Research Vignettes Research Articles

Vignettes: an innovative qualitative data collection tool in Medical Education research.

This article describes how to make use of exemplar vignettes in qualitative medial education research. Vignettes are particularly useful in prompting discussion with participants, when using real-life case examples may breach confidentiality. As such, using vignettes allows researchers to gain insight into participants' thinking in an ethically sensitive way.

This is not an experiment: using vignettes in qualitative accounting research

PurposeThe use of interviews for data collection is prevalent in qualitative accounting research. This paper examines vignettes – sketches of hypothetical scenarios – as a promising complementary way to conduct interviews in qualitative accounting research.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on our experiences designing and using vignettes in five separate qualitative accounting studies, which collectively involve over 200 interviews with various participants. It discusses the opportunities the use of vignettes in interviews offers to qualitative accounting research, as well as the challenges associated with designing and using vignettes. The paper also reflects on fellow researchers’ varied reactions during seminars, workshops, and the journal review process.FindingsVignettes emerge as a productive and engaging complementary way for accounting researchers to obtain additional insights and perspectives not usually accessible in semi-structured interviews. The paper also provides practical insights into developing, using and publishing qualitative accounting studies using vignettes, contributing an additional behind-the-scenes view of using qualitative research methods.Originality/valueThe aim of this paper is to increase awareness of vignettes as a complement to the standard qualitative accounting interview. It provides guidance on how vignettes might be used productively for studying rare, new, emerging, complex, or multi-period real-world accounting phenomena. It also discusses how vignettes can promote transparency, honesty, and a greater level of detail in participants’ responses, as well as facilitate the involvement of lay people in accounting studies.

Tanzanian adolescents’ attitudes toward abortion: innovating video vignettes in survey research on health topics

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to pilot an innovative cartoon video vignette survey methodology to learn about young people’s perspectives on abortion and sexual relationships in Tanzania. The Animating Children’s Views methodology used videos shown on tablets to engage young people in conversations. Such conversations are complicated because abortion is highly stigmatized, inaccessible, and illegal in Tanzania.MethodsThe cartoon video vignette methodology was conducted as a part of a quantitative survey using tablet computers. Hypothetical situations and euphemistic expressions were tested in order to engage adolescents on sensitive topics in low-risk ways. Qualitative interviews and focus groups validated and further explored the perspectives of the young respondents.ResultsResults indicate that 12–17 year-olds usually understand euphemistic expressions for abortion and are aware of social stigma and contradictory norms surrounding abortion from as young as age twelve. Despite the risks involved with abortion, this study finds adolescents sometimes view abortion as a reasonable solution to allow a girl to remain in school. Additional findings show that as adolescents wrestle with how to respond to a schoolgirl’s pregnancy, they are considering both the (un)affordability of healthcare services and also expectations for gender roles.ConclusionsDigital data collection, such as the Animating Children’s Views cartoon video vignettes used in this study, allows researchers to better understand girls’ and boys’ own perspectives on their experiences and reproductive health.

Simulating Virtual Organizations for Research: A Comparative Empirical Evaluation of Text-Based, Video, and Virtual Reality Video Vignettes

Due to recent technological developments, vignette studies that have traditionally been done in text or video formats can now be done in immersive formats using virtual reality—but are such virtual reality video vignettes superior to traditional vignettes? To address this question, we examine participants’ experiences within a fictitious organization by comparing their responses to a relevant and particularly sensitive organizational phenomenon presented either through written text, a video recording, or a virtual reality experience. The results indicate that participants prefer more immersive methods, and that these increase their attention to critical study details. Moreover, this augments the effect sizes of several measured employee reactions—particularly those with high emotional content—suggesting that virtual reality technology offers a promising avenue for developing ecologically valid vignette studies to measure employee affect. To facilitate and expediate the use of virtual reality video vignettes in organizational research, we provide organizational scholars with a step-by-step instructional guide to develop immersive vignette studies.

Seeking Languagelessness: Maker Literacies Mindsets to Disrupt Normative Practices

ABSTRACTThis article challenges an over‐reliance on language as the primary means to communicate knowledge by adopting a languagelessness approach to maker pedagogies and maker literacies. Having conducted makerspace and design‐based research for some time, we separately and together noticed a productive relationship between wordless relational makerspace and making moments focused on craft, tools, technologies, and materials, and ways that an absence of verbal and written communication opens possibilities within learning environments. After meetings and discussions, we co‐wrote the article to examine ways that language‐light, even language‐free pedagogical spaces allow for a different quality of design work that motivates and fosters innovation. There are three international research projects that serve as research vignettes to investigate the efficacy of languagelessness. The theory foregrounded to anchor and interpret the three vignettes draws from maker literacies research and sociomaterial orientations to knowledge development.

The humanism of the other in sociolinguistic ethnography

Abstract This article describes the social and ethical responsibility researchers experience in undertaking ethnographic research under conditions of neoliberalism. It acknowledges the hierarchical nature of working in large ethnographic teams in which a mixture of employment contracts and statuses exist. Drawing on relational ethics (Levinas 2003. Humanism of the Other. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.), and its attention to the humanizing potential of difference, the paper describes researchers’ propensity for relationality in the face of competitive neoliberalism. It presents a case study of a large research team and investigates the use of research vignettes to represent and relate in difference. Subjectivity is theorized not in terms of identity but rather through alterity and opacity arguing this direction opens up social and political alliances (Butler 2005. Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham University Press.). Specifically, the paper suggests the research vignette is a genre well suited to documenting the way humans live in difference, illustrating how the researcher yields to the face of the Other in field work encounters. As a form the research vignette is said to bridge the aesthetic and the scientific, demanding of its reader an engagement with a variety of interpretations. Further, the vignette is considered for its methodological potential in creating a dialogic relational space for research teams within the neoliberal university.

The Realities of Evaluating Educational Technology in School Settings

HCI researchers are increasingly interested in the evaluation of educational technologies in context, yet acknowledge that challenges remain regarding the logistical, material and methodological constraints of this approach to research [ 18 , 53 ]. Through the analysis of the authors’ contributed thematic research vignettes, the following article exposes the practical realities of evaluating educational technologies in school settings. This includes insights into the planning stages of evaluation, the relationship between the researcher and the school environment, and the impact of the school context on the data collection process. We conclude by providing an orientation for the design of HCI educational technology research undertaken in school contexts, providing guidance such as considering the role of modular research design, clarifying goals and expectations with school partners, and reporting researcher positionality.

Enhancing critical social work practice: Using text-based vignettes in qualitative research

There exist ongoing calls among social work scholars and practitioners to cultivate applied knowledge of critical and emancipatory practice. In this paper, I explore the utility of text-based vignettes as instruments that can be used to elicit insight from marginalized service users on critical social work practice. To do this work, I draw on data from interviews with 20 transgender and gender diverse (TGD) social service users, along with 10 social workers, whose responses to a text-based vignette were originally used to build an understanding of the constituents of equitable social work practice with TGD people. Incorporating critical pragmatism as a conceptual framework and constructivist grounded theory as a methodological orientation, I analyze data from this study as an exemplar that substantiates the promise of using text-based vignettes in qualitative social work research to generate knowledge of critical social work practice. Specifically, I demonstrate how text-based vignettes in this study (1) contextualized the meaning, significance, and impact of oppression for service users, (2) built insight on practice that reflects solidarity and allyship, and (3) identified opportunities for social workers’ reflexive use of professional power to effect change. Accounting for the tensions between empiricism and critical praxis in social work, I consider the promise of incorporating text-based vignettes to develop empirical social work literature that is rooted in the voices of marginalized service users.

Vignettes as a novel research tool in spiritual care: A methods paper.

To discuss the construction and use of vignettes as a novel approach in spiritual care research and education. Methods paper. In this methods paper, the authors introduce the use of vignettes in spiritual care research and provide insight into the construction of vignettes. The vignette presented was part of a study of neurosurgical nurses' attitudes and responses to the spiritual needs of neuro-oncology patients. The development process, consisting of four steps, is explained in this paper. Using a vignette to explore nurses' attitudes towards spiritual care is an innovative way to understand what behaviours nurses consider appropriate insituations where the patient is seeking meaning and connection. Transparent description of the development process is crucial to ensure reproducibility. The use of theoretically constructed and validated vignettes in spiritual care research is new. Vignettes used in surveys have the potential to elicit nurses' responses to patients' search for meaning and connectedness. In order to investigate nurses' attitudes and behaviours towards patients' spiritual needs, carefully constructed and validated vignettes are valuable research tools. Vignettes have proven to be a valuable research tool in the social and health sciences. So far, their use as a survey instrument in spiritual care research has not been investigated. Therefore, this method paper introduces vignettes as a novel approach to spiritual care research. Our findings contribute to the further development of vignettes in nursing science, as there are similarities with case development and simulation training in nursing education. Reporting guideline is not applicable. No patient or public contribution.

“Once upon a time [...]”: Stimulating management research through vignettes

This methodological essay aims to present and reflect on some aspects to be considered when constructing and using vignettes as a data collection instrument. Characteristics, advantages and possible limitations of vignettes, practical circumstances of use, and frequently used formats are presented. These jointly-addressed aspects contribute to using vignettes in research in Administration, regardless of the perspective of the studies. As the vignette is a data collection instrument fairly used in Administration, this article can guide future researchers serving as a source for those more interested in understanding the characteristics of carrying out a study using vignettes.

Using vignettes in qualitative research to assess young adults’ perspectives of sexting behaviours

The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes toward sexting using vignettes. Participants were 49 university students (ages 19-26) who participated in five online focus group discussions and responded to five written vignettes describing sexting. The five vignettes about sexting were composed of five types of sexting experiences: 1) sexting under intimate partner pressure, 2) revenge sexting, 3) consensual sexting with intimate partner, 4) sexting under peer pressure, and 5) sexting to flirt with others. Students gave their opinions on the vignettes presented. Revenge sexting was perceived as a behaviour more negative than any other type of sexting experience. The vignette that depicted sexting with an intimate partner in a long-distance relationship was perceived as the least negative of all types of sexting. The results of this study aim to inspire future studies to use vignettes as a methodological tool to determine youths' attitudes, beliefs, and opinions about sexting.

Using text-based vignettes in qualitative social work research

Text-based vignettes are widely used within qualitative social work research yet there is little guidance on how to construct and integrate them into the research process. This article discusses the uses, benefits and limitations of written vignettes as part of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with social workers and related professionals. It provides clear guidelines on how to design a vignette. This includes the choice of scenario, characteristics of the protagonist, type of vignette, research setting, length, vignettes in semi-structured interviews and pre-testing. Text-based vignettes have been successfully used in social work research on six continents in a variety of research contexts including single context, comparative, cross-sectional, longitudinal and replication studies. Written vignettes are a useful tool to elicit (professional) values, attitudes and decision-making processes in a time efficient manner that produces focused, in-depth knowledge without the need to use real practice examples that could potentially include sensitive data or breach confidentiality. Vignettes have been used to explore a wide range of topics including but not limited to adult safeguarding, care planning, child protection and multi-agency working together. There is some debate whether vignette responses mirror real-life actions. The value of vignette data goes beyond documenting real-world decision-making. It can uncover tacit social work knowledge and unquestioned beliefs to show how they interplay in decision-making.

Waving and drowning: The gradations of therapist fitness to practise

This article uses autoethnographic research vignettes from the authors’ experience to illustrate questions around gradations of fitness to practise in relation to chronic illness (cancer) and resulting Dis/ability or gradations of fitness to practise. How do we know when we are not waving but drowning? We will look at how awareness of social justice issues can inform the way these questions are worked with. This involves an awareness of dramatherapy as a profession and the institutional contexts that shape our profession; balancing the need to accept personal limitations with the need to challenge institutional and systemic injustices. In our personal/professional lives we have experience of the impact of chronic illness (breast cancer) and disability before, during and post training. Trauma experienced in childhood can be a rationale for training as arts therapists. If therapists become ill or experience trauma while practising, in the form of vicarious traumatisation, triggering of early trauma or current personal life trauma: how do we assess whether we are fit to practise? The article aims to address how to obtain advice and support and the longer term impact of gradations to practice. Do we find ourselves in pursuit of self-care practising more defensively, in greater depth, with different tipping points when mortality and vulnerability are highlighted through illness and Dis/ability?

Qualitatively recognizing the dimensions of student environmental identity development within the classroom context

AbstractThis study qualitatively explored the process of student environmental identity development (sEID) within the highly social and structured context of elementary school science. Social practice theory was used as the lens to distinguish the dimensions of sEID that were visible during a curriculum‐based, in‐school program focused on the issue of pollution. Student narratives, collected from small group interviews and reflective journals, were prioritized to capture the process of students in context identifying as “being for the environment.” Data collected from 35 grade six students were qualitatively coded, a network diagram was used to visualize the relationships in the data, and a research vignette was constructed. Eight dimensions were recognized as contributing to sEID; the opportunity to be an environmental actor with peers, increased awareness of environmental threat, emotional responses, self‐recognition for environmental action, perceived agency, changed behavior across social contexts, social recognition for identity actions, and personal meaning. While many of these dimensions have been directly or indirectly discussed in the research on adult environmentalists, shifting the emphasis from group membership to the individual student in context led to the addition of two dimensions—personal meaning and emotional responses. Recognizing the eight dimensions of sEID is an important contribution to the literature as students engaging in environmental action as a requirement of school is distinct from the existing research. Identifying the dimensions of sEID can support the intentional design of learning sequences that foster environmental identities in school and beyond.

‘Such Cold, Dispassionate Terms Fail Us’: Reading Hansard as an ‘Archive of Feelings”

Abstract This article proposes a distinctly affective methodological approach to Hansard transcripts using feminist affect theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive methodologies. Expanding the ‘toolkit’ of analysis available to parliamentary and legislative researchers to understand the political worlds we inhabit, I contend scholarship engaging with Hansard is shaped—but not limited—by the format and editorial decisions that inform its publication. Feminist scholarship on affect enables both (i) generative methodological approaches to so-called limitations of Hansard, and (ii) empowers a critical advancement of how researchers can engage Hansard as data. Considering the Hansard corpus as a process (rather than a thing) enables analyses to begin not with the question of can affect and emotion be present in transcripts, but rather how can emotion and affect proliferate throughout a genre designed and mediated in such a way as to occlude these emotional and affective speech patterns. I conclude by offering methodological strategies through an exploration of research vignettes drawn from my work with Canadian provincial Hansards.

Uncovering the Voices of Marginalized Minorities in Public Policy Research - A Critical Review of the Image and Text-Based Vignette Method

The voices of the marginalized and vulnerable groups, i.e., the sexual minorities, the underprivileged, and the victims of abusive/unfair treatment, are often neglected and understudied in policy research due to their social sensitiveness. Researchers may face difficulties accessing the data. Thus, they are unable to uncover the hidden truth. This qualitative study protocol suggests using images or text-based vignettes in social science research, which enable researchers to collect participants’ confidential thoughts and help participants feel safe enough to share their untold stories. We showcase how to effectively design a real-life vignette, recruit potential participants, and gather and report diverse respondents’ views by protecting their identity, in essence, internal and external confidentiality. The vignette method contributes to public policy study by addressing the common issues of marginalized and vulnerable groups, such as insufficient data for further analysis.

Interpersonal dimensions of self-criticism: exploring nuanced social processes through vignettes in interpretative phenomenological analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this study was twofold: to explore the everyday experiences and interpretations of verbalised self-criticism in emergent adult males (ages 18–25) in social contexts and, secondly, to explore the utilisation of vignettes in phenomenological research exploring social processes.Design/methodology/approachFour Australian male participants participated in semi-structured interviews to share the participants' experiences and sense-making of self-criticism in social contexts. Vignettes of verbalised self-criticism were used to prompt attentive reflection. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse the data.FindingsFour superordinate themes emerged from participant responses: (1) searching for context, (2) self-improving or self-attacking, (3) self-criticism as a social tool, and (4) engaging and distancing responses.Originality/valueThis study provides useful insights into how verbalised self-criticism in social contexts was experienced by four emergent adult males. Furthermore, this study provides a working example of how vignettes can be used within an interpretative phenomenological analysis frame to prompt attentive reflection on sensitive, nuanced social phenomenon. Implications for future research are discussed. Further research could use this study's findings to explore female responses to verbalised self-criticism and potential causality between contextual factors and the nature of responses.

Sociocultural positivism: Critical evaluation in three research vignettes

The paper develops a critical evaluation of sociocultural positivism by contrasting it with universal positivism, on the one hand, and with unique authorial dialogism, stemming from Bakhtin’s dialogical framework, on the other hand. I will bring three research vignettes to make my analysis more grounded: on universal positivism, on sociocultural positivism, and on authorial ethical dialogism. Sociocultural positivism is not rebuked or rejected, but rather it must be limited in search for the boundary of its legitimate use and existence. A complementary framework based on Bakhtin’s philosophical framework of dialogism that would deepen sociocultural positivism is proposed.

Transforming public policy with engaged scholarship: better together

Many people remain invisible in all stages of policymaking processes and are re/harmed by policy decisions made in their absence, even where public engagement has occurred. This lack of meaningful engagement affects those experiencing homelessness, migrant workers, northern and Indigenous women, and others with whom we have collaborated. This article demonstrates the transformative potential of recognising these ‘invisible’ actors as legitimate and effective actors in the policy process. In this article, we present a series of Canadian research vignettes, emerging from our empirical research programmes, that illuminate the possibilities for the principles of engaged scholarship to advance transformative, community-driven policymaking. Along with other critical policy scholars, we are concerned about how power circulates and is distributed unequally through public policy. Our focus in on how commitments manifested through engaged scholarship can disrupt these power distributions. Through our vignettes, we demonstrate how principles of engaged scholarship can shape public engagement, the understanding of policy problems, the creation of evidence, and the development of meaningful policy solutions. This article makes an important contribution on how to improve the processes of public engagement in policy development.

The use of anchor vignettes in research in Organizational and Work Psychology

The use of anchor vignettes in research in Organizational and Work Psychology