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“Challenging” Research Practices: Turning a Critical Lens on the Work of Transcription
Abstract
This article interrogates transcription work in the context of qualitative research. Although it is common practice in academe for someone other than the researcher to transcribe tapes recorded for purposes of data collection, the author argues the importance of researchers taking seriously the ways in which the person transcribing tapes influences research data. She suggests that the transcriber's interpretive/analytical/theoretical lens shapes the final texts constructed and as a result has the potential to influence the researcher's analysis of data. Specifically, the article explores the experiences of Ken, a person hired to transcribe audiotapes of focus group interviews conducted for a larger research study. The numerous challenges Ken faced during the work are addressed. His use of voice recognition software to simplify the task is discussed as well as the educational potential transcription work holds for graduate students.
... These interviews were done face to face because visual and physical interaction is just as important as the conversations themselves (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). The expressions and gestures of the participants add deeper meanings to the conversations; meanings that may be significant in the final analysis (Tilley, 2003). Interviewers must consider the possible loss of information when conducting phone interviews over face to face interviews. ...
... The minor inflections, pauses, gestures meant more to me and my understanding of the conversation, but it may have been missed or excluded if the conversation was transcribed by a third party (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). Contrary to popular assumptions, both Kvale andBrinkmann (2009) andTilley (2003) assert that transcribing is not a neutral or objective process. It is a process laden with the "interpretive/analytical/theoretical" suppositions of the transcriber (Tilley, 2003, p. 752). ...
... The researcher transcribes the interviews as part of their analytical framework because transcribing is partially an act of analysing and interpreting oral data. Tilley (2003), however, also acknowledges the difficulties of transcribing within time and financial constraints. I also decided against using voice recognition software because of financial constraints and the time constraints of learning the new software. ...
This qualitative research project explores the insights of Muslim women as teacher candidates completing pre-service programs in Ontario. Ontario schools cater to students from many ethnic, cultural and religious groups, including a sizable Muslim population. Muslims make up 4.6% of Ontario’s population with the highest concentration of Muslims in the GTA (Statistics Canada, 2011). The Muslim population in Ontario is of a significant enough number that, in a post 9/11 world, it has prompted discussion of how to integrate Muslim populations in Canada. In this research, I explore how Islamophobic sentiment is experienced in Ontario-based teacher education programs. I use Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Race Feminism (CRF) to analyse and deconstruct experiences of female Muslim teacher candidates in pre-service programs. I discuss how Muslims are a racialized group that experience racism as discussed by critical race literature; however, there is a marked difference between how Muslim men and women experience gendered Islamophobia. By using in-depth research-based interviews, I explore how Muslim women perceived diversity, education, accommodations and Islamophobia in pre-service programs. This study adds to the current literature on critical race theory and anti-racist practices in education. Furthermore, this study adds to the voice of Muslim women in the discussion of diversity and inclusivity in educational institutions.
... Others have cautioned novice researchers on the use of transcription, suggesting it be employed carefully and alongside other data sources (Cohen et al., 2013). While the body of literature on the methodological role of transcription (see Bird, 2005;Breiteneder et al., 2006;Edwards, 2014;Jenks, 2012;Lapadat, 2000;MacWhinney, 2014;Mondada, 2013;Poland, 1995;Powers, 2005;Tilley, 2003) and the challenges of transcribing nonnative varieties such as dialects are growing (Bucholtz, 2000;Lampert & Ervin-Tripp, 2014), there is a noticeable gap in empirical studies on the role of ESL transcribers. ...
... Despite a disparity among scholars in the techniques of transcription, there is wide agreement on the need to plan (Bird, 2005;Breiteneder et al., 2006;Halcomb & Davidson, 2006;Jenks, 2012;MacWhinney, 2014;McLellan et al., 2003). One of the worst outcomes would be to modify transcription goals after starting due to an underestimation of the required resources (Tilley, 2003). Planning HALL's transcription was a combination of published guidelines and experience from prior projects. ...
... Investigators need to strike a balance between resources and research goals when choosing how transcription will be completed. Project transcription by the investigators can be avoided through outsourcing, but if team researchers do it, they will have a better feeling for the data (Bird, 2005;Halcomb & Davidson, 2006;Lapadat, 2000;O'Connell & Kowal, 2008;Tilley, 2003) and the process is appealing to people interested in human interaction beyond research objectives (Powers, 2005). It is common practice for researchers to employ transcription companies to save time, but it can be more expensive, and some level of time investment is still required for training and checking outsourced work (Jenks, 2012;Mergenthaler & Stinson, 1992). ...
The role, accuracy, and skills of a team of ESL researchers who transcribed more than 3,000 English language learning histories (LLH) from university students in Hong Kong is examined in this paper. The paper provides an insight into the role of transcribers, how they approach their work, the problems they face, and how they overcome them including the conflict of their prior English language learning. A self-administered semi-structured interview and thematic analysis were used in this qualitative study. The findings show that transcribers learned experientially as they combined project guidelines and prior experience to achieve accuracy Transcribers feel more comfortable working on data that is closer to their English as a second language (ESL) background; however, this also contributed to personal conflict such as correcting grammatical errors. The outcomes suggest training, clear guidelines from supervisors, and incorporating feedback from transcribers can improve the richness and accuracy of data which is of great importance to second language data collection.
... Transcription is an interpretive act (Clark et al., 2017;Green et al., 1997;Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Tilley & Powick, 2002), and also a situated act as researchers locate themselves within the context of their own assumptions about language and culture and discourse practices (Bird, 2005;Green et al., 1997;Tilley, 2003a). Researchers have described their own experiences and insights into transcribing qualitative data (Bird, 2005;Oliver et al., 2005), seeing it as 'both as product and as methodological process' (Bird, 2005). ...
... Researchers have described their own experiences and insights into transcribing qualitative data (Bird, 2005;Oliver et al., 2005), seeing it as 'both as product and as methodological process' (Bird, 2005). Some researchers have interviewed transcribers about their experiences of the transcription process (Tilley & Powick, 2002;Wilkes et al., 2015), others have published on both (Tilley, 2003a(Tilley, , 2003b and also reported the value of insights from transcribers into the analysis/interpretation of data (Etherington, 2007;Tilley, 2003a). ...
... Researchers have described their own experiences and insights into transcribing qualitative data (Bird, 2005;Oliver et al., 2005), seeing it as 'both as product and as methodological process' (Bird, 2005). Some researchers have interviewed transcribers about their experiences of the transcription process (Tilley & Powick, 2002;Wilkes et al., 2015), others have published on both (Tilley, 2003a(Tilley, , 2003b and also reported the value of insights from transcribers into the analysis/interpretation of data (Etherington, 2007;Tilley, 2003a). ...
Research ethics considerations foreground minimising harm to participants. Whilst increasing attention is being paid to researcher vulnerabilities, little has been written about transcriptionists, who can potentially experience emotional distress and vicarious trauma. In this article, we highlight ethical considerations when outsourcing audio for transcription as part of the RE:CURRENT (REcurrent miscarriage: evaluating CURRENT services) Project. Through qualitative interviews , we explored the perspectives of those involved in the management/delivery of services, and women and men who experienced recurrent miscarriage (N = 62). We put distress protocols in place for participants, researchers and the transcriptionist, and adopted a research team approach with the professional transcriber. The transcriptionist highlighted the isolated nature of the role; how researchers often did not brief her when commissioning work, and how the personal impacts of this work were rarely considered. Researchers and ethics committees should consider ethical responsibilities to 'do no harm' when it comes to transcriptionist wellbeing.
... Qualitative researchers use a range of methods that facilitate the in-depth exploration of the complexities of human perspectives, constructs, and concepts (Lincoln & Guba, 2003;Yilmaz, 2013). Yet, qualitative research is often prohibitive as it can be laborious, time consuming, and expensive (Neal, Neal, van Dyke, & Kornbluh, 2015;Tilley, 2003). Transcription, the processing of raw interview data into a text-based form, is a major contributor to the resource-intensive nature of qualitative research (Halcomb & Davidson, 2006). ...
... Computerised transcription methods (e.g., voice recognition software) only partially remediate the issue, given that errors in punctuation can arise, which impact on transcript comprehensibility (Jarnow, 2017;Johnson, 2011;Perrier & Kirkby, 2013). Further, copious data are produced, which then take time to analyse, increasing with the amount of text (Johnson, 2011;MacLean, Meyer, & Estable, 2004;Tessier, 2012;Tilley, 2003). Given these high resource demands, alternative methods that increase the cost-viability of qualitative research have been sought. ...
... The level of detail required is determined by the aims of the research and the type of analysis being done (Bailey, 2008;Halcomb & Davidson, 2006;Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). The decision should be made on the basis of what is most useful, effective, and efficient (Kvale, 1996;Tilley, 2003). Should the need arise to scribe the interviews instead of transcribe, the findings of our study provide preliminary evidence that scribing is a promising alternative to transcription. ...
Transcribing qualitative data is resource-intensive. One less intensive alternative is scribing: the documenting of comprehensive notes, including verbatim quotes by an independent observer during an interview. However, the extent to which a comparable thematic analysis can be derived from scribed interview data relative to verbatim transcriptions of these same interviews has not been investigated. Thus, the purpose of this study is to test the number and content of themes derived from interview data, which had been scribed versus transcribed verbatim and to identify the time and cost differences (if any) between obtaining, processing, and analysing scribed data compared to transcribed data. Two modes of scribing were evaluated: in-person (i.e., from notes obtained during live interviews), and from video-recordings of these same interviews. There was high consistency in the number and content of themes (highest at subtheme level) derived from scribed versus transcribed data. Scribing produced significantly less data than transcribing and was economically superior. Thus, in the context of interview-based studies in which common ideas or meaning are sought through thematic analysis, scribing yields a similarly rich set of themes as transcribing, and hence, may offer a valid and feasible alternative when resources are limited.
... As several researchers have previously alluded to, transcription has long been the Cinderella of qualitative data analysis. Methods textbooks rarely afford the practice serious consideration and equally rarely are transcription processes and their effects included in researchers' accounts of their analysis process (Cibils, 2019;Clark et al., 2017;Halcomb & Davidson, 2006;Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;MacLean et al., 2004;Poland, 1995;Tilley, 2003). This has led to researchers such as Cibils (2019) to refer to transcription as 'one of the most under appreciated of processes in qualitative research ' (p. ...
... Transcription can be used to anonymise research participants and provide extracts from the dataset that can be used within journal articles, reports and other forms of dissemination to support researchers' claims. And yet, researchers also have highlighted that transcription is a time-consuming and laborious process that can profoundly affect the data being analysed (Green et al., 1997;Hammersley, 2010;Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Poland, 1995;Tilley, 2003). The process of transcribing data can introduce intentional, accidental and unavoidable alterations (Poland, 1995). ...
... Further, transcription work is often out-sourced to junior researchers and ancillary workers, who are not members of the research team, did not collect the data themselves and may have little familiarity with the research aims (Gregory et al., 1997;MacLean et al., 2004). These peripheral and potentially vulnerable workers can nevertheless become entangled within the transcription process, leaving the 'prints' of their emotional responses, interpretations and decision-making on the transcripts (Gregory et al., 1997;Tilley, 2003). ...
Transcription is an integral part of much qualitative data analysis, yet rarely has it received close attention in debates over the use (or non-use) of computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). This article draws upon a mixed-methods study that involved transcribing conversational interviews with carers, third sector practitioners and policy-makers, to explore how computer assisted transcription software (CATS) can affect data and its analysis in ways unanticipated at the outset by researchers. From an agential realist perspective, the article outlines three steps towards making principled choices over the use (or non-use) of CAQDAS in qualitative data analysis. These steps require navigating extremes associated with technological determinism; that we re-think our understandings of the software-data-researcher relationship; and that we move away from asking how well a given CAQDAS can ‘perform’ and towards exploring what a given CAQDAS can (and cannot) do.
... As I transcribed the interviews, I remembered how I had approached an interviewee and how I had warmed to them. Tilley (2003) reported this method following interviews with her transcriber colleague, "Ken," who kept "personal notes while transcribing" (p. 753). ...
... My reflective notes address interviewing and data collection from a personal view (Tilley, 2003) that aim to inform others so that they can carry out their research more efficiently and with minimal effect on participants. The reflection was serendipitous because the PI had requested weekly progress reports which included the sharing of problems and suggestions for junior team members such as student helpers and fresh graduates in fortnightly team meetings. ...
... These tools are the familiar approaches and methods that are used in interviews and qualitative data collection (see De Fina, 2009;Jacob & Furgerson, 2012) and were combined with a heuristic appreciation of ESL which developed through daily interactions and organized research over 2 ½ decades. Reviewing the interviews for this paper and discussing them confirms that qualitative research offers a broader scope to collect and discuss data and is connected by a familiar language which values the research experience (see Palaganas et al., 2017;Roulston, 2010;Talmy, 2010;Tilley, 2003;Wiesner, 2020). As suggested by Talmy (2010), researchers of all levels should be encouraged to share their reflections on their fieldwork so as to inform others. ...
Interviewing is one of the most common data collection tools in qualitative research. It is widely discussed in research methods classes and literature and considered as an invaluable tool for gathering facts and feelings. In this paper, I reflect systematically on the first 270 interviews conducted for a large-scale investigation into the English language learning history of Hong Kong university students. I discuss how existing literature served as a guide to interviewing but once in the field, I reflect on how I adapted and improvised to improve my interviewing skills. I also analyze and discuss the strategies I employed to encourage undergraduates in Hong Kong universities to reveal aspects of their English language learning experiences and the methods that I used to limit personal influence. I benefitted from recording my progress and reflecting on the interview process internally and with peers and supervisors. I hope my autoethnographic-like style will give fellow researchers the freedom to reflectively explore themselves and their interviewing techniques.
... To put it another way, transcription is always subjective and interpretive to some degree, and transcription inevitably leads to data reduction. These issues are of fundamental importance, but it is beyond the scope of this chapter to do them justice: please refer to Bucholtz (2000Bucholtz ( 2007aBucholtz ( 2007b; Green, Franquiz, and Dixon (1997); Jaffe (2007); Mishler (1991); Preston (1982); Roberts (1997); and Tilley (2003) for further discussion and analysis. ...
... Given the tedium of transcribing long stretches of video or audiotape, it should come as no surprise that such tasks are frequently assigned to graduate or even undergraduate students with little background in theories of discourse or training in transcription. Some of the issues surrounding the use of such transcribers, such as issues of training, have been described by Tilley (2003) and by Davidson (2009). ...
... Although it is widely-known that transcription is a key aspect of qualitative research, this is rarely the way it is viewed. It has been repeatedly described as mundane, time-consuming, tiresome, and even lonely (Agar, 1996;Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Tilley, 2003;Matheson, 2007). The negative reputation of transcription can be seen from undergraduate researchers through to emeritus professors. ...
... While at first glance transcription can seem like a process of merely creating a transcript for analysis, it's a useful way of intimately familiarising yourself with the data. Familiarising yourself with the data through listening to the audio attentively and creating transcripts is a core aspect of analysis (Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Tilley, 2003). Merely reading through your data can lead to skim-reading and not being fully immersed which may facilitate misunderstanding the data or a surface-level analysis. ...
... Interviews were not recorded because interviewees typically did not agree to be recorded, although there were other considerations. For example, the production of transcripts after the interviews for a large number of interviews can be a problem because it slows the research's progress (Tilley, 2003). ...
... In addition, the transcript was sent to the interviewees upon request so that any substantive errors could be identified and corrected. This is consistent with literature explaining that this is not uncommon and can be beneficial to correcting different types of transcript errors (Easton et al., 2000;Tilley, 2003, Atkinson & Delamont, 2010Tessier, 2012). ...
Chronic diseases are major causes of health inequalities. Community nurses can potentially
make large contributions to chronic illness prevention and management in
Israel but may be obstructed by professional dominance of physicians. However, insufficient
research exists about community nursing in Israel, and how it may differ
from other countries. This study aims to document chronic disease-related community
nursing roles in Israel, identify changes and trends in community nursing roles that
may increase social justice, and understand how the roles and trends in community
health nursing in Israel may differ from developments in other countries. In-depth interviews
were performed with 55 Israeli health system professionals, and 692 nurse
care-givers were asked open-ended questions. Interview answers were analyzed to
find themes and trends. The study found that community nurse roles in Israel have
expanded, especially for chronic disease control. Commonalities exist with countries
such as the United States and the UK, albeit with important differences. However,
continued conflicts with physicians exist, which can limit nurses' contributions to reducing
health inequalities. Community nurses' importance is growing. Enabling them
to overcome professional dominance and improve chronic disease control can help
reduce health inequalities in Israel and elsewhere.
... Although it is widely-known that transcription is a key aspect of qualitative research, this is rarely the way it is viewed. It has been repeatedly described as mundane, time-consuming, tiresome, and even lonely (Agar, 1996;Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Tilley, 2003;Matheson, 2007). The negative reputation of transcription can be seen from undergraduate researchers through to emeritus professors. ...
... While at first glance transcription can seem like a process of merely creating a transcript for analysis, it's a useful way of intimately familiarising yourself with the data. Familiarising yourself with the data through listening to the audio attentively and creating transcripts is a core aspect of analysis (Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Tilley, 2003). Merely reading through your data can lead to skim-reading and not being fully immersed which may facilitate misunderstanding the data or a surface-level analysis. ...
We discuss the rationale for the importance of self-transcription in the research process, despite associated tedium.
Melia, C. & Newman, K. (2019) Finding power in words: Redeeming the reputation of transcription, QMiP Bulletin, 27 (Spring). 41-45.
... Given the tedium of transcribing long stretches of video or audiotape, it should come as no surprise that such tasks are frequently assigned to graduate or even undergraduate students with little background in theories of discourse or training in transcription. Some of the issues surrounding the use of such transcribers, such as issues of training, have been described by Tilley (2003). ...
... Comments and questions concerning this chapter may be directed to Roger Kreuz (rkreuz@memphis.edu). 2. Please refer to Bucholtz (2000Bucholtz ( 2007aBucholtz ( 2007b; Green, Franquiz, and Dixon (1997); Jaffe (2007); Mishler (1991); Preston (1982); Roberts (1997);and Tilley (2003) for further discussion and analysis. 3. ...
... Secondly, interpretation and translation transformed our data from spoken words to written texts. During this knowledge production process, transcripts serve only as representations of events (Tilley 2003), and interpretation of local realities and identities may be inadequate (Temple and Edwards 2002). ...
Objectives
Ensuring youth participation in policymaking that affects their health and well-being is increasingly recognized as a strategy to improve young people’s reproductive health. This paper aimed to describe the policy context and analyze underlying factors that influence youth participation in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) policymaking in Malawi.Methods
This critical, focused ethnographic study is informed by postcolonial feminism and difference-centered citizenship theory, based on data collected from October 2017 to May 2018. Multiple research methods were employed: document analysis, focus group discussions, and “moderate” participant observation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants and youth, supplemented by open-ended drawing exercises with youth.ResultsProgressive policies and the presence of youth in some policymaking structures indicate substantial headway in Malawi. However, underlying structural and societal factors circumscribe young people’s lived experiences of participation.Conclusions
Despite recent progress in involving young people in SRH policymaking, notable gaps remain between policy and practice. Recognizing and integrating young people in all stages of SRH policymaking is critical to catalyzing the social and political changes necessary to ensure their reproductive health and well-being.
... • The importance of capturing the voice of the participants rather than their own voice, but that fair notes should say 'she said that she went to the shop…' [5,7,24,39,40,42] Transcription process facilitates knowledge, understanding and interpretation of the data, and is best done by the interviewer. Due to time issues it is often contracted out. ...
Conducting qualitative research within public health trials requires balancing timely data collection with the need to maintain data quality. Verbatim transcription of interviews is the conventional way of recording qualitative data, but is time consuming and can severely delay the availability of research findings. Expanding field notes into fair notes is a quicker alternative method, but is not usually recommended as interviewers select and interpret what they record. We used the fair note methodology in Ghana, and found that where research questions are relatively simple, and interviewers undergo sufficient training and supervision, fair notes can decrease data collection and analysis time, while still providing detailed and relevant information to the study team. Interviewers liked the method and felt it made them more reflective and analytical and improved their interview technique. The exception was focus group discussions, where the fair note approach failed to capture the interaction and richness of discussions, capturing group consensus rather than the discussions leading to this consensus.
... Ultimately, these decisions are influenced by our epistemological intent, which defines what knowledge is constructed and how knowledge is formed. The choices made as to what, how, and how much to convey in a transcription of what is recorded in an interview are based on theoretical understandings of what is to be known and what is considered to be the data, and will, ultimately, determine the limitations or the possibilities for analysis and interpretation (Bird, 2005;Roulston, 2016;Tilley, 2003). This was best expressed by Green et al. (1997) in these terms: "a transcript is shaped by and, in turn, shapes what can be known" (p. ...
-- Open Access -- The Qualitative Report: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol24/iss5/14/
In this paper, I propose redefining transcription as a significant process within qualitative research, and as more deserving of attention and of transparency in reporting. Although interviewing has become one of the most frequently used methods of qualitative data collection, when summarizing the methodology adopted in their studies, researchers are still not likely to describe either the transcription process itself or the decision-making process that led up to it. One of the problems with transcription is that it is frequently addressed separately from the broader philosophical, ideological or epistemological contexts of a study, and dealt with as a minor independent logistics issue, and its resolution reduced to its mechanics or its physical completion. In this article, I highlight the significance of decisions made about transcription as illustrated by an account of two contrasting experiences. I explore the choices made related to who undertakes the process and how it is completed as based on theoretical underpinnings. These decisions, as illustrated in the examples, reflect views on what is to be known and what is considered to be the data, and will, ultimately, determine the limitations or the possibilities for analysis and interpretation.
Retrieved from
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol24/iss5/14
... The researchers involved also read all the interview transcripts, including those where they had not been present. The interviews have been listened and re-listened to, read and re-read several times, in order to gain better understandings of and multiple perspectives on the data (see McCracken, 1988;Saunders et al., 2003;Tilley, 2003;Silverman, 2005;Mann, 2011;Jacobsson and Åkerström, 2012). During this process, the content of the interviews has been analysed, by linking what has been said to the themes arising on how the respondents talk about different thematic areas, along with other themes arising from the interviews and analytical discussions between the researchers. ...
This paper highlights and critically analyses age and generationrelated issues and their intersections with other social divisions in working life, and their importance for how work, careers, organisations and related work innovations are constructed. We draw mainly on qualitative data from nine case organisations in Finland and focus on the following questions: 1) What aspects of age and generational relations are articulated in the case organisations studied?; 2) How do age and age-generations intersect with other social divisions in workplaces? We work from the data in forming and recognising thematic groupings, and identify five main forms of discursive talk about age and generation: physical restrictions; retirement issues; age diversity as a strength; lack of a particular age group; along with silence on age or age as a non-issue. As such, the dynamics and intersections about and around age and generation in organisations are complex, multi-dimensional, and often contradictory and ambiguous. Building on an online survey (n = 122) and through interviews (n = 53) and qualitative fieldwork in nine organisations, we contribute to empirical, policy, intersectional, and theoretical areas and debates on age, generations and intersectionality at work, organisations and work innovation.
... Finally, transcription quality is always a critical part of any qualitative research study and this is where translators will help mitigate threats to rigor (Poland, 1995;Tilley, 2003). Transcriptions are the final point of interpreter-mediated vulnerability in a research study because the quality of translation will affect the entire data analysis process. ...
Aim
This paper seeks to describe best practices for conducting cross‐language research with individuals who have a language barrier.
Design
Discussion paper.
Data Sources
Research methods papers addressing cross‐language research issues published between 2000 ‐ 2017.
Implications for Nursing
Rigorous cross‐language research involves the appropriate use of interpreters during the research process, systematic planning for how to address the language barrier between participant and researcher and the use of reliably and validly translated survey instruments (when applicable). Biases rooted in those who enter data into “big data” systems may influence data quality and analytic approaches in large observational studies focused on linking patient language preference to health outcomes.
Conclusion
Cross‐language research methods can help ensure that those individuals with language barriers have their voices contributing to the evidence informing health care practice and policies that shape health services implementation and financing. Understanding the inherent conscious and unconscious biases of those conducting research with this population and how this may emerge in research studies is also an important part of producing rigorous, reliable and valid cross‐language research.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... However, many researchers view transcription as mechanical and mundane work often paying for the service (Lapadat, 2000). In fact, the trend is reported that the larger the research study, the greater likelihood that someone will be hired to transcribe the research tapes (Tilley, 2003). However, researchers question whether transcription is merely reproducing spoken word or is a practice of representation and part of the analysis process that constructs meaning (Bucholtz, 2007a, Hammersley, 2010. ...
The purpose of this study was to examine the equivalence or non-inferiority for comparisons of telephone focus group venue to face-to-face focus group venue, Internet video-based focus group venue to face-to-face focus group venue, and Internet video based focus group venue to telephone focus group venue. Research questions examined the equivalence and non-inferiority of five variables reported in the literature as fundamental reasons a researcher would choose focus groups as a data collection tool. The five variables were: participant interactions, breadth of conversation, depth of conversation, disclosure of sensitive information, and adherence to the topic. Variables were measured using content and linguistic analysis. Outcomes from these analyses were tested using two one-sided t tests (TOST) to test for equivalence. If TOST indicated equivalence or non-inferiority between venues, a stricter one-tailed t test was conducted to confirm the findings.
Research was conducted on focus groups (n = 18) from extant evaluation data measuring the self-determination outcomes of students with disabilities. This allowed for the analysis of disclosure of sensitive information with questions targeted at living with a disability. Students participated (n = 64) from three different states. The original evaluation employed a 3 x 3 Latin square design to control for gender, state, and focus group venue.
Results revealed face-to-face focus group venues are unequaled in the area of participant interactions. The telephone venue provided a second choice for research projects whose goal is to extract depth of conversation or keep participants on-topic. However, if the main goal is to access sensitive information, the telephone venue appeared the most suitable. The Internet video-based focus group venue may provide a viable option to explore breadth or depth of information. Nonetheless, the Internet video-based venue only proved equivalent to the telephone focus group venue for participant interactions.
Findings suggest a researcher needs to carefully consider the potential effects of focus group venue. Further, the researcher needs to allow the research question and design to guide how a focus group venue is chosen. This study provides practical insight regarding the use of telephone and Internet video-based focus group venues and offers much potential for future research.
... The different data collection methods were necessary due to scheduling challenges related to the three separate institutions from which participants came. When conducting checks on methodological rigor, during the confirmability check stage a team member not directly involved in data collection reviewed interview transcription quality (Poland, 1995;Tilley, 2003) and concluded the different data collection approaches did not appear to affect interview quality. Institutional review board (IRB) approval for the parent study was obtained through the authors' home institution (IRB# 13-9731) and the participating home care agency (IRB#I13-004). ...
A primary service provided by home care is medication management. Issues with medication management at home place older adults at high risk for hospital admission, readmission, and adverse events. This study sought to understand medication management challenges from the home care provider perspective. A qualitative secondary data analysis approach was used to analyze program evaluation interview data from an interprofessional educational intervention study designed to decrease medication complexity in older urban adults receiving home care. Directed and summative content analysis approaches were used to analyze data from 90 clinician and student participants. Medication safety issues along with provider–provider communication problems were central themes with medication complexity. Fragmented care coordination contributed to medication management complexity. Patient-, provider-, and system-level factors influencing medication complexity and management were identified as contributing to both communication and coordination challenges.
... The interview protocol was semi-structured and included questions about the participants' experience with Western counseling, their attitudes towards it, and their perspectives on counseling in Bhutan. In order to stay close to the data (Tilley 2003), I transcribed the interviews personally. I removed all identifying information from the transcriptions in order to protect the participants' privacy. ...
Bhutan has recently invited the profession of counseling to aid in responding to growing mental health problems, social and family issues, and school and career guidance needs. This study is a phenomenological investigation of the experiences of Bhutanese counselors with Western counseling in order to understand the cultural fit between Bhutan and Western counseling orientations. Eleven participants were interviewed and four themes identified: conceptualization of counseling, Bhutanese culture, Bhutanese counseling, and the relationship between Western counseling and Bhutan. Suggestions are made for a potential model of Bhutanese counseling, counselor training, ongoing Western contributions, and the further development of the counseling profession.
... I transcribed all the videos and audios myself; hence, as in Bird's (2005) description, I was researcher-transcriber. I understood that in transcribing, I was re-presenting the events (the interviews and FGDs), and that I would not be able to recreate the actual events (Tilley, 2003). Doing the transcription demanded a lot of time. ...
Prior to democracy in South Africa, education was used as a means to achieve segregation, privileging a minority of the population in both economic and worldview domination. With the attainment of democracy in 1994, educational reform was aimed at getting rid of both apartheid content and method. The aims and principles of the new curricula (the Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R-9, the National Curriculum Statement Grades 10-12, and later on, the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements) were aligned to those of the national constitution, which include the establishment of human rights, inclusivity, environmental and social justice, and valuing of Indigenous knowledge systems. In the science subjects, teaching and learning are expected to acknowledge the existence of different knowledge systems. In the absence of clear guidelines as to which Indigenous knowledge to include and how, the recognition of IKS in science classroom has largely been left to the teachers' discretion. The purpose of this interpretive research study, carried out in collaboration with a rural community in KwaZulu-Natal Province, was threefold. The first was to identify the Indigenous knowledge held by the community and the worldview underpinning that knowledge. The second was to find out what knowledge could be integrated with classroom science, and explore ways in which such integration could be done, considering students' and community worldviews. The third was for the research to contribute to transformation in Indigenous knowledge research by following methods that recognised Indigenous knowledges, practices and languages as valuable. The findings from this study underscore the importance of extending the thinking about IKS-science integration beyond aspects that suit science content, to considering methods of teaching and learning science, as well as considering relevance to community needs. iv DEDICATION In memory of my mother, Varaidzo Priscilla Chikuni (1946-2005), and her mother Rachel Chikuni (1904-2011) both of whom taught me ubuntu and the love for school. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
... Transcribing can be a key step in analysis (Bailey, 2008;Bird, 2005;Bryman & Hardy, 2004;Tilley, 2003). ...
... It not only helps reduce the risk associated with transcriptions, such as misinterpretation, transcription errors, and loss of contextual cues but also helps with capturing the richness of how things are said in addition to what is said (i.e., noting the paralanguage cues). Second, there are linguistic challenges in managing transcription process, with the potential problem that transcription might not truthfully and objectively represent data (Tilley, 2003). The researcher had a portion of the audio recordings transcribed by trained transcribers first. ...
Smoking results in a high mortality rate for Chinese Americans. Little is known, however, about the decisions members of this group make that lead to these unhealthy behaviors. Examining smoking decisions could help us understand these choices as well as develop effective prevention strategies. This grounded theory study was conducted to understand Chinese Americans’ smoking decisions. Fifty-four individual interviews and three focus groups were conducted with Chinese Americans of different smoking statuses. The findings describe five smoking decisions including the trajectory of these behaviors. Optimistic bias is identified as one of the main reasons that regular smokers decide not to quit. Some Chinese Americans decide to smoke in order to protect themselves from secondhand smoke because of the perception that secondhand smoke is more dangerous than active smoking. Finally, many Chinese Americans change their smoking behaviors after immigration, with their social environment after immigration playing a key role.
... Bailey stresses that, "Transcripts are not […] neutral records of events, but reflect researchers' interpretation of data" (2008, p. 129). As the person transcribing the interviews thus influences the research data (Tilley, 2003), I decided to undertake the transcribing myself. This also provided the advantage of familiarizing myself with the data at an early stage (Braun & Clarke, 2006). ...
This dissertation consists of four empirical articles treating various different aspects of losing a parent in the family as experienced by bereaved families in Denmark. Four fathers and their seven children were interviewed for this project and eighty-seven spousally bereaved individuals answered an online questionnaire. The dissertation seeks to take a holistic approach in an acknowledgement of the fact that bereavement and grief do not happen in a vacuum. For these purposes, the ecological systems theory by Bronfenbrenner was applied as an overall theoretical framework to understand the different contexts that might influence the experiences of the bereaved individual. The four articles in this dissertation each represent a different level of analysis with an offset in this model, that is, the micro-, meso-, exo- and macrosystem, respectively. Furthermore, the work of Doka & Martin was used as a way to understand possible gender differences in bereavement and grief (Article 1). Additionally, trauma psychology in the interpretation of Janoff-Bulman was applied in order to account for the experiences of parental loss in childhood (Article 2). Finally, the theories on “continuing bonds” by Klass, Silverman and colleagues were used to explain how grief is often experienced as ongoing, that is, a recurrent phenomenon in the lives of bereaved individuals, and how the deceased will continue to be a part of this (Article 2).
... A key argument for outsourcing is that transcription is a draining process and, therefore, outsourcing is an invaluable resource [22]. Arguments against outsourcing include distancing of the researcher from the data [23] and not capturing the tone and nonverbal aspects of the interview see [24]. Outsourcing can be valuable, but the decision to outsource should be made cautiously. ...
From 1995–2016, there has been a 15-fold increase in qualitative scholarship in the social sciences, but the rigor and quality of published work has ranged widely. Little scholarship provides concrete, pragmatic explanations of (and directions regarding) the execution of systematic, high-rigor qualitative analysis. The present article guides the developing qualitative researcher through technical and procedural aspects of analyzing qualitative data with specific attention to reliability and rigor. Guidance addressing transcription, importing data, forming coding pairs, performing initial/open coding (examples of three types), determining core themes, systematic team-based coding, maintaining a data audit trail, creating a Numeric Content Analysis (NCA) table, and preparing work for publication is provided. Materials include several tables and figures that offer practical demonstrations on how to use Nvivo in data analysis. Transcription tips and outsourcing benefits and cautions are also offered. Altogether, the present article provides qualitative researchers practical guidance for executing multiple stages of qualitative analysis.
... 4. The literature does acknowledge problems with analyzing transcriptions (e.g., ten Have 2002) and also raises concerns about the work and consequences of transcribers who are not the actual investigators (Tilley 2003); we do not know the origins of this process in this case. Crucially, too, the lack of non-linguistic data-let alone the avowed reasons for the traffic stops-are interpretively constraining. ...
The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Policing, Communication, and Society brings together well-regarded academics and experienced practitioners to explore how communication intersects with policing in areas such as cop-culture, race and ethnicity, terrorism and hate crimes, social media, police reform, crowd violence, and many more. By combining research and theory in criminology, psychology, and communication, this handbook provides a foundation for identifying and understanding many of the issues that challenge police and the public in today’s society. It is an important and comprehensive analysis of the enormous changes in the roles of gender in society, digital technology, social media, and organizational structures have impacted policing and public perceptions about law enforcement.
... How do you think that data from interviews becomes knowledge (Silverman, 2011)? How do you anticipate analyzing the data produced through interviews (Silverman, 2003(Silverman, , 2011Wolcott, 2008;Green, Franquiz, & Dixon, 1997;Tilley, 2003)? These and more questions deserve attention if you intend to use interviewing as a research method. ...
The field of Comparative and International Education (CIE) has long had an uneasy relationship with one of its central concepts: comparison. Scholars would likely agree that a study involving more than two countries is comparative, but what about multisited case studies in a single country? While such studies of education in Angola or Lebanon would qualify as international by North Atlantic standards, are they also comparative? Some would argue they are not. For example, in his presidential address to the Comparative and International Education Society, Carnoy (2006) asserted, “[A]lthough individual country case studies can be implicitly comparative, the best comparative research compares similar interventions, outcomes, processes, and issues across countries and uses similar methodology and data collection” (554). In contrast, others argue that qualitative research in international education entails inherent comparison because the norms from one’s own country cannot help but influence how another system is understood (see, e.g., Gingrich 2002). Further, some scholars have critiqued the ways in which rigid conceptualizations of comparison have regulated the production and uses of educational knowledge. For example, responding to Carnoy’s statement earlier, Levin (2006, 576) wrote, Comparative studies must not be a straitjacket for describing, explaining, and evaluating educational phenomena in different settings. Diversity cannot be extruded into similar methods, measures, and comparative interpretations. Does using PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment] data really help us understand much about educational development in Chiapas in the south of Mexico with its rural, impoverished, largely indigenous population and Nuevo Leon in the north with its urban, relatively prosperous, industrial population and U.S. orientation? Should we restrict comparative analysis to the limited dimensions dictated by government, NGO, and multinationals with their own narrow agendas and interests?1
... Attempting to maintain a balance between readability and accuracy is an inherent part of the transcription process (cf. Tilley, 2003). ...
Nation states increasingly apply electronic surveillance techniques to combat serious and organised crime after broadening and deepening their national security agendas. Covertly obtained recordings from telephone interception and listening devices of conversations related to suspected criminal activity in Languages Other Than English (LOTE) frequently contain jargon and/or code words. Community translators and interpreters are routinely called upon to transcribe intercepted conversations into English for evidentiary purposes. This paper examines the language capabilities of community translators and interpreters undertaking this work for law enforcement agencies in the Australian state of Victoria. Using data collected during the observation of public court trials, this paper presents a detailed analysis of Vietnamese-to-English translated transcripts submitted as evidence by the Prosecution in drug-related criminal cases. The data analysis reveals that translated transcripts presented for use as evidence in drug-related trials contain frequent and significant errors. However, these discrepancies are difficult to detect in the complex environment of a court trial without the expert skills of an independent discourse analyst fluent in both languages involved. As a result, trials tend to proceed without the reliability of the translated transcript being adequately tested.
... If subtitles are understood as situated language use, as writing that appears in a particular context, transcription may call for conventions beyond merely encoding words and sentences uttered by film characters. The multiplicity of semiotic systems in film and resulting richness in information makes this a daunting task and raises the crucial issue of balance between representation of available information and accessibility to the reader (see Tilley, 2003;Bonsignori, 2009). This is illustrated below with two multimodal transcriptions of subtitled film and their discussion,the first with a focus on multimodality, the second on subtitle timing. ...
Research on film is typically transparent when it comes to identifying the excerpts of film on which it is based. Since analysts view film scenes in different reception situations and since even the same reception situation will lead to differing textual representations of data, the basis for researchers’ analyses may nonetheless be underspecified. This article identifies aspects of data selection and transcription that are all too often neglected, but are critical for analysis and should not only be reflected on more thoroughly but also explicated to readers. It describes viewing constellations and analytical criteria and compares transcription conventions both theoretically and empirically, with the use of excerpts from Scene 12 of Ocean's Eleven (2001).
... After the end of each interview, I transferred the recorded archive to my laptop, where I renamed each file's name with a code and added a password for further protection (Corti et al., 2000). The next step was to transcribe the interviews, which I did myself after reading the relevant literature (Creswell, 2006;Kvale, 1996) and considering the importance of confidentiality between the researcher and the informants (Kvale, 1996;Ross, 2010;Tilley, 2003;Wellard & McKenna, 2001). ...
Disability classification systems belong to the core of states’ social/disability policies through which persons with disabilities are classified as eligible or ineligible for having access to disability allowances. The study of disability classification systems has stimulated the interest of several scholars from the broader area of disability studies. Either by conducting comparative studies between different states and describing the similarities and differences of these systems around the world or by conducting studies focusing on the politics and semantics in the development of disability classification systems in specific states, all studies have shown a pluralism in the systems for assessing and certifying disability. In Greece, the development of disability classification systems for social welfare reasons emerged as a controversy that lasted for almost twenty years. One factor that strengthened the controversy was the outbreak of the economic crisis late in 2009, followed by the announcement by the governmental authorities of the enactment of a new system for assessing and certifying disability as part of the austerity-driven policies that the Greek state would enact for facing the consequences of the economic crisis. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, the overall aim of this study is to describe and analyze the enactment of disability classification systems in the context of Greek social policy from 1990 to 2015. For the collection of empirical material, a qualitative research method was employed, consisting of interviews, written material, and newspaper articles. The main findings of this thesis are: I) the involvement of the political parties in the development of the systems for certifying and assessing disability; II) the involvement of the disability movement in policymaking; III) the “creative” use of statistics by governmental authorities for the enactment of disability/social policies; IV) how the concept of “disability fraud” has been constructed as a “threat” to the society, and V) the vulnerability of disability classification systems in times of austerity.
Keywords: classification systems, statistics, medicalization, disability movement, disability fraud, corporatism, economic crisis, STS, disability theory
... The focus group session was recorded, and the audio file was transcribed. According to Tilley (2003), transcription work is complex and challenging because a transcriber must untangle "knots of information" in the audio recording (p. 758). ...
Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have become important tools in higher education language instruction, which can facilitate both student learning and the administration of courses. The decision regarding which LMS a particular university adopts is a complicated
process where the needs and opinions of several stakeholders, including administrators, students, and faculty members, must be considered. The researchers conducted a focus group session with faculty members at a private Japanese university regarding their usage and perceptions of the LMS Manaba. The results of this study indicate that while perceptions towards the LMS were positive overall,
successful integration of the technology is hampered by a lack of institutional support.
... How do you think that data from interviews becomes knowledge (Silverman, 2011)? How do you anticipate analyzing the data produced through interviews (Silverman, 2003(Silverman, , 2011Wolcott, 2008;Green, Franquiz, & Dixon, 1997;Tilley, 2003)? These and more questions deserve attention if you intend to use interviewing as a research method. ...
... Transcription and translation are deeply interpretative processes [53,54]. Interviews and focus group discussion were transcribed verbatim. ...
Background:
Street-connected children and youth (SCY) in Kenya disproportionately experience preventable morbidities and premature mortality. We theorize these health inequities are socially produced and result from systemic discrimination and a lack of human rights attainment. Therefore, we sought to identify and understand how SCY's social and health inequities in Kenya are produced, maintained, and shaped by structural and social determinants of health using the WHO conceptual framework on social determinants of health (SDH) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) General Comment no. 17.
Methods:
This qualitative study was conducted from May 2017 to September 2018 using multiple methods including focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, archival review of newspaper articles, and analysis of a government policy document. We purposively sampled 100 participants including community leaders, government officials, vendors, police officers, general community residents, parents of SCY, and stakeholders in 5 counties across Kenya to participate in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. We conducted a thematic analysis situated in the conceptual framework on SDH and the CRC.
Results:
Our findings indicate that SCY's social and health disparities arise as a result of structural and social determinants stemming from a socioeconomic and political environment that produces systemic discrimination, breaches human rights, and influences their unequal socioeconomic position in society. These social determinants influence SCY's intermediary determinants of health resulting in a lack of basic material needs, being precariously housed or homeless, engaging in substance use and misuse, and experiencing several psychosocial stressors, all of which shape health outcomes and equity for this population.
Conclusions:
SCY in Kenya experience social and health inequities that are avoidable and unjust. These social and health disparities arise as a result of structural and social determinants of health inequities stemming from the socioeconomic and political context in Kenya that produces systemic discrimination and influences SCYs' unequal socioeconomic position in society. Remedial action to reverse human rights contraventions and to advance health equity through action on SDH for SCY in Kenya is urgently needed.
... Typists sometimes "clean up" the data, consciously or otherwise, and in so doing represent study participants in ways that can reflect their relationship to and moral assessment of the participant or the issue. Sometimes, contextual information and speech patterns are eliminated or standardized; voice, pauses and intonation disappear or become indecipherable, thus becoming open to being read in any number of different ways, and the smallest of grammatical modifications can significantly change the meaning of what was said and the way the speaker is represented (see for example, Bischoping, 2005;Bucholtz, 2000;Tilley, 2003). Transcription is never a neutral process and transforms data (and hence meaning) in myriad subtle and notso-subtle ways. ...
Much qualitative research produces little new knowledge. We argue that this is largely due to deficits of analysis. Researchers too seldom venture beyond cataloguing data into pre-existing concepts and scouting for “themes,” and fail to exploit the distinctive powers of insight of qualitative methodology. The paper introduces a “value-adding” approach to qualitative analysis that aims to extend and enrich researchers’ analytic interpretive practices and enhance the worth of the knowledge generated. We outline key features of this form of analysis, including how it is constituted by principles of interpretation, contextualization, criticality, and the “creative presence” of the researcher. Using concrete examples from our own research, we describe some analytic “devices” that can free up and stretch a researcher’s analytic capacities, including putting reflexivity to work, treating everything as data, reading data for what is invisible, anomalous and “gestalt,” engaging in “generative” coding, deploying heuristics for theorizing, and recognizing writing as a key analytic activity. We argue that at its core, value-adding analysis is a scientific craft rather than a scientific formula, a creative assemblage of reality rather than a procedural determination of it. The researcher is the primary generative and synthesizing mechanism for transforming empirically observed data into the key products of qualitative research—concepts, accounts and explanations. The ultimate value of value-adding analysis resides in its ability to generate new knowledge, including not just the “discovery” of things heretofore unknown but also the re-conceptualization of what is already known, and, importantly, the reframing and reconstitution of the research problem.
... How do you think that data from interviews becomes knowledge (Silverman, 2011)? How do you anticipate analyzing the data produced through interviews (Silverman, 2003(Silverman, , 2011Wolcott, 2008;Green, Franquiz, & Dixon, 1997;Tilley, 2003)? These and more questions deserve attention if you intend to use interviewing as a research method. ...
Comparative case studies are an effective qualitative tool for researching the impact of policy and practice in various fields of social research, including education. Developed in response to the inadequacy of traditional case study approaches, comparative case studies are highly effective because of their ability to synthesize information across time and space. In Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach, the authors describe, explain, and illustrate the horizontal, vertical, and transversal axes of comparative case studies in order to help readers develop their own comparative case study research designs. In six concise chapters, two experts employ geographically distinct case studies-from Tanzania to Guatemala to the U.S.-to show how this innovative approach applies to the operation of policy and practice across multiple social fields. With examples and activities from anthropology, development studies, and policy studies, this volume is written for researchers, especially graduate students, in the fields of education and the interpretive social sciences.
... The article will explore differences between three different transcribed versions of that question, across these four separate interviews. I situate this exploration within literature on transcription that identifies a dearth of empirical research on the transcription process (Downs, 2010;Hammersley, 2010;Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999;Oliver, Serovich, & Mason, 2005;Tilley, 2003). I use the article to answer these researchers' calls for a more detailed and less 'naturalise [d]' (Davidson, 2009, p. 1) analysis of the place and process of transcription in empirical research. ...
This paper refracts a comparison of three distinct transcription styles through questions of researcher reflexivity. It uses the data from a single question asked by the researcher in multiple interviews for a small empirical project. These data are transcribed in three ways, and the resulting transcripts are discussed in relation to the analysis they offer and enable. The discussion focuses first on how each data excerpt demonstrates the complexities of research on difficult or sensitive topics. It then shifts to a discussion of the reflexive potential of a focus on interview questions rather than participant response. Finally, the discussion turns to an exploration of the role of transcription in constituting researcher identity, using the three transcription styles to interrogate the possible identities they offer.
This study involves an in-depth investigation into elementary teachers’ self-directed learning in an online environment. A methodology combining a retrospective think aloud with screen recording technology was used to capture cognitive processes from 15 teachers as they used a professional development website. Resulting think aloud protocols and two additional data sources were analyzed using qualitative methods. Three phases of coding led to a theoretical model describing how teachers use and learn from a professional development website. This research offers a comprehensive model of self-directed online learning. Furthermore, the findings provide insights into how and why teachers use professional development websites.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X16304966
The health impacts of climate change have received significant attention in the internationalscholarly literature. Despite this, there is an absence of research evaluatingexisting policies aimed at promoting and protecting population health. Thischapter provides an implementation analysis of the Ontario Public Health Standards(OPHS), 2008/2014--the provincial policy statement that governs mandatory publichealth activities in the province which includes taking action on climate change.This chapter responds to two specific questions: First, how are Ontario's 36 regionalhealth units interpreting and implementing this policy statement; and second, howare those interpretations translated into practice. Using a web-scan and in-depthinterviews with practitioners from twenty Ontario health units, this paper presentsfour interpretations of the OPHS, a typology of best practices related to regionaladaptation, and policy recommendations to bolster domestic and internationaladaptive capacity to emerging infectious diseases associated with climate change,and a variety of other health-related climate impacts.
The health impacts of climate change have received significant attention in the international scholarly literature. Despite this, there is an absence of research evaluating existing policies aimed at promoting and protecting population health. This chapter provides an implementation analysis of the Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS), 2008/2014--the provincial policy statement that governs mandatory public health activities in the province which includes taking action on climate change. This chapter responds to two specific questions: First, how are Ontario's 36 regional health units interpreting and implementing this policy statement; and second, how are those interpretations translated into practice. Using a web-scan and in-depth interviews with practitioners from twenty Ontario health units, this paper presents four interpretations of the OPHS, a typology of best practices related to regional adaptation, and policy recommendations to bolster domestic and international adaptive capacity to emerging infectious diseases associated with climate change, and a variety of other health-related climate impacts.
The health impacts of climate change have received significant attention in the international scholarly literature. Despite this, there is an absence of research evaluating existing policies aimed at promoting and protecting population health. This chapter provides an implementation analysis of the Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS), 2008/2014-the provincial policy statement that governs mandatory public health activities in the province which includes taking action on climate change. This chapter responds to two specific questions: First, how are Ontario's 36 regional health units interpreting and implementing this policy statement; and second, how are those interpretations translated into practice. Using a web-scan and in-depth interviews with practitioners from twenty Ontario health units, this paper presents four interpretations of the OPHS, a typology of best practices related to regional adaptation, and policy recommendations to bolster domestic and international adaptive capacity to emerging infectious diseases associated with climate change, and a variety of other health-related climate impacts.
Recent years have seen widespread interest in the process of evidence implementation and growth of implementation science. Whilst this work has drawn attention to the challenges and complexities of implementing evidence into everyday practice, for the most part, studies of implementation uphold the ideal of a linear ‘pipeline’ between research and front-line care. In contrast, this paper adopts a practice perspective on knowledge, and draws on science and technology studies concepts to identify how the socio-material environment contributes to the translation of evidence across multiple organisational and professional boundaries. Findings report on a qualitative case study of implementing fall prevention research evidence at a large teaching hospital in Portugal. Data is from forty-six in-depth semi-structured interviews with clinical and non-clinical staff.
The case highlights how linked boundary objects bridge temporally sequential boundaries between research and different practice communities, hence facilitating the translation of research evidence into everyday practice. The initial boundary object (the ‘Morse’ fall risk assessment scale) contributed to evidence being taken up by specialist nurses within the hospital, while a second boundary object (a pink patient wristband) engendered a change in practice of a wider network of actors. Nevertheless, the symbolic connection between the two linked boundary objects remained precarious, dependent on networks of interaction and communication. The study highlights the role of material objects in the ongoing translation of research evidence into everyday clinical practice.
This thesis considers child-initiated play from a multimodal social semiotic perspective, giving close attention to the ways in which children collaboratively make meaning in play in a multitude of ways. Such a perspective resists instrumental, developmental perspectives on play, and comes at a time when play-based approaches are in tension with increasingly formalised learning agendas and changes to early years assessment. In order to explore the multimodality of child-initiated play, apt theories and research methods are necessary for attending to the ways children make meaning in multiple modes. The study consists of video-based observations of child-initiated play collected through an ethnographic, teacher-research case study carried out in a nursery school in England. A particular challenge in multimodal research is developing forms of transcription which account for multiple modes in fine-grained detail, with the conventions developed for transcribing language proving insufficient. This thesis presents four multimodal transcript designs as analytic devices that bring multimodal aspects of play to the fore, and critically discusses the gains and losses of each multimodal transcript. The multimodal transcripts highlight the richness and complexity of child-initiated play as learning, making visible ways in which children’s play is complex, layered, transformative, creative and agentive meaning-making. This thesis proposes that multimodal transcription not only ‘visualises’ play by making it visible and sharable, but also offers a new lens through which we might understand the semiotic complexity of play. Through interwoven substantive and methodological strands, this thesis therefore offers a contribution towards the tools and dispositions necessary for recognising and valuing meaning-making in play, in early years research methodology, educational theory and practice.
This research explores the experience of 81 elementary pre-service teachers who transcribed their microteaching lessons during a university mathematical methods course. Pre-service teachers were required to plan and teach mathematics lessons. They audio-recorded their teaching, transcribed the recordings, wrote guided reflections, and conversed with the professor to identify areas of strength and growth in their teaching. The following themes were identified: transcription as noticing events, transcription as noticing presentation, benefits of transcription, transcription as a reflective practice, and audio-recording and transcription recommendations. Transcriptions may be effective tools for reflecting about teaching.
Much attention in transcription research has been paid to transcription principles and conventions, whereas less interest has been directed to the process during which transcriptional decisions are made in designing a transcription system for a particular set of data. This study aims to share a hands-on experience in transcribing audio-taped face-to-face PhD supervisory talks. We first provide an overview of data. Then, we discuss our theoretical and methodological considerations by reviewing the existing transcription principles and conventions. Third, procedures and data examples are presented to illustrate how decisions were made. To conclude, a selective-specificity model is proposed by viewing transcription as a selective, interpretive and reflective process involving a series of theoretical, methodological and analytical decisions. It is hoped that the our hands-on experience can shed some lights on conducting transcription and boost novices' confidence in designing practical transcription systems to meet their particular research interests and needs.
Comparative study of transcription methods for spoken corpus: the case of Spanish
Technological advances have propelled the research methodology in transcription. Language corpus tools based on statistical models and deep learning have improved the alignment and annotation phases. However, when it comes to transcribing the material, the conversation’s interpretive load and nature themselves hinder automation of the process. That is why interviews used for studying spoken language are still transcribed with a player and keyboard, which can constitute one of the most time-consuming aspects of data processing. In other professional contexts, automatic speech recognition is used to transcribe effectively through human-computer collaboration. The techniques
and strategies may differ, but they all stabilize fluctuations in computing tools and are faster than other methods. In this study, the off-line respeaking method was used to transcribe the interviews of the Spoken Corpus of the Spanish Language in Montreal. Transcription times and accuracy were measured and compared with automatic speech recognition and typing. Off-line respeaking, using automatic speech-to-text software in its current state, proved to be the fastest and most error-free method for transcribing interviews.
Este volumen temático No 29 de la Revista Nebrija está circunscrito en el área de la Lingüística Aplicada denominada Corpus de Aprendientes en formato computacional (del inglés, Computer Learner Corpora, CLC). El enfoque de investigación de dicha línea es interdisciplinario como resultado de la interacción de dos disciplinas, hasta hace pocos años desvinculadas: la lingüística de corpus (LC) y la Adquisición de Segundas Lenguas (ASL) (Granger, 2002). Actualmente, la investigación sobre Corpus de Aprendientes
está centrada en el análisis de la interlengua y en la producción auténtica de los aprendientes, logrando un creciente beneficio en el ámbito de ASL (Granger,
2017).
Los artículos que integran esta sección temática están enfocados en los avances y resultados de proyectos recientes o en progreso de corpus de aprendientes de lenguas. Los estudios provienen de diversos contextos académicos, institucionales y geográficos y versan sobre diversas lenguas. Los corpus de aprendientes en que se basan los estudios corresponden a corpus de aprendientes en modalidad escrita, oral y multimodal y cubren diversos aspectos de las lenguas objeto de estudio desde aspectos gramaticales, discursivos hasta sociopragmáticos.
This thematic section is circumscribed in the area of the Applied Linguistics called Corpus of Learners in computer format
(from English, Computer LearnerCorpora, CLC). The research focus of this line is interdisciplinary as a result of the interaction of two disciplines, until a few years ago unrelated: corpus linguistics
(LC) and Second Language Acquisition (ASL) (Granger, 2002). Currently, research on the Corpus of Learners isfocused on the analysis of the interlanguage and the authentic production of learners, achieving increasing benefit in the field of ASL (Granger, 2017).
The articles that make up this thematic section focus on the progress and results of recent or ongoing language learning projects. The studies come from various academic, institutional and geographical contexts and deal with different languages. The corpus of learners onwhich the studies are based are written, oral and multimodal and cover various aspects of the languages under study, from grammatical, discursive to sociopragmatic aspects.
In this research note, I reflect on conducting a qualitative study on trauma and intimate partner violence (IPV), applying an intersectional lens to constructivist grounded theory methodology. I argue that despite offering an ability to critically examine socially constructed categories of identity, and providing a way to ensure the active inclusion of social justice goals into research, intersectionality is underused within social work research. I also reflect on the particular importance of an intersectional lens in countering the previously identified assumptions of sameness underlying IPV and trauma services. From recounting my research process, I discuss recommendations for further intersectional research, and research on trauma. Recommendations include allowing enough time for recruitment and analysis, making visible the researcher’s role, including a participatory element in studies, and ensuring continuous critical and reflexive processing at all research stages.
While there is a vast literature that considers the collection and analysis of qualitative data, there has been limited attention to audio transcription as part of this process. In this paper, I address this gap by discussing the main considerations, challenges and implications of audio transcription for qualitative research on the third sector. I present a framework for conducting audio transcription for researchers and transcribers, as well as recommendations for writing up transcription in qualitative research articles.
This article reflects on the author’s efforts to center friendship and compassion as in research that is highly personal and intimate, as well as on the ways that friendship and compassion, as research values, can sit in tension with university research ethics board (REB) approval processes. The article includes three research case studies to explore how procedural ethics review by REBs overlooks certain types of research harms and obscures the important role of relationships in determining research outcomes. The article concludes with a call for research from the heart.
Aims and objectives:
To provide a snapshot of how vicarious trauma is considered within the published nursing research literature.
Background:
Vicarious trauma (secondary traumatic stress) has been the focus of attention in nursing practice for many years. The most pertinent areas to invoke vicarious trauma in research have been suggested as abuse/violence and death/dying. What is not known is how researchers account for the risks of vicarious trauma in research.
Design:
Focused mapping review and synthesis. Empirical studies meeting criteria for abuse/violence or death/dying in relevant Scopus ranked top nursing journals (n = 6) January 2009 to December 2014.
Methods:
Relevant papers were scrutinised for the extent to which researchers discussed the risk of vicarious trauma. Aspects of the studies were mapped systematically to a pre-defined template, allowing patterns and gaps in authors' reporting to be determined. These were synthesised into a coherent profile of current reporting practices and from this, a new conceptualisation seeking to anticipate and address the risk of vicarious trauma was developed.
Results:
Two thousand five hundred and three papers were published during the review period, of which 104 met the inclusion criteria. Studies were distributed evenly by method (52 qualitative; 51 quantitative; one mixed methods) and by focus (54 abuse/violence; 50 death/dying). The majority of studies (98) were carried out in adult populations. Only two papers reported on vicarious trauma.
Conclusion:
The conceptualisation of vicarious trauma takes account of both sensitivity of the substantive data collected, and closeness of those involved with the research. This might assist researchers in designing ethical and protective research and foreground the importance of managing risks of vicarious trauma.
Relevance to clinical practice:
Vicarious trauma is not well considered in research into clinically important topics. Our proposed framework allows for consideration of these so that precautionary measures can be put in place to minimise harm to staff.
Transcription is an integral process in the qualitative analysis of language data and is widely employed in basic and applied research across a number of disciplines and in professional practice fields. Yet, methodological and theoretical issues associated with the transcription process have received scant attention in the research literature. In this article, the authors present a cross-disciplinary conceptual review of the place of transcription in qualitative inquiry, in which the nature of transcription and the epistemological assumptions on which it rests are considered. The authors conclude that transcription is theory laden; the choices that researchers make about transcription enact the theories they hold and constrain the interpretations they can draw from their data. Because it has implications for the interpretation of research data and for decision making in practice fields, transcription as a process warrants further investigation.
This paper examines the problem of representing a research site in poststructuralist terms, suggesting that “data” often taken for granted cannot be read to represent “reality” or “truth.” The representation of classroom life produced for analysis is both multifaceted and contradictory. The researcher's positioning within the major discourses governing educational practice may have as much influence on what is seen in the classroom as does the researcher's physical positioning within material reality. Rather than being seen as an impediment to ongoing educational research for change, the findings presented offer a challenge to researchers to make explicit their underlying interests and agendas.
The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of qualitative and quantitative research. For this issue, we asked two researchers to discuss the politics of transcription in research in TESOL.
Women's Words is the first collection of writings devoted exclusively to exploring the theoretical, methodological, and practical problems that arise when women utilize oral history as a tool of feminist scholarship. In thirteen multi-disciplin ary esays, the book takes stock of the implicit presuppositions , contradictions, and prospects of oral history at the hands of feminist scholars.
Although speech is often the focus of qualitative research, what is not said may be as revealing as what is said, particularly since what is left out ordinarily far exceeds what is put in. The authors explore several potential interpretations of silence, beginning with a focus on silences embedded in interview transcripts, and how these are perceived and managed by researchers and participants. However, the limitations of interview tran scripts become apparent, and the need for a basis for understanding both silences and talk that is not limited to talk itself invites an examination of the role of context and, more specifically, the many structures of talk and interaction that can only be properly understood from an epistemological, theoretical, and methodological orientation that privileges neither structure nor agency, but the dense interpenetration of the two. Several consequences of such a perspective for the interpretation of silences are highlighted.
Transcription is the general procedure used in studies of discourse to re-present speech as written text. Different notation systems have been proposed, and emphasis is often placed on achieving a high level of precision and accuracy of transcripts. In this article, transcription is treated as an instance of the general problem of the representation of reality that appears in diverse fields, such as photography and the biological and natural sciences. Three studies are examined where alternative transcripts of the same stretch of speech were presented and analyzed. This comparison shows how different transcript formats both reflect and reflexively support theoretical aims and interpretations and serve rhetorical functions. The essential indeterminancy and ambiguity of the relationship be-tween language and meaning, which has emerged from the widespread critique of naive realism, both sets the problem and provides the context within which we can understand transcription as an interpretive practice.
(Sociolinguistics)
Although the use of qualitative methods has increased greatly in popularity, many still question the defensibility of the qualitative orientation. It is argued here that questions concerning the credibility and status of qualitative inquiry are related to the privatization of qualitative analysis. The particular area of qualitative analysis I focus on is the process of category development. It is my argument that qualitative researchers must make all aspects of their analysis open to public inspection. In order to achieve this objective, I propose a two-dimensional model designed to facilitate the documentation of procedures used to generate categories. The domain representing the first dimension specifies the various components or actions associated with the development of categories. The second domain addresses the temporal aspects of category development. The intersection of these two analytical domains forms a two-dimensional table that may be used to document the nature of the analytical actions employed in a given study. An empirical example is presented with the intention of illustrating the utility of the approach. The implications of this approach, and some possible criticisms, are considered.
Focus groups are widely used in the field of public health as a quick, low-cost means of obtaining information from selected groups in the target population for programmatic purposes. Much has been written about techniques for conducting focus groups, but there is limited practical information on systematic analysis of the results. The current article outlines three methods of recording information from focus groups onto paper, as well as three techniques for condensing hours of free-flowing discussion into a readable article that accurately reflects the main points of the focus group discussions. The value of using microcomputers in organizing the focus group information is also discussed.
Questions about the proper preparation in research methodologies of doctoral students in education are again on the front burner, fed by deepening skepticism about the value of educational research as well as a revived “paradigms war” and broad criticism of the state of graduate education. Faculty struggle to decide whether or not to require all doctoral students to study both quantitative and qualitative research methods, regardless of students’ diverse talents, interests, and career aspirations. Should students be required to “appreciate” both methodologies or to be able to use both? How should research methodologies be taught, and what proportion of doctoral study should they occupy? This article describes the processes and circumstances in which the faculty in a school of education at a research university grappled with these questions and, in time, significantly redesigned its doctoral curriculum. Although the faculty’s experience is necessarily particular, their engagement in practical reasoning, local knowledge, and local politics may, as an instance of curriculum deliberation, inform reflections on graduate preparation in other schools of education.
The recent development of high-quality voice recognition software greatly facilitates the production of transcriptions for research and allows for objective and full transcription as well as annotated interpretation. Commercial speech recognition programs that are appropriate for generating transcriptions are available from a number of vendors, with varying degrees of difficulty in use. There are two fundamental approaches to using speech recognition to produce transcriptions: (1) real-time; and (2) batch. The real-time approach uses speech recognition while the interview is in progress; the batch approach relies on an audio recording to make it possible to process several interviews in a batch. The use of speech transcription still requires the use of a human transcriptionist, and the best that can be achieved for transcription speed is a mere doubling of the interview time. However, when the user is not a skilled typist, considerable savings of time can be achieved. If a researcher finds voice recognition software to be superior to conventional typing approaches for transcribing interviews, he or she is likely to find it useful for other tasks as well. (Contains 21 references.) (SLD)
Since the emergence of qualitative research in education, research interviewing has been naively accepted as a reasonably straightforward method for gathering information. Even Lincoln and Guba's ground‐breaking postpositivist work, Naturalistic Inquiry (1985), largely treated interviewing in this manner. More recently, other postpositivists, such as Mishler (1986), have criticized the traditional approach to interviewing and suggested new ways to conduct and understand the research interview. But these latter postpositivists still retain thoroughly modernist assumptions that they embed in their reconstructions of research interviewing. This paper presents, in contrast, a postmodernist perspective that critiques both positivist and postpositivist characterizations of interviewing. This paper also shows how one aspect of interviewing – the power relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee — might be reconceptualized within a postmodernist perspective. The paper ends with a call for appreciation of and support for new imaginaries of interviewing.
The focus for this paper evolved out of doctoral research conducted by the author with incarcerated women attending a prison school. During that project, she hired an assistant to transcribe audiotapes of interviews, participant observations, and field notes. In this paper, one context‐specific case is used to examine the complexities of transcription work involving a person other than the researcher. Lave and Wenger's (1991) “legitimate peripheral participation” serves as an analytical framework to explore the learning experienced by both researcher and transcriber as a result of their co‐participation in the project. Transcripts of four interviews conducted with the transcriber provide the basis for the investigation. The findings disrupt simplistic notions of the transcription process and show how peripheral participation can lead to educational experiences for those involved.
The group interview has been overlooked by social researchers in general and by ethnographic investigators in particular. Their preference has been for the individual interview. Group interviews can be formal with a specific, structured purpose such as a marketing focus group, or, it can be informal taking place in a field setting where a researcher stimulates a group discussion with a topical question. The data generated can be instrumental and factual, or, it can be subjective and qualitative. Researchers can use group interviews as a more efficient use of resources and as a means of adding valuable insight to the interpretation of a social or behavioral event. On the cautionary side, lessons from group dynmics tell us that the characteristics of the group (e.g. size) and background of members (e.g. leadership style) can impact the interaction and response patterns within the group. Still, the group interview has great potential for social research.
The importance of ensuring that interview or focus group transcripts are close to "verbatim" accounts of what transpired is widely acknowledged, but seems more often a tacit assumption than an empirically verified assertion. In fact, there appears to have been rather little discussion in the literature regarding the need to routinely review the quality of transcripts before undertaking the analysis of textual data in qualitative research. Establishing the trustworthiness of the transcripts would appear to be a fundamental component of rigor in qualitative research, although it is rarely mentioned in this context. In this article, several potential sources and types of threats to transcrip tion quality are reviewed. A number of suggestions are made for minimizing (avoiding, detecting, and remedying) these, although it is acknowledged that "error" itselfis socially constructed and open to multiple interpretations. It is suggested that an assessment of the trustworthiness of transcripts be routine practice in qualitative research.
Focus groups: Theory and practice. London: Sage. ten Have, P. (1990) Methodological issues in conversation analysis Transcription work: Learning through co-participation in research
- D Stewart
- P N Shamdasani
Stewart, D., & Shamdasani, P. N. (1990). Focus groups: Theory and practice. London: Sage. ten Have, P. (1990). Methodological issues in conversation analysis. Retrieved July 9, 2003, from http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/emca/mica.htm Tilley, S. A. (in press). Transcription work: Learning through co-participation in research. QSE: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
The myth of the objective transcript: Transcribing as a situated act
- J Green
- M Franquiz
- C Dixon
Green, J., Franquiz, M., & Dixon, C. (1997). The myth of the objective transcript: Transcribing as a situated act. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 172-176.
Reading a different classroom scene
- J Reid
- B Kamler
- A Simpson
- R Maclean
Reid, J., Kamler, B., Simpson, A., & Maclean, R. (1996). "Do you see what I see?" Reading a different classroom scene. QSE: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in
Education, 9, 87-108.
Methodological issues in conversation analysis
- D Stewart
- P N Shamdasani
Stewart, D., & Shamdasani, P. N. (1990). Focus groups: Theory and practice. London: Sage.
ten Have, P. (1990). Methodological issues in conversation analysis. Retrieved July 9, 2003,
from http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/emca/mica.htm