The Qualitative Report Sixth Annual Conference

Nova Southeastern University
Fort Lauderdale, Florida USA
January 8 – 10, 2015
Sponsored by the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences

At-A-Glance Schedule – Presenter Schedule – Presentation Summaries

TQR2015 Expands to Three Day Event

Based upon overwhelming demand, we will expand TQR2015 to a three-day event. The sixth conference will open at noon on Thursday, January 8, 2015 and close at 5:00 pm on Saturday, January 10, 2015. With the new expanded format, we will be able to offer more plenaries, panels, and papers. On Thursday morning will also be offering two pre-conference workshops.

Record Number of Paper and Panel Proposals Submitted for TQR2015

We received over 100 paper and panel proposals for TQR2015. This total set an all-time record for the six-year old event. Even though the regular submission deadline fell April 30, 2014, we will review late submissions on a case-by-case basis.

Conference Theme: Transforming Qualitative Research

Every year since 2010, we have invited qualitative research practitioners, faculty, and students from around the world to join us on the NSU campus in January for The Qualitative Report (TQR) Annual Conference. The two-day event is organized around a theme and features plenary addresses by internationally recognized qualitative research experts, peer-reviewed paper and panel presentations, and interactive workshops.

The theme for TQR2015 is “Transforming Qualitative Research.”

Insights from qualitative research are having a transformative effect on how we understand and manage our world. Quantitative renderings of what happened are now regularly joined by qualitative descriptions, interpretations, and explanations of not only the what, but also the how, the why, the who, the when, and the where to produce better context-sensitive information on which important decisions can be made. This emerging practice of regularly including qualitative and quantitative perspectives in inquiries has led to changes in how we design, evaluate, access, understand, and change the world around us.

Qualitative research can also have a transformative influence on the persons conducting the inquiry. A qualitative way of knowing the world can change how we hear and see others; and how we reflect on our own participation in the world around ourselves. The skill sets and knowledge base demanded by qualitative research including technology prowess, artistic aplomb, and methodology acumen challenge us to grow continuously in order to meet the changing demands of academia and the marketplace.

This transformational effect is an interactional affair because the world around us has also influenced how we conduct and communicate our qualitative craft and product. Big data with its powerful analytics, ubiquitous technologies with immediate feedback, collaborative demands for design decisions, and mixed-methods for an array of research strategies can be seen as threats to what we understand qualitative research traditionally to be, or be accepted as a natural evolution of ethnographic, phenomenological, narrative, and discursive ways of knowing.

At TQR2015, we will ponder transforming qualitative research by featuring works, of and on qualitative inquiry, that exemplify the agents of change we can be as qualitative researchers and how elements around such as mixed-method designs and big data can also serve as active ingredients modifying the ways in which we practice and conceive qualitative research. To this end we presenters will inspire conference attendees to consider transformative qualitative research and researchers.

We accepted regular submissions from February 1 to April 30, 2014, but we will consider late submissions on a case-by-case basis. Over the next few weeks we will share more details about TQR 2015. As always, please let us know your questions and comments by sending us your emails to tqr@nova.edu, posting to our Facebook page, or tweeting us!

Thursday Opening Plenary Address Transforming Qualitative Data Through Performance Rachael Gabriel and Jessica Nina Lester

We will demonstrate, discuss and apply theoretical and methodological considerations for the creation of performative texts as a way to represent and disseminate the findings of qualitative research. We will focus on the potentials of engaging communities in the embodiment of artifacts from research through performative texts and provide an overview of the methodological tools and analytic moves that allow qualitative researchers to go from raw or analyzed data to script.

Rachael Gabriel, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of reading education at the University of Connecticut. A former middle school reading teacher, her research interests teacher preparation, development and evaluation, as well as literacy instruction, interventions, and related policies. She recently authored Reading’s Non-Negotiables: Elements of Effective Reading Instruction and co-authored Performances of Research: Critical Issues in K-12 Education.

Jessica Nina Lester, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Inquiry Methodology in the School of Education at Indiana University. She teaches courses focused on qualitative research methodology, with a specific focus on discourse analysis. Her work has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Qualitative Inquiry and The Qualitative Report. She recently co-authored Digital Tools for Qualitative Researchand co-edited volume Performances of Research: Critical Issues in K-12 Education.

Friday Opening Plenary Address Building Research in “New Shapes” and Engaging Diverse Audiences: The Transformative Potential of Arts-Based Research Patricia Leavy

The word “shape” speaks to the form of our work but also the way that the form shapes the content and how that content is received by audiences. In order to address different issues successfully and communicate effectively with diverse audiences, we need to be able to see in different shapes and to produce knowledge in different shapes. In this presentation I suggest that innovative qualitative researchers are responding to a call to transform knowledge-building practices in order to make the products of social research publicly accessible. This requires us to transform the way that we think about doing and disseminating research. There is a practical and ethical mandate for doing work that has the potential to reach non-academic stakeholders, to be of value to those within and beyond the academy, and even to touch our own hearts. After making this case I suggest arts-based research is one emergent paradigm that offers tools for accomplishing these goals. I offer an overview of arts-based research including: what it is, strengths, research design options, exemplars and evaluation criteria. Attention is also paid to the multiple ways we may disseminate our research in order to broaden its impact, including traditional academic articles, artistic renderings and poplar writings such as op-eds and blogs.

Patricia Leavy, Ph.D., is an independent scholar, novelist and public speaker (formerly Associate Professor of Sociology, Founding Director of Gender Studies and Chairperson of Sociology & Criminology at Stonehill College). She has published fourteen non-fiction books including the best-seller Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice, Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research: Using Problem-Centered Methodologies, Fiction as Research Practice, and The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research. She has also published two arts-based novels with Sense Publishers, American Circumstance and Sense’s top-selling title, Low-Fat Love. She is the editor for five book series including Understanding Qualitative Research with Oxford University Press and the arts-based series Social Fictions with Sense Publishers. Frequently called on by the media, she has appeared on national television, radio, is regularly quoted by the news media, publishes op-eds and is a blogger for The Huffington Post, The Creativity Post and We Are The Real Deal. The New England Sociological Association named her the “2010 New England Sociologist of the Year” and she has recently been announced as the recipient of a 2014 Special Achievement Award given by the American Creativity Association for her work advancing arts-based research. For more information please visit www.patricialeavy.com.

Saturday Opening Plenary Address Transforming Qualitative Inquiry Through Revisiting the Personal Narrative: Oral History, Life History and Biography Valerie J. Janesick

The qualitative lens of the personal narrative offers researchers an array of pathways to stories that may influence policy, open up understanding of social justice, and eventually make a better world. Oral History, Life history and Biography are three dependable and long standing approaches to be described and explained in this keynote address. This may lead to transformations in content in our respective fields and most certainly in methodology. Furthermore, in this digital era, many digital resources are available to enhance, illuminate and make elegant those stories that resonate with our lives. That plus the rigor involved in capturing the experiences and understandings of ordinary life teach us that stories are indeed the sustenance of life. Techniques of qualitative inquiry such as reflective journal writing, the long interview, playmaking and photography as a research technique will be discussed.

Valerie J. Janesick, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Leadership in the Department of Leadership, Counseling, Adult, Career, and Higher Education at the University of South Florida. She teaches courses in Qualitative Research Methods, Critical Pedagogy, and Oral History Life History and Biography. Her writings have been published in Curriculum Inquiry,Qualitative Inquiry, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and other major journals. Her books include Stretching Exercises for Qualitative Researchers, Oral History Methods for the Qualitative Researcher: Choreographing the Story, and Authentic Assessment Primer. She is currently working on her eighth book, Zen and the Art of Qualitative Research. She serves on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods and The Qualitative Report. She is currently taking classes in Yoga and Meditation. Her most prized possession is her British Library Reader’s Card as she is working on an archival project on the letters of John Dewey written to educators around the world.

Call for Submissions Late Submissions Considered on Case-By-Case Basis

There will be two types of presentations at TQR2015:

• Individual Paper Presentation: Presenters share the results of their research findings or innovations for 20 minutes with an additional question and answer period following the paper presentations.
• Complete Paper Panel: Three to four presenters share the results of their research findings or innovations for 20 minutes each with an additional question and answer period following the paper presentations. There must be a theme organizing the individual paper presentations and a designated moderator

For all presentations, submitters must provide

• A title consisting of no more than 60 characters
• A presentation summary consisting of no more than 500 characters
• Names, institutional affiliations, and email addresses for all presenters.

All presentation proposals must be submitted via the TQR2015 portal will stay open for late submissions to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The portal to submit your proposals in now open at https://www.nova.edu/webforms/tqr/submissions/.

Presenter Registration

Registration begins July 1, 2014: REGISTRATION CLOSED

• Fee: $135 (US) from July 1, 2014 to September 30, 2014
• Fee: $150 (US) from October 1, 2014 to December 1, 2014
• Full Refund: Registration cancellation before December 1, 2014
• No Refund: Registration cancellation December 1, 2014 or later