Methodological Note Research Articles

Methodological progress note: Purposeful sampling in qualitative research.

Methodological progress note: Purposeful sampling in qualitative research.

Moms for liberty and the dispositifs of white motherhood: toward a Black whiteness study of maternal educational biopolitics

This article argues that white motherhood, embodied by Moms for Liberty, enforces a white supremacist educational and political order that materially harms students of color, especially Black students. Moms for Liberty did not emerge ex nihilo. It is part of a longer history of defining American education from the vantage of white motherhood. This argument is introduced by a methodological note that extends Foucault’s discussion of dispositifs to current critiques of critical whiteness studies that redefine this field of inquiry as Black whiteness studies Genealogical integrations of securitizing dispositifs like white motherhood are qualitative ways of doing Black whiteness studies that make possible future critical inquiries. Toward this possibility this article concludes by discussing the material dangers Black mothers experience and how Black mothering counters vitriolic claims of harm espoused by extremist organizations like Moms for Liberty.

Methodological progress note: Stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial design.

Methodological progress note: Stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial design.

NEW RECORDS OF ECHOLOCATION CALLS OF <i>Hipposideros khaokhouayensis </i>

Phou Khao Khouay leaf-nosed bat (Hipposideros khaokhouayensis) is a globally rare and vulnerable species of the family Hipposideridae. It has been known only from the type locality in Laos and two localities in Vietnam. Its echolocation calls were included in several publications but still poorly understood. Between November 2023 and April 2024, the authors conducted three field surveys in Lang Son province and Hai Phong city, northeastern Vietnam, in order to seek further understanding of its potential distribution and echolocation behavior. Twelve adult individuals of the species were captured using harp traps and mist nets for identification in the field based on their morphological diagnoses to confirm the target species' identity. The PCTape system was employed to record echolocation calls while bats were emerging from caves. Seven sound parameters (CF frequency, CF duration, tFM frequency, tFM bandwidth, tFM duration, pulse duration, and inter-pulse interval) of the recorded calls were analyzed and measured using the Selena software. Their values are in a range of 90.2 - 91.1 kHz, 3.1 - 8.9 ms, 75.6 - 84.5 kHz, 6.1 - 15.0 kHz, 0.9 - 1.7 ms, 4.5 - 10.1 ms and 15.1 - 31.4 ms, respectively. The present study results are considerably different from descriptions in previous publications. This paper also provides the first data on the inter-pulse interval of the species echolocation calls and a methodological note on this sound parameter.

Using Preliminary Data to Guide a Research Project: Bear Safety and Bear Management

AbstractThis methodological and theoretical note is the cornerstone of empirical research I began this past summer (2023) on bear safety in backcountry wilderness settings. I am using this pilot data to inform the future iterations of the study to learn more about people’s relationships to bears and their knowledge of safe practices while recreating in the presence of bears. This note, written in the early months of 2024, focuses on refining the pilot survey and developing the research program which will be expanded to four locations in the U.S. to assess the knowledge of backcountry hikers regarding bear safety and their preferences for bear management. This essay ponders the development of future iterations of this research agenda, including methodology, theoretical development, and practical value.

Men's education and intimate partner violence-Beyond the victim-oriented perspective: Evidence from demographic and health surveys in Central Africa.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has increasingly received attention in the last three decades. However, IPV-related studies in both high- and low- and middle-income countries adopted a victim-oriented perspective in which men are perpetrators and women, the victims. Using socio-cultural and resource theories as guiding frameworks, this paper assessed the associations between men's education and IPV in Central Africa, using nationally representative data of married and cohabiting women of reproductive ages. Data included in the analyses come from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Cameroon, Gabon, and Chad. Analyzed sub-samples consisted of 3421, 5023, 3930, and 3221 married/cohabiting women of reproductive ages in Chad, DRC, Cameroon, and Gabon, respectively. Findings indicated significant variations of IPV prevalence within and across countries. Previous research demonstrated that men's education is a protective factor in health-related studies. The present study, however, provide no clear evidence on the linkages between men's education and IPV. In contrast, the paper substantiated that highly educated women were at higher risks of IPV when spouses/partners were less educated. These findings have policy and programmatic implications because they might impede progress towards SDG goals on the elimination of all forms of violence against girls and women in Central Africa, which recorded the worst development indicators in sub-Saharan Africa. On a methodological note, studies are increasingly using pooled data to increase statistical power. Those studies can be very limited to devise effective IPV-interventions since they mask geographical variations within and across countries. More effective IPV-interventions should be culturally rooted and accounting for geographical variations because some areas are more affected than others.

Methodological progress note: Pilot randomized controlled trials.

Methodological progress note: Pilot randomized controlled trials.

Methodological progress note: Choosing analytic methods for randomized trials.

Methodological progress note: Choosing analytic methods for randomized trials.

DIY google trends indicators in social sciences: A methodological note

Various branches of the social sciences often require high-frequency measures of collective behavior. Examining peoples' Google search patterns enables uncovering otherwise hard-to-measure social trends or constructing different leading indicators. Google Trends (GT) data presents a unique and rich dataset that enables a deeper look at the popularity of peoples’ search interests. This paper delves into the main empirical approaches of constructing GT indicators, conducts a thorough methodological review, and elucidates the nuances and potentials of GT data. Specifically, the paper furnishes a step-by-step methodological guide for constructing GT indicators: from data pre-treatment to composite estimation using an array of machine learning techniques (principal component analysis, XGBoost, and dynamic factor models). We scrutinize the prevalent construction strategies of GT indicators, compare the use of keyword-based vs. category-based estimations, single indicators vs. composite indicators, and evaluate the significance of various data transformations. Illustrating the utility of our methodological framework through a case study, we create GT indicators for US retail trade and examine their forecasting accuracy in comparison to a benchmark autoregressive model. Our findings reveal that XGBoost yields the optimal test sample fit among composite indicators, while category-specific indicators like Shopping and Retail Trade exhibit worse predictive accuracy. As an additional contribution, we provide a detailed and user-friendly R code for replicating our analysis.

Methodological progress note: How to handle race in research according to the research aim.

Methodological progress note: How to handle race in research according to the research aim.

How the chosen are chosen?: methodological note on the definition of the target group in prosopography

Resumo Este artigo aborda o método da prosopografia e oferece recomendações práticas para sua aplicação na pesquisa histórica. O autor baseia-se em suas próprias experiências e compartilha casos reais e desafios enfrentados por pesquisadores, em especial estudantes de pós-graduação, para enfatizar soluções práticas, sobretudo na definição do grupo-alvo da pesquisa. Ele destaca os desafios envolvidos nessa etapa crítica e os potenciais riscos de uma definição inadequada do grupo para as fases posteriores do processo de pesquisa, bem como o imenso potencial da prosopografia no campo da história social contemporânea e da micro-história. Além disso, o artigo destaca a necessidade e os benefícios do trabalho colaborativo em pesquisa, na reunião de recursos, no treinamento de jovens pesquisadores, no compartilhamento de experiências e na disseminação de técnicas, oferecendo uma alternativa às experiências de pesquisa solitárias. Em resumo, este artigo fornece insights sobre procedimentos práticos em prosopografia, com foco na definição do grupo-alvo.

What’s in a Refusal? Methodological and Ethical Notes from an Ethnography of Mental Health Care in Rural Ghana

Drawing on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2022 on experiences of madness and practices of mental health care in rural southwestern Ghana, in this paper I propose to take as a point of departure, a specific episode in which the relatives of Fadhila—a girl I had first met at the psychiatric unit, where she was diagnosed as “psychotic”—refused to give consent to record an interview with me. The refusal was motivated by the strict instructions that Fadhila and her family were given by the traditional healer who was taking care of her: among many other things, the girl was not allowed to come close to any electronic device and her family felt it was unsafe to record an interview at their house. The refusal had to do with Fadhila being a “patient” as much as it had to do with another refusal: that of drugs and psychiatrisation. Indeed, the refusal had to do with spirits, the spirits that occasionally possessed Fadhila and were trying to make her a healer, according to her, her family members, and the traditional specialists they had visited. The refusal, however, may also have been a polite, indirect way to “withdraw consent”—to use the jargon of informed consent forms and ethics review committees. Though Fadhila and her family kept inviting me to their place, welcomed me warmly in subsequent occasions, and conversed with me about many things including the girl’s “condition,” that episode pushed me to reconsider the limits of formal consent and the need to constantly question it and re-establish it—a complex dynamic that sometimes the bureaucracy of “ethical clearance” processes in academia may contribute, paradoxically, to erase. Analysing this ethnographic episode in light of the powerful concept of ethnographic refusal introduced by Audra Simpson, I propose a reflection on the ethical and methodological implications of considering people as “sources” in ethnographies of madness and mental health.

Cryoconveyor protocols in correlation light and electron microscopy: From multilevel imaging to modeling of biophysical effects and “cryotheranostics”

This paper is a technical and methodological note, the purpose of which is to introduce into the practice of biological research methods of cryomicroscopy in a conveyor mode, starting from small magnifications and ending with the limits of magnification/resolution of scanning electron cryomicroscopy. The protocol described can be applied to the samples with low sample preparation complexity without ultratomy or the sample processing typical for transmission electron microscopy methods. According to this protocol samples are analyzed in a single microcuvette (chip) indexed by laboratory information management system and sequentially moved from the non-destructive low-resolution optical microscopy instruments (such as lensless cryomicroscopes) and optical super-resolution methods (some microinterferometers and MIMs with cryotables) to the CryoSEM/CryoESEM level (in programmable environments and atmospheres). Methods of correlation lensless cryomicroscopy and scanning microscopy (including those with the subsequent transition to microanalysis) were introduced; CryoCUVEM and CryoCIREM methods in the ultraviolet and infrared range, respectively; microinterferometry methods using a multi-beam reflected light interferometer (based on the MII-11 platform with several changes); the development of CryoCDICEM systems based on the optical path of an inverted metallographic microscope with a DIC attachment and a LED emitter was also initiated. The advantages of cryoconveyor analysis protocols are ensuring the sample safety in a single cuvette-chip and the possibility of establishing spatial colocalization between the data of optical and electron microscopy (including in the CLEM/CryoCLEM mode), as well as providing a comprehensive non- destructive sample analysis in the sequential study of the microscopic systems with the possibility of varying the subsequent stages of high-resolution microscopy, depending on the results obtained at the previous stages of lower resolution microscopic studies.

Methodological progress note: De-implementation of low-value care.

Methodological progress note: De-implementation of low-value care.

Monetary shocks and production network in the G7 countries

Understanding the structure and properties of production networks is essential to identify the transmission channels from monetary shocks. While growingly studied, this literature keeps displaying critical caveats from which the investigation of G-7 economies is not spared. To fill this gap, this paper applies a version of Time-Varying Parameters Bayesian Vector-Autoregressions models (TVP-VAR) and investigates the responses of production networks (upstream and downstream dynamics) to endogeneous monetary shocks on key macro-level indicators (GDP, GDP deflator, exchange rate, short-term and long-term interest rates). Two distinct time-lengths are considered: a test (i.e., 2000–2014) and a treated period (i.e., 2007–2009,”the Great Recession”). Prior, key statistical conditions are checked using a stepwise stationary testing framework including the Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (Kapetanios et al. in J Economet 112(2):359–379, 2003—KPSS) and panel Breitung (Nonstationary panels, panel cointegration, and dynamic panels. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, London, 2001) unit root tests; followed by the Pesaran (General diagnostic tests for cross section dependence in panels, 2004) Cross-sectional Dependence (CD) test; and the Im–Pesaran–Shin (Im et al. in J Economet 115(1):53–74, 2003—IPS) test for unit root in the presence of heterogenous slope coefficients. Panel Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag Mean Group estimates (PARDL-MG) offer interesting short- and long-run monetary shocks-production networks response functions, stratified by country and sector. Findings clearly indicate that upstreamness forces dominated downstremness dynamics during the period 2000–2014, whereas the financial sector ermeges as the clear transmission channel through which monetary shocks affected the productive economy during the Great Recession. In general, we conclude that the prioduction structure influences the transmission of monetary shocks in the G-7 economies. Adequate policy implications are supplied, along with a methodological note on the forecasting potential of TVP-VAR methodologies when dealing with series exhibiting structural breaks.

A methodological progress note: Introducing qualitative focus group research and the brainwriting premortem.

A methodological progress note: Introducing qualitative focus group research and the brainwriting premortem.

Comparisons and Conversions: A Methodological Note and Caution for Meta-Analysis in Sport and Exercise Psychology.

Meta-analysis is a powerful tool in sport and exercise psychology. However, it has a number of pitfalls, and some lead to ill-advised comparisons and overestimation of effects. The impetus for this research note is provided by a recent systematic review of meta-analyses that examined the correlates of sport performance and has fallen foul of some of the pitfalls. Although the systematic review potentially has great value for researchers and practitioners alike, it treats effects from correlational and intervention studies as yielding equivalent information, double-counts multiple studies, and uses an effect size for correlational studies (Cohen's d) that provides an extreme contrast of unclear practical relevance. These issues impact interpretability, bias, and usefulness of the findings. This methodological note explains each pitfall and illustrates use of an appropriate equivalent effect size for correlational studies (Mathur and VanderWeele's d) to help researchers avoid similar issues in future work.

Methods or Methodology: Terms That Are Too Often Confused

There is a distinct difference between methodology and methods in research. However, too many students, researchers, and authors of academic papers do not seem to pay attention to the crucial difference. This is true not only in education research but also in many other academic disciplines. In simple terms, the term methods refers to the research tools and techniques; for example, in the qualitative field, interviews are a tool to collect data, and in the quantitative field, a questionnaire-based survey is an example of a data collection tool. Methodology is a broader concept as it refers to the overall approach to the research, includes a justification for this approach, and links to research philosophy, i.e., how we produce knowledge. This methodological note aims to explain the confusion, drawing on examples from the published literature in education research and beyond. It also considers the complexities and crossovers. The final section ends with key advice to researchers and authors on key mistakes to avoid regarding the difference between methods and methodology, including covering this in early supervision discussions.

DECOMPOSING MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY: A CASE STUDY OF MAMIT DISTRICT, MIZORAM

Purpose: The study intends to examine the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty in Mamit District of Mizoram. Methodology: This study was based on primary data which was collected through a multi-stage stratified random sampling technique. At the first stage, Mamit District was selected solely based on socio-economic indicators for conducting the survey. The second stage involved random selection of 15 villages, five villages from each block. Requisite data were then collected randomly through structured questionnaires which was designed based on the requirement for computation of Multidimensional Poverty Index. From the collected data, the incidence of poverty (headcount ratio), the intensity of poverty and MPI were computed using Alkire-Foster Methodology. The study follows the Global MPI Brief Methodological Note, 2017 in the choice of dimensions, indicators, thresholds and weights assigned to each indicator. Results: From the result of the analysis, the multidimensional poverty in the study area is moderate. The incidence of poverty across the study area is ranging between 0.32 - 0.38 while the intensity of poverty shows slight differences with negligible margin ranging between 0.39-0.411. Decompositions by indicators show that the nutrition has surpassed all other indicators with 22 percent contribution to overall MPI of Mamit district followed by year of schooling with 15 percent. Applications of this study: The findings of the study can be based for formulation of government poverty reduction policies and can be used effectively in improving the existing poverty reduction strategies in the state. KEY WORDS: Multidimensional Poverty, Decomposition, Mamit District, Mizoram.

Becoming topological of heavy metal: Notes from India

The article argues for doing away with master concepts such as ‘subculture’ and similar ancillary concepts and instead argues for the open-ended pursuit of the social. Instead of deploying a priori spatiotemporal concepts such as ‘subculture’, ‘scene’ or ‘tribe’ it argues that a more fruitful approach would be to interrogate the work that these concepts do. It is important to grasp how and if these concepts close down or open up the field. The article argues that these concepts are necessarily topological and scalar, i.e. they are concerned with fixing musical collectivities in space–time. Through two ethnographic vignettes from India – of metal gigs in Kolkata and Bengaluru set a decade apart – the article argues for a minor and open-ended approach to heavy metal. Against the master concepts, the article argues for a seepage of minor aesthetics into our theorizations which can challenge the totalizing impulse of theory. An open-ended pursuit of heavy metal allows comprehension of a range of human and non-human processes in the social which otherwise risk being obfuscated by a narrow concern of chasing a master concept. In the concluding section, the article ends with a brief methodological note on the black metal/punk/grindcore act from India, Heathen Beast and the difficulty of situating them through conventional concepts.