Research During COVID-19: Precision Versus Indication

Most sectors of the economy came to a standstill due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown in India and elsewhere. Conducting research in normal circumstances is very different from researching in a pandemic situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic the world has faced recently. The present essay attempts to spell out the methodological challenges—precision versus indication—encountered in research undertaken by the authors in three very unique circumstances.

L'intime au bout du fil. Enjeux méthodologiques de l'entretien biographique à distance

Résumé. La pandémie de la COVID-19 et la crise sanitaire et sociale qui en a découlé ont encouragé la conduite d'entretiens semi-directifs par téléphone ou par visioconférence. À partir de trois enquêtes réalisées par des jeunes femmes portant sur l'intime et ayant recours aux entretiens biographiques, cette note méthodologique examine les façons dont l'entretien à distance transforme la nature des matériaux collectés et recompose ce taisant le mode de production de connaissances sociologiques. Elle montre que le distanciel renouvelle les profils sociaux accessibles en ouvrant la voie à des configurations inédites. Elle donne également à voir les atouts de ce dispositif pour accéder à l'intériorité du sujet et souligne son potentiel dans les cas où des positions asymétrlques entre enquêteur/rice et enquêté·e dans les rapports de pouvolr (en particulier de genre) sont susceptibles d'entraver la relation d'enquête, risquant dès lors d'appauvrir les connaissances produites.Alternate :The COVID-19 pandemic and the health and social crisis it caused led researchers to conduct semi-directive interviews either by telephone or videoconferencing. On the basis of three surveys on intimate personal matters conducted by young women and requiring life history interviews, this methodological assessment examines the ways in which remote interviewing of these kinds changes the nature of the material collected and in so doing rearranges the sociological knowledge production mode. It shows how remote interviewing renews accessible social profiles by opening a path to previously unknown configurations. It also shows the advantages of this arrangement for accessing the subject's inner thoughts, feelings, and processes, and highlights its potential for cases where asymmetrical interviewer/respondent power positions (particularly gender positions) are likely to hinder interviewer-respondent rapport, risking an impoverishment of the knowledge produced.Alternate :Die COVID-19-Pandemie und die damit entstandene Sanitäts- und Sozialkrise haben die Leitfadengespräche über Telefon oder Videokonferenz gefördert. Ausgehend von drei von jungen Frauen durchgeführten Untersuchungen zur Intimsphäre anhand von biographischen Gesprächen prüft diese methodologische Notiz, wie das Ferngespräch die Art der gesammelten Materialen verändert und dabei den Produktionsmodus von soziologischen Kenntnissen neugestaltet. Sie zeigt, dass das Distanzgespräch die erreichbaren Sozialprofile erneuert, indem der Weg zu bisher nicht vorhandenen Konfigurationen geöffnet wird. Sie zeigt außerdem alle Pluspunkte dieser Vorgangsweise zur Erreichung der Interiorität des Subjekts und unterstreicht ihr Potential in den Fällen, in denen die asymmetrischen Positionen zwischen Befrager und Befragten innerhalb der Machtbeziehungen (besonders Gender) möglicherweise die Befragungsbeziehung einschränken und somit die produzierten Kenntnisse verringern könnten.Alternate :La pandemia de COVID-19 y la crisis sanitaria y social que ha derivado de ella han llevado a la realización de entrevistas semi-directivas por teléfono o por cia. A partir de encuestas que llevaron très mujeres jóvenes acerca de lo íntimo y que se basaban en entrevistas biográficas, nuestra nota metodológica observa de qué manera la entrevista a distancia transforma la naturaleza del material colectado y por lo tanto reorganiza el modo de producción de conocimientos sociológicos. Muestra que la comunicación a distancia renueva los perfiles sociales accesibles al posibilitar configuraciones inéditas. También revela las ventajas del dispositivo para acceder a la interioridad del sujeto y subraya su potencial en los casos en los que posiciones asimétricas entre investigador a y encuestado a en las relaciones de poder (en particular de género) podrían frenar la relación de investigación y así empobrecer los saberes producidos.

Frailty goes viral: a critical discourse analysis of COVID-19 national clinical guidelines in the United Kingdom

This paper explores how the rationing of medical care for older people by frailty score was justified and operationalised in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was expected to overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. In March 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published the ‘COVID-19 rapid guideline: critical care in adults', which advised that clinicians use the Clinical Frailty Score (CFS) to inform decisions about which patients over the age of 65 should be offered ventilatory support. We present a Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis of this guidance and the supporting online resources. Analysis shows how the guidance merchandises the CFS as a quick and easy-to-use technology that reduces social and physical complexity into a clinical score. This stratifies older people by frailty score and permits the allocation of resources along these lines. We show how this is justified through epidemiological discourses of risk, which are merged with the language of individual mortality prediction. We discuss the proceduralisation of the CFS alongside a growing body of research that problematises its application in resource allocation. We argue that the pandemic has increased the use of the concept of frailty and that this effectively obfuscates the concept's limitations and ambiguities;the ageism implicit in the response to COVID-19 in the UK;and the relative resource scarcity facing the UK's NHS.

Imposter Participants: Overcoming Methodological Challenges Related to Balancing Participant Privacy with Data Quality When Using Online Recruitment and Data Collection

In this paper we describe the lessons learned when untrustworthy participants were included in a qualitative interview study. In online research, participants can more easily misrepresent their identity and volunteer for studies even if they do not meet inclusion criteria. The term imposter participant refers to dishonest participants who completely fake their identities or simply exaggerate their experiences in order to participate in qualitative studies. Untrustworthy participants are a threat to data quality, yet little has been published on how qualitative researchers should prevent and handle this unique methodological challenge. In this paper, we provide a detailed account of how specific issues with the research design create methodological challenges related to participant honesty when participants self-identify as meeting study inclusion criteria and participate in a virtual interview. Through our experiences as a doctoral student and dissertation supervisor, we offer lessons learned relating to recruiting online participants, collecting virtual interview data, and analyzing data for a qualitative study. Our experiences and reflections might help other qualitative researchers, including doctoral candidates and their supervising committees, work with internal review boards to prevent imposter participants and thereby contribute to the trustworthiness of their research.

Calais Again

Calais Again is a digital story recounting a young man, Anas’ experience of returning to France for the first time after migrating to the United Kingdom as a separated asylum-seeking child. Produced using biographical narrative and participatory arts-based research approaches, Calais Again was created as a rare self-authored contribution to Anas’ personal archive of migration documents, and as a resource for communicating the multiple and multi-layered journeys of asylum-seeking young people. In the context of COVID-19, the story additionally highlights how the pandemic is just one of many forces of ontological insecurity and constrained mobility in the lives of young forced migrants. While the project was commenced pre-pandemic, the editing and launch of the digital story took place remotely, presenting ethical, methodological and relational challenges, but also unanticipated affordances. In particular, the spectrum of options for differentiated presence enabled by online events – from anonymous observation to co-presentation – offers unique opportunities for navigating safeguarding and agency for youth researchers.

How Does the Error from Sampling to Big Data Change?

In this article the authors aim to present a series of considerations, regarding the research carried out in the last 8 years, which starting from Big Data have posed different methodological problems related on the one hand to sampling and on the other to the conception of error in the scientific field. More precisely, the contribution will be divided into two macro areas of discussion. In the first part we will discuss sampling, with particular attention to break-offs and drop-outs and the relative response and cooperation rates, in order to understand how much these rates can still be valid in web 2.0 contexts. But at the same time we should ask whether it still makes sense to speak of probability sampling when in the hard sciences only a few cases are used in experiments, often less than a hundred. Further reflections concern the determination of a statistical representativeness which, especially online, can sometimes be overcome by an effective sociological representativeness. The second part of the contribution will be devoted to the discussion regarding biases and how the error can bring a series of further complexities in a pandemic reality. In this regard, the authors are convinced that an interpretative turning point must be made in the discussion that takes place around the error considered in the "science of discovery".

How Can the Post-COVID-19 Economy of Turkey Help to Improve Gender Equality?

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but it is also necessary for a peaceful society, the attainment of full human potential, and long-term progress. It can also play a significant role in the growth of any modern economy. Therefore, it is critical to realize that men and women may both contribute to societal growth. A holistic approach, sound policies, and long-term commitment by all levels of government are essential for women's empowerment to become a reality. In addition, gender equality must be a priority in developing national policies and initiatives. Despite improvements in Turkish women's social, political, and economic lives, women's empowerment has yet to be attained. This research explores the position of women in school and the labor market in Turkey before and after the emergence of COVID-19. The research highlights the problems and opportunities that women regarding participating in the Turkish economy.Alternate :Toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliği yalnızca temel bir insan hakkı değil, aynı zamanda barışçıl bir toplum, insan potansiyelini tam kullanım ve uzun vadeli gelişmenin bir koşuludur. Bu nedenle, bir ekonominin gelişmesinde kilit bir rol oynayabilir. Erkeklerin ve kadınların sosyal kalkınmaya eşit derecede katkıda bulunabilecekleri gerçeğini benimsemek bu yüzden oldukça önemlidir. Kadınların güçlendirilmesinin gerçekleşmesi için bütüncül yaklaşım, sağlam politikalar ve uzun vadeli özveri gerekmektedir. Ayrıca, uygulanması hedeflenen ulusal politika ve programlar geliştirilirken, toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliği öncelikli olarak gözetilmelidir. Türk kadınının sosyal, siyasi ve ekonomik hayatındaki gelişmelere rağmen güçlendirmeleri henüz istenilen noktaya ulaşamamıştır. Bu çalışma, Türkiye'de Korona Virüsünün bir diğer adıyla Covid-19'un ortaya çıkmasından önce ve sonra kadınların eğitim ve işgücü piyasasındaki durumunu incelemektedir. Kadınların Türkiye ekonomisine katılımına ilişkin zorluklar ve fırsatlar analiz edilmektedir.

De la comunicación académica al discurso político en torno al COVID-19, en las ciencias políticas

En el presente documento se ofrece un estudio exploratorio de la crisis generada por la pandemia coronavirus (Covid-19), desde la comunicación académica al discurso político. La situación crisis mundial ha puesto en vigencia el ambiente problemático en cuanto a políticas-sociales, en un contexto de comunicación global cada vez más complejo. El propósito del trabajo es analizar la comunicación académica al discurso político en torno a Covid-19 en las ciencias políticas. La metodología de la investigación aborda el problema y busca posibles respuestas mediante métodos mixtos;seleccionando artículos académicos desde diversas bases de datos de la Core Collection - Web of Science y Scopus. Como resultado se obtiene de la aplicación de dos software, que el VOSviewer, mediante títulos y resúmenes de 12 artículos, excluyendo etiquetas de estructura y declaraciones de derechos de autor, logró identificar 411 términos, reducidos a 73 con restricción de 2 ocurrencias, donde la coocurrencia de términos se agrupa en 6 clusters;y, con el software Atlati9, se observan etapas emocionales como actitud política negativa, neutral y positiva ante el Covid-19, extraídas de las referencia teóricas analizadas que manejan discursos políticos y comunicación académica, concluyendo que esta última resulta relevante en comparecencias públicas, impactando todos los sectores.Alternate :This document offers an exploratory study of the crisis generated by the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19), from academic communication to political discourse. The world crisis situation has put into effect the problematic environment in terms of social policies, in an increasingly complex global communication context. The purpose of the work is to analyze the academic communication to the political discourse around Covid-19 in political science. The research methodology addresses the problem and seeks possible answers through mixed methods;selecting academic articles from various databases of the Core Collection - Web of Science and Scopus. As a result, it is obtained from the application of two software, that the VOSviewer, through titles and summaries of 12 articles, excluding structure labels and copyright declarations, managed to identify 411 terms, reduced to 73 with a restriction of 2 occurrences, where the term co-occurrence is grouped into 6 clusters;and, with the Atlati9 software, emotional stages are observed as a negative, neutral and positive political attitude towards Covid-19, extracted from the analyzed theoretical references that handle political speeches and academic communication, concluding that the latter is relevant in public appearances, impacting all sectors.