Rose Wiles, Andrew Bengry-Howell, Graham Crow, Melanie Nind

1. Innovations In Qualitative MethodsThe challenge of studying contemporary innovation in qualitative methodsESA, Geneva 7th-10th September 2011 Rose Wiles, Andrew Bengry-Howell, Graham Crow, Melanie Nind

2. Increasing interest in methodological innovation in qualitative methods • Expectation of funders and publishers • Innovation central to ensuring competitive and high impact social science and the future of social science disciplines (and individual’s careers)? • Importance of identifying methods to address new social and economic challenges and patterns of social interaction; perceived danger of methods ‘standing still’ • Review of qual papers in methods journals 2000-2009 (Wiles et al, 2011) found a rapid increase in innovation claims over the period • Innovation part of ‘progress narrative’ (Alasuutari, 2007) or latest ‘fads’ (Travers, 2009)

3. Challenges in researching innovation • How to define innovation? • How to explore the process of development of an innovation and its impact and uptake? • How to identify the originator of an innovation? • How to assess the usefulness of an innovation? • How to identify why some innovations ‘take off’ while others do not?

4. To address these questions - 3 case studies of established innovations • Criteria: • Been in existence for some time to allow for take up • In broad areas identified as sites for innovation in previous study • Been identified as innovations • Have specific individual associated with their development • Qualitative methods Methods: • interviews with developer of the method/approach • Interviews with users, reviewers and established academics • Systematic literature review of academic response to innovations

5. The Cases Online/Virtual ethnography … Netnography Robert Kozinets Creative methods … ‘making things’ + Lego Serious Play David Gauntlett Child-led research … Children as Researchers Mary Kellett

6. Innovation claims • ‘A pioneer of the method of netnography’ (institutional website); ‘netnography is something that is new and different’ (netnography online forum); an innovation that crosses boundaries (Xenitidou & Gilbert, 2009) • ‘pioneered the use of creative and visual research methods’ (institutional website) ‘innovative visual enquiry’ (Prosser, 2011) • ‘A new paradigm’ (Kellett, 2005); ‘an inspirational and innovative programme’ (book blurb)

7. Academic response to innovations • Systematic search for citations in social science databases 1999-2010 • All acknowledged by the SS community (and some take-up) Netnography – 138 citations; 42% apply the method; 76% MBS; evidence of global spread but mostly in specific disciplines of MBS. Creative Research Methods – 37 citations; 76% referred/referenced or discussed the method; media and communication studies but also other SS; 51% UK based but some international recognition (EU, Australasia). Child-led research – 76 citations; 80% referred/referenced the method; citations across SS disciplines; 71% UK based but some international recognition (North America and Australasia).

8. The process of development and impact • Timeliness …Why this why now? The right method for the right time • The developmental process: from development to legitimation … necessity is the mother of invention • Marketing to ensure recognition and impact: strategies to encourage acceptance and uptake

9. Timeliness of innovation

10. Robert Kozinets - Netnography Changed worldDevelopment of Internet/social media Cultural shift The way human beings form culture & community & interactions changed because of technology Necessity Adapt research methods/techniques to online context Opportunity To access/utilise new forms of cultural data; explore new social environment; overcome methodological problems e.g., data overload, ethical issues; step-by-step approach

11. Mary Kellett – Child-led research Changed world Global uptake in children’s rights (UNCRC); participation agenda Cultural shiftGovernments/populations more receptive to children’s rights/agency than ever before in history NecessityTo give children a valid research voice not mediated by adults; encourage/support children’s agency OpportunityNew forms of knowledge; deeper understandings of children’s lives/perspectives; insider-perspective on childhood.

12. David Gauntlett – Creative Methods Changed world Interest in identity and how people manage and demonstrate identity; interest in arts based approaches as way to explore identity Cultural shift Increasing interest in creative methodologies, visual research; participatory methods Necessity Problem: language-based methods – participants expected to have formed opinion/generate instant responses; different capacities to articulate; questions reliability/validity of findings Opportunity ‘making things’ as part of reflective research process; Generate richer/more valid & reliable data: ‘what people really think’; useful for people with limited language skills; ethical research practice

13. Process of development and acceptance • Organic process: ‘I didn’t set out to invent method’ (RK); ‘accidental discovery’ (DG) ‘I wanted to empower children and was given the opportunity to do research I wanted to do’ (MK) • Support, encouragement and championing – ‘big names’; senior colleagues; established professors; academic champions: ‘you should definitely keep doing that’ (RK); ‘empowering professor’ (MK) • A journey – from ‘abyss of cynicism’ (MK) to ‘academic legitimation’ (RK); addressing critiques; theoretical bolstering; dissemination

14. Strategies for constituting/preserving the innovation • Coining a distinctive name • Set of procedures to be followed/clear procedural guidelines (RK); stage-process (DG); specific training programme (MK) • Books (training manuals) • Teaching method to students and others; business clients (RK); comprehensive training programme for children and adults (MK); workshops: learn about the process by doing (DG) • Websites, blogs, social media - being ‘out there’ (RK, DG)

15. Factors impacting on engagement/uptake • Time • Timeliness • Accessibility and feasibilty of uptake • Maturity of innovation • Dissemination and marketing

16. Conclusions • Identify some aspects of the social processes of development of innovations and explanations for uptake • Claims to distinctiveness problematic • Affordance of methods/approaches hard to evaluate • Durability hard to assess

17. ‘no one would dispute that qualitative research is a consumer product and has to be marketed to mass audiences, nor that as researchers we need to demonstrate innovation in grant proposals, and in other activities and that these organizational and cultural pressures have intensified in recent times…This, however, still leaves a number of questions both about the nature of innovation in qualitative research and about how one should respond…It also raises the question of … how to assess new developments and advances.” Travers (2009)