Search results for "comparative research"

Between context and comparability: Exploring new solutions for a familiar methodological challenge in qualitative comparative research

2020

Finding the balance between adequately describing the uniqueness of the context of studied phenomena and maintaining sufficient common ground for comparability and analytical generalisation has widely been recognised as a key challenge in international comparative research. Methodological reflections on how to adequately cover context and comparability have extensively been discussed for quantitative survey or secondary data research. In addition, most recently, promising methodological considerations for qualitative comparative research have been suggested in comparative fields related to higher education. The article’s aim is to connect this discussion to comparative higher education rese…

Tactical Web Use in Bumpy Times—A Comparison of Conservative Parties’ Digital Presence

2021

Modern-day party politics happen on two grounds: the offline sphere and the online sphere. It is the primary understanding of this chapter that both spheres complement each other. We therefore focus our contribution on governing parties and help to close this gap between online and offline communication and organisation by asking: How do conservative, governing parties deploy social media over a number of successful election campaigns? We explore whether there are tactical patterns or tendencies of media presence between different party channels during campaign and normal times with a longitudinal approach. Second, we introduce a multi-modal comparative research design and deliver theoretic…

Navigating high-choice European political information environments : a comparative analysis of news user profiles and political knowledge

2021

The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching implications for citizens’ media use and its relationship with political knowledge. However, there is still a lack of comparative research on how citizens combine the usage of different media and how that is related to political knowledge. To fill this void, we use a unique cross-national survey about the online and offline media use habits of more than 28,000 individuals in 17 European countries. Our aim is to (i) profile different types of news consumers and (ii) understand how each user profile is linked to political knowledge acquisition. Our results show that five user profiles – news minimalists, social m…

The relative relationship between education and workplace task discretion: an international comparative perspective

2019

International audience; Through analyses of Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data, the following study considers the direct and indirect association between education and workplace task discretion in 30 countries. By focusing on cross-national comparison, it considers the ways in which these findings are dependent on both the overall level and the range of task discretion across occupational sectors within a country. Theoretically, individual-agency and critical-institutional hypotheses are compared, two perspectives that provide divergent explanations for the indirect association between education and task discretion. The findings partially support b…

A Comparative Analysis of Hospital Readmissions in France and the US

2015

International audience; Policymakers in the US and France are struggling to improve coordination among hospitals and other health care providers. A comparison of hospital readmission rates, and the factors that may explain them, can provide important insights about the French and US health care systems. In addition, it illustrates a methodological approach to comparative research: how an empirical inquiry along a single indicator can reveal broader issues about system-wide differences across health care systems and policy. Using data from three French regions, the article extends a previous national-level comparison indicating that rates of hospital readmission for the population aged 65+ a…

Making meaning of inclusive education: classroom practices in Finnish and South African classrooms

2017

AbstractThis paper reports on the findings of an international comparative research project where the roles of teachers in the implementation of inclusive education in mainstream-classroom settings in South Africa and Finland were investigated. Inclusive education within this project is broadly defined as welcoming all students to general-education schools and classrooms and not segregating students on the basis of ability or other individual or sociocultural characteristics. In this paper a qualitative analysis of Finnish and South African teachers’ day-to-day teaching and learning support practices in their classroom is discussed. Individual and focus-group interviews encouraged teachers …

On Comparative Research In Higher Education

2008

Shades of Mediatization

2015

This study investigates mediatization of campaign coverage of German and Austrian elite newspapers from 1949 to 2009. With a cross-national perspective on a sixty-year time span, it is well suited to examine the long-term development of mediatization. It focuses on news media logic and its components that have not been satisfyingly investigated by empirical research yet. In Step 1, the study empirically identifies three components of media logic: partisanship, personalization, and detachment from policy. In Step 2, it presents evidence that these components are largely invariant between the two countries, seven newspapers, and four time intervals investigated, pointing to the institutional…

Contributions Regarding the Utilization of Neural Networks in SME's Management

2014

Due to the fact that there isnt a clear definition of the terms neural network" and "neuronal network" [1,2], the current paper aims to establish it by a range of comparative research. With the help of some charts, based on the structure of some SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), the parts that define the structure of the neuron will be compared with the general structure of an organization, in order to reproduce the neuron in the structuring level of an organization and give a meaning to the term of "organizational neuron. Sometimes it is necessary to take managerial decisions under uncertainty and / or risk, so any method that gives forecasting information to the manager is welcome [3,4…

Youth Political Talk in the Changing Media Environment : A Cross-National Typology

2021

While political communication scholarship has long underscored the importance of political talk—casual conversations about news and politics that occur in everyday situations—as a way for citizens to clarify their opinions and as a precursor for political engagement, much of this literature tends to depict political talk as uncomfortable and difficult for citizens. Yet, this focus on the challenging aspects of political talk has been informed predominantly by the US context. To what extent may a different picture emerge when looking across different cultural contexts? And how are these dynamics shaped by the affordances of the multi-platform social media environment? This paper explores th…