Pregnant with Possibility: Reflections on Embodiment, Access, and Inclusion in Field Research

Contributing to a body of theory that advocates for reflexivity and consideration of embodiment by social researchers, this article explores aspects of performing qualitative research—fieldwork and interviews—on intersections of the private family and the public state while visibly pregnant. Drawing on the author's personal experience of collecting data while pregnant, the paper shows how being pregnant facilitated access in the field, how it helped to reveal unspoken beliefs about normative and non-normative reproduction, and how pregnancy and parenthood provided a level of credibility with respondents. This article also considers the situated meanings of pregnancy in the context of academia.     

Collecting peer data and delineating peer networks in a complete network

This paper outlines a method for collecting accurate ‘peer’ data by using two name generator and 13 name interpreter questions to collect ‘friend’ and ‘pal’ data from teenagers. The ‘peer’ data are then used to identify the complete network and to delineate the naturally existing peer networks in it. The findings suggest that the concept ‘friend’ should not be avoided when collecting ‘friend’ data.     

Lost in Translation: Language,Terminology, and Understanding of Penile–Anal Intercourse in an HIV Prevention Trial in South Africa,Uganda, and Zimbabwe

Despite efforts to use culturally appropriate, understandable terms for sexual behavior in HIV prevention trials, the way in which participants interpret questions is underinvestigated and not well understood. We present findings from qualitative interviews with 88 women in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe who had previously participated in an HIV prevention trial. Findings suggested that participants may have misinterpreted questions pertaining to penile–anal intercourse (PAI) to refer to vaginal sex from behind and subsequently misreported the behavior. Three key issues emerge from these findings: first, the underreporting of socially stigmatized sexual behaviors due to social desirability bias; second, the inaccurate reporting of sexual behaviors due to miscomprehension of research terms; and third, the ambiguity in vernacular terms for sexual behavior and lack of acceptable terms for PAI in some languages. These findings highlight methodological challenges around developing clear and unambiguous definitions for sexual behaviors, with implications not only for clinical trials but also for clinical practice and sexual risk assessment. We discuss the challenges in collecting accurate and reliable data on heterosexual PAI in Africa and make recommendations for improved data collection on sensitive behaviors.     

Privacy revisited? Old ideals, new realities, and their impact on biobank regimes

Biobanks, collecting human specimen, medical records, and lifestyle-related data, face the challenge of having contradictory missions: on the one hand serving the collective welfare through easy access for medical research, on the other hand adhering to restrictive privacy expectations of people in order to maintain their willingness to participate in such research. In this article, ethical frameworks stressing the societal value of low-privacy expectations in order to secure biomedical research are discussed. It will turn out that neither utilitarian nor communitarian or classical libertarian ethics frameworks will help to serve both goals. Instead, John Rawls’ differentiation of the “right” and the “good” is presented in order to illustrate the possibility of “serving two masters”: individual interests of privacy, and societal interests of scientific progress and intergenerational justice. In order to illustrate this counterbalancing concept with an example, the five-pillar concept of the German Ethics Council will be briefly discussed.     

Quantifying the Value of Collecting: Implications for Financial Advisers

This paper documents the extent to which collectors—specifically, those owning collectible classic US postage stamps—experience an opportunity cost associated with expenditures on their collection. Results show, based on stamp price, S&P 500, bond, and T-bill rate data over the period 1969 through 2013, that collectible stamps tend to underperform stocks and bonds on a risk-adjusted basis. Using estimates based on the Modigliani measure (M²), it was determined that collectors incur an opportunity cost when selecting collectible stamps over more traditional investments. However, it is known that collecting as a hobby provides sociological and psychological benefits. This paper adds to the literature by illustrating how collecting also provides psychic return benefits that can be valued similarly to investment returns. In this study, the foregone return rate of stamp collecting for those who allocate a significant percent of available resources to their collection equates to between 3 and 13 % on an annual basis.     

The Farming Question: Intergenerational Linkages,Gender and Youth Aspirations in Rural Zambia☆

With agriculture considered key to generating jobs for Africa's growing population, several studies have explored youth aspirations toward farming. While many factors explaining aspirations have been well studied, little is known about the actors' shaping aspirations. We developed a novel framework that focuses on the factors and actors shaping the formation and actual aspirations of rural youth and applied a unique “whole-family” approach based on mixed-methods data collection from adolescents (boys and girls) and corresponding adults. We applied this approach in rural Zambia, collecting data from 348 adolescents and adults in 87 households. The study finds that parents strongly shape youth aspirations—they are much more influential than siblings, peers, church, and media. Male youth are more likely to envision farming (full or part-time) than female youth. The male preference for farming reflects their parent's aspirations and is reinforced by the patriarchal system of land inheritance. Parents' farm characteristics, such as degree of mechanization, are also associated with aspirations. We recommend a “whole-family” approach, which acknowledges the influential role of parents, for policies and programs for rural youth and a stronger focus on gender aspects.     

Conducting evaluation in contested terrain: challenges, methodology and approach in an American context

Using case examples, the author describes circumstances under which violence and conflict, overt and covert, have impinged on his evaluation field work. When fear is pervasive, it constrains people's ability and willingness to participate in an evaluation and their candor if they do. It can also be dangerous. Safety and well-being of participants and researchers in his view take priority over the evaluation's goals. Evaluation involving people who are survivors of violence, torture and conflict requires special sensitivity and examples are offered of appropriate methodologies. Stakeholders in evaluations presumably have beneficent interest in a program's success. However in conflict situations ‘malevolent’ stakeholders, who standing to gain from a project's failure, will actively try to thwart it. Undermining the evaluation as well and impugning the evaluator's objectivity, skill, knowledge and credibility are among the tactics they employ. Evaluators are urged to stay attuned to field conditions, consider alternative methods and locations for collecting data and be self-conscious and deliberate about how their study and role are defined and understood by contending parties.     

Present and accounted for: measuring attendance in out-of-school-time programs

Evidence is emerging that youth who attend out-of-school-time (OST) programs more frequently and for longer periods of time benefit more than youth who attend less frequently or do not attend at all. It is also increasingly clear that children and youth will not reap the benefits of programs if they do not attend regularly. Collecting attendance data can help program leaders gauge demand for services, plan and manage programs effectively, and evaluate participant outcomes in relation to attendance. This chapter presents these and other reasons for collecting attendance data, as well as the methods and techniques that program leaders and researchers have at their disposal for measuring attendance. It describes four indicators of attendance--absolute attendance, intensity, duration, and breadth--that can provide detailed information and insight about youth participants and their use of programs. The chapter also provides tips for collecting attendance data and features examples from OST programs. Throughout, the chapter illustrates that the right indicators and data collection methods depend on program needs, characteristics, and goals.     

Families and mobility: The European experience

This paper introduces a new method—Social Genealogies Commented and Compared—for observing how social trajectories of individuals and families are shaped. The basic features of this method—its focus on families rather than individuals, the flexibility of interviewing, the comparison of case studies of families’ histories—make it complementary to survey research. It is argued that the contention of survey research to be the only scientific method of studying social mobility rests upon a Newtonian conception of science that has become obsolete even in the natural sciences. Surveys work best in societies which have stable social structures and a large degree of social homogeneity nation‐wide, and where individual achievement, not family ties, is the key factor in shaping individual trajectories; this is not the case for most European societies. Techniques for collecting and analyzing Social Genealogies are described. Issues such as representativeness and generalization, family legends and the breakdown of nuclear families are briefly dealt with. The pedagogical usefulness of this form of data collecting is stressed.     

Estimating network structure via random sampling: Cognitive social structures and the adaptive threshold method

This paper introduces and tests a novel methodology for measuring networks. Rather than collecting data to observe a network or several networks in full, which is typically costly or impossible, we randomly sample a portion of individuals in the network and estimate the network based on the sampled individuals’ perceptions on all possible ties. We find the methodology produces accurate estimates of social structure and network level indices in five different datasets. In order to illustrate the performance of our approach we compare its results with the traditional roster and ego network methods of data collection. Across all five datasets, our methodology outperforms these standard social network data collection methods. We offer ideas on applications of our methodology, and find it especially promising in cross-network settings.     

Understanding the functionality of housing-related support services through mapping methods and dialogue

This article describes the experience and process of using community mapping as a tool for collecting data on the functioning of housing-related support services in Metro Vancouver. We outline our mapping methods and discuss strengths and challenges encountered during workshops aimed at understandings how the system of housing-related supports function. Strengths were that workshops provided a forum for social participation and engagement. In addition, mapping is a research tool that enables local knowledge of service functioning and service gaps to be accessed and exchanged. Challenges include ensuring diverse representation; reducing power imbalances; and having adequate space to accommodate interested participants.     

ASKING SENSITIVE QUESTIONS: THE IMPACT OF DATA COLLECTION MODE, QUESTION FORMAT, AND QUESTION CONTEXT

This study compared three methods of collecting survey dataabout sexual behaviors and other sensitive topics: computer-assistedpersonal interviewing (CAPI), computer-assisted self-administeredinterviewing (CASI), and audio computer-assisted self-administeredinterviewing (ACASI). Interviews were conducted with an areaprobability sample of more than 300 adults in Cook County, Illinois.The experiment also compared open and closed questions aboutthe number of sex partners and varied the context in which thesex partner items were embedded. The three mode groups did notdiffer in response rates, but the mode of data collection didaffect the level of reporting of sensitive behaviors: both formsof self-administration tended to reduce the disparity betweenmen and women in the number of sex partners reported. Self-admimstration,especially via ACASI, also increased the proportion of respondentsadmitting that they had used illicit drugs. In addition, whenthe closed answer options emphasized the low end of the distribution,fewer sex partners were reported than when the options emphasizedthe high end of the distribution; responses to the open-endedversions of the sex partner items generally fell between responsesto the two closed versions.     

SAMHSA plans changes to NSDUH: DSM‐5 updates

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced last week that it will start collecting data on vaping, marijuana withdrawal symptoms, synthetic marijuana, and updates to accord with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM‐5) to focus on craving, in the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).     

Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion,sexuality and gender

ABSTRACT

Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data related to the worldviews of young people. In this paper we argue the value of studying the complexities and intersections of these identities and worldviews together in one study. We do this through reference to the Australia’s Generation Z (AGZ) study: the first nationally representative sample focused on providing an evidence-based understanding of both the religious/spiritual/non-religious and sexuality/gender identities and worldviews of young Australians aged 13–18. We discuss how we built on existing surveys in designing the AGZ survey. We also demonstrate how this survey allowed for the incorporation of young people’s non-binary understandings of religion, sexuality and gender.     

The relative costs and benefits of telephone interviews versus self-administered diaries for daily data collection

This article compares two methods of collecting daily data: self-administered diaries and telephone interviews. Study participants included 44 men and 56 women between the ages of 16 and 35 who participated in a larger study of drinking, drug use, and sexual activity. Participants were randomly assigned to either the written diary or the telephone interview conditions; question wording and format were identical in both conditions. Daily data were collected for a period of 8 weeks. Results indicate that although telephone interviews resulted in slightly more missed days of data collection, they generally yielded less item-level missing data, produced cleaner data and therefore were less costly to process, and were as palatable to participants as self-administered diaries. Except for reports of drinking and vegetable consumption, telephone and diary conditions did not differ in the amount of behavior reported; more drinking and vegetable consumption were reported with telephone interviews, however. Telephone interviews also imposed considerably higher overall personnel costs.     

MORTGAGE LENDING IN BOSTON: A RECONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE

Is there statistical evidence of racial discrimination in home mortgage markets? The Boston Fed recently addressed this concern head-on, by collecting all available data from loan applications in Boston. They find that the extent of discrimination is reduced after one accounts for all of the confounding variables measured in these applications, but that it remains statistically significant. However, their strong conclusions are unwarranted due to the use of invalid statistical methods. Correctly evaluated, their data provide no significant evidence of racial discrimination in mortgage markets. (JEL K31, J7)     

Seeing How Far I’ve Come: The Impact of the Digital Sexual Life History Calendar on Young Adult Research Participants

The Digital Sexual Life History Calendar (d/SLHC) is a Web-based platform for collecting young adults’ sexual histories. In addition to collecting diverse data, the d/SLHC was designed to benefit participants by enabling reflection on their sexual and relationship experiences in the context of other life events and circumstances. In a pilot study of the d/SLHC, survey data were collected to test whether creating a d/SLHC timeline had any impact on sexual well-being. A sample of 18- to 25-year-old participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) completed an online survey about sexuality and relationships. Of those, 113 also completed d/SLHC timelines and 262 served as a comparison group. Six months later, participants from both groups were invited to complete a follow-up survey (total N = 249). Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that participants who completed d/SLHC timelines exhibited higher sexual esteem immediately following d/SLHC completion and at follow-up. No changes in sexual esteem were observed in the comparison group, and there were no differences between the groups with regard to sexual health behaviors and outcomes. These findings suggest that sexuality studies may have the potential to yield not only rich data for researchers but also rich experiences for participants.