parent she also read the book and thought it was a perfect avenue to discuss some of these difficult situations.

In this example we have many options for creating poetry to describe the content of the issues at hand as well as the emotional meaning. Here is an example of poetry written by Jill Flansburg ( 2011 ), who read the transcript and created this poem.

Parent Misconstrue

Parents misconstrue The teachers, the kids the book. Narrow mindedness. Poise under pressure Never a typical day But I really care … Parents find fault Intolerant of teachers And the kids miss out.

In this case you can see the power of the poem. It makes us think in new patterns and see something in the data that inspires poetic form. Poetry becomes a way to see possibility and hope in our work. Poetry allows us to say things that may not have been said or that make us notice what exactly has been said. Poetry becomes a method of discovery and a powerful technique in one’s toolkit for oral history. It is evocative and personal. Many poetry sites on the World Wide Web 2.0 and many poetry blogs may even be used as a way to analyze, interpret, and disseminate data in digital formats. Poetry as data presentation is one meaningful strategy for the oral historian. This goes beyond the actual interview.

How Might We Work in a Transdisciplinary Way to Augment the Oral History Interview?

I like to think about ways to make oral history more accessible. In this segment, thinking about digital technologies, poetry, and critical awareness as contextual, it makes sense to think about what other disciplines might teach us. In fact, oral history is often described alongside life history and biographical approaches to research. For years, researchers have been writing, thinking, and talking about triangulating data. We also have seen many writers discuss cross- and/or interdisciplinary approaches to research. For example, the social sciences and health sciences may have researchers who team up to study obesity. Medical and educational researchers may team up to study AIDS education programs. But the question then becomes, How deeply might this collaboration occur between and among disciplines? A new development has occurred recently in terms of thinking about transdisciplinarity.

Historically, Jean Piaget most likely was the first to introduce the term transdisciplinarity, around 1970. In the 1980s in Europe, interest continued, and in 1987, the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research adopted the Charter of Transdisciplinarity at its first world congress. This charter called for doing research with a holistic approach by crossing disciplines and going deeply into the union of the disciplines while designing research that is problem based. Many European research centers, such as those in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and France, currently appreciate and use this approach. In many ways it is like choreography, because it shares many characteristics and in choreography the artist uses at least two disciplines to start with that are deeply imbedded in each other, dance and music. For example, the choreographer mentioned earlier, Merce Cunningham, worked with composer John Cage (1912–1992) for a lifetime of collaboration in dance and music performance. They were able to deeply create meaning from this collaboration in performance, in critique and in developing new projects.

For oral historians, transdisciplinarity can work effectively because oral historians may use two or three disciplines embedded in each other. In my current research I use the fields of education, history, and sociology to examine the oral histories of female leaders. To go beyond the transcripts of interviews, transdisciplinarity offers us much to work with in terms of the design of our research, analysis, and interpretations (see Hirsch et al., 2008 ; Leavy, 2011 ). In addition, this approach is well suited to qualitative approaches in general and oral history in particular. I see this as a steady progression toward a more integrated, unified, critically aware, artistic, and rational approach to our work. In closing, let me ask that we think about going beyond the basic oral history interview. Let us use arts-based approaches to presenting and interpreting data. Let us use the digital tools available. All this is to contribute to critical awareness of the power structures we inhabit through our work and our lives and to appreciate the purpose and value of transdisciplinarity in our work. As the novelist Brandon Sanderson (2010) reminds us,

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.

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Title: realm: reference resolution as language modeling.

Abstract: Reference resolution is an important problem, one that is essential to understand and successfully handle context of different kinds. This context includes both previous turns and context that pertains to non-conversational entities, such as entities on the user's screen or those running in the background. While LLMs have been shown to be extremely powerful for a variety of tasks, their use in reference resolution, particularly for non-conversational entities, remains underutilized. This paper demonstrates how LLMs can be used to create an extremely effective system to resolve references of various types, by showing how reference resolution can be converted into a language modeling problem, despite involving forms of entities like those on screen that are not traditionally conducive to being reduced to a text-only modality. We demonstrate large improvements over an existing system with similar functionality across different types of references, with our smallest model obtaining absolute gains of over 5% for on-screen references. We also benchmark against GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, with our smallest model achieving performance comparable to that of GPT-4, and our larger models substantially outperforming it.

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Internal factors promoting research collaboration problems: an input-process-output analysis

• Published: 02 April 2024

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• Malte Hückstädt   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0185-4230 1 &
• Luca M. Leisten 2  

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Research collaborations are crucial for scientific progress, but their success is often compromised by internal collaboration problems. While previous work is often small-scaled and largely based on case studies and qualitative work, we present a large-scale, quantitative, and representative study to investigate important drivers behind research collaboration problems in various disciplines. Based on an input-process-output framework and with a focus on research clusters, we investigated the occurrence of four crucial research collaboration problems: fairness , commitment , difference , and cohesion problems. Based on a sample of 5.306 researchers, we identified several input and process variables that could reduce collaboration problems in research collaborations including gender heterogeneity, conflict mediation by a cluster’s spokesperson, the synthesis of results, and the collaborative development of common goals. We discuss that these problems are often rooted in the science system itself and provide important guidelines and implications for stakeholders, funding bodies, and involved researchers on how to reduce collaboration problems in research collaborations.

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This selection was made for two reasons: Our study focuses on the origin of research collaboration problems that arise at the cluster level of RC (Fig.  2 ). The additional consideration of collaboration problems occurring within sub-projects would have (1) led to an over-complexity of our survey. Furthermore, (2) the generation of a representative sample of all scientific staff, doctoral students, and postdocs of the DFG research clusters would not have been possible without disproportionately high effort.

DFG RC differ from normal (author-)teams in several respects: They are highly institutionalised and have formalised memberships, goals and purposes. RC of the DFG are furthermore organised in a project form, are financed by third-party funding, often have long and fixed terms, fixed organisational structures and are designed to promote and enable extensive research in specific areas (for a more detailed overview see: Defila et al., 2008 ; Torka, 2012 ).

For an overview and more detailed description of the variables used in our four analytical models, see Table A3 in the Appendix.

Translated by the authors.

The n = 5.306 PIs and Spokesperson are clustered into n = 948 research collaborations and are thus not statistically independent of each other.

To reduce complexity, only those hypotheses that are based on a significant effect are reported. Details on insignificant effects and the corresponding (unconfirmed) hypotheses as well as indirect effects of the four structural equation models can be found in Fig.  3 and Table A1 in the Appendix.

In the course of the model specification, we have assumed that the coherent use of terms across sub-projects is correlated with the use of common theories (Defila et al., 2006 ).

In the course of the model specification, following Loibl ( 2005 ) and Defila et al. ( 2006 ), we assumed that conflicts arising in the context of content-related decisions are correlated with resource conflicts.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Bernd Kleimann and Judith Block for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

This research was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [Grant Number M527800].

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See Figs. A1 , A2 , A3 and Tables A1 , A2 , A3 , A4 .

Relative frequencies of the disciplinary affiliation of the PIs and spokespersons in the population and the sample

Relative frequency of researcher’s gender and roles, RC status and their funding line in the population and in the sample

Frequencies of the proportions of female PIs in research clusters according to subject areas of the German research foundation

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Ovpr announces recipients of 2024 discovery and innovation awards.

The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) is honoring 11 faculty and staff for their exceptional contributions to research, scholarship, and creative activity as part of the 2024 Discovery and Innovation Awards .

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Wang’s research centers on the development of novel remote sensing techniques to characterize aerosols and fires from space. He serves as the University of Iowa’s lead investigator on NASA’s TEMPO, Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution, which Time magazine named one of its best inventions of 2023. 

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Donna Santillan , research professor and director of the Division of Reproductive Science Research in the CCOM Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, received the Leadership in Research Award , which recognizes research and scholarly accomplishments throughout a career. 

While Santillan’s research has spanned across the field of reproductive science, she has a particular interest in the deadly diseases of pregnancy, including preeclampsia and its intergenerational effects. She designed and directs the Women’s Health Tissue Repository. Santillan’s work has been cited more than 2,700 times, and she has mentored 114 early career scientists and students, a testament to her expansive impact.

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Stephen Warren , professor of history and American studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), received the Distinguished Achievement in Publicly Engaged Research Award . The award recognizes an individual faculty member who has put addressing public needs and direct engagement with the public, in the service of improving quality of life through research, at the forefront of his or her academic activities.

A prolific scholar of Native American culture, Warren’s research has centered on the Shawnee people of Oklahoma for the past two decades. He has published four books and co-authored the most recent one , Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country, with Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe. 

“Over the last two decades, Professor Warren has established himself as a leading community-engaged scholar, and his achievements in research and publishing demonstrate that community engagement and strong scholarship are not mutually exclusive,” said Nick Benson, director of the Office of Community Engagement. “Professor Warren’s work serves as an inspiration for researchers at Iowa and nationally who seek not only to make a difference in academia, but also in our communities.”

Kaveh Akbar , associate professor of English in CLAS, received the Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Humanities Research Award . This award honors distinguished achievement in humanities scholarship and work in the creative, visual and performing arts. 

Akbar joined Iowa in 2022 to serve as the director of the English and creative writing major. In January, his new novel, Martyr!, was published to critical acclaim. Akbar previously published two prize-winning poetry collections and has served as poetry editor for The Nation  since 2021. 

“Akbar’s leadership in the profession and on campus continues: his transformative work in our department not only enriches the academic experiences of 700+ English and creative writing majors, but also enhances the profile of UI as ‘The Writing University,’” said Blaine Greteman, professor and departmental executive officer of the Department of English.

Cara Hamann , associate professor of epidemiology, received the Faculty Communicating ideas Award . This award recognizes excellence in communication about research and scholarship in the sciences and humanities and the study of creative, visual, and performing arts to a general audience directly or via print and electronic media.

Hamann has frequently shared her work on transportation issues, including teen driving, bike and scooter safety, and pedestrian safety, through peer-reviewed journals and extensive media outreach. Her recent op-ed, “The most deadly traffic policy you’ve never heard of leaves you vulnerable, too,” drew widespread attention to a legal loophole in crosswalk laws and appeared in more than 50 news outlets nationwide, including USA Today .

“Dr. Hamann’s work is not only academically rigorous but also accessible and impactful to a

wide audience,” said Diane Rohlman, associate dean for research in the College of Public Health. “Her ability to communicate with clarity, creativity, and passion coupled with her extensive media outreach, exemplifies how she utilizes multiple approaches to address transportation challenges impacting society.”

Bob McMurray , F. Wendell Miller Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Caroline Clay , assistant professor of acting in the Department of Theatre Arts, were recipients of the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) Distinguished Mentor Awards . The awards honors mentors’ dedication to making their students research experiences successful.

“I can’t imagine my research journey without Bob’s welcoming kindness, thriving lab community, and confident mentorship, and I am so deeply grateful for his impact on me,” said Hannah Franke, a psychology and linguistics major mentored by McMurray.

“I know I am far from the only student whose life has been impacted by Caroline Clay,” said Isabella Hohenadel, a second-year theatre arts major. “She deserves to be recognized of all of the wonderful work she does and how much she cares about us as students. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of recognition than her.”

Staff Awards

Angie Robertson , department administrator for CCOM’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, received the Distinguished Research Administrator Award . The award recognizes staff members who performed exceptional service in support of research at the UI by exploring funding opportunities, assisting in grant proposal preparation, submission, post-award administration, and operational support. 

In addition to overseeing every aspect of daily operations for the department, Robertson manages nearly 100 research grants for the department and three longstanding NIH T32 training grants. 

“Angie plays a leading role in our department office, inspiring us to achieve all aspects of our missions ,” said Li Wu, professor and department chair. “She is innovative, collaborative, accountable, and respectful  in her daily work. She exceeds any expectations and sets a great example for staff members in the department.”

Min Zhu , research specialist in the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research (IIOHR) within the College of Dentistry, received the Distinguished Research Professional Award . The award recognizes staff members who performed exceptional service in support of research at the UI by conducting experiments, collecting, and analyzing results and performing operational duties associated with a laboratory or research program. 

Zhu has worked as a lab bench scientist in the College of Dentistry since 2006, executing experimental work for grants and other research, working closely with IIOHR faculty members, overseeing lab maintenance and environmental health and safety efforts. 

“Beyond her research skills, Dr. Zhu has been an exceptional mentor and educator for my students and other junior researchers,” said Liu Hong, professor of prosthodontics. “Her kindness and willingness to share her knowledge have made her a beloved figure among them.”

Curtis Iberg , manager of sterilization services in the College of Dentistry, received the Innovation in Safety Award, which celebrates exceptional and ground-breaking innovations that advance safety at the UI. Iberg led a major renovation of the College of Dentistry’s instrument processing and sterilization area, with the aim of encouraging better workflow and support for future growth. 

“His innovations in workspace are a valuable asset to the greater University and demonstrates that the most important people to be involved in a space renovation are those that use the area because they can see how the facility can better function and how it can be designed for future needs,” said Kecia Leary, associate dean of clinics.