7th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference

Effective presentation of information is key to the communication of the results of analysis by social researchers. Stata is regarded as a highly powerful application for the creation of graphics. This workshop teaches participants some of the lesser known techniques for graphics in Stata. In this workshop we will cover:
1. Saving your graph, which option is best.
2. Tweaking your graphics using the graph editor
3. Using the graph recorder - creating reproducible graphics in the graph editor
4. Using fonts in graphics
5. Creating Choropleth maps to present information geographically
6. Creating gifs to add motion to your data visualisations

This workshop is suited for people using Stata to present their information on-line, in journals, posters and articles. It will be suitable for new users of Stata, intermediate and advanced users of Stata.

Someone from SDAS will be available in this Zoom session through the conference for attendees to pop in and chat if they want to learn more about Stata.

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76557600411?pwd=ZmRSVmNWdWhmczM2QWZEajNHUHJLUT09

Meeting ID: 765 5760 0411

Passcode: ACSPRI2020

Knowledge translation represents an avenue to address the oft-cited chasm between what should happen and what does happen. Although variously defined, knowledge translation encompasses myriad processes through which different knowledges coalesce to inform practice. As such, it is more than the mere use of empirical results or clinical guidelines – it involves the amalgam of these with other knowledges, including (but are not limited to): the experiential wisdom and preferences of a patient and their family members; cultural norms; clinician expertise; the managerial and leadership prowess of their superiors; as well as the knowledge embedded within local networks – be they clinical or familial.

Knowledge translation is often lauded as an aspiration to work towards. It challenges, if not contests stability, homogeneity, and our comfort zones because it diversifies and democratises voices and knowledges. Rather than award primacy, or indeed sole attention to knowledge borne from research, knowledge translation recognises experiential wisdom, practitioner expertise, managerial prowess, leadership styles, and cultural competencies (sensu lato), among others.

However, all that glitters might not be gold. Reflecting on this adage, this panel discussion considers the dark sides of knowledge translation. Specifically, academics, clinicians, and artists will share: experiences with knowledge translation that were less than favourable; how they managed these situations; and the lessons they have garnered.

The purpose of this presentation is not to demote the importance of knowledge translation – but rather, to advance it, in a better-informed way. Only by considering the dark sides of knowledge translation can they be identified, managed, and potentially moderated, if not averted.

The use of participatory visual methods, such as digital storytelling, drawing, participatory filmmaking and photovoice, have long been used in community settings and have become increasingly popular amongst researchers in industry and academia. Such methods have been called democratising, and also held up as developing ‘empowerment’ and ‘giving voice’. At the same time, it is increasingly acknowledged that the use of such methods can be over celebratory, lacking the critical lens of more established methods, and regarded as producing less robust data. There are also important questions around ethics including cultural and legal issues that need to be considered, as well as the implications of participation for individuals and organisations.

A recent call was made by a group of Australian based practitioners and researchers to create a space for capacity building, sharing of expertise, and critical reflection. This space would have a particular focus on the use of such methods for applied and policy-based research and evaluation in collaborations between communities, NGOs and Universities. Recognising that dialogue and discussion with others enhances practice, knowledge and skill development, this workshop will provide a place to discuss and shape an Australian-based participatory visual methods network, bringing together community, industry and university-based researchers, evaluators and practitioners, and those undertaking research as part of their studies. This will be informed by, and feed in to, global debates undertaken by the International Sociological Association Visual Sociology Group (ISA RC57), and the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA), among others.

Participants will be invited to discuss questions such as:
- What are the needs of community, industry and university-based researchers and evaluators in Australia with regards to using participatory visual methods for evaluation and research?
- How might an Australian-based network be shaped to support and add value to evaluation and research practice?
- What activities and events are needed to enable this network to thrive and be sustainable?

Information generated from the session will be available to all participants and those interested and unable to attend. These findings may form communication for an Australia wide network on participatory visual methods which will complement global activities by other professional bodies and networks.

In the spirit of collaboration, this workshop is also supported by the International Sociological Association Visual Sociology Group (ISA RC57) who will host a series of sessions on participatory visual methods at the World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne, 2022.

Although R began as a specialist statistical programming language, the R ecosystem has grown wildly over the past few years making it a viable general-purpose research environment across the whole research lifecycle.

Survey research datasets come from a diverse range of sources, often containing richer metadata than your average data frame. This workshop provides a practical demonstration of several packages for accessing and working with survey data, associated metadata and official statistics in R.

We will demonstrate:

• Working with external data sources from common statistical packages (SPSS, SAS, Stata, Excel) and their quirks

• Easily working with categorical data in R with the “labelled” R package

• Accessing external databases in an R native way using DBI and dbplyr

• Accessing publicly accessible data in R scripts via the web

• Resources for accessing official statistics data in R

Participants should have a basic working knowledge of R to follow along with examples, but beginners are also welcome.

Survey research carried out in international settings and in the comparative context of multinational, multicultural, and multiregional (3MC) surveys presents a set of unique methodological challenges. In recent years, a number of freely available resources have been developed to inform both researchers and survey practitioners on theory, operational procedures, and best practices relating to international and comparative research. This video will briefly showcase essential ideas in several of these resources organized by the Survey Research Center International Unit at the University of Michigan, including: 1) a series of online video short courses which provide introductory and foundational background for topics related to key stages of the survey lifecycle in international and 3MC settings; and 2) the Cross-Cultural Survey Guidelines, developed to promote internationally recognized best practices for the design and implementation of 3MC survey. The video will also provide an overview of other efforts in the field of international and comparative research. Lastly, a summary of recommendations from the forthcoming Joint AAPOR/WAPOR Task Force on Quality in Comparative Surveys will be discussed.

Emergency information about risks associated with potential disasters can save lives. Many regional Australians are worried that they will not get the information they need to face disasters as many local news companies have shut down their business or moved to online paid services (Birch, 2020). These concerns are generally heightened after the mega bushfire of 2019 and 2020 and the outbreak of COVID-19 on the Australian soil. Many regional Australians—particularly the elderly—are concerned about future impacts of disasters on their communities if all local media is digitised and physical news services disappear (Lovari & Bowen, 2020).

This research project aims to capture the lived experience of local communities in the Northern Territory and Northern Tasmania, dealing with the changing media landscape in their regions. It will also investigate the consequences of the emergence of digital media (e.g. websites, social media, mobile phone apps) as popular platforms for risk information which are slowly replacing the roles of local media for disaster news and information that are essential in regional Australia.

This study uses the phenomenological approach to investigate participants’ lived experience navigating the media landscape. The data collection process will involve Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with members of the public, in-depth interviews with semi-structured questions with key experts, and an examination of government documents related to risk and crisis communication strategies for large scale disasters (e.g natural disasters and disease outbreaks). The findings are expected to contribute in providing recommendations for local risk communication strategies in the two research locations based on the findings.

Leximancer is gaining traction in the social sciences as an alternative, automated, approach to analysing text. Leximancer is an automated content analysis tool which uses Bayesian theory to identify the frequency of concepts and their relationships (Cheng & Edwards 2017; Johns, 2019; Smith & Humphreys 2006). The automated nature of the analysis allows for larger volumes of texts to be analysed quickly, and is particularly useful for disparate bodies of text, allowing for comparative analysis (Cheng & Edwards 2017; Young & Munksgaard 2017). This also ensures that the analysis emerges from the data and is not affected by a researcher’s preconceptions (Cheng & Edwards 2017; Smith & Humphreys 2006), with subtle and unusual relationships more likely to emerge, strengthening the reliability and reproducibility of the results (Angus, Rintel & Wiles 2013; Rooney 2005).
The key output of Leximancer is the concept map which indicates important concepts and their relationships, with semantically linked concepts clustered in colour-coded themes (Leximancer 2018; Rooney 2005; Smith & Humphreys 2006). Lines link words and phrases within and across themes, indicating relationships This visualisation is a powerful tool that aids in the interpretation and presentation of the data (Young & Munksgaard 2017).
This research uses Leximancer to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of age discrimination in employment in Australia by analysing the submissions to the “Willing to Work Inquiry” (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2016) (n=160). In Australia, older persons (over 50 years of age) represent more than half of the total number of Australians not in the workforce, despite one in five of those indicating they would like to participate. To mediate the economic and social challenges of ageing populations we need to engage this population of older Australians who wish to work but are not. To do so we need to understand the barriers they face including age discrimination.
The analysis employed a comparative approach to explore the age discrimination experiences of older Australians and the barriers to their employment. The research also considered the intersectionality of older Australians regarding gender and disability together with submissions from other stakeholder perspectives.
Leximancer analysis indicated that age discrimination occurred throughout the employment process, affecting both older Australians who were seeking employment and those already employed. Differences in experience due to gender and disability status were identified. Both individual and organisation submissions acknowledged the difficulty older Australians faced in substantiating discrimination under current anti-discrimination laws and highlighted the role training, for both employers and older Australians, could play in increasing the employability of older Australians and decreasing the discrimination they experience. The findings major focus was on the lived experience of older Australians but also identified the importance of recruitment agencies in the employment of older Australians, with contributions by unions and industry associations but the silence of employers in contributing to the inquiry.
This research highlights the value of using Leximancer to analyse secondary data to gain new insights, without researcher biases due to their background or theoretical leanings, and across disparate bodies of text.

Survey data collection underpins a large proportion of social science research across multiple disciplines, but is increasingly difficult: response rates are decreasing, and methods to sample national populations are growing more expensive and complex. In this presentation, we will present results of a data collection experiment to test optimal ways to recruit survey respondents via mobile phones.
Our approach uses random-digit selection of mobile phone numbers combined with SMS invitations, with respondents asked to complete the survey online and a URL directing them to an online questionnaire, consisting of primary and secondary socio-demographic questions, as well as questions on the use of internet, health, technology, life satisfaction, and political attitudes.
The benefits of this approach to sample recruitment is its simplicity and cost effectiveness and could be used in the future by students, academics, and social and market research companies. Traditionally, cross-sectional general population surveys use many other recruitment approaches: mail outs, telephone calls, or face-to-face contacts. Text messaging is, generally speaking, predominantly used as an additional communication channel and for sending reminders.
The main aim of the project is to causally identify through random assignment practices affecting response rates in survey research using this sampling type and online survey mode. A number of data collection characteristics are randomized and later used as predictors of survey (non)response. To test for the effects of different incentives, quotas are set based on the incentives offered: one third of the final sample with no incentives offered, one third to enter a price draw, and one third $5 monetary incentives or charity donations. Further, our approach randomly allocates invites to different days (2 groups: weekends, weekdays), at a different time (3 groups: morning, afternoon, evening), and with 3 different SMS invitation texts.

The research examines the purchase decision making power of consumers. Usually, consumers appear to make decisions rationally. Contemporary research in the field of consumer decision making power explores a new direction, from the lens of rational decision-making behaviour to the lens of emotional decision-making behaviour. Although the role of behavioural biases is widely debated in previous research, the role that emotions play in consumer decision-making is largely unknown. This sets the background to further investigate the interplay of rational and emotional decision-making.

Australians have recently seen the establishment of the Banking Royal Commission which has uncovered several scams and misconducts in the banking, superannuation and other financial products. Among the many numbers of incidents reported, some show customers’ emotional vulnerabilities, especially those among women who have been victimised by the misconducts across areas, frequently in insurance, personal loans and superannuation. This context is therefore considered suitable to investigate the study phenomenon. The main research problem of the study is articulated as: how do rationality and two discrete pair of emotions (i.e., anger and anxiety) influence the level of consumer decision-making power of Australian women in the financial product market?

The quantitative study’s population is defined as Australian women whose age is 18 years or above. Considering previous research findings on unique challenges faced by different segments of women population in financial decision making, stratified random sampling is be utilised to draw a sample. In doing so, the study adopts a positivist approach, and a survey instrument is designed in which the main aims remain to test the theoretical assumptions in the study through quantitative techniques. Further, this survey is framed on the base foundations of measurement scales that are adopted from existing pieces of literature. These new measures in this research are then tested by a two-step approach in structural equation modelling (SEM) where convergent validity and discriminant validity of the overall measurements model are tested. The moderating variables that are proposed in this research, i.e., trait anxiety and trait anger have not been tested on consumer decision-making power while purchasing financial products. Therefore, the flavour of emotions adds a unique value to the study as these dimensions have not been tested empirically by previous researchers in the field of marketing.

Qualitative research is often regarded as the poor relation of quantitative research: less rigorous and less credible. In this talk, I suggest three reasons why this critique might be justified.

1. Too much qualitative research is based on brief data extracts selected to give uncritical support to researchers’ claims.
2. The overwhelming dependence of qualitative research on ‘manufactured’ data such as interviews and focus groups is questionable.
3. Qualitative researchers’ claims to be able to offer ‘authentic’ descriptions of people’s ‘experience’ naively mirror the assumptions of psy professionals and social media postings.

By contrast, I suggest that qualitative researchers do best when they employ rigorous data analysis to study behavior using naturalistic data. Rather than compete with quantitative researchers, this means our work can be complementary to them, studying phenomena unavailable to quantitative methods.

Sponsor's note:

Mixed Method Research designs have made it possible to address complex research problems which require nuanced perspectives in the social sciences. This design aims to benefit from the strengths of qualitative and quantitative methods, previously considered incongruous due to their epistemologically divergent research approaches. In order to effectively facilitate theory generation from the inductive approach and hypothesis testing from the deductive approach, the transition from one method to another needs to be done keeping in mind the potential advantages and disadvantages of both methods.
In Sequential Mixed Methods Designs, the methods are conducted sequentially in time, the second method drawing on the first for its methodological design. The process of synthesising and integrating two methods at the final phase of the MMR process is well documented, yet good practice examples of the critical transition from one method to another in sequential designs are seldom discussed. This transition is as important as the conclusive integration and synthesis of the data that occurs after the data collection.
This discussion is based on author’s own experience from her PhD project based on Mixed Method Research. The transition phase of the QUAL led sequential Mix Method study was critical and that transition process in itself was contributing to the rich insights on the topic. Adopting a theoretical framework for the entire study proved to be the facilitator of the smooth transitioning of qualitative approach to quantitative method. This binding use of a theoretical approach in the transition phase offered unique insights to interview data that was gathered from the qualitative phase to be effectively categorised, and the aspects that required further investigation to enrich the understanding was transformed into a questionnaire. Questionnaire building, informed by the categories from the qualitative data as well as the underpinning theory, is the vital aspect of the transition phase. My experience is that a strong theoretical framework will help smoothen the transition of the methods. The theory in itself becomes the bridge between both methods, thus facilitating the smooth slide from one method to another. Detailed illustration of the transition phase is thus imperative for a clearer representation of the dynamic Mixed Method Research process.

Someone from SDAS will be available in this Zoom session through the conference for attendees to pop in and chat if they want to learn more about Stata.

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76557600411?pwd=ZmRSVmNWdWhmczM2QWZEajNHUHJLUT09

Meeting ID: 765 5760 0411

Passcode: ACSPRI2020

We consider how artists explore complex health issues in a large-scale, collaborative art installation. The presentation introduces - The HIVE - an arts-based knowledge translation (ABKT) initiative through which artists collaborated with researchers, service providers, health consumers, and carers affiliated with a major translational health research centre in Australia. Specifically, we present a case study that draws on artist statements and visual documentation to evoke the different facets of the initiative. The eight projects encompassed by The HIVE were diverse. Artistic media included textiles, sculpture, poetry, and photography. Health issues ranged from palliative care to child healthcare. The HIVE was not simply an installation, but a nucleus that fostered collaboration through the design and development of creative artworks. In emphasising empathy and non-verbal communication, The HIVE at once translated and expanded health(care) research and practice.

We present an overview of the state of the telephone survey landscape in Australia in 2020. Telephone surveys have been challenged on myriad fronts, with increases in scam calls and telemarketing, the rise of call blocking/spam flagging software, rising cord-cutting and the ongoing roll-out of the NBN and its concomitant impact on landline usage. We document the falls in contact rates, cooperation rates and response rates and the rise in refusal rates on multiple time-series of Australian telephone surveys, as well as the increased level of effort for even these relatively meagre returns.

Background: Integration of mixed methods involves bringing together and merging quantitative and qualitative approaches. Limited application of data integration in midwifery research has highlighted a need to provide practical examples. The integration can occur at design, methods and at the interpretation and reporting levels.

Aim: To provide an example and describe how integration of data in a mixed methods study was used to develop a better understanding of midwives’ knowledge and confidence after attendance at a healthy eating education workshop/webinar and a follow-up interview.

Methods: A sequential explanatory mixed methods study investigated midwives’ level of knowledge and confidence prior to, and after attendance at a healthy eating education workshop/webinar. which was followed up by an exploration of midwives’ views and experiences This example illustrates how data integration can be achieved and emphasises specifically how a weaving technique can be used, and results are presented in a joint display (matrix) and extreme case analysis.

Findings: The sequential explanatory design was adopted to mix and merge different datasets to be analysed. Meta-inferences were used to identify areas of convergence and discordance, which provided a more comprehensive picture and understanding of the key themes that linked midwives’ knowledge and confidence.

Conclusion: Data analyses utilised different techniques for the integration of mixed methods data, i.e. weaving, and meta inferences in this midwifery research study. The application of this mixed methods design assisted in investigating midwives’ knowledge and confidence levels and provided clear insights for midwives needs and the effectiveness of healthy eating education.

We provide an overview of the correlates of telephone use in Australia and their implications for telephone surveys using data from the National Health Survey (NHS) 2017-18. The NHS is an in-person survey of Australian households (excluding very remote areas) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It includes questions on landline and mobile status. These questions provide insight into the correlates of telephone usage. The presentation examines age, state, Indigenous status, migrant status, education, area-level socio-economic status, housing tenure, smoking status and alcohol use. As is well known, age is strongly associated with telephone usage. By 2017-18, mobile coverage was sufficiently high that mobile-only was sufficient for general population surveys unless estimates of the age 75+ cohort were required. We identify low landline coverage in the Northern Territory and among Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders, recent migrants, renters, current smoker and people at risk from alcohol consumption. The presentation will also review the likely impacts of the continuing shift to mobile phones identified in the ACMA Communications Report.

Transdisciplinary Generalism: naming the epistemology and philosophy of the generalist
Johanna M Lynch1,2, Christopher Dowrick3, Pam Meredith4, Sue L.T. McGregor5, Mieke van Driel1

1. Primary Care Clinical Unit, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland
2. Integrate Place, Queensland, Australia
3. Institute of Population Health Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK
4. School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, Central Queensland University, Australia
5. McGregor Consulting Group, Seabright NS Canada

Purpose: Generalist skills are of importance across the community, especially in those clinical disciplines that highly value whole person care that attends to biography as well as biology. Generalist researchers are often caught between reductionist (positivist) biomedical measures and social science (post-positivist) constructivist theories of knowing. Neither of these approaches, even when juxtaposed in mixed-methods research, approximate the complexity of the generalist clinical encounter. A theoretically robust research methodology is needed that acknowledges the complexity of interpreting these ways of knowing in research and clinical practice.
Methods: We undertook a conceptual review of literature that outlines the philosophy and practice of generalism in primary care setting and both the practical (Zurich) and philosophical or methodological (Nicolescuian) schools of transdisciplinarity.
Results: Concurrence between generalism and transdisciplinarity were clearly identified in the literature, revealing alignment in their broad scope, relational process, complex knowledge management, humble attitude to knowing, and real-world outcome focus. These processes were described and named Transdisciplinary Generalism (a neologism developed for this inquiry)
Conclusions: Transdisciplinary Generalism is a way to define a participatory, reflexive inclusive approach to knowledge as a research methodology. It could facilitate translation of the complexity of generalist ways of knowing into academic forms of knowledge, and vice versa. Transdisciplinary Generalism is a coherent epistemology and philosophy that could be used to define the goals, process and content of integrative research as well as the clinical practice of whole person care.

Funding: This research was undertaken as part of a PhD through The University of Queensland and funded by the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and the Advance Queensland Scholar program 2016-2019.

BACKGROUND
Recently in Australia a culturally appropriate developmental screening tool has become available - the Ages and Stages Questionnaire –Talking about Raising Aboriginal Kids (ASQ-TRAK). The ASQ-TRAK is the culturally adapted ASQ-3 for Aboriginal children. It is highly acceptable to Aboriginal families and has acceptable psychometric properties.

ASQ-TRAK uptake is increasing nationally. However, implementation has not been systematic or included ongoing evaluation, and participation in available training has been inconsistent. There have been calls for implementation research addressing early childhood development programs and particularly exploring how developmental screening tools can be integrated into primary health care systems.

Implementing developmental screening tools in multiple health services is a complex process that occurs in stages that culminate in full and effective implementation. Without developing implementation capacity through appropriate training, ongoing leadership and organisational support, we risk the ASQ-TRAK being administered incorrectly, losing fidelity and cultural safety.

AIMS
This study aims to evaluate the implementation of ASQ-TRAK.

METHODS/DESIGN
Using a multi-site case study design, we will undertake a mixed-methods process evaluation of the implementation of ASQ-TRAK in mainstream and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services.

We designed a culturally relevant training program to support services to implement the ASQ-TRAK. The 2.5 day practitioner training includes principles of early childhood development and competencies required for ASQ-TRAK administration. Prior evaluation of training has demonstrated high satisfaction and improved practitioners’ skills, knowledge, competence and confidence.

Implementation will be coordinated and supported by Regional implementation teams will include Regional Coordinators, Aboriginal facilitators and cross-cultural research partners. Teams will work with staff and leaders to create and maintain the conditions, systems and structures required to mediate change. This will develop the capacity and capability of services to effectively implement the ASQ-TRAK, and develop the depth of reform knowledge necessary to sustain implementation. This is vital for the effective implementation and fidelity of ASQ-TRAK and the provision of culturally safe, responsive, and accessible developmental monitoring services to Aboriginal children and families.

We developed a program logic describes the resources, activities and expected changes at each stage of implementation. Drawing on mixed-methods data, we will assess implementation processes, the fidelity of training, and use of the ASQ-TRAK.

Data will be gathered through service audits, observation of training and practice, tests of knowledge pre- and post-training, interviews with, and self-reports from: practitioners, facilitators, regional training coordinators, research partners, service leaders and managers.

Descriptive analysis will be used for quantitative data. Qualitative data will be analysed thematically, according to competency (training and support), leadership and organisational drivers. We will identify the implementation stage; factors that shaped implementation and how these impacted on fidelity; outcomes in each service; and what is needed to progress implementation.

DISCUSSION
Results are expected to inform the development of an ASQ-TRAK implementation model to support the effective use of ASQ-TRAK in services nationally.

Dual frame surveys using mobile and landline telephone numbers have been the predominant method of sampling for CATI interview studies in Australia for several years now, however neither frame is without its problems. Landline telephones can only be used to access 49% of the population, with coverage heavily skewed towards older age groups. Mobile telephones are not inherently linked to a geographic location meaning that obtaining geographically targeted samples is expensive, often prohibitively so. Commercial sample providers have recently improved their offering for “listed” mobile phone numbers with geographical information attached, however these lists also have coverage errors particularly for younger age groups. This presentation reports on work carried out for a large state-level survey to determine an optimum blend of sample sources including listed and RDD mobile phones alongside landline sample. The survey is state-wide, but includes a sample quotas for each of the 79 LGAs in the state, so requires a large degree of geographical targeting. Several simulations were carried out using a variety of different sample mixes to determine the most cost-effective solution.

Positive organisational scholarship (POS) is an established methodology that goads scholars (sensu lato) to examine, understand, and ultimately promote phenomena that is life-giving and flourishing, like experiences that generate positive emotion and/or bolster resilience. Undergirded by critical theory, it is not pollyannish or ignorantly blissful – nor is its expressed intention to incite change, akin to its related counterpart, appreciative inquiry. Instead, it purposely recognises and aims to clarify how organisations – that is, groups of people who pursue a shared cause – enact virtuous practices and embody generative experiences, despite the typical challenges of organisational life, like limited resources, including funds, workforce support capacity, time, or networks, among others. Since its advent, POS has been extended into healthcare (POSH) to intentionally consider, make sense of, and raise the profile of those instances within organisational life – be they large-scale or modest – that exceed the expectation of those who deliver, manage, administer, or receive healthcare (sensu lato). This has also involved the use of the established methodology, video reflexive ethnography (POSH-VRE).

Building on these methodologies, this presentation makes a case for positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship. It demonstrates how art can be used to understand and promote positive experiences during crises, among young people. Like POS, arts-based research is an established methodology with a demonstrated capacity to visibilise the abstract and the ephemeral – that which can be difficult to articulate and codify. Yet, it is not typically used with an expressed focus on that which is life-giving or generative. Positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship serves to turn the scholar’s gaze to these phenomena.

To demonstrate its potential, this presentation describes how positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship can be used to examine, make sense of, and clarify the ways in which some young people exceeded expectation, positively managing a global crisis – namely, COVID-19. This case is substantiated with reference to digital exemplars, sourced from social media platforms and relevant organisations.

The purpose of this methodological presentation is not to present findings – but rather, to draw on exemplars to demonstrate the potential of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship, the associated methodological challenges, and how these can be managed. In essence, the thesis of this presentation is twofold. First, many young people have the capacity to exercise agency and give voice to their experiences, particularly during times of adversity. And second, positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship represents one methodology to understand and ultimately raise the profile of their brilliance.

While mixed methods research (MMR) is a well-established methodological approach in disciplines such as health and nursing, social sciences, and education, it has not become widespread yet in the second language (L2) learning studies. There could be two reasons why MMR is not as standard in the L2 research as it is in other fields. The first reason could be the fact that methodological developments in L2 research have not been proportionate to advancements in construct definition in L2 research. For example, while a sociocognitive perspective provides affordances for conceiving more complex issues related to L2 learning, there have not been corresponding methodological theorisations to capture the complexity of the defined constructs. The second reason might be related to the fact most L2 studies that use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis fall short of framing the studies within a coherent mixed methods design. The core feature of mixed methods research (MMR) is mixing the two sets of data and analysis for particular purposes and achieving more comprehensive outcomes. This paper, therefore, intends to discuss and illustrate how a sociocognitive theory as a multi-layered theoretical perspective of construct definition in L2 studies can lead to an MMR methodology for data collection and analysis. The discussion will hopefully build a rationale for leveraging the use of MMR to study more complex language-related issues than those usually conducted through pure quantitative or qualitative methods.

Qualitative research is challenging at the best of times – it has complex logistics, requires a diverse skill set on the part of the researcher, and often results in messy and unwieldy data. Further it is sometimes viewed (as David Silverman noted) as the poor relation to quantitative research which is typically seen as far more transparent and rigorous.

However, qualitative research can give unique insights into social and public policy issues – indeed we could argue that there is no greater time for us to understand people’s views, behaviours and experiences through qualitative approaches.

This presentation will navigate the opportunities and potential pitfalls of conducting qualitative research during a pandemic, and how to ensure that our efforts result in research that is credible, meaningful and useful.

Effective research translation requires engagement with target audiences in ways that are authentic and resonant, and which are capable of attracting attention in the crowded space of competing public health priorities. Completing at the end of 2019, the Crystal, Pleasures and Sex between Men was a NHMRC- and Western Australian Health Department-funded project that examined gay and bisexual men’s crystal methamphetamine use for sex. Findings revealed that not all gay and bisexual men saw their crystal use as requiring intervention, with many men developing skillful and creative methods to maximise pleasure and reduce risk. However, those men who reported experiences of dependent use thought that they had fewer resources to manage their use effectively. This suggested to us that knowledge about harm reduction and health promotion was uneven within the various networks in which men participated - and this unevenness extended to those in the communities who knew and supported men using crystal for sex. Questions remained at the completion of the project on how best to deliver appropriate resources to men who were not in contact with existing services.

In response to findings from the project, researchers and community partners collaborated to produce an innovative series of podcasts aimed at those who needed information about crystal methamphetamine. Crystal Clear: Negotiating pleasures and risks in sex on crystal was the result of this collaboration: a multi-platform opportunity to disseminate health promotion and harm reduction strategies through personal stories that focused on people’s experiences. The podcasts presented findings from the project and asked people with various experiences and expertise in these areas to comment. Each podcast was targeted at a different audience: (1) GBM who may be newly exposed to or currently using crystal methamphetamine; (2) friends and partners who provide peer support to GBM who are using the drug for sex; and (3) health care professionals who work with men about drug-enhanced sexual activity.

In this presentation, we discuss the process undertaken to produce these podcasts, including working with community partners to identify service gaps and agree on topics, content and messaging. In highlighting the benefits—and challenges—of producing podcasts as a resource, we argue that podcasts are a creative way to draw on research findings to enable different audiences to use those findings in their own practice. In this way, we draw on the strengths of community, health services and research to focus attention on the issues that were deemed most relevant.

Survey data collection underpins a large proportion of social science research across multiple disciplines, but is increasingly difficult: response rates are decreasing, and methods to sample national populations are growing more expensive and complex. In this presentation, we will present results of a data collection experiment to test optimal ways to recruit survey respondents via mobile phones.
Our approach uses random-digit selection of mobile phone numbers combined with SMS invitations, with respondents asked to complete the survey online and a URL directing them to an online questionnaire, consisting of primary and secondary socio-demographic questions, as well as questions on the use of internet, health, technology, life satisfaction, and political attitudes.
The benefits of this approach to sample recruitment is its simplicity and cost effectiveness and could be used in the future by students, academics, and social and market research companies. Traditionally, cross-sectional general population surveys use many other recruitment approaches: mail outs, telephone calls, or face-to-face contacts. Text messaging is, generally speaking, predominantly used as an additional communication channel and for sending reminders.
The main aim of the project is to causally identify through random assignment practices affecting response rates in survey research using this sampling type and online survey mode. A number of data collection characteristics are randomized and later used as predictors of survey (non)response. To test for the effects of different incentives, quotas are set based on the incentives offered: one third of the final sample with no incentives offered, one third to enter a price draw, and one third $5 monetary incentives or charity donations. Further, our approach randomly allocates invites to different days (2 groups: weekends, weekdays), at a different time (3 groups: morning, afternoon, evening), and with 3 different SMS invitation texts.

Introduction
Professional peer support is scarce for speciality nursing and health service personnel, particularly in rural and remote locations. Furthermore, professional peer support is key to service sustainability and staff retention in isolated nursing specialities. Through the utilisation of Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, supported by a Community of Practice (CoP) framework a group of rural and remote speciality clinicians overcame their fear of research and simultaneously developed a sustainable model of professional peer support which is inclusive, collaborative and empowering.
Objective / Aims
The objective of this study was to develop a model of professional peer support for speciality nurses and health professionals who practice in isolation both geographically and professionally.
Description / Methodology
Participatory Action Research is democratic, pragmatic and is grounded in collaborative, inclusive and interactive processes. PAR addresses social change for the enrichment of an identified community. PAR is a process whereby a small group of co-researchers and principal researcher work together to understand in greater depth their own circumstances enabling change to occur. The researchers of this study collaboratively set guidelines for the study including the aims and objectives of the research, cyclical intervals, meeting place or mode and membership thereby, enhancing ownership of the study. PAR creates ownership of developmental change through voluntary participation. Continued voluntary participation enables the development of a sustainable Communities of Practice e.g. A group of like-minded speciality nurses who share ideas, develop new knowledge and most importantly are empowered and supported.
Results / Outcomes
Through a qualitative thematic analysis of the PAR study, themes were identified from which a sustainable model of professional peer support was developed. Additionally, some unexpected positive outcomes transpired from the study including a desire from the participants to engage in further study and research. While empowerment and professional peer support are qualities paramount to continued service provision, isolated health professionals need researchers “at the bedside” hence the additional increased interest in research is significant to the nursing and health profession.
Conclusion
Participatory action research enables sustainable pragmatic outcomes bringing clinicians together, developing trust and empowerment while improving practice. Therefore, participation in pragmatic participatory research supports clinicians and simultaneously improves service provision. This study identified a need, assisted to close the identified practice-research gap and inspired clinicians in their daily service provision in isolated areas.

The attitudes, knowledge and beliefs shared by a professional group make up one’s Professional Identity. Signature pedagogy theory identifies that we serve apprenticeships to learn how to act, think and perform in the ways of others in our chosen profession. How we construct our professional identity defines how we should behave which, in health and social care, determines the quality of care provided. Once we step outside the silo of our profession, for example into a multidisciplinary team, attitudes, knowledge and beliefs vary. To fit in we need to change, while retaining what is unique about our own profession. This mobilisation of Professional Identity can be challenging for those rooted in their original silo therefore it is crucial the shift into a multidisciplinary team is carefully managed to ensure care provision is optimised.
To investigate health and social care practitioners’ perceptions of managing Professional Identity when working in multidisciplinary teams we ran three workshops with multidisciplinary health and social care team members (N=31) and used Nominal Group Technique to organise our study. Nominal Group Technique is a structured process that ensures all participants have an opportunity to share their thoughts on a topic for discussion. Each participant was asked to write down what they felt were barriers and enablers for Professional Identity before each person was asked, one by one, to offer a factor. Once all the barriers and enablers were shared, the group categorised the responses and the practitioners were given up to ten votes to place on the areas that they felt were most significant for them. This established a ranking of the most and less important categories. After each exercise the teams were asked to review the scores and comment on the ratings. The participants were also asked to identify what support might help them mobilise their professional identity.
Through the use of Nominal Group Technique, it was evident practitioners were keen to develop a better understanding of Professional Identity. Prior to the workshop, participants appeared unfamiliar with the concept of professional identity and/or lacked the opportunity to reflect on their individual professional contribution within the multiprofessional team context. It was clear from the discussion that the majority of participants had not previously considered the role of professional identity and how this is managed and mobilised within their multiprofessional teams. Highly ranked benefits associated with Professional Identity in multiprofessional teams included shared values and better patient care and highly ranked challenges included developing a shared vision and a risk of being pigeonholed. Ideas for supporting mobilisation of Professional Identity included regular group reflection sessions and raising the concept of Professional Identity at events such as induction.
In conclusion, using Nominal Group Technique was a helpful technique to scaffold a conversation facilitating participation by all the workshop attendees. It allowed the prioritisation of influences on Professional Identity. The approach also enabled all participants to contribute, providing equity across the hierarchy within the teams which was important because participants represented managers, professionals, assistants and placement students.

One of the most significant challenges in researching contemporary diaspora is to adopt the methodological approach to complex social and digital media environments. Diasporic identity negotiation and integration processes take place in this complex environment, and they include ethnicities, race, social capital, host societies, ‘imagined community’, transnational and virtual connections and cultural production (Anderson, 2006; Appadurai, 1996) .

The recent methodological tendency in researching diaspora and digital media towards a quantitative approach contrast with theories of diaspora as a multi-faceted and dynamic cultural formation. On the other hand, qualitative, ethnographic work often considers the nation state as a container of social process. Therefore, in order to capture and understand the multi-faceted and dynamic identity formation of diaspora and their integration process, it is necessary to initiate and develop an appropriate methodology that is comparative and transnational in nature. Building on the transnational approach (see Amelina, Nergiz, Faist, & Schiller, 2012; Schiller, Basch, & Blanc-Szanton, 1992) , I sketch this methodological and epistemological disconnect and address it by arguing that qualitative approach needs to address methodological challenges and move beyond border and nation state to avoid the trap of ‘methodological nationalism’ (Wimmer & Schiller, 2002) . In doing so, first, this paper identifies methodological challenges of diaspora and migration studies, and second, it addresses the qualitative methods (such as multi-sited (Marcus, 1995) and the mobile methods approach) to understand socially and digitally mediated formations of diaspora as well as researchers' positionality. Finally, I present a case study that investigates transnational identity and integration of the Rohingya diaspora in Australia and Bangladesh, each distinctive but interconnected locations within the power structures.

Drawing on a case study of Rohingya diaspora, this paper draws on two concurrently expanding strategies that can be part of an integrated framework that reveals multiple complementary perspectives; (a) the incorporation of qualitative and mobile or visual methods in what has been largely related to social media data, and (b) the use of multi sited research that investigates deep contextual analysis of multi-faceted dynamics of Rohingya diaspora (such as transnational mobility, diversity, integration, participation, and exclusion) individuals and family members connected across borders.

We present results of our work on the impact of call cycle and refusal conversion on weighted estimates from a large state-level CATI health survey. We examined estimates from truncating the call routine at 1, 2, etc. calls, where each estimate was weighted using standard procedures for the survey in question. We find that estimates for most outcome variables quickly stabilise: making additional calls does not yield improved estimates. For mobile phones, the vast majority of the variables examined were stable from one call attempt. It did not matter if call attempts stopped at one, four or ten; the estimates would be unchanged with respect to age of the respondent, gender, having children, local government area, language spoken at home, having anxiety or depression, arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, osteoporosis, a stroke or multiple diseases, smoker status, life satisfaction, feeling one’s life is worthwhile, multiculturalism or fruit and vegetable consumption. A limited number of variables stabilised at the second call attempt: lifetime risk from alcohol consumption, BMI category, dental health and generalised trust. Others stabilised after the third call attempt: employment, immediate risk from alcohol consumption, self-assessed general health status, sedentary behaviour and avoiding visiting a dentist. The only variables we checked that stabilised at the fourth call attempt were household income and psychological distress. In a similar analysis to that for mobile sample, the variables that stabilise for landline sample beyond four call attempts are as follows. Stabilising at five attempts were respondent age, short-term risk from alcohol consumption and sedentary behaviour. Stabilising at six attempts were lifetime risk from alcohol consumption, generalised trust and vegetable consumption. Stabilising beyond six call attempts were household income, having multiple diseases and employment status. Our work shows that extended call cycles no longer reduce non-response error and casts into question the desirability of extended call routines in Australian telephone surveys.

We introduce address-based samples with push-to-web as an alternative to telephone surveys of the general populations, drawing on our work on the most recent Australian administrations of the World Values Survey and the Asian Barometer Survey and the 2016 and 2019 Australian Election Study. Address-based samples draw their samples from the Geo-coded National Address File, a comprehensive sampling frame for Australian addresses. The primary mode of contact is via mail, although approximately 50 percent of addresses can be matched to phone numbers, to which reminder calls are made. The push-to-web approach used in these studies withholds hard copy for an extended period of the contact cycle in order to maximise online survey completion before hard copy is provided. We provide a detailed overview of the implementation of address-based sampling in Australia and review the results with respect to response rates and respondent demographics.

For my PhD thesis, I used a scale questionnaire developed by Turker in 2009. The scale collected employees’ perceptions about their entity’s initiatives for corporate social responsibility (CSR). I also used a scale questionnaire developed by O'Reilly & Chatman in 1986. This other scale was used to collect supervisors’ perceptions about employees’ performance. The first CSR questionnaire had 17 items, while the 2nd performance questionnaire had 21 items. Both questionnaires were presented to the research subjects in 20 recorded interviews. The aim was to adapt the questionnaires to fit the context in the United Arab Emirates including the language, the culture, and the special work conditions. Based on the review and comments, out of 17 items for the first CSR questionnaires, only 24% were not changed (4 out of 17). On the other hand, out of the 21 items for the 2nd performance questionnaire, only 43% were not changed (9 out of 21). This major adaptation in the questionnaires helped facilitating the response rate in the quantitative research and increased its clarity.

The development of an observational grid in the context of participatory action research in health organisations

Participant observation and the use of an observational grid can be used to help answer descriptive research questions associated with the meaningfulness of consumer engagement and to test associated hypotheses (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002). Participant observation involves a researcher's involvement in a variety of activities, over an extended period of time, which enables them to observe the cultural members in their daily lives. This method also allows researchers to participate in activities to facilitate a better understanding of those behaviors and activities (Kawulich, 2005). Participant observation is an active engagement activity with research participants, requiring the researcher to balance the insider (emic) versus outside (etic) a continuum (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002). Indeed, DeWalt and DeWalt (2002) believe that, "the goal for design of research using participant observation as a method is to develop a holistic understanding of the phenomena under study that is as objective and accurate as possible given the limitations of the method" (p.92).

The purpose of this presentation will be to discuss the development of an observational grid as tool for collecting and analysing data in qualitative research studies. An observational grid serves to remind the researcher of the events and issues of most importance by enabling a recording of their reflections of observable events in relation to their constructs of interest. The development of an observational grid, through the use of available evidence and the associated observational ‘memos’ , will be discussed as part of the video presentation. There is limited available information within the research literature regarding the development of an observational grid for the purpose of data collection but also analysis as part of qualitative research. As such, it is anticipated that feedback regarding the proposed process for development through presenting at this conference will contribute to this students’ methodological contribution in her PhD to qualitative research.

The observational grid will be used as part of the PhD candidates’ research relating to consumer engagement in health care. The concept of consumer engagement has emerged as an important trend in contemporary health services (Doyle, Lennox, & Bell, 2013). By providing insights and perspectives, patients can help the wider healthcare community better understand their needs and ultimately enhance the value of healthcare solutions and systems being developed (Bernard, 1994, Schensul, Schensul, & LeCompte, 1999). There is a growing body of evidence, which suggests that engagement of patients and their families leads to more empowered patients and more engaged patients have better perceived health outcomes (DeWalt & DeWalk, 1998; Fine, 2003) and improved quality of care. In summary, the development of an observational grid will assist with data collection and data analysis in the context of participatory action research in health organisations.

Background: To prevent nutrition related disease and the growing burden of chronic diseases associated with poor diet, nutrition education cooking interventions continue to be implemented nationally and internationally. Nutrition education cooking interventions are behaviour change interventions designed to increase cooking skills and confidence, with the aim of increasing healthy meals cooked at home improving overall diet quality. Reporting of the underlying program theory used for the planning and implementation of nutrition education cooking interventions and why they have the outcomes they do is inconsistent.
Aim: This study aimed to explore what works for whom and under what circumstances in nutrition education cooking interventions. Using a realist approach we aimed to illuminate the interplay of context, mechanism and outcome in behavioural interventions with the aim of generating evidence-based recommendations for future interventions.
Methods: Realist case studies were conducted to determine how and under what circumstances nutrition education cooking interventions work. A grey literature scoping review was undertaken to find interventions implemented and evaluated in Australia. Six cases that had been formally or informally evaluation were selected. Realist interviews, based on program theory developed in a realist review, were conducted with program facilitators. Outcome reports and other relevant literature from each program were identified. Interview and document data were coded for context-mechanism-outcome configurations and patterns examined.
Findings/Results: Preliminary analysis has found that a case study design was effective in affirming, refuting and refining the initial a program theory of works for whom and under what circumstances in nutrition education cooking interventions. The case study design allowed for comparison between cases and facilitated testing of the initial program theory that programs targeted at low socio-economic and marginalised populations produced a range of positive nutrition outcomes when the program involved hands on cooking and a skilled facilitator coupled with individual self-efficacy, knowledge gain, family support and an expectation of positive health outcomes.
Conclusions: The use of a case study design aligned with a realist methodology allows for the testing and refinement of program theory. Program theory generation provides context to the heterogenous mix of implementation and evaluation strategies that currently place limits on conclusions drawn from existing evidence. Realist evaluation of these types of interventions is important in providing much needed recommendations for policy makers.

Creative practice strategies used as research methods in the arts provide an opportunity to showcase skills and ideas of an artist. These techniques can also build an interaction with the audience of the work, potentially impacting the broader community to engage with cultural and social issues at the core of the artist’s work. In the formal PhD or Master’s research space, practicing artists are finding new ways to present their work to integrate traditional and non-traditional research methods.

This presentation will discuss the value of non-traditional research methods and showcase two PhD projects that have combined creative practice with other approaches as part of a broader outcome of research. The first project applied Actor Network Theory to work with people in Australia, Europe and India to explore concepts of sustainability using filmmaking as an interactive and creative process. The second project provided an interdisciplinary forum to engage with the key social and philosophical questions about the arts and sciences of mining. Both projects sought to build social engagement through art practice.

The presenters will briefly explain the way practice-based or practice-led research is different to traditional thesis presentations. They will then consider how qualitative methods have been integrated in their projects to culminate in a creative output that aims to have social impact.

Open source software began as a licensing model born from the free software movement. Although often as social science researchers our exposure to the open source world is to tools developed under open source licenses, there is much to be learnt from the tools and approaches that support this development in an increasingly computational research world.

This talk introduces the open source paradigm and discusses its importance and relevance to quantitative research. We discuss open source software development as a model for successful decentralised open collaboration, and how the tools, collaboration frameworks and approach behind open source software development can and are being leveraged to advance quantitative research tools and methods.

Historical institutionalism (HI) is often regarded as the least rigorous and the more tautological of the ‘new institutionalisms’, but this reputation is undeserved. I argue that HI, when viewed as a method for, rather than a theory of, examining institutional stasis and change, can provide a rigorous approach to process tracing that is useful in examining the impact of institutional legacies on contemporary political issues. Famous HI scholars, including Kathleen Thelen, suggest that systematic approaches to comparative temporal analyses can help to overcome the shortcomings of the inductive method in comparative politics. While for Karl Popper the inductive method is, in effect, hopeless in its scientific utility, my contention is that the nature of the social sciences means that falsifiability is, for the most part, a bridge too far for comparative political research. Plausibility, as opposed to falsifiability, can be achieved using systematic HI processes that are more sophisticated than simply rummaging through the past to find evidence that supports a given hypothesis. In this seminar, I aim to present a method that is not only useful in conducting comparative political analysis over time, but that can also address some of the inevitable shortcomings inherent in the conduct of inductive, comparative political science research by providing a systematic and rigorous system of process tracing over time.

Julia is an open source, high-performance programming language for numerical and scientific computing. Its launch billed the language as having “the speed of C with the usability of Python, the dynamism of Ruby, the mathematical prowess of MatLab, and the statistical chops of R”. Julia aims to solve the “two-language” problem and as it was designed from the beginning for high performance and with technical and numerical computing usage in mind it is perfectly suited to a range of data science applications.

Julia is very much in its infancy compared with R and Python, launching in 2012 with a stable 1.0 release in 2018. Julia provides support for modern machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow and MXNet, making it easy to adapt to existing workflows, and supports a number of statistical and data science applications built in R and Python. While the Julia community is growing, many frameworks are still in the process of being ported natively into Julia.

This presentation provides a brief introduction to the Julia programming language and explores some deep learning implementations including some examples using Flux.

There is a growing movement across the world to make better use of wellbeing measures to guide policy. This stems from the realisation that reliance on economic indicators, such as income, GDP, and unemployment, may not be adequately capturing the aspects of life that people value. This is of particularly high relevance in our increasingly globalised world, where policies and programs are often developed and implemented by populations other than the target group.

But how do we measure what actually matters to people? A mounting body of research over the past two decades has developed participatory wellbeing frameworks, which are created by consulting with the target population and asking the question “What does a good life mean for you?”. This presentation will outline the findings of a systematic review of over 120 participatory wellbeing frameworks, spanning every region of the world and all life stages. In particular, we will highlight the methods applied to develop these frameworks, including how the question is phrased to elicit wellbeing meanings, and the level of participation with community members.

Overall, this study demonstrated that while there are some similarities in ‘what matters to people’ from different population groups, nuances exist within every group. Given this diverse understanding of wellbeing throughout the world, it is vital that research and policy takes this into account. Doing so will ensure that social programs and policies will improve the lives of individuals in a meaningful way.

Historical Institutionalism (HI) adopts an empirical and contextualized approach to theory construction. Methodologically, it uses detailed historical process tracing and narrative analysis making cross-national structured comparisons of historical cases within and across countries, across different time periods to identify distinctive national trajectories. HI’s logic of analysis is based on a contextual and complex logic of causality.

In keeping with HI’s contextual and temporal logic of analysis, an analysis of path dependence processes allows for the identification and tracing causal links and mechanisms, as policy trajectories unfold over time. Path dependence is a pattern of causation that involves temporal sequencing and contextual and complex causal relations. This creates theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges for the application of path dependence analysis, requiring adaptation and development of methods that address this complexity and produce valid and useful explanations (Bennett and Elman, 2006; Hall, 2006).

Therefore, I propose a conceptual framework to investigate the unfolding trajectory of industry policy as a result of the interaction between three categories of path dependencies: ideational, institutional and social political economy. The framework uses path dependence theory, within a HI lens, to explain stability and change, by analysing three categories of path dependence. The aim with this conceptual framework is to understand and capture multiple and conjectural causation, and understand the factors that have shaped the trajectory of industry policy in Australia over time.

Explaining path dependency and critical junctures in the political science academic literature dealing with historical institutionalism, and subsequent expositions for general consumption, have mostly been constructed textually. This tends to require significant inputs of time and informed reflection for a reader to develop an understanding of why and how a status quo emerged, developed and was ultimately replaced as the result of a critical juncture. Other disciplines, particularly economics, have a long history of using diagrams to explain changes to the status quo. However, an examination of these diagrams indicates that they often over-simplify complex policy processes or, conversely, include so much detail that the message they intend to impart may not be easily apparent to the reader. This paper builds on the work of Michael de Percy in diagramming path dependency and critical junctures as a visual heuristic that supports plausible explanations of institutional stasis and change. It does so by stating the benefits of an heuristic visual approach to the complexities of institutional stasis and change, defines and applies key terms commonly found in the literature to a diagrammatic model, provides an example using nationally shareable electronic health records in Australia, and ends with a short discussion on the broader applications that may emerge from this explanatory approach.

Metaphor has been fundamental to understanding a range of social psychological phenomena. In this presentation, a metaphor identification method is introduced that can be readily applied to the field of social science, specifically, vocational psychology research and practice. A practically-orientated demonstration of the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit is applied to an illustrative sample of student testimonials from university promotional videos from Australia and Norway. Metaphors as understood through conceptual metaphor theory offer a window to explore their influence on the attitudes and behaviours of their audiences. This systematic means of metaphor identification can effectively extend the scholarly work on career metaphors and offer an analytical rather than intuitive method for investigating metaphor in language and communication.
Keywords: career; higher education; linguistics; metaphor; narratives; MIPVU

Software for qualitative research remains dominated by applications that suffer from a number of problems related to their commercial and proprietary nature. They are expensive for those with limited means, including notably researchers in the developing world; opaque in their operation, preventing independent verification of results; and lack common standards for data storage and interchange, effectively locking users into their continued exclusive use. Yet the problems addressed by qualitative research software are well-understood and its functions largely standardised, making it suitable for open source solutions that address those problems. In addition, open source software offers significant advantages, notably the ability to integrate a vast collection of existing high quality software libraries, and to cultivate a community of users and developers to participate in its ongoing improvement.

In the course of his work as a researcher and research consultant, the author has written a collection of software tools called BarraQDA that provide the fundamentals of an open source application for qualitative research. BarraQDA defines a simple and open file format to store research projects and Python scripts to create, manipulate and report on them. Crucially for researchers who need to maintain continuity with their current methods, it includes programs to translate data between BarraQDA and NVivo file formats (both Mac and Windows versions).

BarraQDA offers a number of immediate possibilities that are beyond the ability of proprietary applications. First, operations can be automated or integrated into other data processing routines. Instead of time-consuming, repetitive and error-prone interactions using the keyboard and mouse, scripts can be written that quickly and accurately perform operations such as defining and editing sources and tags, and tagging sources according to algorithmically defined criteria. Second, other software tools, most notably but not limited to the vast collection of Python libraries, can easily be incorporated into the process of building, querying and reporting on qualitative research projects. Third, all its operations are described in a textual format which can be published alongside the research results, providing a means for others to verify the analysis and replicate its results.

Given the functions that BarraQDA can currently perform, it is worth considering whether it might now or in the foreseeable future be usable as a substitute for existing QDA applications. The primary core component that it lacks is the tagger, that is the system whereby users manually select and tag sections of source materials. The tagger is somewhat complex and delicate to implement; it should reflect the real working environment of qualitative research by supporting a wide variety of source types (text, image, audio, video, social media feeds and so on) and formats for storing those types. In addition, the work of tagging is by nature painstaking, repetitive and error-prone, so the user interface needs to be carefully tailored to mitigate these difficulties. At present, work is proceeding on a number of different approaches to creating an open source tagger, although none is further advanced than a prototype.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a common software development practice which enables developers to merge regular code changes to a central repository which can be validated with automated tests. Continuous Delivery (CD) extends continuous integration by automating the release process, allowing software deployment on demand. Continuous deployment goes further by removing any manual intervention required as part of the release process.

Although CI/CD is generally associated with software development, it is an approach that can be leveraged to better manage and QA regularly updated datasets.

Additional challenges are confronted when building a CI/CD framework for data processing compared to developing software. Automation flows need to be triggered by new data inputs or changes to data, not only by changes made to the code base. Decisions around what constitutes a data trigger can vary significantly depending on the use case.

Many cloud-based services for CI/CD may not be appropriate for a data pipeline as confidential data or PII may not be able to be transferred to some of these platforms. Data validation services need to be monitored carefully as they can charge per processing unit so steps to minimize costs for re-processing are required.

This presentation discusses these challenges using example use cases in a survey research environment.

Many studies carried worldwide indicate existence of a gap between engineering education and practice. However, a little attention has been given to engineering practice in non-western countries. This study explores the engineering competencies and challenges faced by engineers working in hydropower sector in Bhutan, which is the main contributor of Bhutan Gross Domestic Product. This study will try to answer the following research questions:
1) What are the engineering competencies are required by engineers in hydropower sector in Bhutan?
2) What are challenges faced by engineers in hydropower sector and how engineers overcome the challenges faced?
Considering the educational qualification background and work experience of more than 14 years in hydropower sector, of the leading researcher, the research study is positioned in constructivist research paradigm. The qualitative methodology used for the study is constructivist grounded theory (CGT). The first step of this project was to conduct a pilot study to test and improve the research protocol. The data for this pilot study was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with three Bhutanese engineers having work experience ranging from 4 to 12 years in hydropower sector. The convenience sampling was adopted to recruit the above participants by contacting them via social media and email.
The recorded interviews were transcribed manually to remain very close to and interact with the data. The CGT method was adopted for the data analysis. The initial line-by-line coding using gerund was conducted followed by focused coding. Both line-by-line and focused coding helped to remain very open to the data and not force any preconceived ideas to the data. Then searching for patterns in the focused codes was carried out.
The results indicated the following engineering competencies are required. First, engineers require technical skills to perform the technical related work. Second, engineers need to communicate with their subordinates, contractors, supervisors, work colleagues. Both verbal and written communication skills are fundamental for their work. Third, engineers have to manage projects of varying size from small IT projects to mega hydropower project. and have to be equipped with project management competency. Fourth, engineers have to manage the personnel working under them. Thus, people management skill is required. Fifth, engineers need to carry out the tendering to procure goods and service from vendors. Thus, they need to be equipped with tender management skill. Last but not the least, engineers need to manage the contracts and thus needed to be equipped with contract management competency. One of the main challenges faced by engineers is the inability of engineers to persuade and influence others to take action.
Conducting the pilot study helped to gain feedback on the interview protocol and to gain the practice of the interviewing and data analysis. The challenges faced during the pilot study was participant recruitment problem due to their pre-occupation. The lessons learned in the pilot study helped to conduct the main study with confidence.

Parliamentary speech offers the researcher a trove of publicly available secondary data on current topics of debate. Treated as content this can provide a highly useful indicator of social opinion that relates the primary subject of debate. It can also be used to usefully reveal normative social principles beyond the focus of discussion. However, to get at these principles both the rhetoric of parliamentary speech and the focus of debate needs to be negotiated and decoded to reveal the underlying basis, or principle of legitimacy. This session uses the concepts of focus/basis and constellation analysis from Legitimation Code Theory to reveal underlying principles of legitimation. Using data from a recent doctoral study this unpacks a set of parliamentary debates revealing both key themes arising from the focus of the debates on school funding, as well as the significant social principles that informed these relating to the relationship of families to school education. By the end of this session participants will have some useful tools for decoding parliamentary speech as a data source. These can be applied not only to debates directly focused on their object of study, also for reveal social principles that inform the basis that underlie these.

Research organisations embracing open source software can rarely escape comparisons to proprietary offerings and the need to integrate proprietary software into their workflows, whether due to internally driven requirements or external demands. Whilst there are many benefits to the adoption of open source tools in a survey research environment, these benefits come with their own unique challenges.

Often proprietary products will advertise integration with open source tools, which are pseudo-integrations that offer little utility. Likewise support for proprietary tools in open source frameworks can be haphazard and can meaningfully lag changes to proprietary software.

We began using R at the Social Research Centre in 2013, and over time it has become our primary data processing tool and supports much of our data analysis work. Alongside the move to R we have adopted many other open source tools with varying levels of success.

We discuss some of the unique practical challenges faced when adopting open source tools, including:
- integrating open source software with existing proprietary tools
- usability challenges
- user support
- tools with hybrid open/closed source offerings

In this paper, by using a step-by-step approach, the authors demonstrate the theoretical and methodological dynamism of game theory by proposing integration of the underpinnings of classical organization theory, neoclassical organization theory, systems theory and game theory to develop a conceptual framework for the organization of healthcare services delivery. It also underlines that game theoretical modeling could operationalize the conceptual framework by using public hospital performance data. The methodology presented in this paper can not only be used for the organization of healthcare services delivery, but also has the potential for developing game theoretic and multitheoretical organizations in other sectors as well to solve a wide variety of organizational problems. Researchers and practitioners could use other theories along with game theory to address the problems identified from the gaps in the literature review of their research studies.

Someone from SDAS will be available in this Zoom session through the conference for attendees to pop in and chat if they want to learn more about Stata.

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This plenary session introduces the audience to arts in health methodologies and their application to research the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the resulting recession. Maritime workers' are vulnerable to health, welfare, and safety issues. In 2019, the United States (U.S.) had 2/5 of the World Fleet, and it had been a member of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) since 1950. The IMO (2020) estimated that there are about 2 million seafarers in the merchant marine industry. In 1959 Australia joined the IMO (2020), and it is estimated that there are about 2 million seafarers in the merchant marine industry. Australia depends on 99% of its trade from maritime sources.

Arts in health methods include photo elucidation techniques. Images and words are linked to interpreting data gathered from interviews and questionnaires from varied cultural perspectives. Questionnaires include online ones. The role of arts-based methods to support existing approaches for maritime workers should not be underestimated.

COVID-19 raises specific risks in the industry, including maritime, spread peaking. This spread has adverse effects on maritime workers, and there is a gap in human resources, and global supply chains are disrupted. Global supply chains need to be durable in the interests of economic and national security. Maritime workers may not be having adequate rest and often become vulnerable and fatigued when they keep ships moving and ports open, particularly in the COVID-19 pandemic context. Isolation takes a toll upon maritime workers' health, well-being and motivation. Simulated reality through arts-based methods, including photography, is a partial solution to support maritime workers' personal and social development.

The main question is: how could the maritime regulatory system be improved to address COVID-19 and the resulting recession to lessen maritime workers' distress? The qualitative methods to address this question include arts-based methods such as visual data and online self-administered questionnaire. Also included are Zoom-based interviews and observations. Arts-based research is distributed through online digital resources. The United States and Australia provide examples of the importance of maritime trade. It follows that the USA and Australia's economic consequences significantly affect a vast number of maritime workers globally. This session and continuing research are likely to have implications for other jurisdictions in the COVID-19 period who undertake maritime trade and commerce.

In recent years traditional principles of ethnographic research have become very blurred due to a growing variety of subject areas, to which the ethnographic approach is applied. One of these relatively new areas for the ethnographic approach is the online space.
The methodological foundations of ethnography, developed long before the emergence of the internet, hardly fit into the modern digital context. The study of virtual communities differs significantly from ethnography in its traditional form. The nature of communication in the online environment does not allow researchers to observe the people under study using the tools familiar to ethnographic research. Online fieldwork raises many questions about its principles and procedures (Markham, 2013).
Conceptually blurred views on principles, procedures and results of studying online communities have contributed to the formation of different styles and practices of online ethnography: virtual ethnography, digital ethnography, netnography, etc.
In recent years there has been a trend towards a convergence between ethnography and quantitative methodology (Hine, 2015). Based on the analysis of archival data, in some of the most radical types of online ethnography, it is proposed to abandon the fieldwork, which is the methodological basis in classical field ethnography (Geiger, Ribes, 2011). Ethnographic interviews with the people being studied are replaced by the analysis of digital traces - large amount of data about the behavior of people in the online space. This format of online ethnography, based on the use of a large amount of quantitative data (“big data”), is recognized as a more powerful in terms of the scope of the study (Hine, 2015), but it is actively criticized for its “archival nature” (Hampton, 2017).
This study develops an ethnographic approach to the study of online communities, which allows, on the one hand, to use the capabilities of existing online technologies and digital methods, on the other hand, to achieve emersion in the field, as required by the ethnographic method.
The empirical part of the study was conducted in the format of an ethnographic case study of the Russian-speaking sociological online community. To obtain a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the phenomenon under study I used a mixed methods research strategy. In particular, the “additional coverage design” (Morgan, 2014) was chosen. It involved a parallel combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to solve different research tasks.
The quantitative stage was used to describe the portrait of participants, identify the structure and topics of interaction in the community. As an empirical base, I used online data on the community under study, the analysis of which was carried out using a wide range of research methods: quantitative content analysis, social network analysis, and topic modeling. The qualitative stage of the research was implemented in the form of covert online observation. The main task of this stage was to describe the topics of interaction more conceptually, as well as highlight the norms and conflicts in the community under study.

A push to reimagine university campus design has been taking place across the globe recently. As universities attempt to introduce more decentralised spaces for students, the boundaries between these and other spaces become more fluid, redefining universities as learning environments. Yet despite significant investment in the design, construction and furnishing of such spaces, not enough is known about how these novel personalised learning environments shape social behaviour. Previous research on informal learning spaces, although providing valuable insights, routinely draws on traditional quantitative methods regarding their patterns of use and learning outcomes. If universities are to better understand these informal learning environments and the meanings and practices students bring to them, new perspectives incorporating novel qualitative approaches are required.
The purpose of this research is to investigate informal learning spaces and the types of student experiences they engender. Importantly, it seeks to explore the utility of qualitative methodologies that produce deeper insights into the complex interplay between space and social practice in these educational settings. Originally, this was to be achieved through the use of ethnographic methods such as walk-through interviews and photo-elicitation focus groups. However, the significant limitations brought about by Covid-19 have stymied this planned approach by rendering university campuses inaccessible. In response to these new circumstances a digital version of the walk-through interviews was developed and implemented. The intention of this paper, therefore, is to share preliminary findings and practical insights to emerge from this digital variant of a traditional face-to-face approach. It is hoped that such insights will stimulate further discussion regarding the challenges and affordances of digital ethnography, as well as a broader exploration of the future of university built environments amid significant global transformations.

In recent years there has been much advancement in statistical and computational approaches to natural language processing. However, a vexing problem still exists on how to explore and present results from textual data in an effective way. Static visualisations of text analysis are not very effective for exploring the high dimensionality of textual data. Where we usually want to probe trends and relationships between terms, perhaps even comparing across population cohorts, frequencies on their own can be very underwhelming.

Text analytics often requires some level of subjective interpretation. Ultimately this requires someone to interpret the semantics of the results. In other words, there is a necessary step between training a model and drawing conclusions.

At the SRC we have been trialing interactive dashboards to support this middle step in the NLP analysis workflow. Interactive dashboards enable users to explore the dimensionality of the data in order to tease out trends and make their own insights, and as such are ideal for presenting text analytics. As well as presenting the NLP results in the most meaningful way, the challenge has been to build something that is flexible enough that the user can crosscut the data whichever way they wish, but with some constraints in order to guide their analysis. This paper will demonstrate an interactive online application that we have built in R Shiny for exploring text analytics.

Trying to understand how people would respond to a hypothetical situation is problematic. The gap between how someone knows they should respond, or even how they think they would respond, and how they actually would respond, can be large. Theoretical explanations for this gap include social desirability (i.e. reporting an answer in a way they deem to be more socially acceptable than would be their "true" answer) and identity theory (i.e. reporting responses that match how one views oneself). Nevertheless, such an approach can provide valuable insights into a situational response – including level of knowledge regarding best practice, as well as predicting actual response.

Often in research studies, hypothetical scenarios are presented as written vignettes. However, there is evidence that alternative presentation modes – such as video and audio, result in more realistic responses, are more engaging for participants and result in better quality data. A downside of video vignettes, however, is that they can over-specify the scenario so that participants react to visual cues,– such as what the actors look like or background scenery, that are irrelevant to the research question. Our approach suggests that audio vignettes may be an appropriate middle ground and provide a richer and more realistic response.

The aim of this paper is to outline our methodological approach to the development and creation of an audio scenario to be undertaken with school Principals. The audio vignette is part of an online instrument designed to understand schools’ preparedness for changes and events that impact on the supportiveness and connectedness of the social environment, such as cyberbullying, and their capacity to respond. The paper includes a discussion of what scenario was chosen and why, including the careful choice of actors (e.g. a gender-neutral voice for the student) and language (e.g. ethnically ambiguous character names).

Ultimately, we are interested in understanding the extent to which Principals engaged with the scenario and its authenticity in the school environment, and whether the audio scenario enabled them to respond fully to the survey questions regarding system-level response that followed. We also aim to compare participants’ responses to two questions asked prior to the audio vignette regarding the school’s level of or preparation for a response to a cyber bullying or bullying issue, to those provided after hearing the audio vignette. Due to COVID-related restrictions on research in schools in Victoria, the scenario has not yet been implemented. We hope to complete this research in early 2021.

This paper reports on a research project, ‘Learning to be Safer’, about how Australian adults learned about aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic during the early months of the crisis’? The paper explores the project methodology, and specifically how responses were affected by the growing seriousness of the topic, and by the timing of the data collection. The survey method was similar to a 2019 Federation University project, ‘Learning to be Greener’, which was about adults’ learning about recycling and plastic bag use (Smith, 2019). The on-line survey link was distributed to staff from a university with campuses mainly in Victoria. Staff were invited to forward the link to family and friends aged 18 and over. Ethics approval was gained, and care was taken in all communications to acknowledge the difficult and stressful environment at the time and to underline that participation was voluntary. The survey covered four topics: the crisis: health information, restrictions and closures, the progress of the pandemic nationally and internationally, and financial provisions. For each section, potential sources of information were divided into ‘Media’ and ‘Non-media’ sources. These two lists were slightly adapted from lists used for the previous research project (Smith, 2019), which were themselves developed from items in a survey on adults’ learning about the Scottish referendum (Crowther, Boeren & Mackie, 2018). For each topic, respondents were asked to reflect on their awareness, and understanding of, the topics at two different reference dates, and then to indicate which of a large number of listed sources they learned from. There were also brief demographic questions and questions about people’s life satisfaction and optimism, based on a European Union survey (Eurofound, 2020), and about additional stressors respondents might be experiencing that could affect their experience of the pandemic.
The survey was carried out from 22nd June until 2nd August 2020. At the time the survey went into the field, the worst of the pandemic seemed to be over in Australia, and the survey questions were predicated on that assumption, with respondents being asked to answer about a number of matters as of late March when the lockdowns had begun, and then in late June/July, which was intended to capture the tail end of the pandemic’s effects. But Coronavirus cases soon rose quickly in Victoria, where most of the respondents were located, leading to severe lockdown measures. We delayed a reminder notice to avoid causing extra distress, and did not pursue other follow-up measures. As we conducted the survey, we noticed several things compared with the earlier ‘Learning to be Greener’ survey. Firstly, response rates were lower, even though the earlier survey had restricted responses only to employees of the university. Secondly, there were fewer lengthy qualitative responses. Thirdly, the data showed a different pattern of sources of information, with government sources predominating.

Co-author: Morgan Wise, Federation University Australia

Producing output tables is an exceedingly manual activity, particularly when tabling complex statistics with associated metadata. When preparing large numbers of tables for presentation or publication, providing different views of the same result set can require large amounts of re-processing and fiddly manual combination and reshaping of outputs.

Inspired by the gt R package (https://gt.rstudio.com/), we present an experimental proof of concept for a new tabling approach with an accompanying R package, projectable.

Designed to easily support flexible specification and table manipulation, this approach treats a table as a collection of calculations with accompanying metadata rather than simple values. It aims to support easily moving from specification to data production to presentation of results by treating an output table as a “projection” of complex results.

This presentation introduces the architecture and approach behind the package and provides some simple practical examples of real-world use cases.

Covid-19 is posing some difficult challenges to carry out research under condition of social isolation. However, it is also providing opportunities to develop innovative ways in which research can be continued virtually. Since the spread of Covid-19 several hurdles are being faced by researchers including inability to conduct face-to-face interviews and focus groups as well as lack of cross-checking their coding of interviews from qualitative data. The authors of this paper have been forced to teach virtually due to Covid-19. This gave them an opportunity to experiment with virtual tools, such as a collaborative whiteboard, to carry out group work with students in their classes over zoom. Based on this experience from their teaching they discussed whether they can use these virtual tools to analyse data from interviews and artefacts they had collected pre-Covid19 for their research projects as the process has stalled.

The research question they raised to address was:

How do researchers collaborate and make sense of data by using suitable tools when socially isolated during a pandemic?

They plan to carry out a pilot study in Sydney working virtually to improve their capability to use collaborative tools to conduct research. Using their experiences with the pilot study they plan to engage with international researchers who are also part of their research teams. At the ACSPRI conference the authors want to present a case study reporting on the pilot study and open it up to exchange other experiences. It is hoped that case study will help other researchers who are also facing hurdles to continue to work collaboratively while social isolation measures are in place due to Covid-19

In recent years, governments in many countries have implemented higher education reforms. Their goal was to provide more freedom to universities, to improve the quality of higher education and to professionalize the work of academic workers. Academics are expected to include members of the public in research projects, to establish cooperation with scientists from other research centers and to increase the quality of research. In this context, the scientific enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Society trusts that scientific research results are an honest and accurate reflection of a researcher's work. Researchers equally trust that their colleagues have gathered data carefully, have used appropriate analytic and statistical techniques, have reported their results accurately, and have treated the work of other researchers with respect.
Scientific crowdsourcing has become an important part of the changing science landscape. Scientific crowdsourcing is a new way of contemporary scientific research activities, an example of opening of science and research, an alternative to research projects, a strategy for organising the work of a researchers (Lukyanenko, Parsons, Wiersma, & Maddah, 2019) and tool for research (Law, Gajos, Wiggins, Gray, & Williams, 2017). Scientific crowdsourcing enables new collaborative forms of knowledge creation, scientific crowdsourcing is an online content creation tool (Doan, Ramakrishnan, & Halevy, 2011) communicating academic teachers with each other and with people from outside the scientific community, collecting or classifying data (Beck, Brasseur, Poetz, & Sauermann, 2019). It is also the practice of obtaining participants, services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, especially via the Internet (Brown & Allison, 2014).
Scientific crowdsourcing facilitates the process of collecting, processing and analysing research data (Law et al., 2017), enlisting participants for surveys, research, experiments, panels, focus groups, statistical analyses, transcriptions (Schlagwein & Daneshgar, 2014), generating innovative research questions, hypotheses, research proposals, testing research at an early stage. Scientific crowdsourcing also allows you to reduce costs of conducting research, to provide the researchers involved with funding, to establish cooperation and to seek collaborators for joint research, to obtain assessment and opinions (Uhlmann et al., 2019) on the concept of a given research project or an article, to solve problems arising in the course of writing an article or conducting research (Hevner, March, Park, & Ram, 2013), to determine the reliability and generalisation of the results and to disseminate the results (Beck et al., 2019). The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize quantitative evidence on use of crowdsourcing in social science research. We screened 86 articles.

Research is defined as reproducible when results can be replicated using the documented data, code, and methods implemented by the author without the need for any additional information. The benefits are transparency; providing the ability for fellow researchers to check and validate findings, as well as the possibility of expanding on findings for further research.

Reproducible research is all the buzz in academic circles, but how does it apply to survey research? Great in theory, but how feasible is it when dealing with the often complicated, diverse datasets typically found in the social sciences? This presentation promotes the use of open source software and tools as a means for reproducibility, scientific rigour and research hygiene. We will explore some useful, open source tools available for researchers in the social sciences, namely Jupyter Notebooks and Rmarkdown.

These tools are very powerful and extensible. Whilst they require a level of skills in programming, they present many advantages for processing and dissemination. We will explore these advantages by showcasing a number of good examples in the field. Research should not be simply about publishing findings, but also the underlying methods. As such we will also cover a number of online hosting services available for researchers to freely publish their work.

This ecosystem of tools tie data collection and data processing much closer to the analysis and reporting results, making it easier to package up the entire research workflow for an external audience.

This paper explains the theoretical framework and methodology of a case study that explores the transformation of tourism destinations towards sustainable development. The Tourismscapes concept developed based on Actor-network theory (ANT) is used to explain emergent versions of destinations, as tourismscapes reflect the multiplicity of a tourism destination evolving overtime during its development progress (van der Duim, 2007). ANT offers a methodological framework to approach realities (Jóhannesson, 2005), which ethnographically provides rich description of “how things work and of how relations and practices are ordered” (Van der Duim et al., 2013, p. 6). The ANT’s translation is applied to track collective actions aiming to address specific sustainability goals at tourism destination, by which involved actors are identified and conceptualised in models of tourismscapes. This process explains the networking processes that converge multiple actors into networks of collective actions and transform destinations towards more sustainable development.
Principal actors play a central role in networking processes, as they circulate the translation to assemble actors in collective actions and maintain the networks. However, tracing translation is unable to identify actors’ ability to connect various actors, which is a characteristic of principal actors for the success of collective actions. To overcome this issue, this study employs social network analysis (SNA) which is a strategy to investigate social structures (Otte & Rousseau, 2002) by analysing social relationships between actors and identifying their positions in networks (Albrecht, 2013; Scott et al., 2008).
A mixed-method multiple-cases study was conducted in Da Nang City and Hue Province located in Central Vietnam. The unit of analysis was interactions and collective actions relating to sustainable tourism practices at these destinations. This strategy allows a combination of qualitative and quantitative materials to complement each other (Bryman, 2016; Sarantakos, 2013; Yin, 2014) and a cross-case synthesis to make the research more robust and reliable (Baxter & Jack, 2008).
The quantitative method involved a social network survey to identify connections related to tourism development in destinations. Applied network analysis and centrality (a property of a node) were conducted to calculate several metrics to describe the structure of destination networks and capture actor position in networks (Borgatti et al., 2018).
The qualitative method involved documentary analysis and fieldwork composing semi-structured interviews and observations to discover and assess a deeper understanding of the research phenomenon (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Conforming to ANT-based research process, actions and relations were traced through the time and space, in hybrid and non-territorial environments, including non-human informants and following actors that constructed and were transformed by collective actions (Beard et al., 2016; Van der Duim et al., 2017). The qualitative data analysis involved thematic analysis, deductive, inductive strategy, pattern matching, and cross-case synthesis, supported by the NVIVO (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Yin, 2014).
By processing this design, this study contributed a convergence of SNA and ANT in tourism research and the advancement of the tourismscapes concept to understand the transformation of tourism destinations towards sustainable development.

The primary purpose of Ten to Men: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health is to build an evidence base to inform the National Male Health Policy and help improve the health and wellbeing of Australian men and boys. Funded by the Department of Health, Ten to Men began in 2013 with a sample of around 16,000 men aged from 10 to 55, and is currently in its third wave of data collection. Changes in the management of the study in 2018 resulted in a five-year gap between Waves 2 and 3. During this gap, there was a substantial pause in contact with the sample, leading to outdated contact information and reduced attachment to the study. This paper will discuss the work undertaken to address these challenges and the strategies implemented for locating and re-engaging participants for Wave 3 of Ten to Men.

To remedy the lack of reliable contact information, a range of options were considered for obtaining updated information from participants and tracking those who could not be contacted, including an incentivised panel maintenance activity, scoping of tracking options, and promotion of the study. The first activity conducted was a strategically incentivised panel maintenance activity, where participants were asked to review and update or confirm their contact information. While the response rate for this activity was high in comparison to similar activities conducted in previous waves or other studies, at the conclusion of this activity a substantial proportion of participants without updated contact information remained. Extensive effort was then given to identifying effective methods for tracking these participants, though privacy constraints proved challenging. Consultations were also held on innovative ways to help promote the study and bring the third wave to the attention of hard-to-reach participants.

Another challenge was the lack of recent participant engagement in the study, with some respondents having forgotten about their previous participation or assuming the study had ended. Several activities were undertaken to address this, including the re-branding of the study. The re-brand sought to balance maintaining a connection with the original form and look of the study with providing a refreshed, engaging look for the study going forward. The new study branding was applied to all participant documentation, which, with input from focus groups, was carefully designed to be visually appealing and promote the importance of ongoing participation in the study. Care also went into selecting participant incentives that would appeal to a broad range of participants and maximise response, while aligning with the values of a men’s health study.

This paper will discuss the strategies used, as well as outcomes and reflections. Early findings from the Main Wave data collection will be presented.

Introduction:
Globally young people with the academic and personal attributes to successfully study medicine experience disadvantage associated with sociodemographic factors. Governments have attempted to address this issue via macro-level policies aimed at widening access (WA) to medicine. These policies differ by country, suggesting much can be learned from examining and comparing international policy discourses of WA. Our question was: how are discourses of WA to higher and medical education positioned in the UK and Australia?
Methods:
A systematic search strategy was guided by five a priori themes inspired by United Nations Sustainability Goals (2015). Seventeen policy documents (UK n=9, Australia n=8) published between 2008 - 2018 were identified. Analysis involved two over-arching, iterative stages: a document analysis then a Foucauldian critical discourse analysis.
Results:
Discourses of social mobility and individual responsibility within a meritocracy are still paramount in the UK. In contrast, the dominant discourse in Australia is social accountability in achieving equity and workforce diversity, prioritising affirmative action and community values. Similarities between the two countries in terms of WA policy and policy levers have changed over time, linked to the divergence of internal drivers for societal change. In both countries socially privileged stakeholders dominate policy and practice development, with implications for addressing inequities, differences and hidden disadvantage.
Discussion:
Widening access policies and hence WA practices are situated and contextual. Conceptualising equity and diversity should explicitly consider the historical disempowerment of marginalised groups and put their perspectives at the core of the design and development of policy and policy-related texts.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a methodological approach often used to expose racist and discriminatory talk. As it is nowadays taboo to make explicitly racist remarks, CDA can be used to reveal xenophobic beliefs and arguments which are deliberately concealed by certain discursive strategies. However, while CDA can equally be used to challenge and resist racism, there are very few studies investigating how CDA can reveal anti-racist strategies.

This paper explores the anti-racist discourses of ten Australian Muslim women discussing the 2016 ban on burkinis on several French beaches. As members of an informal swimming club, the ‘Swim Sisters’, and wearers of variations of the burkini, the women are well placed to comment on the ban. In contrast to many studies on anti-racism which investigate the anti-racist discourses of those from the dominant group, the Muslim women themselves were specifically asked for their opinion on the ban.

Findings show that the women actively disputed pre-existing beliefs around notions of ‘comfort’ and what Muslim women’s motives are in wearing a burkini. This paper will discuss both the conversion of pre-existing CDA methodologies to be suitable for a study on anti-racism as well as the findings from the study.

This research explores the role of the network in creating or locking down a policy path. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the influence of the structure of the network on the policy settings that support a non-integration policy stance within the health care sector. It will explore how actors in the network support or prevent changes to a major policy parameter in the health system: the payment and access rules.

Health care funders in Australia are prevented from become active managers in the health care system through limits imposed upon what they can pay, and how they can pay for it (the payment and access rules) (Biggs and Buckmaster 2007, 4). Under these rules, funders (Private health insurers and governments) cannot limit, manage, coordinate or integrate the provision of services. The inability to incentivise potentially more efficient models of care, when combined with ever increasing demand and costs, is providing inefficient outcomes. (Leeder and McAuley 2005).

Vertical integration has been proposed as a model of funding healthcare to reduce fragmentation and increase the efficiency of the system (Robinson and Casalino 1996) (Tirole 1989, 170). It has been implemented in other countries in a variety of ways (Gauld 2014) (Jackson and Gauld 2018) (Mosca 2012). However, attempts to alter the rules to increase vertical integration in Australia have not been successful.

Policy change does not exist in a vacuum. To understand why attempts to change the ‘non-integration policy’ were unsuccessful an examination of these attempts is warranted. Path dependence arguments are highly relevant for analysing and explaining the persistence of public policies in the face of intentional reform (Torfing 2009). Path Dependency Theory will be used to examine three cases where the non-integration policy was challenged. This will allow the development of insights into why a policy path that, according to theory, provides a suboptimal outcome has prevailed.

Path Dependency Theory can also allow for the analysis of actors attempts to mindfully deviate from the path (change the policy) when combined with suitable theories that acknowledge the role of power, agency and environmental factors (Garud and Karnoe 2001). Resource Dependency Theory (RDT) is a suitable theory and is brought into the theoretical framework due to its focus on the external environment (Taylor, McLarty and Henderson 2018). Network analysis methods will be brought in to explore how the structure of the network influenced the outcomes and conceptualise the role of the structure of the network in the maintenance of the current non-integratory policy (Rhodes 2006) (Berry, et al. 2004). Network analysis aims to identify patterns of relationships, such as hubs, cliques, or brokers, and to link those relations with outcomes of interest.

This research will contribute to our understanding of network methods. Furthermore, it will extend the application of RDT from the normal dyadic market conditions found in most markets, into the three-player market model reflecting the unique nature of health care markets thus expanding our conceptualisation of RDT.

The restrictions introduced by the Australian Government to manage the spread of COVID-19 significantly affected the face to face methodology of two nationally significant longitudinal surveys. Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) was designed to collect a broad range of information on Australian children’s development. Since 2004, two cohorts of 5,000 children and their families have been interviewed every two years. Ten to Men: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health was designed to provide research data to inform the National Male Health Policy and help improve the health and wellbeing of Australian men and boys. Ten to Men began in 2013 with a sample of about 16,000 males aged 10-55 years and completed a second wave of data collection in 2015. Wave 9 of LSAC had commenced when the restrictions were introduced, with Wave 3 Ten to Men fieldwork due to commence in May 2020. The data collection methodology relied heavily on face-to-face methods for both studies, which could no longer be pursued due to the restrictions and concerns about protecting the wellbeing of participants and interviewers. It was essential to review the data collection for both studies, taking into account the implications of postponing or cancelling a wave; the impact of changing data collection modes; the importance of maintaining contact with participants; and the value of gathering data about experiences of a pandemic in a longitudinal study.

Both LSAC and Ten to Men were redesigned to allow data collection in 2020. A range of options was considered with a view to maximising response rates, obtaining quality data, and ensuring feasibility during the restrictions. International longitudinal studies were also consulted about how they adapted to COVID-19. A new “Wave 9COVID” was developed for LSAC. The study transitioned from 90-minute home visit for most participants to a 30-minute online survey. Two waves of Wave 9COVID would be administered in October 2020 and April 2021. While the primary data collection mode for Ten to Men was an online survey, the study had planned to implement a home visit. With five years since the last wave of data collection, this home visit was essential to confirm sample details and collect data from respondents, and alternative non-contact follow-up approaches were adopted. The key challenges arising from the change in data collection methodology for the studies included reducing survey content while considering longitudinal consistency; managing the effects of modal change; updating content to capture the effects of restrictions and COVID-19; and finding the best measures to use in national studies while accommodating the various restrictions across states and postcodes.

Ten to Men fieldwork is scheduled from late July 2020 to early December, and LSAC fieldwork is scheduled from early October 2020 to early December. This paper summarises the challenges that COVID-19 presented to both studies and outlines the steps taken to address them. It also summarises approaches taken by other longitudinal studies in adapting to COVID-19. Finally, it discusses outcomes of the adapted Ten to Men fieldwork.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as defined by James Gee (2011) focuses on the interactive construction of figured worlds (FW) in interview and related contexts. Figured worlds (Holland et al 1998) are an interactive reflection of the more stable Discourses (discursive identities) from which speakers make claims about the topic at hand. Being 'in the Discourse' in CDA also means having a position relative to the Conversations (competing discourses) about the relevant topic, e.g. sustainability, that typify the field. Qualitative software such as NVivo has a natural affinity with grounded coding interpretative approaches but appears less able to facilitate CDA. This paper - drawing on two sets of interview data from the UK and Australia - focuses on how the interactive and relational imagined communities (FW) of organisational practice in HEI sustainability teaching (UK) and reporting (Australia) can be analysed, memoed and coded. A core insight is that figured worlds (FW) are not only possible analytic categories for CAQDAS but that they are interactive accomplishments where agency relative to Discourses is possible.

When administering large scale surveys, it can be tempting to include as many questions or instruments as possible to allow complex analyses involving many variables. However, there is inevitably a trade-off between survey length and responder engagement. On the other hand, shorter instruments are generally less reliable. Ideally, measures are as short as possible while still remaining psychometrically valid. In this session we will present the findings from a recent study involving the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), in which we introduced four new measures of ‘soft skills’ in a survey of nearly 5,000 Australians aged 15-19. We will cover all stages of the instrument development process, beginning with a theoretical framework which guided the identification of candidate items, to survey administration and validation through principal components analysis and generalized linear mixed modelling with longitudinal outcomes.

Evidence-based policy is now a standard approach to policy-making. However, decolonising and critical scholarship highlights that evidence is not neutral – that there are particular kinds of knowledge, knowledge-holders, and ways of knowing that are valued and influential. This complicates the seemingly objective approach of evidence-based policy. It also points to the importance of attending more critically to the evidence policy-makers use to construct policy. This presentation opens up a conversation about a potentially useful method to interrogate the evidence used to justify policy positions – bibliographic network analysis. Bibliographic analyses can map the network of evidence underlying a body of publications – in this case, policy documents. These analyses can visualise and quantify the relationships between different sources of evidence and the policies that utilise them. In doing so, bibliometric analyses can help to understand who, and what concepts and theories, have been influential in constructing a policy position. This presentation reports on a pilot bibliographic network analysis of NSW and Queensland child protection policies directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families – discussing the cited sources of evidence that have been most influential in these policies and implications for policy. The presentation will also consider the strengths and weaknesses of the bibliographic network analysis method generally, its relevance to decolonising methodologies, and its potential applications in social research more broadly.

For research to be genuinely representative of our social landscape, researchers need to be able to engage participants whose cultures and languages represent the diversity of Australia’s population. Yet social science research methods are not always equally or inviting or meaningful to everyone. Language barriers, unfamiliarity with research processes and caution interacting with strangers may all impact on recruitment and participation. This presentation will report on two projects which engaged successfully with socio-culturally diverse youth participants, each using participatory visual or media-based approaches. Insights from young people whose experiences are often rendered invisible owing to barriers to their participation in research will be shared.

International political communication scholars use open/accessible sources in studies grounded in theories of agenda-setting and agenda-building. Most methodology in these studies relies heavily on news and public policy content, ranging from social media postings to transcripts of public policy speeches. Classic studies examine traditional news media content such as newspapers and television news and, when needed, public opinion through available polling data. Researchers in this field are limited by the availability of a variety of these sources and data. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze these open sources used in international political communication over the past two decades.
Conceptual Framework:
An "agenda" is defined as a collection of issues or events viewed at a point in time (Rogers and Dearing, 1987) and is frequently studied within the context of agenda-setting theory (McCombs and Shaw, 1972). Boyle (2001) elaborated, “Agenda setting refers to the ability of a media organization or institution to determine the important issues for debate or consideration. Media scholars have considered agenda setting as it deals with three main areas: the media agenda, the public agenda, and the policy agenda” (p. 26).
The study of this interaction among three separate agendas--mass media, public and policymakers (Manheim & Albritton, 1983) requires open access to a wide variety of sources. While researchers may be aware of many of these, an examination of scholarly studies over the past two decades could reveal the nature and extent of these sources used and may serve as guide for future researchers. As such, the following research question guide this study: (1) What types of media, public policy and public opinion materials have scholars used and published in academic journals in agenda-setting research during the past two decades?, and (2) What obstacles in obtaining public policy and public opinion materials (such as transcripts of speeches and polling data), if any, were noted by these scholars?
A computer-assisted content analysis using Wordstat is used to categorize the sources in the study. WordStat is a content analysis and text-mining tool that extracts thematic elements and keywords identified in a study.
Academic, peer-reviewed journal articles from a leading communication database, “Communication & Mass Media Complete” were examined. This database is a “robust communication studies database” providing full-text articles for numerous international academic journals in the field of communication. Journal articles were selected based on the occurrence of the key words “agenda setting” in the abstract and “public policy” in the text.
Analysis/Expected Results:
The search from January 2000 to January 2020 resulted in 135 articles published in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. Descriptive tables reveal the sources used in the methodologies and identify the country of origin in addition to any challenges or difficulties noted by researchers in obtaining materials.
Results reveal and categorize a wide variety of public policy and media sources used in this critical research field which relies extensively on the availability of open sources.

Working from Home, Covid-19 and Implications for Transport Systems