ON-04: Vignette Method in Interpretive and Qualitative Research

This course equips PhD students, particularly in political science, sociology, international relations, and public administration, with the skills to effectively use vignette methods in interpretive or qualitative research. Students from related disciplines like public policy and anthropology may also benefit. The course covers the entire vignette process, including developing vignettes, using them in data collection, analyzing reactions, and drawing conclusions. It emphasizes when and why vignette methods are optimal, focusing on both theoretical foundations and practical applications. Key topics include deliberative manipulation, variance vs. process theory, and the pros and cons of using stimulation in research designs. Students will learn to construct vignettes aligned with research questions, understand scientific criteria, and apply strategies for framing, wording, and validating vignettes. The course also delves into organizing data collection, analyzing results, and ensuring transparent, data-based conclusions. By the end, participants will grasp the theoretical and practical aspects of vignette methods, enabling them to integrate this approach into their research with confidence. The course combines conceptual understanding with hands-on tools, providing a robust framework for using vignette methods in qualitative inquiry.

This course is intended for PhD students who want to use vignette method to address causal explanations or systematic comparisons in an interpretive or qualitative research project. The course is primarily targeted students of political science, sociology, international relations, and public administration, but students of other social science disciplines such as public policy and anthropology can also benefit from it. The course is organized around the typical steps of a vignette method process – from how to develop vignettes, how to use them in data collection, how to analyze reactions to vignettes to how to interpret and draw valid conclusions from vignettes analyses. The course introduces vignette method by focusing on reasons for using it, how to use it and not least when to use it in the data collection process and more general in respect of understanding when vignette method is the optimal choice of method. Students will come to understand the logic of vignette method and students will be able to decide if, when and how to develop vignettes suitable with their own research question. The course provides students with a theoretical knowledge of vignette method, including insights into how they can be used in practice in an interpretive or qualitative research process. 

Students will learn to develop vignettes while becoming familiar with contemporary thinking about deliberative manipulation to integrate experimental logic into an interpretive or qualitative investigation. During the course we will focus on understanding the scientific criteria behind vignette method, and we will focus on variance theory versus process theory as forms of causal explanation and we will address the pros and cons of stimulation in an interpretive or qualitative research design. 

The course is organized with the following five objectives in mind: (1) To examine the scientific criteria of vignette method and to give students basic training in how to develop vignettes suitable for interpretive or qualitative research questions. (2) To expose students to issues of conceptualization, theory, research design, and strategies of framing vignettes and selecting attributes and wording of the vignette’s profile description.  (3) To assist students in how to organize and process vignettes through the phase of data collection, analysis, and conclusion drawing. (4) To provide students with knowledge about how to choose the best strategy of vignette method for the research question and finally (5) how to draw conclusions from vignette analyses. 

The course will cover the basic techniques for collecting, interpreting, and presenting analyses of vignettes. Throughout the course we will operate on two interrelated dimensions, one focused on the theoretical approaches to various types of vignette method, the other focused on the practical techniques of how to formulate, develop and validate the vignettes used in the interpretive or qualitative research design. 

Theoretically, the course considers questions such as the following: What is a vignette and what is vignette method? What questions is it best suited for? By what criteria does it meet or fail to meet the standards of scientific evidence? What is the role of causality in interpretive or qualitative research? Can vignette methods be used to test hypotheses, or only generate them? Can vignettes support making and analyzing thematic connections? Do interpretive or qualitative vignette analyses have a small-N problem? In what ways is vignette research “grounded”? 

Practically, the course considers questions such as the following: What scientific criteria apply for vignette method? How do researchers construct the ‘right’ vignette to the ‘right’ research question? What collecting techniques can be used to enhance the quality of vignette analyses? What scientific position ground the vignette analyses? What is the unit of analysis? How do researchers organize the vignettes and how do they use them in practice? How can they make sense of their interpretations of vignette analyses in a transparent, authentic, and inclusive way?  And how can they draw conclusions from their vignettes analyses?

After the course students will have knowledge of how to choose between vignette methods, including insight into hands-on tools that can be used during a research process using vignettes. 

Learning goals:

After the course, the participant should have a basic understanding of: 

1. The scientific criteria of vignette method and how to develop vignettes suitable for interpretive or qualitative research questions,
2. issues of conceptualization, theory, research design, and strategies of framing vignettes and selecting attributes and wording of the vignette’s profile description,  
3. how to organize and process vignettes through the research phases of data collection, analysis and conclusion drawing,
4. how to choose the best strategy of vignette method for the research question and, 
5. how to draw conclusions from vignette analyses.

This description is subject to change at the discretion of the Instructor

2 Credits

For completion of all work before and during the course, as outlined by the Instructor, and 90% participation and attendance of the course.