The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the implementation of unprecedented social distancing measures, restricting social interaction and with it the possibility for conducting face-to-face qualitative research. This paper provides lessons from a series of qualitative research projects that were adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure their continuation and completion. By reflecting on our experiences and discussing the opportunities and challenges presented by crises to the use of a number of qualitative research methods, we provide a series of insights and lessons for proactively building resilience into the qualitative research process. We show that reflexivity, responsiveness, adaptability, and flexibility ensured continuity in the research projects and highlighted distinct advantages to using digital methods, providing lessons beyond the COVID-19 context. The paper concludes with reflections on research resilience and adaptation during crises.
Purpose: To better understand adolescent information behaviours in disadvantaged and disengaged circumstances, and explore issues of social integration.Design/methodology: Interdisciplinary theoretical framework bringing together theories of information behaviour with theories of social capital. Mixed method design incorporating observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus group conducted in areas of multiple deprivations. ParticipantsÕ young people aged 16-19 not in education, employment or training (NEET); and their support workers.Findings: Heightened access and internalised behavioural barriers found beyond those common to the general adolescent population, the former influenced by technology and literacy issues, the latter by social structures and norms. There is evidence suggestive of deception, risk-taking, secrecy, and situational relevance in information behaviors, and a reliance on bonding social capital characteristically exclusive and inward facing. Low levels of literacy and self-efficacy are significant interrelated issues, with NEET youth dependent upon support workers when seeking and processing information, and demonstrating passive non-motivated information behaviours often abandoned.Research limitations/implications: no claims to statistical significance or generalizability made. Further action oriented research recommended balancing the needs for further understanding with the needs for immediate intervention (and placing emphasis on influencing information behaviors). Practical implications:Remedial literacy education recommended as an immediate priority for public and third sector agencies. Originality/value: Evidences and draws attention to understudied and enduring information poverty issues of significant societal concern potentially consigning a significant proportion of the youth population to a stratified and disengaged existence within an impoverished (small) information world.
The concept of ‘open social innovation’ (OSI) has not yet been fully understood, particularly in relation to social enterprises (SEs). This paper explores the use of OSI as a means of achieving social change through two in-depth, longitudinal, qualitative case studies with Scottish SEs. The researcher undertook participant observation for a year as well as conducting interviews and reviewing documents of the case study organizations. We build on Wikhamn (2013) by conceptualizing two approaches to OSI: ‘controlled’ which is closely connected to market-based attitudes, and ‘libre’ which is connected to the knowledge commons. Each approach has ramifications for how SEs achieve social change: either through exploitation of intellectual property as a means of income generation or freely revealing to accelerate social impact. The ways in which SEs manage OSI could thus determine the impact they can have on tackling some of society’s most challenging social problems.
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