[Air-L] Three Questions (was qual/quant and all that)
Alex Leavitt
alexleavitt at gmail.com
Thu May 8 16:45:36 PDT 2014
Also, to jump in, there's the additional notion of theoretical versus
empirical work, which is a grey area by itself that can further be
complicated... in addition to another (and my favored) approach to the
quant/qual dichotomy around empirical work: analytical versus interpretive.
I highly recommend everyone read (my favorite approach to this quant/qual
debate) Chapter 1 of *Ragin, C. & Becker H. (1992). What is a Case?
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press*. I've uploaded it here if anyone
would like to peruse:
http://alexleavitt.com/media/RaginBecker_1992_WhatIsACase.pdf
---
Alexander Leavitt
PhD Student
USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
http://alexleavitt.com
Twitter: @alexleavitt <http://twitter.com/alexleavitt>
On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Terri Senft <tsenft at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
> > _______________________________________________________________________
> >
> > NetLab FRSC INSNA Founder
> > Faculty of Information (iSchool) 611 Bissell Building
> > 140 St. George St. University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 3G6
> > http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman twitter: @barrywellman
> > NSA/CSEC: Canadian and American citizen
> > NETWORKED:The New Social Operating System. Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman
> > MIT Press http://amzn.to/zXZg39 Print $14 Kindle $16
> > Old/NewCyberTimes http://bit.ly/c8N9V8
> >
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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>*
> (needs a serious updating)
> facebook: www.facebook.com/theresa.senft
> twitter: @terrisenft
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