Mental Capital & Wellbeing

recent shift of emphasis from disorder and dysfunction to well being and positive mental health.

Neurobiology of Wellbeing: a Life-course Perspective

(state of science review SR-X3 for The Foresight Project )

Keverne, E.B.

The developing brain

findings mainly deduced from experimental animal studies

human brain is unique in that much of its growth and development occurs postnatally - up to second decade and beyond the age of 20 in the pre-frontal cortex.

'Puberty has always been a life event producing a challenge for well being, but why is it becoming more problematic?  Can we attribute these problems to failures in early development, or does the protracted development of the brain produce problems in its own right, that are exacerbated by modern lifestyles.?'  'Puberty is undeniably a period of great emotional turmoil when changes in physical phenotype synchronise with reorganisation of the cortex especially those areas of the brain intimately concerned with emotional regulation and forward planning'

'Better nutrition has led to an earlier onset of puberty - is the maturation of the body phenotype becoming out of phase with brain development, or prematurely precipitating brain maturation.?  Did natural selection has shape the evolution of such sensitive periods to optimise successful outcomes ?  Also Hominid behavior has become progressively emancipated from physiological homeostasis and the endocrine biology of our bodies, and primarily determined by the cognitive ability of our large brains. ' Bodies and brains are harmoniously synchronised in most mammals, but in humans the vast expanse of neocortex has emancipated the brain from the body's endocrine signal with cognitive control taking over the decision making process'

Epigenetics, pre and post natal environments

low birth rate can be a factor related to future wellbeing.  

Pivotal role of the placenta at the interface between the adult brain and the developing foetal (parental) brain whilst simultaneously interacting with both.  Co-adaptive selection pressures operate by virtue of two, actively expressing genomes (mother and child)  interacting within one individual 

The post-natal period is particularly sensitive to life's experiences which can include changes in brain development and behavioral phenotype.  eg Harlow and Harlow, maternal deprivation.  Epigenetic effects are induced by differential maternal care.

'Epigenetics requires an understanding of how modifications to the DNA and chromatin bring about long term ( birth to adult) changes and , indeed, transgenerational changes in gene expression without changes to DNA coding structures.'  'There is the possibility that environmental events can have long-lasting effects on genomic function' ' This enables the organism to develop a range of alternative phenotypes according to the environmental cues that it receives early in life' 'Germ-line genetic changes are relatively slow and may be more adapted to the environment of distant ancestors, while epigenetic changes allow animals to become adapted to the current environment in one generation'

There is growing evidence for such epigenetic effects operating in humans

Psychological Wellbeing:  Evidence regarding its causes and consequences

( state of science review SR-X2 for the Foresight Project)

Huppert, F.A.

Psychological well being is about lives going well; it is a combination of feeling good and functioning effectively.  The concept of feeling good incorporates not only positive emotions  of happiness and contentment, but also such emotions as interest, engagement, confidence and affection.  The concept of functioning effectively ( in a psychological sense) involves the development of one's potential, having some control over one's life, having a sense of purpose and experiencing positive relationships.

(  relation with mental health 0- positive mental health (WHO 2001) ' a state of wellbeing in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her own community  )

evidence for a seminal role of social factors and the early environment

some drivers of well being are involved in ill being ( albeit in an opposite direction) but not all.

+ emotions and cognitive processes.

'Experimental studies using mood induction techniques demonstrate unequivocally that + mood states can enhance attention and other cognitive processes.'

'Findings suggest that + emotions lead to positive cognitions, + behaviours and increased cognitive capability, and that + cognitions, + behaviours and capabilities in turn fuel + emotions' (Fredrickson and Joiner, 2002)

However 'positive emotions are not beneficial for all cognitive processes.  People with negative mood states are better at taking in the details of a situation and people who are sad, anxious or fearful are more conforming and less  likely to break rules.

Fredrickson, B.L. and Joiner, T. (2002) Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being.  Psychological Science, 13: 172-5.

relevant neuroscience  ( mostly Davidson )

prefrontal cortex - asymmetric activation in relation to positive and negative emotions.  The amount of asymmetry varies with emotional style ( whether an individual tends to feel genrally positive or generally negative).

perfrontal asymmetry stable in adults but not during early childhood.

neurochemical effects

cortisol - well being but not ill being.  Although  there are negative states due to cortical response  these seem to be independant of effects on well being

serotonin.  - well being but not ill being  deficiences lead to absence of well being 

oxytocin - from animal studies it has an effect on mother-infant bonding.  Nasally administered oxytocin leads to a high degree of trust in a risky investment game ( Kosfield et al, 1995)  Therefore some limited eveidence that it may play a role in social bonding.

personality

one of the strongest predictors ( drivers) of emotional style is personality, extraversion with positive and neuroticism with negative emotional style.  

Most widely used measure of positive psychological functioning is Ryff's scales of Psychological Wellbeing.  Recent longidutinal studies using this scale show a much larger effect of extraversion than of neurotocism on sense of well being

Personality account for around 30% of variation in psychological well being.

socioeconomic and demographic

account for just 10% of variation is psychological well being.

the population perspective

US evidence , 17% flourishing whilst 11% languishing in terms of psychological resources .  Targeted approach ( eg the groups at risk ) approach does not seem as effective as achieving minimal shifts across the whole sprectrum,  ie leverage obtained by targetting all the popultion and achieving small change in the majority  cf binge drinking best tackled by targeting the entire population in terms of a drinking culture.

Positivism - week 3

Logical positivism

this approach draws upon the techniques of formal logic - every sentence and every statement has to be a direct statement of observable things and all speculative ideas removed.  Draw upon the linguistic distinction between analytic ( true by definition eg all bachelors are unmarried) and synthetic statements ( based on observation and contributing new knowledge) in order to demonstrate how emprirical science could be developed.

use the method of induction - collecting observable data and building theories to explain the observations.  Assumes all observers treat  the act of observation in the same way - ie no room for  a constructive role.

 central tenet the verifiability principle

1. tautological claims - i.e. claims that are true by definition
   
2. claims that are verifiable empirically through observation
   
3. claims that are neither 1 nor 2 and therefore seen by proponents of the verifiability principle as meaningless.  ( e.g.) metaphysical and moral statements.  
   

Assumes that unobservables must be dismissed as meaningless because they cannot be verified.

looks for confirming evidence rather than offering critical appraisal of existing knowledge.  The truth of a statement is confirmed by the accumulation of evidence.

Popper (1959) and falsification

• For Popper , the inductive method cannot sustain the explanatory weight placed upon it. cannot know what is going to happen in a new situation , something that has to be accomodated
  
• Crucial insight - that unrestricted generalisations (e.g. all swans are black) cannot be verified (might eventually observe a white one)  but they can be falsified.  The falsification method rests upon the assumption that the demarcation criteria between what is science and what is pseudo -science rests upon whether the statement is testable or not, rather than whether it is true or false.
  
• Falsification is as much an attitude to research as a method

Epistemology and methodology

Hammersley (1995) -' positivism a broad term for derision' .

It is sometimes used in imprecise ways.

positivism- empirical claims, interpretivist - value claims

quantitative methodology tends to represent the positivist tradition 

qualitative more concerned with fore-grounding interpretivist interpretations

mixed method approach see Rashomon paper - 'qualitative judgements are integral to quantitative analysis'

Connection between epistemology and methodology

not as simple or direct as sometimes characterised

some advocates of mixed method approach argue that 'methodologies should be driven by pragmatic rather than epistemological considerations'

'New' sociology of education in the 1970s 

rejected 'positivism' as anti-humanistic as well as politically conservative.  In particular they saw positivism as overly restrictive in terms of the types of questions that could be asked and answered in terms of methodology.

Theory in positivist research

Whilst every theory must be based on observable facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory.

Positivism relies on the ideas of hypothesis testing i.e. don't test theory directly but rather derive hypothesis from theory i.e. a hypothesis is a testable implication of theory

e.g. one theory that might arise from the literature on gender and schooling

Theory 1 boys and girls have fundamentally different learning styles, therefore:

Hypothesis 1 both girls and boys will learn more if they are taught separately.

Hypotheses need to be postulated in advance, post hoc explanations can follow that.

if

both girls and boys benefit from single sex schooling then this does not verify the theory that girls and boys have different learning styles ( there could be other explanations), although a negative result would count against it.

Hypotheses have to be operationalised -  including  deciding what to measure.  However hypotheses are not absolutely logically implied by the theories.  It does not provide certainty.

Evans, J. and Benefield, P. (2001) Systematic reveiws of educational research: does the medical model fit?  British Educational Research Journal 27, (5). 27-41

Buckingham inaugural

Schooling the digital generation (2005)

Popular culture, new media and the future of education

David Buckingham

ioe professorial lecture

historical  perspective -schools have changed very little as each new technology/media has come along.  'school as the last bastion of literate civilisation'

now from a popular culture new media perspective the child experience in and out of school is very different

why it might matter

1. more democratic relationship teacher/learner or adult/child
   
2. children's informal use involve a whole range of learning processes - exploration, experimentation, play and collaboration with others. 
   

      e.g. (i)a computer game might involve memory, hypothesis testing, predicting, strategic planning, dialogue with others.  It is usually multiliterate.  Needs focus and commitment.

     e.g. (ii) Online communication - 'have to learn to 'read' subtle nuances, often on the  basis of minimum cues.'  Need to know rules and etiquette and be savvy about genre.  'Chat rooms provide a safe arena for rehearsing and exploring aspects of identity and personal relationships' ' it is a community of practice'

From an educational perspective active learning is to be encouraged however in online contexts activity might merely reflect consumption.  A key element in popular culture is to create the illusion of control

growth industry in edutainment -'reflect a broader  attempt to co-opt aspects of 'entertainment' for the purposes of education'

Media literacy

There is  an  educational need for media literacy .  

Media literacy - needs to be both critical and creative. 'involves the rigorous analysis of media texts, in terms of the visual and verbal language they employ and the representations of the world that they make available,  know about the producers and how they reach and attract an audience.'

Critical understandings for a digital/media literacy

1. media as representation rather than reflection
   
2. language - awareness of codes and conventions of the different genres - 'the unique rhetoric ' of interactive communications
3. production  - who is communicating to whom and why. Know the commercial influences- particularly since these are often invisible
   

In his concluding remarks the author mentions some examples of schools where this is taking place.

Project: emotion in financial judgement & decision making

Summary of Role

The Research Fellow will work closely with Prof Mark Fenton-O’Creevy and in collaboration with partners across Europe on a major European Union funded project. The overarching goal of this project is to produce both knowledge and applications capable of improving financial decision making, via learning interventions. More generally, the project uses and also evaluates the potential of games, game technologies, and sensors as components in learning support environments, and as tools to conduct experimental and field research.

A key aspect of the project is a series of studies of decision-making among financial traders and investors. A particular focus will be the role of emotion and emotion regulation in financial decision-making and the development of decision-making expertise. The Research Fellow will take a leading role in these studies and will contribute to considering their implications for the design of technology supported learning interventions to improve decision-making among the target groups.

· Design and conduct research studies which examine the role of biases, emotions and emotion regulation in financial decision-making, including differences in these effects between novice and expert decision-makers.
·
THE PROJECT: Boosting Deliberate Practice and Handling Biases through Immersive Cognitive and Emotional Reinforcement Strategies & Tools (xDELIA)

Focusing on a broad range of subjects from traders and private investors to ordinary members of the public, xDelia will exploit new and emerging technologies to explore financial decision-making processes, including the role of emotion in people’s decisions. Much financial training has, to date, focused purely on imparting knowledge and increasing people’s understanding. However, people often may have appropriate knowledge, but despite this they go on to be ruled by their attitudes, habits, or emotional states. Investigating this, the project is to develop new, technologically supported approaches to training and support for non-formal and informal learning in real-world settings to tackle the challenges faced by people and businesses when they make financial decisions.

Spanning three years, the project will use cutting-edge gaming and sensor technologies throughout. Game based technologies are becoming proven as a method of learning, particularly as they can place people in virtual situations, and the xDelia project will be employing these to analyse behavioural patterns and to support the informal learning process. Alongside this, wearable sensor equipment detecting pulse rates and skin-inductance will help build a picture of a person’s emotional state at the point of, and in the run up to, a financial decision. Moreover, eye tracking and automated event logging completes this picture with behavioural profile data. This technology will have three principal roles. First behavioural and emotion state data will be used to extend our understanding of judgmental biases or emotion regulation in novice and expert decision-makers. Second, the collected data will provide evidence of engagement with learning game approaches developed in the project. Third, such data can provide an important source of feedback in learning support technologies where the learning goal concerns improvements in emotion regulation or reduction in the impact of decision-biases.

The overarching goal of this project is to produce both knowledge and applications capable of improving financial decision making, via learning interventions. More generally, the project uses and also evaluates the potential of games, game technologies, and sensors as components in learning support environments, and as tools to conduct experimental and field research. The choice of these technologies for improving learning outcomes is motivated by recent findings in the expertise and decision making literature. These point to the importance for competence building of contextual and psychological validity; and of the need for timely and relevant feedback. Games and sensors allow us to incorporate context validity and feedback into learning support environments.

Consortium partners
1(coord.)
Centre Internacional de Mètodes Numèrics en Enginyeria
CIMNE
Spain
2
Forschungszentrum Informatik
FZI
Germany
3
Open University
OU
United Kingdom
4
Blekinge Tekniska Högskola – Game and Media Arts Laboratory
BTH
Sweden
5
Erasmus Univ. Rotterdam – Erasmus Centre for Neuroeconomics
EUR
The Netherlands
6
University of Bristol – Personal Finance Research Centre
UNIVBRIS
United Kingdom
7
Saxo Bank A/S
SAXO
Denmark

The project consists of seven of work packages, described below. The Research Fellow’s role will be primarily focussed on work-package 2 but will also contribute to and draw on results from other work packages (mostly WP4 and 5).

WP1 – Project Management
Purpose – To manage the project with the support from the Project Management Committee in a way that ensures the achievement of all scientific and technological goals of the project, with effective and efficient use of the available human, material, and financial resources.
WP2 – Interventions – Financial Trading & Investment
Purpose – To produce empirical knowledge on decision making in trading and investment practice and, using this knowledge, to design and pilot learning support in the form of intervention packages that embody a practice-based learning approach. To make use of sensor and game technology for these purposes, that is, as research tools and as artefacts in the learning support intervention.
WP3 – Interventions – Financial Capability & Personal Finance
Purpose – To produce – similarly to WP2 – empirical knowledge on behaviour, attitudes, and motivations in the context of personal finance and, using this knowledge, to design and pilot learning support in the form of an intervention package that embodies a practice-based learning approach. To make use of sensor and game technology for these purposes, that is, as research tools and as artefacts in the learning support intervention.
WP4 – Cognitive Games: Design and Implementation
Purpose – To design and implement game prototypes and the game contents for WP2 and WP3 in a participatory design environment. To produce a series of prototypes, from exploratory research instruments for knowledge and requirements elicitation, to artefacts that can be used within the application domains for learning support of trading, investment and financial capability decision making. To deliver the software artefacts for intervention packages developed for WP2 and WP3.
WP5 – Wearable Sensors and Psychophysiology
Purpose – To provide sensor systems and software components for the detection and recognition of emotional and cognitive states of users beyond laboratory setups. To equip the learning support artefacts in our intervention packages with the necessary data capturing and signal processing tools to detect cognitive biases and emotional states of decision makers in real-time. To develop unobtrusive, cost-effective monitoring systems for emotional states. To develop software components for easy integration of the monitoring systems in game designs.
WP6 – Evaluation
Purpose – To develop an evaluation framework that provides the overarching framework for the ongoing formative evaluation studies. To feed evaluation findings iteratively to ongoing project development and activities. To collate and share evaluation studies between the central evaluation team providing overall steer and guidance for the actual evaluations studies undertaken by the relevant local partners.
WP7 – Dissemination and Exploitation
Purpose – To disseminate the project activities and by (a) traditional dissemination by broadcasting and (b) a strategy of dissemination by engagement that actively involves stakeholders in activities that foster an understanding of the issues we address and the solutions we offer. To consolidate the associated partner network as an effective channel for dissemination results across Europe and extending it to cover the trader and investor case. To make some key outputs available as open content learning objects, possibly within a community-based social learning model.

4. The Team

Mark Fenton-O’Creevy is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Open University. He has a significant track record in research into influences on the decision-making, risk-taking and behaviour of traders in investment banks. He also played a major role in setting up a government funded centre at the Open University, the centre for Practice-Based Professional Learning, and received a National Teaching Fellowship for his work developing practice-based approaches to learning. He has acted as an academic advisor to the BBC2 series ‘The Money programme’.

Publications include:

FENTON-O’CREEVY, M.P., Gooderham, P, Nordhaug, O. (2008) HRM in US subsidiaries in Europe and Australia: Centralisation or Autonomy? Journal of International Business Studies. 39(1): 151-166.
FENTON-O’CREEVY, M.P., Soane, E., Nicholson, N. and Willman, P. (2008) Thinking feeling and deciding: The influence of emotions on the decision-making and performance of traders. Academy of Management Conference, Anaheim, CA, August 2008.
FENTON-O’CREEVY, M.P., and Wood, S.J. (2007) Diffusion of Human Resource Management Systems in UK Headquartered Multinational Enterprises: Integrating Institutional and Strategic Choice Explanations, European Journal of International Management, 1(4)
Willman, P., FENTON-O’CREEVY, M., Soane, E., Nicholson, N. (2006). Noise Trading and The Management of Operational Risk; Firms, Traders and Irrationality in Financial Markets. Journal of Management Studies 43(6):1357-74.
FENTON-O'CREEVY, M.P., Nicholson, N., Soane, E. and William, P. (2005) Traders - Risks, Decisions, and Management in Financial Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926948-3
Wood, S. J. and FENTON-O'CREEVY, M.P. (2005) ‘Direct involvement, Representation and Employee Voice in UK Multinationals in Europe, European Journal of Industrial Relations, 11(1).,
FENTON-O’CREEVY, M., Nicholson, N. and Soane, E., Willman, P. (2003) Trading on illusions: Unrealistic perceptions of control and trading performance. Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology 76, 53-68.
Willman, P., FENTON-O’CREEVY, M., Soane, E., Nicholson, N. (2002) “Traders, managers and loss aversion in investment banking: a field study” Accounting Organisations and Society 27(1/2), p85-98.

The project will also provide the opportunity to collaborate with partner organisations which represent a wide range of relevant expertise including cognitive neuroscience, experimental economics, serious game design, and wearable sensor technologies.

Doctoral school

General

Journal Educate

Poster conference (February)

Summer conference (June)

* Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network

www.grad.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury

Writing

CAPLIT - Room 603 Information outside room 602

small courses (optional over 4 weeks) but also courses in the formal program at each stage.

Student writing guide £7 , available in the bookstore

DocSoc docsoc@tan.epsilon.org.uk;

Student Union soc  - level 3 (v.malavemi@ioe.ac.uk in 2009)

discount community charge and travel card (?oyster) for full time students

Thesis

supervisor pt = 9 times, ft = 15 times

upgrade MPhil to PhD  ft=3rd term, pt=5th term

10,000 words

must include: a research outline, record of research training, a timetable for carrying out the research.

can include: a literature review, report of preliminary empirical work, critique of a related PhD.

Thesis & IT

* Personal access to IOE network; can save work on N drive - My Docs on PC, Homefolder on Macs 

guides to Office, Excel are excellent.

 

Literature and information searching notes

Searching - general

There is a recall and precision trade off

explicit logic for database/catalogue searches although all vary on format such as missing data, capitalisation - check on hints

include negatives in a search when appropriate e.g. achievement & underachievement

isolate concepts e.g. gender, science education, achievement.  several databases/catalogues then identify each search by a letter or number and allow you to combine them in that way by an intersection of refs common to all individual searches.

better to search indices independently

choose advanced, complex option rather than simple

In Endnote (IOE version) there is an IOE thesis reference style as one of the options - however it is possible to download into PC version of Endnote. nb Currently IOE trying to get Endnote to include it at source.

Can link own version of Endnote to IOE , go to weblink at IOE to synch ( interpret synch loosely)

There is an index for IOE theses.

Search tools with Thesaurus functionality eg ERIC thesaurus tend to be information rich

tip - prepare a practice search so that you are more patient about keeping up to date with the technology

For inter library loans you need to  go though the library catalogue link

Need to search up to 8 databases,  that way you get the 'long tail' which is really important as there tend to be key articles in the odd journal.

Quality bibliography

INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES - through journal link on the Library web page - best way to search is a Boolean phrase.

Make sure to distinguish between a casual and an intended search.

Some databases expect you to add selected items to a folder before exporting, printing etc.

If Endnote on PC then to C drive automatically.  Portal allows upload from pen drive or PC files

start using alerts slowly

ISI WEB OF KNOWLEDGE- very selective

WEB of SCIENCE - covers the most important journals from Art & Humanities, Social Science, and Science.  

Look for citations but need to finish the search.

ZETOC  produced by the British Library and encompasses much of the content of many of the other indexes and databases BUT it is a very crude search engine however might be good for alerts because it does cover many sources.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

http://scholar.google.com  - Needs upper case for Boolean operators

Library-general

Self service borrowing

transcribe equipment and other multi media equipment for loan

Other library sources

Other UK libraries, you need a SCONUL access card

m25 consortium is a good example

CDR week by week

Week : Interpretation

How to understand what we are researching. Layer interpretation on interpretation.

positivism - value neutral - there is an objective world out there.  The researcher needs to abandon any preconceptions.

interpretivist approach - social construction of reality.  eg an ethnic group is not an ethnic group because of skin colour, behavioral disposition but because the people 'in it' and the people 'out of it' treat it as an ethnic group.  ie the ethnic group emerges from the interactions and social practices that constitute social life.

Because everything is a matter of interpretation there is no way of deciding whether one set of interpretations are better than another.  However, as a researcher we will still need to make judgements.

realism - there is an external world that is knowable.

neorealism - while there is a real external world, we can never actually step outside our interpretive practices to know it.

relativism - used to describe those who view the idea that there is an objective world out there as unhelpful

normative view of the world - meaning and community - reaching an interpretation of something involves orientating to conventions of existing practice  and making sense of the world from the points of view that fellow community members do.

description or interpretation

'there are those who are reluctant to do much more than providing a description of an event, on the basis that going beyond the data involves substituting one view of the world for another (eg ethnomethodologists).  On the other hand there are those who argue that description alone is not enough and that any detailed investigation must involve an attempt to 'get behind' the rationales for action provided by participants and to interpret the reasons why certain events occur in the way that they do.  In this way theory plays a strong role in enabling researchers to extrapolate'

positivist steer between type 1 and type 2 error

interpretivist steer between over and under interpretation

re Hughes, E. (1993) The Sociological Eye for a good description of social construction

The Rashomon Effect

The Rashomon Effect

Combining Positivist and Interpretivist Approaches in the Analysis of contested events.

Roth W.D. & Mehta J.D.(2002)

Sociological Methods and Research, vol 31, no 2 

The points made in this article are illustrated by two case studies both based on school shootings in the USA.  Generational status , uncovered by the interpretivist  approach was  a hidden yet  highly important data point.  At the same time, good interpretivist work is informed by factual understanding in a broader context.

Case studies used to illustrate the value of 

critical events
rare events

can cause problems for causal relationships , retrospective, often highly charged
contested events 
in the context of combined ( positivist and interpretivist approach)
'can use the same data but treat the multiple and conflicting explanations of events as data points' -  and then use these to evaluate what the nature of the dispute ( contested aspect) reveals 

'interpretivist analysis of the community helps us understand the actions of its members, it may enable us to use a positivist approach to answer questions about the causes of contested events'

problems for gathering accurate data - memory, vested interest, mistaken judgements  can all bias positivist research -awareness of these problems is important.  the respondent's 'world view' and 'values' is also a form of bias but in the interpretevist hands can be illuminating- understanding how an individual may uphold an interpretation of events that support a belief system.

privilege data that are less likely to be subject to known sources of bias

memory bias can be  checked with any relevant written documentation of the event being researched.

 contextually informed triangulation & interpretively informed triangulation  

in positivist research

Consider the participant response in light of everything known about the source of their knowledge & triangulating among various respondents and sources  are useful strategies to counteract or minimise the effect of biased responses .  Use as many viewpoints as possible as a way of triangulating.  Weight the information available from different sources.

In terms of a positivist approach ' find out not only what the respondent knows but how they know it'  relationships can be a another source of bias.

interpretivist

conflicting responses collected  from critical events provide key data points for interpretivists  that can help us understand social meanings and underlying divisions in the communities that are studied. It all helps the analytical leverage.

balancing accounts from different participants and therefore perspectives.

combining positivism and interpretivist approach

using conflicting responses to factual questions ( positivist approach) can help uncover previously hidden social structures.

What were problems of data quality for the positivist become valuable  data points for interpretivism.

combining a positivist and interpretivist approach

''possible to simultaneously accept that there is both a single objective truth of factual events and multiple subjective views'

positivist and interpretivist are not necessarily at odds

when managing data bias  the key is to 'construct factual questions that limit people's abilities to pontificate or state opinions instead of facts'

an iterative approach between positivism and interpretivism is recommended.  'An understanding of the local webs of significance alters how positivist research is conducted; yet the positivist inquiry can also show us where those webs of significance lie'

• positivist - cause & effect
  

require replicability
expected to lead to general laws

involves hypothesis testing

looks for explanatory power and parsimony

• Interpretivist
  

reveals hidden aspects of a community 

thick description helps to address questions of validity.

allow complex and nuanced understanding  and can help to identify subgroups

a contested event as a cultural breach

'an atypical event that is controversial can serve as a breach of the social norms of a community'  Sometimes this a used as a technique; simple social norms are sometimes violated so as to observe the reactions of the participants.

 

see Table 3 page 163

ref  good for interplay between positivism and interpretivism

Newman, K.S. (1988) Falling from Grace: The Experience of downward mobility in the American middle class.  New York: Free Press.