Researchers

Anne Corden and Roy Sainsbury
Social Policy Research Unit, University of York

October 2002-September 2004

Context

Including verbatim quotations from research participants is common practice in qualitative reporting of applied social research.

Practice is variable in the selection and presentation of quotations. What is intended is often unclear, and it is hard to find rigorous assessment of the impact for the reader.

Aims and Objectives

• To review conceptual and theoretical arguments for using verbatim quotations;
• To explore researchers' practice and beliefs;
• To explore expectations of research users
• To investigate the views of those who speak the words presented;
• To test, among a range of readers, accessibility, acceptability and impact of different ways of including quotations.

Methodological aspects

The project encompasses all the actors in applied social research:

• theorists and teachers of approaches and methods
• researchers who conduct/report qualitative work
• research users
• research subjects

Research Design

• Review of theoretical and methodological texts in different fields of social science;
• Analysis of recent social research texts, to construct a typology of styles of use of quotations;
• In-depth interviews with 12 selected authors and 20 selected research users;
• Empirical study to test the impact of different approaches: a small qualitative study to inform policy in the area of financial support for people on low income, based on 12 in depth interviews, will be reported in three different ways and the reports discussed with participants and research users.

Outputs

The main written output will be a research monograph, and articles for specialist journals. A seminar for researchers and users will take place in year 1, drawing on the reviews and interviews with authors and users. A seminar in year 2 will be used to discuss findings from the empirical testing.