Research Methods and Methodology

"During the past two decades we have witnessed a rather impressive growth of theoretical innovations and conceptual revisions of epistemological and methodological approaches
within constructivist-qualitative quarters of the social sciences. Methodological discussions have commonly addressed a variety of methods for collecting and analyzing empirical
material, yet the critical grounds upon which these were reformulated have rarely been extended to embrace sampling concepts and procedures. The latter have been overlooked,
qualifying only as a ‘technical’ research stage. This article attends to snowball sampling via constructivist and feminist hermeneutics, suggesting that when viewed critically, this popular sampling method can generate a unique type of social knowledge—knowledge which is emergent, political and interactional. The article reflects upon researches about backpacker tourists and marginalized men, where snowball sampling was successfully employed in investigating these groups’ organic social networks and social dynamics. In both studies, interesting interrelations were found between sampling and interviewing facets, leading to a reconceptualization of the method of snowball sampling in terms of power relations, social networks and social capital."

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow  a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

Crowdsourcing services—particularly Amazon
Mechanical Turk—have made it easy for behavioral scientists to recruit research participants. However, researchers
have overlooked crucial differences between crowdsourcing
and traditional recruitment methods that provide unique opportunities and challenges. We show that crowdsourced workers
are likely to participate across multiple related experiments
and that researchers are overzealous in the exclusion of
research participants. We describe how both of these problems
can be avoided using advanced interface features that also
allow prescreening and longitudinal data collection. Using
these techniques can minimize the effects of previously
ignored drawbacks and expand the scope of crowdsourcing
as a tool for psychological research.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of traffic forecasts in transportation infrastructure projects. The sample used is the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects in 14 nations worth U.S.$59 billion. The study shows with very high statistical significance that forecasters generally do a poor job of estimating the demand for transportation infrastructure projects. For 9 out of 10 rail projects, passenger forecasts are overestimated; the average overestimation is 106%. For half of all road projects, the difference between actual and forecasted traffic is more than ±20%. The result is substantial financial risks, which are typically ignored or downplayed by planners and decision makers to the detriment of social and economic welfare. Our data also show that forecasts have not become more accurate over the 30-year period studied, despite claims to the contrary by forecasters. The causes of inaccuracy in forecasts are different for rail and road projects, with political causes playing a larger role for rail than for road. The cure is transparency, accountability, and new forecasting methods. The challenge is to change the governance structures for forecasting and project development. Our article shows how planners may help achieve this.

The aim of this article is twofold: first, to present an accessible way of introducing students to the key generic terms of social science research. There is an obvious need for clarifying the generic tools and terminology of the social sciences across the disciplines, as academics argue past each other, using identical terms but attaching different meanings to them. Secondly, this article presents the interrelationship between the core concepts of social science (ontology, epistemology, methodology, methods and sources). This ‘directional’ and logical relationship needs to be understood, if students – and academics – are to engage in constructive dialogue and criticism of each others’ work.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

This article presents the theoretical and methodological considerations behind a research method which the author calls ‘phronetic planning research’. Such research sets out to answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of planning: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it? A central task of phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other consequences. Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by detailed stories of who is doing what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a principal concern for phronetic planning research and provide the main link to praxis.

This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure developments pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, it explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not those of their competition, that gain approval and funding. This results in the ‘survival of the unfittest’, in which often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, it presents measures for reforming policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects with a focus on better planning methods and changed governance structures, the latter being more important.

If we accept that entrepreneurs are influenced by culture, then the simplest possible unit of research for understanding entrepreneurship is not the entrepreneur. Nor is it a laboratory study of individuals nor even a field study comparing entrepreneurs, but rather it is useful to have a case study in which the important aspects of environment are analysed and understood. It is doubtful, then, that a mail survey or even interviews could be sufficient for a researcher to truly gain a holistic understanding of the entrepreneurial process.

A major source of risk in project management is inaccurate forecasts of project costs, demand, and other impacts. The paper presents a promising new approach to mitigating such risk, based on theories of decision making under uncertainty which won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics. First, the paper documents inaccuracy and risk in project management. Second, it explains inaccuracy in terms of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Third, the theoretical basis is presented for a promising new method called "reference class forecasting," which achieves accuracy by basing forecasts on actual performance in a reference class of comparable projects and thereby bypassing both optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Fourth, the paper presents the first instance of practical reference class forecasting, which concerns cost forecasts for large transportation infrastructure projects. Finally, potentials for and barriers to reference class forecasting are assessed.

Background: There are no analyses of citations to books on epidemiological and statistical methods in the biomedical literature. Such analyses may shed light on how concepts and methods changed while biomedical research evolved. Our aim was to analyze the number and time trends of citations received from biomedical articles by books on epidemiological and statistical methods, and related disciplines. Methods and Findings: The data source was the Web of Science. The study books were published between 1957 and 2010. The first year of publication of the citing articles was 1945. We identified 125 books that received at least 25 citations. Books first published in 1980-1989 had the highest total and median number of citations per year. Nine of the 10 most cited texts focused on statistical methods. Hosmer & Lemeshow's Applied logistic regression received the highest number of citations and highest average annual rate. It was followed by books by Fleiss, Armitage, et al., Rothman, et al., and Kalbfleisch and Prentice. Fifth in citations per year was Sackett, et al., Evidence-based medicine. The rise of multivariate methods, clinical epidemiology, or nutritional epidemiology was reflected in the citation trends. Educational textbooks, practice-oriented books, books on epidemiological substantive knowledge, and on theory and health policies were much less cited. None of the 25 top-cited books had the theoretical or sociopolitical scope of works by Cochrane, McKeown, Rose, or Morris.

Taken together, the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault highlight an essential tension in modernity. This is the tension between the normative and the real, between what should be done and what is actually done. Understanding this tension is crucial to understanding modern democracy, what it is and what it could be. It has been argued that an effective way of making democracy stronger is to strengthen civil society. This article contains a comparative analysis of the central ideas of Habermas and Foucault as they pertain to the question of democracy and civil society. More specifically, the discourse ethics of Habermas is contrasted with the power analytics and ethics of Foucault evaluating their usefulness for those interested in understanding, and bringing about, democratic social change.

"Over budget, over time, over and over again" appears to be an appropriate slogan for large, complex infrastructure projects. This article explains why cost, benefits, and time forecasts for such projects are systematically over-optimistic in the planning phase. The underlying reasons for forecasting errors are grouped into three categories: delusions or honest mistakes; deceptions or strategic manipulation of information or processes; or bad luck. Delusion and deception have each been addressed in the management literature before, but here they are jointly considered for the first time. They are specifically applied to infrastructure problems in a manner that allows both academics and practitioners to understand and implement the suggested corrective procedures. The article provides a framework for analyzing the relative explanatory power of delusion and deception. It also suggests a simplified framework for analyzing the complex principal-agent relationships that are involved in the approval and construction of large infrastructure projects, which can be used to improve forecasts. Finally, the article illustrates reference class forecasting, an outside view de-biasing technique that has proven successful in overcoming both delusion and deception in private and public investment decisions.

This study investigates the prevalence of the four types of destructive leadership behaviour in the destructive and constructive leadership behaviour model, in a representative sample of the Norwegian workforce. The study employs two estimation methods: the operational classification method (OCM) and latent class cluster (LCC) analysis. The total prevalence of destructive leadership behaviour varied from 33.5% (OCM) to 61% (LCC), indicating that destructive leadership is not an anomaly. Destructive leadership comes in many shapes and forms, with passive forms prevailing over more active ones. The results showed that laissez-faire leadership behaviour was the most prevalent destructive leadership behaviour, followed by supportive–disloyal leadership and derailed leadership, while tyrannical leadership behaviour was the least prevalent destructive leadership behaviour. Furthermore, many leaders display constructive as well as destructive behaviours, indicating that leadership is not either constructive or destructive. The study contributes to a broader theoretical perspective
on what must be seen as typical behaviour among leaders.

Whilst in recent years sports studies have addressed the calls 'to bring the body back in' to theorisations of sport and physical activity, the 'promise of phenomenology' remains largely under-realised with regard to sporting embodiment. Relatively few accounts are grounded in the 'flesh' of the lived sporting body, and phenomenology offers a powerful framework for such analysis. A wide-ranging, multi-stranded and interpretatively contested perspective phenomenology in general has been taken up and utilised in very different ways within different disciplinary fields. The purpose of this article is to consider some selected phenomenological threads, key qualities of the phenomenological method and the potential for existentialist phenomenology in particular to contribute fresh perspectives to the sociological study of embodiment in sport and exercise. It offers one way to convey the 'essences', corporeal immediacy and textured sensuosity of the lived sporting body. The use of interpretative phenomenological analysis is also critically addressed.

Keywords: phenomenology; existentialist phenomenology; interpretative phenomenological analysis; sporting embodiment; the lived body; Merleau-Ponty

This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

Scientific research adopts qualitative and quantitative methodologies in the modeling and analysis of numerous phenomena. The qualitative methodology intends to understand a complex reality and the meaning of actions in a given context. On the other hand, the quantitative methodology seeks to obtain accurate and reliable measurements that allow a statistical analysis. Both methodologies offer a set of methods, potentialities and limitations that must be explored and known by researchers. This paper concisely maps a total of seven qualitative methods and five quantitative methods. A comparative analysis of the most relevant and adopted methods is done to understand the main strengths and limitations of them. Additionally, the work developed intends to be a fundamental reference for the accomplishment of a research study, in which the researcher intends to adopt a qualitative or quantitative methodology. Through the analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, it becomes possible to formulate a more accurate, informed and complete choice.

2008. 352 pp. r150.00 (hardcover). This volume is intended to explain why major investment projects (the so-called mega-projects) often are not completed on time and cost more than originally budgeted. Drawing from experiences of European and North American countries, the book also suggests ways to avoid such failures. Although the topic is rather specific, the book is worth reading for both experts and nonexperts as infrastructure development continues to be a major key to economic expansion across the globe.g row_486 380.. 408 For those who only have a vague idea of what a mega-project is, the book begins by introducing the topic and reviewing the most important recent literature. The first part of the volume, then, provides numerous insights on the complexity of mega-projects, starting from the large number of reasons why mega-projects might fail. For example, the project might be "underdesigned," thus less costly but less robust to unforeseen developments, or it might be "overdesigned," when a large number of weaknesses and possible problems are considered in advance, and solutions are evaluated before the problem actually occurs. Overdesigned projects are more robust, less likely to fail, but are much more costly. The project might involve the use of innovative technologies that have never been applied to a similar context, and that involve more uncertain implementation costs and results. Most projects have an impact on the environment and might face opposition for example from environmentalist groups. If representative of these groups have not been directly involved in the design of the project, they might try to stop it, thus causing delays and increasing costs. Finally, because of incorrect predictions of 380 GROWTH AND CHANGE, JUNE 2009

Synopsis -Close relationships between researchers and participants engaged in a feminist participatory action research project have brought joy and insight, but also challenges. Through the project we collaborate to enhance participants' careers and, among some, develop feminist consciousness. In this paper we discuss methodological and ethical issues that derive from the closeness of the relationships between many of the participants and ourselves. We explore our subjectivities, the issues associated with interpreting participants' stories, actions and conversations, the risk of perpetuating uncritical assimilation or colonisation for Maori participants, and the challenge of matching practice with ideals of emancipation for all women.

This book is more than an introduction to doing research - it helps readers identify what is new and important about their project, how their research relates to previous work and how it may be used to bring about change at individual, community, national or even international levels. A total strategy is offered focussing on the notion of the 'project' as an organising framework that ensures that the methods chosen are appropriate to the subject and aim of the study. The intention throughout is to help readers move from being able to apply methods to being able to interrogate the theoretical underpinnings of particular perspectives so that they can feel confident about the particular kinds of knowledge claim they are making. The book is important reading for students at Masters and doctoral level and will be particularly helpful for professionals from education, health, social work, criminal justice and business who carry out research in their workplace and who need to reflect upon the consequences and possibilities for action and change.

Aboriginal peoples want their ecological knowledge used in the management of wildlife populations. To accomplish this, management agencies will need regional summaries of aboriginal knowledge about long-term changes in the distribution and abundance of wildlife populations and ecological factors that influence those changes. Between 1983 and 1994, we developed a method for collecting Inuit knowledge about historical changes in a caribou (Rangifer tarandus) population on southern Baffin Island from c. 1900 to 1994. Advice from Inuit allowed us to collect and interpret their oral knowledge in culturally appropriate ways. Local Hunters and Trappers Associations (HTAs) and other Inuit identified potential informants to maximize the spatial and temporal scope of the study. In the final interview protocol, each informant (i) established his biographical map and time line, (ii) described changes in caribou distribution and density during his life, and (iii) discussed ecological factors that may have caused changes in caribou populations. Personal and parental observations of caribou distribution and abundance were reliable and precise. Inuit who had hunted caribou during periods of scarcity provided more extensive information than those hunters who had hunted mainly ringed seals (Phoca hispida); nevertheless, seal hunters provided information about coastal areas where caribou densities were insufficient for the needs of caribou hunters. The wording of our questions influenced the reliability of informants’ answers; leading questions were especially problematic. We used only information that we considered reliable after analyzing the wording of both questions and answers from translated transcripts. This analysis may have excluded some reliable information because informants tended to understate certainty in their recollections. We tried to retain the accuracy and precision inherent in Inuit oral traditions; comparisons of information from several informants and comparisons with published and archival historical reports indicate that we retained these qualities of Inuit knowledge.

Les peuples autochtones veulent voir leurs connaissances sur l’environnement utilisées dans la gestion de la faune sauvage. Pour ce faire, il va falloir que les organismes chargés de la gestion possèdent des résumés à l’échelle régionale du savoir autochtone sur les changements à long terme dans la distribution et l’abondance des populations fauniques et des facteurs écologiques influençant ces changements. Entre 1983 et 1994, on a mis au point une méthode de collecte du savoir inuit sur les changements survenus d’environ 1900 à 1994, changements qui ont affecté une population de caribous (Rangifer tarandus) dans la partie méridionale de l’île de Baffin. Des conseils donnés par les Inuit nous ont permis de recueillir et d’interpréter leur savoir oral selon des modalités pertinentes au plan culturel. Les Associations des chasseurs et des trappeurs (ACT) locales et d’autres Inuit ont indiqué des répondants potentiels, de façon à maximiser l’envergure spatiale et temporelle de l’étude. Lors du dernier protocole d’interview, chaque répondant a 1) établi sa carte biographique et sa ligne de temps, 2) décrit les changements dans la distribution et la densité du caribou au cours de sa vie, 3) discuté des facteurs écologiques qui auraient pu causer des changements dans les populations de caribous. Les observations sur la distribution et l’abondance du caribou émises par les répondants eux-mêmes ou leurs parents étaient à la fois fiables et précises. Les Inuit qui avaient chassé le caribou en des temps de pénurie offraient plus d’information que les chasseurs qui avaient surtout chassé le phoque annelé (Phoca hispida); les chasseurs de phoque n’en donnaient pas moins des renseignements sur des régions côtières où la densité du caribou ne pouvait satisfaire les besoins des chasseurs de cet animal. La formulation de nos questions a influencé la fiabilité des réponses des personnes interrogées; les questions suggestives en particulier posaient des problèmes. Après avoir analysé la formulation des questions ainsi que des réponses, à partir d’une traduction des transcriptions, on a seulement retenu l’information jugée fiable. Cette analyse peut avoir exclu des renseignements fiables car les répondants avaient tendance à sous-estimer l’exactitude de leurs souvenirs. On a essayé de préserver l’exactitude et la précision inhérentes à la tradition orale inuit; des comparaisons d’informations venant de plusieurs répondants ainsi que des comparaisons avec des rapports publiés ou archivés indiquent que ces qualités du savoir inuit ont ont été préservées dans l’étude.

Risk, including economic risk, is increasingly a concern for public policy and management. The possibility of dealing effectively with risk is hampered, however, by lack of a sound empirical basis for risk assessment and management. This article demonstrates the general point for cost and demand risks in urban rail projects. The article presents empirical evidence that allow valid economic risk assessment and management of urban rail projects, including benchmarking of individual or groups of projects. Benchmarking of the Copenhagen Metro is presented as a case in point. The approach developed is proposed as a model for other types of policies and projects in order to improve economic and financial risk assessment and management in policy and planning.

This paper explores how theories of the planning fallacy and the outside view may be used to conduct quality control and due diligence in project management. First, a much-neglected issue in project management is identified, namely that the front-end estimates of costs and benefits – used in the business cases, cost-benefit analyses, and social and environmental impact assessments that typically support decisions on projects – are typically significantly different from actual ex post costs and benefits, and are therefore poor predictors of the actual value and viability of projects. Second, it is discussed how Kahneman and Tversky’s theories of the planning fallacy and the outside view may help explain and remedy this situation through quality control of decisions. Third, it is described what quality control and due diligence are in the context of project management, and an eight-step procedure is outlined for due diligence based on the outside view. Fourth, the procedure is tested on a real-life, multibillion-dollar project, organized as a public-private partnership. Finally, Akerlof and Shiller’s recent discussion in economics of “firing the forecaster” is discussed together with its relevance to project management. In sum, the paper demonstrates the need, the theoretical basis, a practical methodology, and a real-life example for how to de-bias project management using quality control and due diligence based on the outside view.

"Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different
academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall
into three major categories: (i) rational-actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and networks among corrupt actors. Focusing on actors’ behavior and the social context, this article explains corruption concepts taken from sociology, economics, organization studies, political science, social anthropology, and social psychology."

This exciting and engaging textbook introduces students to the psychology of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer lives and experiences. It covers a broad range of topics including diversity, prejudice, health, relationships, parenting and lifespan experiences from youth to old age. The book includes 'key researcher' boxes, which outline the contributions of significant individuals and their motivations for conducting their research in their own words. Key issues and debates are discussed throughout the book, and questions for discussion and classroom exercises help students reflect critically and apply their learning. There are extensive links to further resources and information, as well as 'gaps and absences' sections, indicating major limitations of research in a particular area. This is the essential textbook for anyone studying LGBTQ psychology, psychology of sexuality or related courses. It is also a useful supplement to courses on gender and developmental psychology.

The heated debates between proponents of rational-choice, culturalist, and structuralist (or historical institutionalist) analysis over method and substance derive from differences over philosophical issues. This article relates these differences between ideal-typical rationalist, culturalist and structuralist analysis to their positions on two fundamental problems in social theory: (i) the epistemological significance of structural principles vis-a-vis agency; and (ii) the relative significance of the material and ideal dimensions of social processes. This suggests that many recent efforts at ‘synthesis’ (e.g. through ‘analytic narratives’) end up being rhetorical gestures since the fundamental assumptions identified with a given approach are not significantly relaxed. A more pragmatic position has been outlined in ‘structurationist’ perspectives that build on Weber’s social theory. Such perspectives are consciously agnostic about epistemological first principles in order to permit more question-driven analysis. Structurationism does not represent a novel paradigm for comparative analysis, but its epistemological flexibility makes it an ideal foundation for eclectic scholarship intended to transcend and engage the debates among rationalist, culturalist, and structuralist analysis.

Background: The international crisis of declining learner wellbeing exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic with its devastating effects on physical health and wellbeing, impels the prioritization of initiatives for specifically enabling academic and personal wellbeing among school learners to ensure autonomous functioning and flourishing in academic and daily life. Research emphasizes the role of self-directed action in fostering wellbeing. However, there is limited research evidence of how self-directed action among school learners could be advanced. Aim: We explore the effectiveness of an intervention initiative that exposes teachers to foregrounding Cognitive Education-the explicit and purposeful teaching of thinking skills and dispositions to learners that would advance self-regulated action-to establish the latent potential of the intervention for assisting learners to develop self-regulating abilities that progressively inspires increased self-directed action. Method: We illuminate the qualitative outcomes of an exploratory pilot study with a heterogeneous group of willing in-service teachers from two public primary schools (n = 12), one private primary school (n = 3), and one preschool (n = 2) in South Africa who received exposure to an 80-h intervention that comprised seven study units. The article delineates the experiences of the teachers concerning their participation in the intervention as reflected in their written reflections, as well as their perceptions about the value of the intervention probed with semi-structured one-on-one interviews after completion of the intervention. Results: The findings revealed that exposure to the intervention holds benefits for equipping teachers with teaching strategies to create classroom conditions that nurture the development of thinking skills and dispositions that are important for self-regulating, and ultimately self-directing academic and personal wellbeing. Conclusion: Cognitive Education is a form of strengths-based education that can play an indispensable role in enabling self-directed academic and personal wellbeing among school learners.

In this introductory essay to our special issue on elites, we outline some of the major challenges to research in this area and propose a series of theoretical and methodological pathways to address them. Theoretically we make four recommendations: (a) greater attentiveness to and specificity about the relationship between elites and power; (b) a clearer articulation of the relationships between elites and the varieties of capitalism; (c) far more attention to diversity within elites and the use of elites to understand forms of domination like white supremacy and masculine domination and (d) expanding beyond the orthodox form of Bourdieusian theoretical frameworks. Methodologically we outline how research using survey instruments, social network analysis (SNA) (and multiple correspondence analysis), interviews, ethnographic observation, experiments, archival research, administrative data and content analysis can each be deployed, built upon or redirected to help bring elites into greater focus.

This state-of-the-art paper foregrounds mixed-methods research (MMR) in language teaching and learning by discussing and critically reviewing issues related to this newly developed research paradigm. The paper has six sections. The first provides a context for the discussion of MMR through an introductory review of quantitative and qualitative paradigms. In the second section we discuss the nature and scope of MMR, its underlying principles, and its techniques and procedures. In the third section we discuss trends in MMR in language teaching and learning, and review 40 published papers in 30 journals related to this field, covering one decade (2002–2011). Issues and challenges facing MMR and its researchers are discussed in the fourth section, while in the fifth we discuss the significance of replicating MMR studies in language teaching and learning. Finally, we conclude by presenting prospects and avenues for further developing mixed-methods research.

In the broadest sense, personality refers to stable inter-individual variability in behavioural organisation within a particular population. Researching personality in human as well as nonhuman species provides unique possibilities for comparisons across species with different phylogenies, ecologies and social systems. It also allows insights into mechanisms and processes of the evolution of population differences within and between species. The enormous diversity across species entails particular challenges to methodology. This paper explores theoretical approaches and analytical methods of deriving dimensions of inter-individual variability on different population levels from a personality trait perspective. The existing diversity suggests that some populations, especially some species, may exhibit different or even unique trait domains. Therefore, a methodology is needed that identifies ecologically valid and comprehensive representations of the personality variation within each population. I taxonomise and compare current approaches in their suitability for this task. I propose a new bottom-up approach - the behavioural repertoire approach - that is tailored to the specific methodological requirements of comparative personality research. Initial empirical results in nonhuman primates emphasise the viability of this approach and highlight interesting implications for human personality research.

Niccolò Machiavelli, the founder of modern political and administrative thought, made clear that an understanding of politics requires distinguishing between formal politics and what later, with Ludwig von Rochau, would become known as Realpolitik. No such distinction has been employed in the study of rationality. Yet I will argue that distinguishing between formal rationality and real rationality is as important for the understanding of rationality and planning as the distinction between formal politics and Realpolitik has been for understanding politics.

Measurement invariance (MI) is a pre-requisite for comparing latent variable scores across groups. The current paper introduces the concept of approximate MI building on the work of Muthén and Asparouhov and their application of Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling (BSEM) in the software Mplus. They showed that with BSEM exact zeros constraints can be replaced with approximate zeros to allow for minimal steps away from strict MI, still yielding a well-fitting model. This new opportunity enables researchers to make explicit trade-offs between the degree of MI on the one hand, and the degree of model fit on the other. Throughout the paper we discuss the topic of approximate MI, followed by an empirical illustration where the test for MI fails, but where allowing for approximate MI results in a well-fitting model. Using simulated data, we investigate in which situations approximate MI can be applied and when it leads to unbiased results. Both our empirical illustration and the simulation study show approximate MI outperforms full or partial MI In detecting/recovering the true latent mean difference when there are (many) small differences in the intercepts and factor loadings across groups. In the discussion we provide a step-by-step guide in which situation what type of MI is preferred. Our paper provides a first step in the new research area of (partial) approximate MI and shows that it can be a good alternative when strict MI leads to a badly fitting model and when partial MI cannot be applied.