Thick Data Research Articles

Rethinking social media for qualitative research: The use of Facebook Activity Logs and Search History in interview settings

Following calls to rethink the repertoires of social research and take advantage of the new possibilities opened by digital data and devices, this article discusses the opportunities and challenges of using Facebook Activity Logs (FAL) and Search History (FSH) as digital probes during interviews. Drawing on empirical data, the article outlines the value of using social media features in qualitative research with regard to generating thick data and encouraging people to reflect upon the range of everyday practices captured by the platforms. This article argues, however, that to use social media features and data in interview settings researchers need to carefully identify and examine the different forms of liveliness generated by their use and the ways in which liveliness mediates and affects the research data and the situation of the interview itself. The article contends that critically engaging with the liveliness generated by these types of probes in interview settings will allow researchers to better discern how digital platforms and data can inform social enquiry while simultaneously forming a part of how we know social lives and practices.

Thick Data: A New Qualitative Analytics for Identifying Customer Insights

All sort of businesses and organizations are now online, and they leave a trail of data on social media sites, blogs and portals, messages of all types, and lots of traces on search engines. Enterprises can no longer escape the need to monitor and analyze social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, news sites, blogs, forums, video sites, and microblogs. To succeed and grow, a business needs to be able to acquire, retain, satisfy, and engage their customers effectively. Embracing social media analytics is vital for assessing how well the business does this. Social media analytics is the process of accessing data generated on social media such as ideas, sentiments, and customer feedback. This information can then be analyzed and fed into the decision making process across all business activity, including campaign orchestration, product development, recruitment, customer advocacy and engagement processes, sales input, and much more.

Learning Patient Adherence from the Clinical Narratives: A Thick Data Approach for Value Based Healthcare

Learning Patient Adherence from the Clinical Narratives: A Thick Data Approach for Value Based Healthcare

The ‘big data’ myth and the pitfalls of ‘thick data’ opportunism: on the need for a different ontology of markets and consumption

ABSTRACTThe twin pillars of big data and data analytics are rapidly transforming the institutional conditions that situate marketing research. In response, many proponents of culturalist paradigms have adopted the vernacular of ‘thick data’ to defend their vulnerable position in the marketing research field. However, thick data proselytising fails to challenge several outmoded ontological assumptions that are manifest in the big data myth and it situates socio-cultural modes of marketing thought in a counterproductive technocratic discourse. In building this argument, I first discuss the relevant historical continuities and discontinuities that have shaped the big data myth and the thick data opportunism. Next, I argue that culturally oriented marketing researchers should promote a different ontological frame— the analytics of marketplace assemblages—to address how big data, or more accurately its socio-technical infrastructure, produces new kinds of emergent and hybrid market structures, modes of social aggregation, consumption practices, and prosumptive capacities.

A Labour of Love: The Emotional Work Associated with Parenting Children on the Autistic Spectrum

This project focuses on the emotional impact, inclusive of fatigue, stress and other inter-related symptoms, associated with the parenting of children on the autistic spectrum. As a theretical overlay, the research applies Hochschild’s (1983) schema of ‘emotional work’ to the types of care parenting those with autistic spectrum disorders may create. This qualitative research applies inductive thematic analysis, grounded in human experience, focusing upon biographical, narrative data obtained through the interviwing of two parents, of whom have children with autism spectrum disorders (pseudonyms are employed throughout the narrative). Through interviewing the participants, rich thick descriptive data wasmobtained, providing a greater conceptual clarity of how parenting children with austism spectrum disorders / conditions affects.  Moreover, the scope of this work has primarily illumined the participants’ feelings and, thus, highlighted the psychological impact of attending to their children’s needs; descriptions of how autism has drained emotional supplies of energy, with demands of rigidity of cognition, lack of social and emotional awareness and articulating with difficulty.  This research paints a poignant picture of life thereof, as lived by the participating parents, offering some generalisability beyond the data elicited from this work. Against this background, the project examines the implications of, and possible context for the implementation of educational and social work intervention and practice. This includes: enhanced awareness of the implications of the triad of difficulties assciated with the autistic spectrum (social communication, social imagination and social interaction), release of carers for respite breaks and highlights the need for further training and research into the pscyhological impact of the emotional labour of love in parenting those with autism spectrum disorders. Finally, strategies are offered which aim towards the reduction of sensory overload and the creation of a calming environment, which individual needs can be understood with greater clarity for the benfit of teachers, social workers, parents and others involved the the lives of those with autistic spectrum disorders. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.17.12.1

Revisiting Chaetoceros subtilis and C. subtilis var. abnormis (Bacillariophyceae), reinstating the latter as C. abnormis

:Chaetoceros is one of the most species-rich diatom genera, but about one-third to one-half of the taxa are considered synonyms, and a modern revision is needed on the basis of a combination of morphological and molecular data. Chaetoceros subtilis Cleve and C. subtilis var. abnormis (Proschkina-Lavrenko) Proschkina-Lavrenko were revisited in the present study. Monoclonal strains were established from the southeast Chinese coast. Morphology of vegetative cells and resting spores was observed using light microscopy, as well as scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The hypervariable D1–D3 region of the nuclear large-subunit ribosomal RNA-encoding gene (LSU ribosomal DNA) was sequenced for information on phylogenetic relationships. Species delineations were evaluated for the two taxa. Morphologically, C. subtilis var. abnormis was quite similar to C. subtilis, but differences were found in the number of thick terminal posterior setae, detailed structure and morphometric data of intercalary and thick setae, and several morphological differences were found in the resting spores. In phylogenetic analyses inferred from the LSU sequences, C. subtilis var. abnormis and C. subtilis formed well-separated sister taxa, which supported their morphological similarity and also their distinct differences. Their differences were supported by 42 base pairs, giving a genetic difference of 7.2%. Combined morphological and molecular data revealed that C. subtilis and C. subtilis var. abnormis were distinct species. We therefore reinstate the latter taxon as C. abnormis Proschkina-Lavrenko.

Human Sensemaking in the Smart City: A Research Approach Merging Big and Thick Data

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the integration of ethnography and data science by providing a concrete research tool to deploy this integration. We start from our own experiences with user research in a data‐rich environment, the smart city, and work towards a research tool that leverages ethnographic praxis with data science opportunities. We discuss the different key components of the system, how they work together and how they allow for human sensemaking.

Visualizing YouTube’s comment space: online hostility as a networked phenomena

This study examines YouTube’s comment space. By focusing on responses to the provocative musical group, Das Racist, we offer an innovative analysis of online racialized expression as a networked phenomenon. A blend of social network analysis, qualitative coding, and thick data descriptive methods are used to interpret comments posted on the five most viewed Das Racist videos. Given the dearth of literature exploring YouTube’s comment space, this study serves as a critical means to further understand race and the production and consumption of YouTube comments in everyday online encounters. We visualized networked antagonisms, which were found to be significantly racialized, and entangled with other expressions of hostility. YouTube comments are often perceived as individual, random insults or only generalized expressions of “hate.” Our study probes deeper and discovers that racialized expressions also involved networked interactions, where hostile ideas, passed through multiple parts of the comment network, both intra-/inter-video.

The effects of green building on construction waste minimization: Triangulating ‘big data’ with ‘thick data’

In contrast with the prolific research examining the effects of green building (GB) on property value, energy saving, or indoor air quality, there has been minimal focus on GB’s effects on Construction Waste Minimization (CWM), which is also an important aspect of cultivating sustainability in the built environment. To address this significant knowledge gap, this study has two progressive objectives: (1) to ascertain the empirical effects of GB on CWM and; (2) to identify and understand the causes leading to the ascertained effects. This is achieved by triangulating quantitative ‘big data’ obtained from government agencies with qualitative ‘thick data’ derived from case studies and interviews. The study found that BEAM Plus, the latest version of the Building Environmental Assessment Method developed by the Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC), gave rise to a 36.19% waste reduction by weight for demolition works, but no statistically significant waste reduction for foundation or building works. It is because CWM, the basis for a demolition project to obtain GB credits, makes up only one of many ways for foundation or building works to earn credits, e.g., site aspects, lighting. In any case, CWM measures typically prove costlier means of acquiring credit, further causing developers to pay less attention to CWM in their GB tactics. The study’s results, i.e., CWM in GB significantly influences demolition, but only marginally for foundation and building works, provide useful scientific evidence to inform GB councils and other responsible bodies and encourage continuous improvement in GB practices. While the study in general sheds light on how the triangulation of big, empirical data with conventional, qualitative data, e.g., interviews with GB professionals, helps to better understand the subject of the investigation, i.e., the effects of GB on CWM.

Students’ viewpoints on using tableaux to analyse short stories

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to provide a detailed account of pre-service teachers’ viewpoints on the use of tableaux as pedagogy to analyse short stories in secondary schools based on their exposure to the use of tableaux and their active participation in the process of tableau creation.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a qualitative approach and a phenomenological design as it provides a detailed account of PGCE English Methodology pre-service teachers’ views on the use of tableaux to teach a short story. The data collection method used was written narratives based on the participants’ detailed accounts of their learning during the process of tableau creation and their viewpoints on the use of such an approach in the teaching of literature within secondary school contexts. The “rich, thick data” extracted from the written narratives were analysed thematically.FindingsThe findings indicated that although pre-service teachers were initially sceptical towards the use of tableaux as a strategy to teach a short story, as they grew in their understanding of the practices involved their insights into the themes, motifs and characters’ emotional, personal and psychological states of being were enhanced.Originality/valueResearch in the use of tableaux as a strategy for pre-service teachers to critically analyse and engage with short stories is a novel approach to teaching and limited research has been conducted in the field.

Electronic feedback on second language writing

As technology has made a range of modes of communication available and created new ways to integrate these modes, feedback has become increasingly electronic and multimodal. From written to audio, video, and screencast feedback, the multimodal options for electronic feedback (e-feedback) have expanded in such a way that we might speak of a ‘multimodal turn’ in feedback on foreign and second language writing. However, feedback studies on second language writing are just beginning to explore these complex areas. This essay offers a multimodal perspective on e-feedback by illustrating the scope of current research and highlights future research directions. The retrospective underscores the scarcity of research in the area with a specific focus on multimodality and identifies needs for speciality feedback systems that consider practical and contextualized perspectives. We argue that future research should strive for a context-rich description of e-feedback activities, gathering thick data about feedback provision, learner engagement with feedback and uptake through screencasting, eye-tracking, and keystroke logging technologies. These data should be triangulated with information about all factors impacting the feedback activity outcome, ranging from participant variables over modal affordances of the platforms used to environmental factors like institutional support.

Remembering Together: The Importance of Shared Emotional Memory in Event Experiences

Drawing on the wider literature in the psychology and sociology of emotions and memory this study provides new insights into the formation and role of shared emotion in the memory of event experiences. The methodology draws together several data collection methods in order to capture the complexity of emotional response. Thick data are gathered from a single case study friendship pair using a combination of short surveys, physiological measures, photo elicitation, and paired interviews to provide a detailed understanding of the experience from anticipation to recollection and reflection to response. The longitudinal data show that what was felt at the time changes considerably in recollection often becoming more intense as time passes and it is the act of sharing these memories that appears to intensify and alter them. This suggests that the often flawed and certainly mediated memory of the experience has a more influential role to play in attitude formation than previously thought. Furthermore, it is the desire for a feeling of emotional congruity that creates and strengthens this emotional response in remembering. Therefore, the mediated memory of the attendee experience has more influence on behavior than the reality of the experience. It is recommended that event marketers use this understanding to design opportunities, beyond the experience, in which memories can be created and shared.

Enabling Analysis of Big, Thick, Long, and Wide Data: Data Management for the Analysis of a Large Longitudinal and Cross-National Narrative Data Set.

Distinctive longitudinal narrative data, collected during a critical 18-year period in the history of the HIV epidemic, offer a unique opportunity to examine how young Africans are making sense of evolving developments in HIV prevention and treatment. More than 200,000 young people from across sub-Saharan Africa took part in HIV-themed scriptwriting contests held at eight discrete time points between 1997 and 2014, creating more than 75,000 narratives. This article describes the data reduction and management strategies developed for our cross-national and longitudinal study of these qualitative data. The study aims to inform HIV communication practice by identifying cultural meanings and contextual factors that inform sexual behaviors and social practices, and also to help increase understanding of processes of sociocultural change. We describe our sampling strategies and our triangulating methodologies, combining in-depth narrative analysis, thematic qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis, which are designed to enable systematic comparison without sacrificing ethnographic richness.

Big–Thick Blending: A method for mixing analytical insights from big and thick data sources

Recent works have suggested an analytical complementarity in mixing big and thick data sources. These works have, however, remained as programmatic suggestions, leaving us with limited methodological inputs on how to archive such complementary integration. This article responds to this limitation by proposing a method for ‘blending’ big and thick analytical insights. The paper first develops a methodological framework based on the cognitivist linguistics terminology of ‘blending’. Two cases are then explored in which blended spaces are crafted from engaging big and thick analytical insights with each other. Through these examples, we learn how blending processes should be conducted as a rapid, iterative and collaborative effort with respect for individual expertise. Further, we demonstrate how the unique, but often overlooked, granularity of big data plays a key role in affording the blending with thick data. We conclude by suggesting four commonly appearing blending strategies that can be applied when relying upon big and thick data sources.

Teachers’ use of knowledge sources in ‘result meetings’: thin data and thick data use.

In this article, we examine teachers’ use of knowledge sources in meetings where they discuss and formulate initiatives and solutions to develop existing teaching practice based on national test results. While practices of data use have been extensively researched, less attention has been given to the content of data use practices. Analyses of what kind of knowledge sources are used, and how, in discussions about student performance levels and accompanying initiatives to improve teaching can yield important insight into the potential and pitfalls of local data use practices. Based on an analysis of the knowledge sources that Norwegian secondary school teachers draw upon in so-called ‘result meetings’ and of the prognostic frames that teachers initiate, we find that teachers use several knowledge sources and that their data use practices can be characterised as complex and ‘thick’, although the data itself are ‘thin’. However, although teachers draw upon a range of knowledge sources and integrate these when identifying possible solutions, the solutions themselves are often short-term and directed towards improving test results. In order for teachers to ask more fundamental questions regarding existing practices, more attention should be directed towards problem-solving processes and also whether result meetings can provide arenas for complex problem-solving.

Interdisciplinary collaboration as a prerequisite for inclusive education

This article reports on findings from a research project on interdisciplinary collaboration between mainstream school teachers and special school teachers. The aim of the research project has been to examine the knowledge of special school teachers and how this knowledge can contribute to the development of an inclusive learning environment in mainstream schools. Not as a simple task of transferring knowledge, but as a process of transforming knowledge through interdisciplinary collaboration and co-teaching. The design of the study is inspired by the notion of participation within action research as a research approach. Thus the thick data generated from reflective activities in the study design are analysed within a narrative and practice directed strategy of analysis.

How do the design features of health hackathons contribute to participatory medicine?

The Hackathon concept is attracting interest as a vehicle for participatory development in both Health and Information systems. Publically available datasets, cloud based data storage, and increasingly sophisticated analytical methods, combined with user friendly development tools for mobile devices are inspiring innovation in the participatory medicine space. This has the potential to disrupt traditional methods and deliver solutions more rapidly, and in a form more likely to meet requirements. In health applications this involves putting the patient and their supports at the centre of design. This work contributes to solving the challenges involved in bringing a diverse cohort of designers, developers, problem owners, healthcare providers, patients, and citizens together to solve user-driven self-care problems using technology. We use a descriptive case study approach focussing on two weekend-long hackathons dubbed “Health Hackathon: Solving Self-care”. We gather thick data from multiple sources according to the process defined by Geertz (1994) first, to provide a rich picture of the role of hackathons in participatory medicine and second, to contribute evidence to the practise of running a hackathon. Some key originalities of our work include seeking more candid responses via self-serve interviews. Through this, controversially, we noted a marked emphasis on the creative process over concerns for privacy and ethics around the personal data cloud created by hackathon products. We build on existing theories of participatory medicine and emerging methodologies for conducting hackathons to provide evidence of the efficacy of the hacking approach both in terms of outcome and team dynamics. Through interviews, observation, twitter feeds and a pre-survey, we identify a number of success factors including (1) group size, (2) maturity of the idea, (3) level of involvement of a mentor, and (4) involvement of students. In addition we identify five skills identified by successful health hackathon participants; knowledge, patient focussed skills, analytical skills, software design skills and professional perspective. In common with previous studies we find that there are considerable social benefits that accrue in running a hackathon. Participants meet new people and learn first-hand of the challenges and opportunities provided by the skill sets and work environments of others. This work builds on the existing body of research concerning hackathons and in particular work in the context of participatory medicine

Environmental Education: The Philosophy of Greening the Curriculum

Environmental education is a concept that is used in greening the curriculum and that is done through a thematic approach, and modular approaches. Studies have been done in various countries on the implementation of environmental education but the support from the top leadership has not been good. Policies on the issue were drafted but policies can be ignored without reparations. However environmental education is an important tool towards sustainable development. The study is of value to policy makers, educators as well as other stakeholders who have interest in environmental sustainably. The study used interviews and group discussions in soliciting data relevant to the study. It sought to establish the perceptions of the participants in view of environmental education. An ethnographic approach adopted as the researcher could spend a lot of time with the respondents and also taking part in their activities. This approach was selected because it enabled the researcher to collect thick rich data that was validated through triangulating with what was collected from individual interviews and group discussions. Data was qualitatively analyzed. The results showed that some respondents seem to understand the importance of environmental education while some could not see its importance. The other angle that was knotted was that teachers are expected to implement environmental education when in their teaching program it was not part of what they were to teach. This has contributed to a lot of miss understanding as some seem not to know what to do. The findings were of importance to all in the education fraternity as well as to the environmentalists. Use of the findings could change the mindset of the community through educating the learners. Greening the curriculum was found to be important at the time world over there is a talk of greening the economy and sustainable development. Therefor the findings of the study are important in redirecting the mindset of people towards environmental protection with regard to preservation and conservation.

‘White sanction’, institutional, group and individual interaction in the promotion and progression of black and minority ethnic academics and teachers in England

The promotion and progression of black and minority ethnic academics and teachers in England has been the subject of much debate. Although several theories have been put forward, racial equality has stood out as a major contributing factor. The experiences of black and minority ethnic academics and teachers in England are similar in terms of aspirations, and their experience of organisations also points to similar patterns of exclusions. This integrated study provides thick data from qualitative interviews with academics and teachers, theorised through the lens of whiteness theory and social identity theory, of their experience of promotion and progression, how they feel organisations respond to them and how they, in turn, are responding to promotion and progression challenges. There was a shared view amongst the participants that, for black and minority ethnic academics and teachers to progress in England, they need ‘white sanction’ – a form of endorsement from white colleagues that in itself has an enabling power.

A Method and Model for De- and Reconstructing Player-Game Interaction

The potential of player-game interaction to facilitate L2 learning in stand-alone digital games has been established in many empirical investigations (e.g. Miller & Hegelheimer, 2006; Hitosugi, Schmidt, & Hayashi, 2014; Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2012); however, the fine-grained dynamics that comprise it are still largely underexplored. A potential reason for this gap is that, to date, there is a lack of refined methodologies for conceptualizing and analyzing the various processes that occur during gameplay between a learner-player and the game. The present study proposes an ecology-sensitive, multidimensional approach to de- and re-constructing player-game interaction dynamics through analysis of thick detail-rich play data from a variety of sources and levels: cognitive, virtual, and sociocultural. Using a model of player-game interaction detailing how activities interrelate and/or interact across different levels, it reconstructs player-game interaction as a holistic activity. To this end, it utilizes a variety of qualitative data sources that offer empirical information about different facets and dimensions of player-game interaction, including thinkaloud protocol, gaming journals, walkthroughs, and debriefing interviews. To illustrate the approach, this paper will apply it to interpretation of player-game interactions of one learner of Arabic as a foreign language in the Egyptian Arabic simulation-management game Baalty (PPIC-Work, 2004). Findings include the observation that the L2 learner-player played their game in her L2 by decoding in-game discourses and using in-game semiotic resources. The paper will include discussion of theoretical background, research implications, and potential applications of this approach.