Qualitative Transparency Deliberations

This is an important point. The problem that transparency is supposed to be addressing isn't at all clear, and yet the costs of increasing transparency - especially for qualitative scholars - are potentially quite high. It seems like we're spending a lot of time and thought discussing - and potenti...

But in the end I tend to agree with Hexter's conclusion that "each historian lives under an especially heavy obligation to police himself." I agree that a researcher should police herself. But this does not imply that others are relieved from policing researchers; "policing researche...

My worry on this matter is simply a cost-benefit one. The work of producing a TRAX is undoubtedly good for the researcher and for the reader. But how good, compared to starting work on another important subject? We have limited lives and very limited research time. I haven't seen much discussion of...

My reponse to Carsten's good points: Before making a suggestion, I have just one minor question on the points raised so far: When Eva mentions that proper package citation might create problems with the word limit, I understood it such that she proposes that not only the main package used must be pr...

A short summary post on Alrik's and Eva's interesting discussion: 1) I am surprised that some journals do not accept appendices. If you want to post an appendix online, on Dataverse or so, then this should not count against the word limit and the journal should pass forward the appendix to the revie...

If one accepts that research transpareny is a good thing, in principle, there can be reasons not to achieve transparency. An obvious reason is the need to keep sources confidential, which usually should be easy to decide. Another reason, which is for example part of the APSR guidelines, is that the ...

Again, these are excellent points that demonstrate, in my view, that QCA/configurational methods are getting increasingly similar to quantitative methods, but that we have to catch up in terms of making material and the tools we use transparent. The question is not whether R is used; the question is...

Alrik makes many good points I briefly want to follow up on. Unfortunately, I think that many issues are not a problem of policy, but of politics, meaning that there largely is agreement what should be done; the problem is to get them implemented (which of course does not speak against the issues th...

I think Macartan was not entirely clear about the difference between expectations and observations. You cannot specify in advance what you observe because this is too specific. However, in confirmatory research you can specify in advance what you expect and not expect on a theoretical level. Fortuna...

I guess there are different views on what the most salient contrast is, but I think it is the difference between what you are uncertain about (frequentism = data, Bayesianism = hypothesis, to cut it short). However, it seems a little bit farfetched to me to say that any non-frequentist use of probab...

This is a very interesting post and it seems like you put a lot of effort into your TRAX. I understand there are concerns about how reviewers respond to a TRAX, but I do not share them. If a reviewer wants to bring you down, the reviewer will find a way. If you have a TRAX, it might be something in ...

This is an interesting point I did not know before. But I do not see an inherent problem here. If an archive imposes such constraints, they are publicly documented somehow and should be reported in the publication. Nobody can expect one to be more transparent than an archive allows one to be. To get...

I am not sure that journals would require the publication of field notes, but I understand there is a point of concern. Dishonesty is only one reason for increased transparency. It is a quantitative example, but the case of LaCour would have never been a case if he had not published the data of his ...

A truth table analysis and a statistical analysis are based on different (ontological and epistemological) premises, but they are implemented with software in a more or less standardized way. In general, the transparency requirements for a truth table analysis are the same as for quantitative resear...

I agree with Macartan and Hillel (as I understand him) that analytic transparency does not require Bayesianism. Process tracing is not intransparent if one does not specify a prior, it is simply not Bayesian. One might prefer Bayesian process tracing to any non-Bayesian variant of process tracing, b...

There is growing skepticism about what is reported in non-preregistered research. Besides that I do not see a reason to conceal the actual case selection process, there are good reasons for walking the reader through the actual case selection process because it might diffuse such concerns. For me, t...

Andy Bennett makes an excellent point by pointing to the QDR pilot projects. In addition to people who posted their material ex post, it would be particularly interesting to learn about the experiences of qualitative researchers who try to achieve transparency at the moment and, probably, use differ...

Thanks for the detailed and excellent post. I do not see why your criteria would not fit DART. I believe some criteria do not necessarily imply a Bayesian perspective (priors do, of course). Does this mean qualitative research should become more Bayesian and transparent on Bayesian ground? Is Bayesi...

The debate about access to data and transparency is anchored in the aim to solve specific problems (see slide show on http://www.dartstatement.org/). What problems do access and transparency diminish, in your view? If you can think of problems, can you imagine alternative instruments or policies working towards the same end?

I read this as an argument against the use of predefined types of cases and using them in any design. Is this correct? This is an interesting thought. However, it seems to imply that there is no transparency issue per se. It would be more a matter of making transparent whether one proceeds explorato...