vprilenska - Blog

12 useful books and articles on qualitative research methods

Sat, 02 May 2020 07:35:00 +0000

This blog post is intended for PhD students, who are in the first year of their studies, and have not been involved in the qualitative research before, as well as for those switching from studies of technical and applied nature, such as architecture, to the studies of sociological and theoretical nature, like urban studies and planning. The blogpost provides an overview of some essential books and articles on qualitative research methods, which are the MUST read upon commencing your research journey.

The books and articles on research methodology will illuminate your path towards the appropriate research design. Research design is the foundation of your research, which determines the quality of the inquiry and its findings in terms of reliability and validity. I recommend you to start with at least one book, which gives a general overview of accepted research methods, and continue with a few books and articles, which focus on a specific research method of your choice. I, also, recommend you to register on web platforms ResearchGate and Academia, as through these platforms you are able to download a lot of publications, which are usually available solely through the university library. Bearing in mind, that books on research methods are quite expensive and that PhD students are always short of money, I have provided the links to the web platforms, from where you can download some books and articles on research methods for free in the electronic format.

1) Saunders, Mark, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill, “Research methods for Business Students” (book, 5th edition, 2009, available from Academia).

The must read book, which provides a short and clear overview of research design process, from shaping your research topic and reviewing the literature to research philosophy, strategies (or approaches), data collection and analysis techniques. Although the book is long, it is an easy reading intended for undergraduate students (and used by graduate students) with multiple examples. Furthermore, it is not necessary to read the whole book, but rather a selection of chapters, which are relevant for your research. The essential chapters, in my opinion, are: chapter 3 on reviewing the literature, chapter 4 on research philosophy and chapter 5 on research design.

2) Creswell, John W., “Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches” (book, 3rd edition, 2013, available from Academia).

This is a classic book on qualitative research methods in sociology, which focuses on narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic and case studies. The highlight of the book is chapter 11, where the author describes how one and the same phenomenon is tackled by each of the five aforementioned research approaches.

3) Mason, Jennifer, “Qualitative Researching” (book, 2nd edition, 2002, available here)

While other authors distinguish between qualitative and quantitative research methods, as well as differentiate research strategies (or approaches), Mason adapts holistic and flexible way of researching. Mason suggests, that qualitative research benefits from some quantitative input and vice versa, thus, advocating for mixing methods. Instead of classifying research strategies (and approaches), Mason focuses on data collection and analysis techniques, such as interviews, observations and visual representations (photographs, videos, spatial organisation, “cognitive maps”, etc.). I find Mason’s approach and, specifically, her focus on visual representations, quite useful for planning research.

4) Mason, Jeniffer (2006) “Mixing methods in a qualitatively driven way” (article, 2006, available from SAGE Journals)

In her article Mason explains, how does qualitative research benefit from mixing methods, encouraging the researcher to think “outside the box”, build the relationships between macro theories and micro interactions and experiences, as well as extend and complement the logic of enquiry through cross-contextual comparisons. This inspiring article will support your arguments for choosing a mixed method approach.

5) Creswell, John, and Vicki L. Plano Clark, “Designing and Conducting Mixed Method Research” (ebook, 3rd edition, 2018, available from here; chapter 3 of the book is available from SAGE).

This book elaborates on the design and application of mixed methods, taking Mason’s arguments further. The authors explore the relationships between qualitative and qualitative methods, as well as the organisation of the mixed method research, introducing the notions of convergent, sequential, embedded, transformative and multiphase research design (chapter 3).

6) Charmaz, Kathy, “Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis” (book, 1st edition, 2006, available from here).

One of the research strategies (or approaches) within qualitative research is referred to as Grounded Theory. This is a holistic research strategy, which guides you from framing your research questions, through data collection and analysis procedures, to writing and presenting your findings. This strategy aims to develop the theory from the data and usually draws upon the array of 20-30 lengthy interviews with the actors experiencing the phenomenon in question. There are several approaches towards Grounded Theory, which are elaborated in Saunders et al. (1) and Creswell (2). Charmaz advocates for a flexible, “subjective”, approach, which reveals the multiplicity and diversity of realities experienced by the actors and, in her own terms, is somewhat “suggestive, incomplete and inconclusive”.

7) Corbin, Juliet, and Anselm Strauss, “Grounded Theory Research: Procedures, Canons, and Evaluative Criteria” (article, 1990, available from Springer Link; the book of 2015 is available here).

Corbin and Strauss represent a rigid and “objective” approach towards Grounded Theory, suggesting the frame for coding procedures culminating into the conditional matrix, which enables to identify micro and macro conditions shaping the phenomenon in question. The aforementioned article offers a sneak preview into their approach and there is, also, a book on the same topic (it is merely about Grounded Theory, rather than about qualitative research, as the title suggests).

8) Wolfswinkel, Joost F., Elfi Furtmueller and Celeste P. M. Wilderom, “Using grounded theory as a method for rigorously reviewing literature” (article, 2011, available from ResearchGate).

Almost every research (except for Grounded Theory) in contemporary academia starts with reviewing the literature. However, there is little guidance on how to conduct the review, summarise and report the findings. Wolfswinkel et al. suggest an approach, based on the Grounded Theory of Strauss & Corbin, pursuing the systematic and transparent inquiry into the published research, which builds on and extends the existing theory. I highly recommend you to go through the article before (or while) reviewing the literature, as this approach will help you to produce a rigorous and meaningful review worth of the journal publication.

9) Yin, Robert K., “Case Study Research: Design and Methods” (book, 5th edition, 2014, available from here).

One of the most popular approaches (or strategies) in planning research is case studies. It is a method of inquiry, allowing you to understand the relationships between the phenomenon and its context, as well as to use multiple data sources, collection and analysis techniques. The classic books by Yin, continuously republished and cited, will guide you through designing and conducting the case studies.

10) Flyvbjerg, Bent, “Case Study” (book chapter, 2011, available from Academia)

An exemplary case study in urban studies was conducted by Flyvbjerg and resulted into a book “Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice” (book chapter, 2003, available from ResearchGate), where the author examines the Aalborg city planning initiative and interprets it as a metaphor of modernity. In his short article on case studies Flyvbjerg debunks the misunderstandings about case studies and argues, that the case study approach is useful for “generating and testing hypothesis”, and, also, may drive the development of scientific theories, as in the case of famous experiment with the falling coin and feather inside the vacuum tube.

11) Coghlan, David, and Teresa Brannick, “Doing Action Research in Your Organisation” (book, 2nd edition, 2005, available from here).

If you are planning to research the domain of community engagement (aka public participation, civic involvement, etc.), then I recommend you to consider the action research, also, referred to as “live case study”. It is a research approach, where researcher works in collaboration with other actors, pursuing to change current practices. If you are unsure about the relevance of action research to your topic or do not feel like reading the whole book, then you may go through a short article on the same topic by Coughlan, Paul, and David Coghlan, “Action Research for Operations Management” (article, 2002, available from ResearchGate).

12) Groat, Linda, and David Wang, “Architectural Research Methods” (book, 2nd edition, 2013, available from here).

The last, but not least, the book, which explores research methods, specific to the domain of architecture. It includes chapters on qualitative research and case studies, as well as on quasi-experiments and simulations.

Wishing you an insight rich PhD journey!

Games for better participation in urban planning

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:46:00 +0000

Games entered the planning domain in the 1960s. Early games focused on simulating the relationship between urban policies and regulations, land-uses, population dynamics, infrastructures and ecology (e.g. CLUG by Allan Feldt and Metropolis by Richard Duke). In the course of development, games diversified their repertoire, focusing, among other topics, on participatory design and planning (e.g. Design Games by Henry Sanoff). Games, which pursue involving stakeholders in all sorts of participation exercises are referred to in the current article as “participatory games”. Due to their structured goal-oriented nature, fairness and transparency ensuing from the rules, games are capable of becoming efficient participation methods at certain planning phases. The post provides a summary of the article on potential applications of participatory games in planning. The full article is available at the author’s Research Gate profile.

Crowdsourcing games

Increasing global connectivity and digital literacy among all social groups gave rise to online crowdsourcing games, which enable sourcing and sharing geo-referenced content, such as images and text. Online crowdsourcing games employ either web platforms (e.g. CommunityPlanIt!), or applications for mobile devices (e.g. Täsä). Provided the Internet connection, online tools enable sharing content any time and from any location, for instance, while waiting for a bus at the bus stop, thus, reaching out to larger number of participants (e.g., 1,043 players in Community PlanIt! game in Detroit and 780 players in Täsä game in Turku) and involving the usually underrepresented groups, such as young adults. The players' experiences of the environment captured through online crowdsourcing games can potentially contribute to the knowledge base for the forthcoming spatial plans and policies.

Data generation games

As as spin-off of the core activity, which is outlined in the game narrative, location-based leisure activities and games generate planning relevant data. If correlated with other GIS data, the generated data may provide insights into various topics, such as outdoor recreation preferences (Geocaching), hyperlocal places (Ingress), public space qualities (Pokémon Go), and places of interest for the youth (Urban Shaper. Data generation games are potentially useful in the context of decreasing participation rates, as well as while stated and actual preferences about the environment diverge.

Pervasive games

Games, which transcend the boundaries of the game, the “magic circle”, and invade into public spaces or involve outsiders, are referred to as “pervasive”. The interest in “pervasiveness” in relation to participation was fuelled by the success of commercial location-based leisure activities and games, discussed in the previous section. Non-commercial pervasive games, designed for participatory purposes, vary from multi-player to single-player games. Multi-player games, such as Big Urban Game and ZWERM, transform the public space into playground, pursuing community building and awareness raising about urban issues. Single-player games, like Geo-Zombie and Change Explorer, encourage certain location-based actions, aiming to collect spatial data, as well as to attract new participants by means of game elements.

Deliberative games

Communication in traditional participatory methods, such as surveys and public hearings, is usually limited to one- and two-way information exchange, where participants state their positions. Furthermore, such interactions are usually unstructured and dominated by the narratives of the vociferous individuals or groups. Due to their regulated nature, board games foster structured small-group deliberation between players enabling dialogue building and diversification of narratives (e.g. Community Conversational). Role-play games, in turn, encourage players to take on unusual roles, thus, practicing the art of reasoning and arguing from the perspective, which is different from their own (e.g. Play Noord). The latter enables players to transcend the boundaries of their positions and develop empathy towards alternative perspectives.

Educational games

A share of participatory games focuses on education with no intention to produce planning related outcomes. In-game learning represents a set of progressive challenges with continuous support and instant customised feedback enabling active learning (or learning by doing), which is believed to be more efficient than passive learning (e.g. lecturing). Games provide space for experimentation, which allows exploring a range of choices and their ramifications without facing real-life undesirable consequences in case of failure and receiving in-game reward in case of success. Participation games may play out real-life situations by setting challenges and modelling possible responses, and, thus, prepare players for real-life action (e.g. Water Management Game).

Co-designed games

Participatory games usually create frameworks for collective design activities, but rarely invite players to shape these frameworks. Traditional literature on game design advocates for a completed unambiguous set of rules as a prerequisite for any game. Emerging literature on game design explores the opportunities for game co-design. The latter, arguably, aligns games with players’ preferences, mitigates the knowledge gaps (especially, if a game tackles controversial issues) and enables civic learning. Game co-design sessions encourage players to play around with a barebones game prototype, populating it with narratives and rules (e.g. Energy Safari, City Makers, Participation Game). It is essential, that co-design sessions involve either perspective players or players with relevant professional knowledge.

Games throughout the planning cycle

To sum up, participatory games exhibit potential to be applied in all planning phases, from initiation to maintenance. In the initiation phase games may source information from the residents, thus, building the foundation for the forthcoming plan or policy. In the design phase games may aid in developing and negotiating planning decisions through deliberation. By fostering community cohesion, games may shape actor networks, which facilitate implementation of plans and policies, as well as the maintenance of new public spaces. Furthermore, through education and co-design games enable understanding, questioning and reshaping current planning concepts, leading to the more efficient planning and participation in the future.