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Why ‘context’ is important for research

Context is something we’ve been thinking a lot about at ScienceOpen recently. It comes from the Latin ‘ con ’ and ‘ texere ’ (to form ‘ contextus ’), which means ‘weave together’. The implications for science are fairly obvious: modern research is about weaving together different strands of information, thought, and data to place your results into the context of existing research. This is the reason why we have introductory and discussion sections at the intra-article level.

But what about context at a higher level?

Context can defined as: “ The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood .” Simple follow on questions might be then, what is the context of a research article? How do we define that context? How do we build on that to do science more efficiently? The whole point for the existence of research articles is that they can be understood by as broad an audience as possible so that their re-use is maximised.

There are many things that impinge upon the context of research. Paywalls, secretive and exclusive peer review, lack of discovery, lack of inter-operability, lack of accessibility. The list is practically endless, and a general by-product of a failure for traditional scholarly publishing models to embrace a Web-based era.

While a lot of excellent new research platforms now feature slick discovery tools and features, we feel that this falls short of what is really needed for optimal research re-use in the digital age.

Discovery is the pathway to context. Context of an article is all about how research fits into increasingly complex domains, and using structured networks to decipher its value. With the power of the internet at our disposal, putting research in context should be of key importance in a world where there is ever more research being published that is impossible to manually filter.

Tracking the genealogy of research

Citations are perhaps what we might consider to be academic context. These form the structured networks or genealogies of an idea in their rawest sense. Through citations we gain a small amount of understanding into how research is being re-used by other researchers, and also the gateway to understanding what it is those citations are telling us.

At ScienceOpen, we show all articles and article records that cite a particular research article, and also provide links to similar articles on our platform. These are drawn at the moment from almost 12 million article records, so can potentially form huge networks of information.

In addition we show which articles are most similar based on keywords, and also which open access articles are citing a particular work. You can explore each of these in more depth, and begin to track research networks! So it’s like enhanced discovery, but with a smattering of cherries on top.

Generating context through engagement

One of the great things about context is that it is flexible and can be defined by user engagement. Take peer review for example. This is a way of adding context to a paper, by drawing on external expertise and perspective to enhance the content of a research article. Peer evaluation of this sort is crucial for defining the context of a paper, and should not be hidden away out of sight and use. As we use public post-publication peer review at ScienceOpen, the full discussion and process of research is transparent.

Other ways of generating simple context are through sharing and recommendations of articles. The more this is done, the more you can understand which articles are of wider interest.

Social context

The rise of altmetrics can be seen as the broadening how we think about context. Altmetrics are a pathway to understanding how articles have been discussed, mentioned or shared in online sources including mainstream news outlets, blogs, and a variety of social networks.

On every single article record (almost 12 million at the moment), we show Altmetric scores. You can also sort searches by Altmetric, which provides additional context for which articles are generating the most societal discussion online. This is great if you want to track social media trends in a particular field, and again is all about placing research objects into a broader context.

So these are just some of the ways in which we put research in context, and we do it on a massive scale. Let us know in the comments what you think ‘research in context’ is all about, and why you think it’s important!

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Research Design Review

A discussion of qualitative & quantitative research design, contextual analysis: a fundamental attribute of qualitative research.

Unique attributes of qualitative research-Contextual analysis

One of the 10 unique or distinctive attributes of qualitative research is contextual, multilayered analysis. This is a fundamental aspect of qualitative research and, in fact, plays a central role in the unique attributes associated with data generation, i.e., the importance of context, the importance of meaning, the participant-researcher relationship , and researcher as instrument —

“…the interconnections, inconsistencies, and sometimes seemingly illogical input reaped in qualitative research demand that researchers embrace the tangles of their data from many sources. There is no single source of analysis in qualitative research because any one research event consists of multiple variables that need consideration in the analysis phase. The analyzable data from an in-depth interview, for example, are more than just what was said in the interview; they also include a variety of other considerations, such as the context in which certain information was revealed and the interviewee–interviewer relationship.” (Roller & Lavrakas, pp. 7-8)

The ability — the opportunity — to contextually analyze qualitative data is also associated with basic components of research design, such as sample size and the risk of relying on saturation which “misguides the researcher towards prioritizing manifest content over the pursuit of contextual understanding derived from latent, less obvious data.” And the defining differentiator between a qualitative and quantitative approach, such as qualitative content analysis in which it is “the inductive strategy in search of latent content, the use of context, the back-and-forth flexibility throughout the analytical process, and the continual questioning of preliminary interpretations that set qualitative content analysis apart from the quantitative method.”

There are many ways that context is integrated into the qualitative data analysis process to ensure quality analytical outcomes and interpretations . Various articles in Research Design Review have discussed contextually grounded aspects of the process, such as the following (each header links to the corresponding RDR article).

Unit of Analysis

“Although there is no perfect prescription for every study, it is generally understood that researchers should strive for a unit of analysis that retains the context necessary to derive meaning from the data. For this reason, and if all other things are equal, the qualitative researcher should probably err on the side of using a broader, more contextually based unit of analysis rather than a narrowly focused level of analysis (e.g., sentences).”

Meaning of Words

“How we use our words provides the context that shapes what the receiver hears and the perceptions others associate with our words. Context pertains to apparent as well as unapparent influences that take the meaning of our words beyond their proximity to other words [or] their use in recognized terms or phrases…”

Categorical Buckets

“No one said that qualitative data analysis is simple or straightforward. A reason for this lies in the fact that an important ingredient to the process is maintaining participants’ context and potential multiple meanings of the data. By identifying and analyzing categorical buckets, the researcher respects this multi-faceted reality and ultimately reaps the reward of useful interpretations of the data.”

Use of Transcripts

“Although serving a utilitarian purpose, transcripts effectively convert the all-too-human research experience that defines qualitative inquiry to the relatively emotionless drab confines of black-on-white text. Gone is the profound mood swing that descended over the participant when the interviewer asked about his elderly mother. Yes, there is text in the transcript that conveys some aspect of this mood but only to the extent that the participant is able to articulate it.”

Use of Recordings

“Unlike the transcript, the recording reminds the researcher of how and when the atmosphere in the [focus] group environment shifted from being open and friendly to quiet and inhibited; and how the particular seating arrangement, coupled with incompatible personality types, inflamed the atmosphere and seriously colored participants’ words, engagement, and way of thinking.”

Roller, M. R., & Lavrakas, P. J. (2015). Applied qualitative research design: A total quality framework approach . New York: Guilford Press.

Why ‘context’ is important for research

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Research Design Review

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