[Air-L] Three Questions (was qual/quant and all that)
Terri Senft
tsenft at gmail.com
Thu May 8 16:15:41 PDT 2014
Hi Gang,
I'm in the middle of writing up something longer about these issues, but I
want to toss out three questions that have been eating at me:
1. Do members of this organization understand how parameters of rigorous
scholarship are determined in the Humanities? Do they understand how these
parameters overlap with social and hard sciences--and how they diverge
from them?
If your answer to either of these questions is "No," then we all need to
talk before anyone agrees to review a paper that signals 'humanities' in
its abstract. Btw, for those with institutional memory, this was a similar
discussion AoIR had with folks more versed in hard science protocols who
didn't understand why our work didn't look like a CHI submission.
2. Do we really believe that "mixed methods" only refers to a combination
of quantitative and qualitative work?
Because I didn't get that memo, and I'm not sure anyone else working into
interdisciplinary fields has, ether. Yet every time someone speaks to this
point, we go down this some over-worked territory. God forbid we ever get
to stuff like video analysis plus network analysis plus user experience
testing plus journaling from a phenomenological standpoint plus exit
polling. We'll just leave that work to the 21 year olds hanging on YouTube
trying to assess whether the medium is working for them as budding stars.
Oh, and by the way, Ruth Deller works in the UK, so please don't assume
how other fields are structured (in this case communications) based on your
experiences in the U.S. It's inaccurate and can come off as well, a little
patronizing.
3. Does anyone have an actual reason to use the term, "armchair
theorizing?"
This is the second time that term has popped up on this list, and I'm keen
to learn its meaning. As it stands, it strikes me as the equivalent as
"dumb ass grant securing chart making." Now we've both launched insults at
entire fields with no data.
More soon, but honestly, friends. Can we stop with the straw men and try
and actually get back to the things being brought up by Jill earlier?
Frustrated but always with love for all,
Terri
On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Ellis Godard <egodard at csun.edu> wrote:
> Unintended consequences are a natural part of conversation - asides,
> reminders, etc. :)
>
> I can understand both the suggestion from you that folks might hesitate at
> something too statistical and Barry's critique of the idea that someone
> would be only a quant or qual person. Partly, it's a disciplinary
> difference: You're in Communications (and I've taught methods courses in
> such departments, where quant skills are narrower) and he's in Sociology
> (my
> own discipline, rife with riffs about qual vs quant).
>
> But to the extent there's tension between the two ideas, you win: Reviewers
> should have a level of expertise in what they're reviewing that exceeds the
> baseline literacy level Barry thinks all Soc students should have.
>
> -eg
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Air-L [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Deller,
> Ruth A
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 2:33 AM
> To: 'aoir list'
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] qual/quant and all that
>
> I think I may have accidentally started something I didn't mean to! When I
> mentioned stats as an example in my email to the list a couple of days ago,
> it wasn't my intention to start a quantitative vs qualitative debate, I was
> just using it as a (perhaps extreme) example of how you might be assigned
> papers to review that are out of your comfort zone - really as a response
> to
> Jill's suggestion of people identifying their disciplinary backgrounds in
> the submissions process because she discussed wishing she'd been able to
> review more Humanities papers and submit in a format more comfortable to
> Humanities scholars -it was never meant to be a statement about quant vs
> qual vs mixed-methods or anything like that!
>
> Ruth
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Ellis Godard
> Sent: 07 May 2014 23:40
> To: 'Barry Wellman'; 'aoir list'
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] qual/quant and all that
>
> I'm less interested in the methods folks employ than in their epistemology
> about their methods. Many ideas - that numbers are bad, that science is
> evil, that "positivism" is dead, etc. - are pollutive nonsense that
> perpetuate a qual/quant distinction that's partly spurious. Numbers are
> great, as is exploratory work that can't quite yet be subjected to
> quantification. Ethnographers can count things, and we can count things
> about ethnographies. Kumbaya.
> -eg
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman
> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 3:09 PM
> To: aoir list
> Subject: [Air-L] qual/quant and all that
>
> I am disappointed in the implicit assumption that folks are either qual or
> quant.
>
> When I had influence in the Toronto Sociology dept, I helped lead the way
> to
> ensure all grad students took a basic stats course and a basic ethnography
> course. They don't have to use both, but they have to be literate readers
> of
> both, and not shy away from use in fear or ignorance.
>
> I continue to think it is the only way forward for serious IR scholarship
>
> Barry Wellman, who was doing "mixed methods" before it was called that.
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
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--
<http://goog_689013053>
<http://goog_689013053>
Dr. Theresa M. Senft
Global Liberal Studies Program
School of Arts & Sciences
New York University
726 Broadway NY NY 10003
home: *www.terrisenft.net <http://goog_689013053>*
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