Combining a Naturalistic and Theoretical Q Sample Approach: An Empirical Research Illustration

An important step in any Q-methodological study is the identification of the concourse and the development of the Q set. Inspired by the writings of William Stephenson (1953) and Steven Brown (1980) about the development of the Q set, we illustrate how two different approaches to Q sampling, naturalistic and theoretical, may be combined. We draw on examples from a Q study scrutinizing adolescents’ subjective viewpoints about collaboration and participation in interprofessional teams. The example is used to illustrate how naturalistic and theoretical approaches to Q sampling may be combined in the same research design. The Concourse Box is introduced as a new tool to help visualize these joint contributions. Keywords: adolescents, concourse, Concourse Box, Q sampling, theoretical and naturalistic sampling.publishedVersio

Methodological Pluralism in Theory and in Practice: The Case for Q in the Community

In this article, we discuss the issue of methodological pluralism in qualitative research and in particular the case of Q methodology. Q methodology occupies an interesting position in arguments around methodological pluralism in that its location within qualitative (as well as quantitative) traditions has often been represented as a contestable issue. To contextualise our exploration of qualitative methodological pluralism, we will begin by presenting the theoretical questions we see as relevant to the mixing of Q method with other qualitative methods, including Q's own contested positioning within this grouping. This strand of our argument highlights continuities between some conceptualisations of the pattern analytics of Q methodology and discursive and thematic analysis. To ground this point, we present an empirical study that used both Q methodology and thematic analysis to address an issue in the community. More specifically, we will describe how Q methodology and thematic analysis were used to approach the evaluation of a programme to reduce recidivism amongst offenders and thus offer practical solutions in an applied setting. We will conclude by reflecting on the possibilities of pluralism when methodological boundaries are understood as mobile, and when stability of boundary construction is conceptualised as relationally produced rather than pre-existing

Methodological Pluralism in Theory and in Practice: The Case for Q in the Community

In this article, we discuss the issue of methodological pluralism in qualitative research and in particular the case of Q methodology. Q methodology occupies an interesting position in arguments around methodological pluralism in that its location within qualitative (as well as quantitative) traditions has often been represented as a contestable issue. To contextualise our exploration of qualitative methodological pluralism, we will begin by presenting the theoretical questions we see as relevant to the mixing of Q method with other qualitative methods, including Q's own contested positioning within this grouping. This strand of our argument highlights continuities between some conceptualisations of the pattern analytics of Q methodology and discursive and thematic analysis. To ground this point, we present an empirical study that used both Q methodology and thematic analysis to address an issue in the community. More specifically, we will describe how Q methodology and thematic analysis were used to approach the evaluation of a programme to reduce recidivism amongst offenders and thus offer practical solutions in an applied setting. We will conclude by reflecting on the possibilities of pluralism when methodological boundaries are understood as mobile, and when stability of boundary construction is conceptualised as relationally produced rather than pre-existing

Trans-Actions in Music

While efforts to grapple with questions about the nature of music-listener relations have seen some welcome developments since the turn of the millennium—especially, in music sociology, through DeNora’s work on everyday consumption and Hennion’s analyses of taste—even in the most interactionist and pragmatist of these accounts, there remain enduring traces of a certain substantialism in respect of both ‘the music’ and its ‘listeners’. In setting Dewey and Bentley’s trans-actional approach, along with further elements of Dewey’s intellectual edifice (specifically his concepts of ‘inquiry’, ‘habit’ and ‘imagination’), into dialogue with current debates in music sociology, this chapter considers the potential value of thinking in terms of ‘musical trans-action’. As will be seen, although such an approach may be seen to diminish the grounds for proposing regularities, patterns or generalizations on the part of scholars and analysts, the more modest and realistic approach encouraged by thinking in terms of trans-action nonetheless offers a pathway beyond some of the limitations inscribed in residually substantialist inter-actional approaches, encouraging the transcendence of some established orthodoxies and opening the field out onto new sets of concerns