Methods Fair Lightning talks - Stream 1

Stream 1, Room 3.013, AMBS

11.00am - 11.30am

Conducting rapid qualitative interview research: balancing risks and opportunities

Marta Wanat, University of Oxford

There is an expanding literature discussing benefits and challenges of conducting rapid research. In fact, speed of data collection and analysis has been one of the key aspects of methodological adaptations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social scientists were presented with a great opportunity to contribute to pandemic response, but they needed to quickly collect and analyse data to do so. In this talk, I will draw on studies in healthcare I have been involved in during the COVID-19 pandemic, and discuss risks and opportunities in timely and rapid data collection, analysis and dissemination. I will highlight different facets of “rapid” qualitative research, including: (i) capturing the phenomena of interest in real time; (ii) complexities of mixed-methods studies; and (iii) ever-changing context of pandemics, and what it may mean for the qualitative research as a field. I will situate the discussion of arising issues in relation to existing literature, to offer broader recommendations while also identifying gaps in current understandings of how to deal with these methodological challenges with the aim to ensure that qualitative research remains relevant.

Mapping Climate Change in Latin American archives: a methodological proposal

Claudio Ogass Bilbao, University of Liverpool

In recent years, archivists have begun to worry about the possible impact of climate change on the sustainability, continuity, and content of archives, both establishing calls to motivate the interest and political engagement of the international archival community and performing multiple studies to map archives. Following these concerns, the objective of this presentation is to identify archives at risk in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile, focusing on those that document Human Rights’ violations in Latin America. This study uses a mixed methodology. First, 92 archives (81 Brazilian and 11 Chilean) were mapped and georeferenced with ArcGIS and Google Earth, overlapping risk maps with predictions of temperature and sea level rise in different years: 2070 and 2120. Second, a survey aimed at archivists in charge of Human Rights archives in Santiago was conducted to analyse what is the place of this phenomenon in the staff and in the emergency plans. The goal is to understand their preparedness to face future climate disasters. Although the preliminary results show that less than 10% are in dangerous geographical areas, we will share the process of our research with the aim that more social researchers become aware of the importance of this issue in the planning of internal archival tasks in their daily work and, in turn, develop emergency plans to mitigate possible negative effects. Finally, we intend to stimulate more studies of this type from our region and diverse parts of the world.

Methodological Approaches to Medieval Ethnicities: the case of the Lombards in South Italy

William Curtis, University of Manchester

The talk will be a discussion of the methodological approaches and considerations I am using to approach my PhD research, which focuses on accessing Lombard ethnicity in south Italy following the subjugation of the region by Norman ‘invaders’. Primarily, the talk will urge the audience to consider which methods are most suitable for assessing the significance and continued existence of a historical ethnic group, and whether these methods are easily reconcilable to the sources we have available. One of the primary methodological aims of my research is to adopt an inter-disciplinary approach to medieval ethnicity, something which I have identified as being rather lacking in existing scholarship. As such, an environment attended by academics from across the humanities and social sciences would be an invaluable forum to present my ideas.

The talk will first consist of introducing my methodological ‘problem’, which is how best to access the ethnicities within historical societies, given that we can undertake no primary research of our own, and that the characteristics and prerequisites for inclusion/recognition of the ethnicity are rarely clear to us. I will then discuss the areas of methodological influence on my research (scholarship focusing on similar ethnic groups, archaeology, cultural theory, nationalism debates, and scholarship on early medieval ethnogenesis), before introducing my primary source base and prompting thought on how best to reconcile my methodological influences with this. I will then end by articulating my personal views on this issue and presenting the methodological direction I wish to take with my research.

Integrating narrative data using agent-based simulation in socio-environmental situations

Bruce Edmonds, Manchester Metropolitan University

Integrating qualitative and quantitative data is hard, especially when trying to make any assumptions made explicit. Agent-based modelling (ABM) is suitable for encoding some aspects of narrative data in the form of individual processes. It is also suitable for comparing or calibrating with a variety of other data, including: network data, time-series data, aggregate statistics and expert judgement. The ABM ensures the consistency of the integration is its construction (which can involve a dialogue about the data being represented), but, crucially, is then open to indefinite experimentation and inspection which facilitates the assumptions involved to be identified.

Once one has a simulation it can be run to see what might transpire. Each run might result in a different "trajectory" of events and interactions. These trajectories can be interpreted or measured in a number of ways, from following the sequence of individual agent's decisions to extracting statistics about the whole collection of agents over time. A typical approach is to use some of the statistics, expert opinion and narrative data to inform the specification and calibration of the simulation, and aggregate statistics from the simulation to compare to corresponding measures derived from data collection.

An important, emerging area for this approach is in environmental modelling, particularly for the assessment of different policy options. In such situations participatory or stakeholder input is often vital to understand how people might interact with each other and the environment but there is also a lot of measured environmental data to be integrated.

11.30am - 12.00pm

Evidence Mapping: An alternative to Systematic Review in Multidisciplinary Studies

Ghaydaa Hemediah, University of Manchester

This multidisciplinary study combines two fields – architecture and medicine – which have a different ontological basis. The former encompasses a wide range of approaches from positivism to naturalism, while the latter centres on positivism. This posed a challenge in conducting the literature search for the study, the objective of which is to promote the patients’ psychosocial well-being through built-environment design. Systematic reviews (SR) are considered the most reliable way to identify, aggregate, and disseminate the best evidence. They have proved useful in clinical studies but not always in the social sciences, owing to reasons including the nature of the field, the precision of intervention/outcome, and the inconsistency of social phenomenon definitions. Evidence Mapping (EM) emerged as a rapid alternative systematic review method. Both SR and EM are based on pre-specified protocol for data retrieval. However, EM has less detailed synthesis of evidence, accommodates a wider range of literature, and provides a more user-friendly outcome. EM is therefore more useful to map the existing evidence for this type of research. A search of four databases was conducted to identify relevant studies (published since 1984) with any architectural intervention that promotes positive psychological outcomes in patients. Of the 2600 retrieved studies, 400 met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Through subsequent analysis, the results of studies can be read at different levels: chronological, geographical, architectural, and methodological.

Reliance on scientific literature from green technologies (patent data)

An Yu Chen, University of Manchester

I’ve been using bibliometric data to find out: How do green energy patents refer to scientific literature as knowledge base. This study uses scholarly work in patent citations, exploring reliance on science from technology to look at implications of science as prior art in emerging and high-tech area with the possibility of gaining a deeper understanding of how emerging knowledge takes shape in knowledge base of technology.

The biggest challenge that I'm facing is to address my research questions that I aim to explore. I haven’t really work out the exact methods that can help me see the formation of emerging knowledge and how to track knowledge flows between different fields in knowledge base.

The Double Edge Sword of Proactive Entrepreneurial Leader: Can I Keep My Team Happy?

Galih Sakitri, University of Manchester

The entrepreneurial journey is rife with emotional ups and downs, involving paradoxical periods of excitement and exhaustion (Wiklund et al., 2019). The intricate circumstances require entrepreneurs to engage in a proactive behaviour that enable them to anticipate the future (Zachary & Mishra, 2011; Parker & Bindl, 2017). In a twist of irony, proactivity has been debated to have potential dark side that may cause unfavourable consequences, especially when it is executed unwisely (Bolino, Valcea, & Harvey, 2010; Parker, Wang, & Liao, 2019). Building upon challenge-hindrance framework of stress theory and wise proactivity concept, this study aims to investigate how entrepreneurial leader proactivity determines team happiness and proactive performance. This study explores the likelihood of dual effects, bright and dark consequences of entrepreneurial leader proactive behaviour on team outcomes by investigating the unique role of entrepreneurial dark traits. Moreover, this study expects to contribute to the body of literature by proposing the ideas of entrepreneurial leisure that may enhance entrepreneurs’ self-regulation to realise wise proactivity. Quantitative approach and longitudinal research would be applied to analyse the hypotheses built. The unit analysis comprises entrepreneurial leaders and top management teams who run new ventures. This study presumes to provide small businesses with strategic encouragement on how to develop human resource policies and practices that facilitate wise proactive workplace. Ultimately, this study attempts to synthesize the realm of entrepreneurship and organizational psychology by focusing on team-level research and depicting how entrepreneurial leader proactivity can be both a blessing and a curse.

Applying Causal Inference Methods to examine Forest-Poverty nexus

Dhanapal Govindarajulu, University of Manchester

Application of causal inference methods in social sciences is increasing. Causal inference methods allow to examine beyond correlation, the causal effect of one variable over other, enables to measures counterfactuals and to identify and eliminate covariates that are not important in the causal models.

For the third chapter of my PhD thesis, I am examining the causal effects of expenditure on forest restoration- allowing for covariates like forest rights and community participation. I further wanted to examine if there are causal effects of forest regeneration on poverty and livelihood. For this I will be using large datasets on forest cover, investments, and poverty.

Unlike the difference in difference approach, I will be unable to separate the treatment and control group in my dataset as the treatment was same but still the effect needs to be identified to know (a) if the treatment has had effect and (b) if the effect is due to any other covariates. To do this, I will be exploring methods on synthetic controls and instrumental variables. The synthetic control method uses a weighted combination of potential control units to act as a counterfactual (which is what would have happened to the treated unit without the intervention). I am also examining options of randomized trails in the data to identify the causal effects.

12.00pm - 12.30pm

Evaluating the Impact of the End of Free Movement (Brexit) on Inflows of International Students into UK Universities using Difference-in-Differences (DiD)

Ruth Neville, Universtiy of Liverpool

Whilst the numbers of international students attending UK universities has been increasing in recent years, the 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years saw a decline in applications from EU domiciled students. It is hypothesised that this decline is a direct result of the end of free movement due to the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union and that students are deterred both by the financial costs and social costs of Brexit. Further, we hypothesise that COVID-19 restrictions have limited impact on these declines. This research uses acceptances data provided by the Universities and Colleges Admission Service as well as COVID stringency indicators to uncover the extent of this decline. Using difference-in-differences and hierarchical modelling, it is found that there is a substantial decline in EU students as a result of the end of free movement and that the nature of this decline varies across the continent. We also explore whether the end of free movement has led to declines in applications and acceptances from any other key origin countries as a means to understand whether there is changes in perception of the UK as a welcoming destination for international students.

Spatial/Community Analysis of School Attendance

Martin Burroughs, Oldham Council

As a local authority, we now have access to big data around school attendance (50k children, with approx 3m sessional records in the last academic year), and we are attempting to leverage this to provide new lenses on pupil attendance issues.

One such recent piece of work has been to use SQL and choropleth mapping in QGIS to analyse spatially based on pupil residence, providing a counterpoint to what is normally a very school-based view which doesn't consider the impacts of geographical communities.

This has then been compared against other view of community, particularly the indices of deprivation, our internal Thriving Communities Index, and qualitative intel. These have tended to support the view that attendance is more dependent on social norms and particularly parental attitudes than on deprivation per se.

We are now seeking to embed the policy implications of this work into actions to influence community norms in targeted areas, and in enabling schools to better target their attendance strategies spatially.

Public opinions on the Double Reduction policy based on Chinese social media and corresponding social-justice implications

Sini Wu, University of Manchester

Private tutoring, also referred to as shadow education, has become a social and economic challenge for students, parents, and schools and raises concerns about education inequity and excessive educational competition. A new government policy, the Double Reduction Policy (2021), has instituted unprecedentedly strict measures regulating shadow education in China, leading to a fierce social media debate. While few studies have focused on the discourse of public opinion on the government’s policy, this research explores public concerns and the corresponding social-justice implications through qualitative social media analysis. Weibo is the most popular platform for Chinese social media users. This article reviews 140 public comments on media posts about the Double Reduction Policy on Weibo and provides thematic and capability-approach-based discourse analysis. The results of the study showed that people on social media mainly displayed their concerns about the actual policy impacts on their life as well as the policy implications on social segregation and the social mobility of the next generation. Public opinion changed its focus from a discussion of the policymaker’s intentions to actual policy effects throughout the policy implementation process. These findings suggested that despite the Chinese government’s positive belief that the student’s education well-being can be achieved with the expected increased public education resources and improved education equity due to the policy, the public still expresses their salient worries about the lack of good-quality educational resources and existing social hierarchy that may lead their next generation to become more segregated in society.

Expanding the use of legal epidemiology

Suzanne Farg, University of Manchester

Law is a powerful determinant of public health, however, legal interventions with the potential to impact health outcomes are under-researched. Legal epidemiology has been developed over recent decades as a collection of scientifically rigorous methods to describe, compare, and evaluate key features of law and policy in connection with epidemiological health outcomes.(1) The results of legal epidemiological studies may be used in a variety of contexts including by policy-makers to refine interventions to improve intended health outcomes and to identify unanticipated harmful outcomes.

To date, legal epidemiology has been applied mainly within the United States, where interventions are often compared at state level. To a lesser extent it has been used in studies within other jurisdictions and globally to compare interventions at a national level. I argue that there are unexplored opportunities for the use of legal epidemiology methodology in health research within the UK.

My own research utilises the legal epidemiological method of policy surveillance to collate and analyse data on resource allocation policies in force at acute NHS Trusts in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data will be coded and analysed using MonQle (legal text analysis software) to generate a cross-sectional quantitative and descriptive data set of the key features of each policy to enable comparison between NHS Trusts.