IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/qualqt/v48y2014i6p3109-3126.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Overly ambitious: contributions and current status of Q methodology

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This essay offers a small description of recent contributions and status of Q methodology by means of a review of suggested best practices, a systematic review of practice, and a methodological audit. Both theoretical and empirical study suggest that Q methodology neither delivers its promised insight into human subjectivity nor accounts adequately for threats to the validity of the claims it can legitimately make. These concerns in turn, render the method inappropriate for its declared purpose, the scientific study of subjectivity, and suspect for the full range of ontological perspectives, from (neo) positivist to constructivist. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Jarl Kampen & Peter Tamás, 2014. "Overly ambitious: contributions and current status of Q methodology," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 3109-3126, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:48:y:2014:i:6:p:3109-3126
    DOI: 10.1007/s11135-013-9944-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11135-013-9944-z
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11135-013-9944-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cuppen, Eefje & Breukers, Sylvia & Hisschemöller, Matthijs & Bergsma, Emmy, 2010. "Q methodology to select participants for a stakeholder dialogue on energy options from biomass in the Netherlands," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 579-591, January.
    2. David L. Weimer, 1999. "Comment: Q-method and the isms," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 426-429.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adrian Lundberg & Nicola Fraschini & Renata Aliani, 2023. "What is subjectivity? Scholarly perspectives on the elephant in the room," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4509-4529, October.
    2. Boilson, Andrew & Gauttier, Stéphanie & Connolly, Regina & Davis, Paul & Connolly, Justin & Weston, Dale & Staines, Anthony, 2019. "Q-Method Evaluation of a European Health Data Analytic End User Framework," Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference (2019), Rovinj, Croatia, in: Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference, Rovinj, Croatia, 12-14 September 2019, pages 219-231, IRENET - Society for Advancing Innovation and Research in Economy, Zagreb.
    3. Susan Ramlo, 2024. "Q methodologist views on the future of Q: a study of a research community," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 4897-4914, October.
    4. Isyaku, Usman, 2021. "What motivates communities to participate in forest conservation? A study of REDD+ pilot sites in Cross River, Nigeria," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Peter Nijkamp & Karima Kourtit & Henk Scholten & Esmeralda Willemsen, 2023. "Citizen Participation and Knowledge Support in Urban Public Energy Transition—A Quadruple Helix Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Sneegas, Gretchen & Beckner, Sydney & Brannstrom, Christian & Jepson, Wendy & Lee, Kyungsun & Seghezzo, Lucas, 2021. "Using Q-methodology in environmental sustainability research: A bibliometric analysis and systematic review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    7. Christine Corlet Walker & Angela Druckman & Claudio Cattaneo, 2020. "Understanding the (non-)Use of Societal Wellbeing Indicators in National Policy Development: What Can We Learn from Civil Servants? A UK Case Study," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 911-953, August.
    8. Pinillos, Daniel & Poccard-Chapuis, René & Bianchi, Felix J.J.A. & Corbeels, Marc & Timler, Carl J. & Tittonell, Pablo & R. Ballester, Maria Victoria & Schulte, Rogier P., 2021. "Landholders' perceptions on legal reserves and agricultural intensification: Diversity and implications for forest conservation in the eastern Brazilian Amazon," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    9. Chung-Chu Liu & Jason C. H. Chen & Che-Cheong Poon, 2019. "Perception Types Of Home Buyers By Q Methodology: A Comparative Study Of Hong Kong, Taiwan, And The Usa," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 235-257, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Setiawan, Andri D. & Cuppen, Eefje, 2013. "Stakeholder perspectives on carbon capture and storage in Indonesia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1188-1199.
    2. Baudry, Gino & Delrue, Florian & Legrand, Jack & Pruvost, Jérémy & Vallée, Thomas, 2017. "The challenge of measuring biofuel sustainability: A stakeholder-driven approach applied to the French case," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 933-947.
    3. Antonio Lopolito & Edgardo Sica, 2022. "Designing Policy Mixes to Address the World’s Worst Devastation of a Rural Landscape Caused by Xylella Epidemic," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, May.
    4. Andrés Lorente de las Casas & Ivelina Mirkova & Francisco J. Ramos-Real, 2021. "Stakeholders’ Perceptions of the Possible Energy Sustainability Solutions in the Hotels of the Canary Islands," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-26, June.
    5. Marleen Kraaij-Dirkzwager & Joost Van der Ree & Erik Lebret, 2017. "Rapid Assessment of Stakeholder Concerns about Public Health. An Introduction to a Fast and Inexpensive Approach Applied on Health Concerns about Intensive Animal Production Systems," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, December.
    6. Venus, Terese E. & Strauss, Felix & Venus, Thomas J. & Sauer, Johannes, 2021. "Understanding stakeholder preferences for future biogas development in Germany," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    7. León-Vielma, J.E. & Ramos-Real, F.J. & Hernández Hernández, J.F. & Rodríguez-Brito, María Gracia, 2023. "An integrative strategy for Venezuela's electricity sector (VES), from an analysis of stakeholder perspectives," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    8. van Exel, Job & Baker, Rachel & Mason, Helen & Donaldson, Cam & Brouwer, Werner, 2015. "Public views on principles for health care priority setting: Findings of a European cross-country study using Q methodology," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 128-137.
    9. Rachel Baker & John Wildman & Helen Mason & Cam Donaldson, 2014. "Q‐Ing For Health—A New Approach To Eliciting The Public'S Views On Health Care Resource Allocation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 283-297, March.
    10. E.O. Marfo & L. Chen & H. Xuhua & H.A. Antwi & E. Yiranbon, 2015. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Driving Dynamics on Firm’s Profitability in Ghana," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 5(3), pages 116-132, July.
    11. Behnam Taebi, 2017. "Bridging the Gap between Social Acceptance and Ethical Acceptability," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(10), pages 1817-1827, October.
    12. Roos, Andreas, 2024. "Renewing the Subterranean Energy Regime? How Petroculture Obscures the Materiality of Deep Geothermal Energy Technology in Sweden," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    13. de Wildt, Tristan E. & Chappin, Emile J.L. & van de Kaa, Geerten & Herder, Paulien M., 2018. "A comprehensive approach to reviewing latent topics addressed by literature across multiple disciplines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 2111-2128.
    14. Díaz, Paula & Adler, Carolina & Patt, Anthony, 2017. "Do stakeholders’ perspectives on renewable energy infrastructure pose a risk to energy policy implementation? A case of a hydropower plant in Switzerland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 21-28.
    15. Huaranca, Laura Liliana & Iribarnegaray, Martín Alejandro & Albesa, Federico & Volante, José Norberto & Brannstrom, Christian & Seghezzo, Lucas, 2019. "Social Perspectives on Deforestation, Land Use Change, and Economic Development in an Expanding Agricultural Frontier in Northern Argentina," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Späth, Leonhard, 2018. "Large-scale photovoltaics? Yes please, but not like this! Insights on different perspectives underlying the trade-off between land use and renewable electricity development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 429-437.
    17. Nhem, Sareth & Lee, Young Jin, 2019. "Using Q methodology to investigate the views of local experts on the sustainability of community-based forestry in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Maria Schultz & Thomas Hahn & Claudia Ituarte-Lima & Niclas Hällström, 2018. "Deliberative multi-actor dialogues as opportunities for transformative social learning and conflict resolution in international environmental negotiations," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 671-688, October.
    19. Fulvio Biddau & Sonia Brondi & Paolo Francesco Cottone, 2022. "Unpacking the Psychosocial Dimension of Decarbonization between Change and Stability: A Systematic Review in the Social Science Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-28, April.
    20. Karalliyadda, S.M.C.B. & Kazunari, Tsuji & Fujimura, Miho, 2023. "Managing rain-fed uplands of cascaded tank village systems: What stakeholders really suggest?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:48:y:2014:i:6:p:3109-3126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.