Contemporary Research Methods Research Articles

"...ДРАГОЦЕННЫЙ МАТЕРИАЛ ДЛЯ ВЫЯСНЕНИЯ МНОГИХ ЗАДАЧ И ВОПРОСОВ, КАСАЮЩИХСЯ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ГЕОГРАФИИ РУССКОЙ ЗЕМЛИ...": К ВЫХОДУ КНИГИ В.Г. БУХЕРТА "АРХИВ МЕЖЕВОЙ КАНЦЕЛЯРИИ (ЦЕНТРАЛЬНЫЙ МЕЖЕВОЙ АРХИВ). 1768-1939 ГГ."

The article presents an analysis of the book by V.G. Buhert, a famous Russian archivist. The book is devoted to the history of the formation and activities of the Land Surveying Chancery Archives (the Central Land Surveying Archives) which existed from 1768 to 1939, as well as to the Chancery’s structure and the subject matter of its documents. Starting with the second half of the 18th century, the Russian authorities began carrying out the land surveying procedure. As a result, valuable documentary material was accumulated in the Land Surveying Chancery – cartographic records (schemes, maps, collections of maps), text documents (land plat books, notes on economy issues), etc. At present, the documents are kept in the Russian State Archives for Ancient Acts. It is pointed out that on the basis of detected documents the author of the book managed to restore some little-known information about the acquisition, registration and the description of archival sources, as well as about the fate and fortunes of the Archive’s workers. The reader of the book gets to learn about the destinies and the activities of the researchers and ordinary workers of archives who laboured for the benefit of archives and for the development of archival science. Many of them contributed not only to the improvement of a concrete archives, but also to the progress of other Russian archives. It is highlighted that the author worked out a specified method of detecting and exploring archival records. Successively using contemporary research methods, V.G. Buhert tackled the tasks of the systemically integral, historical and archival character.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: A Contemporary Qualitative Approach

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a contemporary qualitative research method grounded in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography. Philosophical principles and rigorous methodology make this approach well suited for research in counselor education and supervision. In this primer, the authors introduce counselor educators, counseling students, and counseling researchers to IPA theory and methodology and discuss considerations for implementation in counseling research.

Engineering Education in Elementary and Secondary Schools

Engineering, with its focus on design and problem-solving, is used in K-12 education to promote learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In this special issue, we bring together seven research papers that have examined critical questions in engineering education. These papers collectively examine recent research in K-12 education and address three broad topics: different models for integrating engineering into K-12 curricula, different learning outcomes associated with alternative models of integration and implementation, and ways K-12 students engage in epistemic practices of engineering while learning STEM concepts. Future research needs to address how engineering should be implemented in schools, what and how learning outcomes must be assessed, and how engineering should be taught. Further research in K-12 curriculum, student learning, and teacher education is necessary, as are applications of contemporary research methods to study teaching and learning of engineering concepts and practices in elementary and secondary schools.

On the Classification of the Slavic Menaia Manuscripts

In the present paper we analyze nine manuscripts from the 11th–14th century Menaia (Greek: μηνάιον), Old-Slavic hymnographic texts, using a vector space model. The analysis and classification of the manuscripts in previous studies have been rather subjective. In an attempt to be objective we use contemporary research methods. Vector analysis allows one to separate the Putyatina Menaion and the Menaion Q.п.1.25 from the set of analyzed texts, since both manuscripts share both textological and lexical similarities. Similar findings were reached in existing studies. Manuscript BAN 16.14.13 is shown to be quite similar to the set of analyzed texts. The results are new to the literature.

The Cost Stickiness of Information Technology Material Weaknesses: An Intertemporal Comparison between IT-Related and Other Material Weaknesses

PCAOB inspections of audit firms help drive audit focus and costs, and with the PCAOB’s emphasis on internal control audit work beginning in 2010, internal control weaknesses (ICW) have become of even greater concern. IT-related material weaknesses have emerged as particularly significant with PCAOB reports in 2008 and 2012 highlighting on-going deficiencies in audit work related to IT controls, and the 2015 brief noting the PCAOB’s intention to maintain focus on audit deficiencies that appear recurring. We explore how the focus on ICW affects audit fees and how the complexity of contemporary enterprise systems results in a persistence of audit fee premiums post-remediation. We conduct a study of audit fee premium differences associated with various categories of material weaknesses in internal controls. Using propensity score matched samples, we provide evidence that the fee premium charged to firms reporting IT-related material weaknesses (ITMW), after remediation, lingers longer than the fee premium imposed on firms reporting non-IT entity-level material weaknesses (NITELMW), or firms reporting account-specific material weaknesses (ASMW). Moreover, we show that the association between audit fee premiums and type of material weakness remediated is strongest for ITMW linked to data processing integrity. Our findings, which are based on more robust contemporary research methods, underscore the importance of distinguishing not only between entity-level material weaknesses and ITMW but also between different types of ITMW as identified in prior data quality research.

Qualitative methods III

In this, our third and final snapshot of contemporary qualitative research methods, we pick up on the proliferation of non-representational theory across human geography and focus on research methods concerned with practices that exceed (more than) representation or are non-representational. We chart work that pays attention to the non-visible, the non-verbal and the non-obvious, as well as methods and methodologies that enable researchers to grasp and grapple with assemblages, relationalities, and life as it unfolds. We characterize these ‘more-than representational’ methodologies as: experimenting with approaches to research, using picturing as an embedded research methodology, and highlighting research as sensing. We conclude that these have opened new forms of knowledge, including into subdisciplines like health geography. Nonetheless, a privileging of written and visual modes of thinking and representing remain, and the discipline must be vigilant to nurture and value the emerging work on neural diversity and non-Western modes of thinking.

Earnings Management During Antidumping Investigations in Europe: Sample-Wide and Cross-Sectional Evidence

This paper examines earnings management by EU firms that initiate an antidumping investigation. We first document economically and statistically significant income-decreasing earnings management around the initiation of an antidumping investigation. We show that earnings management increases when accounting data directly affect the magnitude of the tariffs imposed in the trade investigation. We also find that earnings management decreases as the number of petitioning firms increases or as the distance between petitioning firms increases, suggesting free-rider and coordination problems. We find that earnings management increases when the petition is directed at a country that imports more goods from the petitioning firm's home country, suggesting that retaliation threats affect incentives. We document that raising equity or debt financing moderates income-decreasing earnings management, consistent with the idea that sample firms trade off capital market and regulatory considerations. Our results indicate that contemporary research methods can detect accruals-based earnings management in settings in which the incentives for earnings management can be clearly identified.

Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue on Bioinformatics Research and Applications

This Special Issue includes a selection of papers presented at the 11th International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Application (ISBRA), which was held at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, USA, on May 7-10, 2015. The ISBRA symposium provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and results among researchers, developers, and practitioners working on all aspects of bioinformatics and computational biology and their applications. In 2015, 98 papers were submitted in response to the call for papers, out of which 12 papers were invited to submit extended versions of their conference abstracts to this Special Issue. Selected papers illustrate the variety of applications that computational methods find in the field of nanobioscience, ranging from protein classification to de novo sequencing. Furthermore, selected papers convincingly demonstrate the central role played by computational methods in contemporary nanobioscience research - a role that is bound only to increase in the future. The Guest Editors then briefly describe each of 12 accepted papers.

Contemporary qualitative research methods in sport management

Over the past 10 years, qualitative research methods have become more commonplace in sport management scholarship. In the main, they are largely defined by a formulaic approach in which case studies, semi-structured interviews, and coding are often used. Alternative qualitative approaches, which may open up research to new audiences and research participants, and challenge assumptions about ‘good research,’ appear to be largely absent. This special issue on contemporary qualitative research methods in sport management includes conceptual advances in community-based research approaches, Indigenous methodologies, participatory action research, autoethnographies, and narratives. In addition, we present empirical papers that illustrate the use of autoethnography, narrative, digital ethnography, and phenomenology in the field. These articles provide examples for use in classes on qualitative research methods, and can serve to inspire others to use contemporary methods. We encourage sport management researchers to learn about and use contemporary qualitative data collection and analysis, and alternative means of disseminating their work to further enhance the field and challenge ways of knowing and doing research.

Collaborative self-study: Lessons from a study of wearable fitness technology and physical activity

While researchers in related disciplines have embraced and benefited from use of unconventional contemporary qualitative research methods extending beyond interviews and case studies, sport management researchers largely have not thus far. The purpose of this article is to encourage greater use of collaborative self-study (autoethnography and self-ethnography) within sport management research. Based on our experience with a collaborative self-study research project examining the influence of wearable fitness technology on physical activity, we explore key methodological considerations focusing on the ethics of self-study, and the benefits, challenges, and opportunities associated with employing this underutilized qualitative method in sport management research. Collaborative self-study offers the opportunity to address questions and examine sport phenomena from perspectives rarely addressed by traditional approaches. Through reviewing collaborative self-study, we provide guidance for sport management researchers and encourage researchers to consider this method in their future projects.

Guest Editorial: Introduction to the Special Issue on Bioinformatics Research and Applications

This Special Issue includes a selection of papers presented at the 11th International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Application (ISBRA), which was held at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, USA, on May 7-10, 2015. The ISBRA symposium provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and results among researchers, developers, and practitioners working on all aspects of bioinformatics and computational biology and their applications. In 2015, 98 papers were submitted in response to the call for papers, out of which 12 papers were invited to submit extended versions of their conference abstracts to this Special Issue. Selected papers illustrate the variety of applications that computational methods find in the field of nanobioscience, ranging from protein classification to de novo sequencing. Furthermore, selected papers convincingly demonstrate the central role played by computational methods in contemporary nanobioscience research - a role that is bound only to increase in the future. The Guest Editors then briefly describe each of 12 accepted papers.

A Case for Autoethnography

Contemporary research methods steeped in binary Cartesian reductionism may not be appropriate to studying entrepreneurship. Most of these methods operate under an assumption that a future forecast ...

Involvement and Detachment

The macro-micro dichotomy prevalent in consumer research has led to methodological issues this article explores. Drawing from figurational theory and using a three-year participant-observation of heavy metal fans as a case study, this article puts forward a potential route for synthesis between dominant micro and macro perspectives. Merging contemporary consumer research methods with broader figurational theories of historical change and figurational methods allows for a more holistic understanding of consumer communities. The methodological approach used elucidates the problematic aspects of studying contexts seen as controversial and, hence, emotionally charged and value-laden. Despite the shared importance that figurationalists and macromarketers hold for developing accounts that recognize the relationship between broader structural processes, the emphasis figurationalists place on attaining a balance between involvement and detachment conflicts with the prominence that macromarketing scholars give to using their research to “serve” society. The implications of this difference are discussed.

Grumpy Old Ethnographers: A Review of David Silverman ’s A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research

Renowned scholar of qualitative research methods David Silverman delivers an indictment of contemporary qualitative research methods. The book is meant to be an introduction (or “pre - textbook”) to the subject of qualitative research and definitely not a “how - to” manual. In evaluating contemporary qualitative research methods, Silverman’s book primarily focuses on ethnography and conversation analysis. Intentionally personal and biased, Silverman’s plainly - stated goal for this book is to “debunk the accepted understandings” of qualitative research and elicit an interest in the arguments within the field of qualitative inquiry , and he succeeds on both accounts.

Re-examining a false dichotomy: on the contemporary methods in educational research

In educational research, the ‘paradigm wars’—vehement debates between proponents of qualitative approaches and proponents of quantitative approaches—are far from over (Bryman 2006). The development of British educational research demonstrates this nicely. Influenced by policy makers’ demands for prediction and control, the current research climate is characterised by a mistrust of qualitative methods, particularly in regard to their potential value-ladenness and lack of rigour (Hodkinson 2008). British education sociologist and methodologist Martyn Hammersley, one of the authors of Challenging the Qualitative–Quantitative Divide: Explorations in CaseFocused Causal Analysis, objects to the dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative methods that the paradigm wars are based on. He argues that the division is artificial and may even be damaging: for instance, it could discourage researchers of one approach from taking into account arguments produced by researchers of a different style (Hammersley 2005). Challenging the Qualitative–Quantitative Divide should be read in this context. Its authors argue that it is unproductive to accept the qualitative–quantitative divide. They therefore lay bare the hidden assumptions, advantages and disadvantages of different methods in contemporary educational research. To illustrate, they apply each method to extensive examples drawn from their area of expertise: educational inequalities and social mobility in Britain. The authors argue that their arguments are generalisable to social science as a whole, and the methods they discuss are in fact commonly used in other social science areas, such as political science. As such, the book promises three things: to contribute to the topical debate between proponents of qualitative and quantitative methods; to give examples from an interesting area of social science, i.e. educational research; and to introduce the

Queer breeding: historicising popular culture, homosexuality and informal sex education

Through an analysis of gay protest music (1975) and an educational kit for students (1978), both sponsored by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the UK, this paper brings into focus a history of gay rights activists' efforts to marshal popular culture in the development of informal sex education for young people in the second half of the 1970s. Through a reparative critique of prevailing therapeutic research methodologies, and through a theoretical deployment of notions of methodological reconciliation and queer breeding, it makes the case for the importance of historical methods in contemporary sex education research.

But is it Innovation?: The Development of Novel Methodological Approaches in Qualitative Research

Focusing on three case studies of novel approaches about which claims of innovation have been made, this paper explores the process of methodological innovation and the response of the social science community to innovations. The study focuses on three specific innovations: ‘netnography’, ‘child-led research’ and ‘creative methods’ and draws on interview data with researchers who have developed these approaches and those who have engaged with them. Data are explored through the lens of the social context of contemporary qualitative research methods and specifically what has been referred to in the UK as the ‘impact’ agenda. We argue that while methodological innovation may be viewed by researchers as important for the continued success of social science disciplines, the processes whereby new methods are developed and marketed, within the context of contemporary social research and the impact culture, may limit their acknowledgement and acceptance within the broader social science community. This culture increases the speed at which innovations are developed and marketed, encourages the dissemination of codified or procedural approaches to innovations which limit the craft of qualitative research and encourages early career researchers to adopt approaches without being reflexive about the affordances these methods might provide.

Organization of language network in healthy subjects and its reorganization in patients with poststroke aphasia

It’s a traditional belief among neuroscientists that the speech function is located in some strictly definite areas of the left hemisphere: Broca’s area in the rear part of the lower frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 44, or BA44), and Wernicke’s area in the rear part of the upper temporal gyrus (BA22). However, data collected with the contemporary neurovisual research methods, in particular, with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), disprove the localizationist theory of speech. With the specially designed speech task (paradigm) consisted of sentence reading and sentence continuation tests, we researched distribution of speech neuron network in healthy people and its reorganization in patients with different types of aphasia. After processing of control sample data, we noticed activation of classic speech areas (Broca’s and Wernicke’s) and their right hemisphere homologies. However, the amount of activations was predominant in the left hemisphere. We also noticed bilateral activity in lower parts of pre-central (BA4) and post-central (BA1) gyri, in cerebellum hemispheres and in visual cortex (BA17–18). In stroke patients activation in Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas depended on a lesion location. Activation wasn’t registered in case of damage of corresponding region, but it was migrated on perilesional area. We revealed new regions of activity at patients with aphasia, including upper parietal gyrus (BA7), angular and over-marginal gyri (BA39–40). Aforementioned activations were disclosed both in left and right hemispheres. The research shows that the speech paradigm used demonstrates functioning of speech system in the optimal way. The received data will increase understanding of brain structures involved in process of speech and their importance for recovery of damaged speech functions.

Pesquisa em mediunidade e relação mente-cérebro: revisão das evidências

CONTEXTO: Mediunidade, uma experiencia humana disseminada pelas diversas sociedades ao longo da historia, pode ser definida como uma experiencia em que um individuo (chamado de medium) alega estar em comunicacao com, ou sob influencia de, uma personalidade falecida ou outro ser nao material. Desde o seculo 19 ha uma substancial mas negligenciada tradicao de investigacoes cientificas sobre mediunidade e suas implicacoes para a natureza da mente. OBJETIVO: Discutir a importância historica e atual da mediunidade para o problema mente-cerebro, focando em estudos que investigam as origens e as fontes das comunicacoes mediunicas. METODOS: O artigo inicia-se com uma breve discussao filosofica sobre o que seria evidencia para identidade pessoal e sua persistencia alem do cerebro, entao apresenta e analisa as evidencias proporcionadas por estudos em mediunidade, incluindo uma analise mais detalhada de dois mediuns muito produtivos: Leonora Piper e Chico Xavier. RESULTADOS: Estudos bem controlados, antigos e recentes, sugerem que mediuns podem exibir habilidades e conhecimentos compativeis com personalidades falecidas e improvaveis de terem sido obtidos por meios ordinarios. CONCLUSOES: O uso de metodos de pesquisa contemporâneos em experiencias mediunicas pode proporcionar a necessaria ampliacao e diversificacao da base empirica para o avanco de nosso entendimento do problema mente-cerebro.

Enhancement in Operator's Perception of Soft Tissues and Its Experimental Validation for Scaled Teleoperation Systems

This paper focuses on scaled teleoperation systems interacting with soft tissues and presents an optimal control scheme to maximize the operator's kinesthetic perception of remote soft environments while maintaining the stability in macro-micro interactions. Two performance metrics are defined to quantify the kinesthetic perception of the surgeons and the position tracking ability of the master-slave system. Kinesthetic perception is defined based on psychophysics by using two metrics, which relate to the detection and discrimination of stimulus. This paper then employs a multiconstrained optimization approach to get an optimal solution in the presence of the stability-performance tradeoff wherein the objective is to enhance the kinesthetic perception while maintaining the tracking and robust stability for interactions between macro and microworlds. Simplified stability constraints for scaled teleoperation systems are designed based on Llewellyn's absolute stability criterion for the optimization procedure, which provides easy and effective design guidelines for selecting control gains. Experiments with phantom soft tissues have been conducted using scaled force-position control architecture, scaled position-position control architecture, and scaled four-channel control architecture to verify the proposed control scheme. Results prove the effectiveness of this algorithm in enhancing the kinesthetic perception of surgeons for scaled teleoperation systems. Psychophysical experiments were then performed to compare our approach with similar contemporary research methods that further validated its efficacy.