Informing library research with focus groups

Walden, Graham R.

doi:10.1108/lm-02-2014-0023

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…30 Walden compiled a sample of strategies and methodologies, including vignettes, that may be used with focus groups to increase or enhance participant interactions. 31 Walden also suggested possible but general library connections for various methods drawn primarily from medicine and social science research. Other researchers conducting LIS studies have used similar narratological methods to study student perceptions of information literacy.…”

Section: Applications For Vignettes In Lis Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vignettes: Implications for LIS Research

Benedetti

Jackson

2018

C&RL

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Vignettes, brief descriptions of fictional characters and situations, serve as a tool to study people's lives, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about specific situations. Although not widely used in library and information science (LIS) research, vignettes can depersonalize responses to controversial situations or behavioral responses related to abstract concepts when employed in focus groups, in-depth interviews, or surveys. We use two research projects, one focused on the Association of College and Research Libraries' Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and one on the vocabulary used to describe library services, to discuss the strengths of vignettes and implications for LIS research. Vignettes are "short stories about hypothetical characters in hypothetical circumstances, to whose situation the interviewee is invited to respond." 1 Researchers can use vignettes as a methodological tool in focus group, in-depth, or survey interviews during which interviewees are invited to draw upon their own experience to provide perceptions, opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and diagnostic predictions about how the fictional character in the vignette will behave. 2 They are often appropriate in such cases when observing or placing an individual in a particular context is not possible for logistical or ethical reasons. 3 Approximating real-world situations, vignettes allow features of the context to be specified so that interviewees can make normative statements about a set of social circumstances rather than providing their responses in a vacuum. 4 Here we discuss this research method and its implications for library and information science (LIS) research, particularly for academic libraries. Vignettes are often presented as written narratives that interviewees can read. Other forms of presentation, such as artwork and photographs, 5 videos, 6 and PowerPoint slides, 7 are also possible. Some researchers favor video recordings because they allow direct observation to capture more of the ambiguities surrounding everyday life and individual behavior. 8 However, producing video vignettes is more costly and time consuming. Vignettes must include sufficient detail to allow interviewees to visualize the hypothetical circumstances as actual situations. Therefore, researchers should specify the situational elements of a vignette carefully, including giving the main character a

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Section: Applications For Vignettes In Lis Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%