ESRA 2027 sessions by theme

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Session Details

This session invites papers examining how qualitative and quantitative evidence can be linked across the research process. Surveys may be combined with interviews, focus groups, open-ended responses, social-media content, web-scraped materials and other forms of behavioural or contextual evidence. However, collecting different forms of evidence within the same project does not by itself produce meaningful integration. Survey responses and related materials are not simply transparent records of fixed attitudes or behaviours: they are produced through particular questions, categories, interactions, technologies and social contexts. Qualitative evidence can therefore do more than supplement quantitative findings. It can reveal how respondents understand survey concepts, construct accounts, negotiate meanings and produce apparently inconsistent responses across settings or over time. The session particularly encourages engagement with interpretivist and constructionist perspectives. Contributions may consider how researchers connect participants, cases, questions, concepts, measures, contexts or periods across different sources; use qualitative evidence to develop, interpret or validate quantitative measures; or use quantitative findings to guide qualitative sampling and analysis. Papers may address substantive applications, mixed-method research designs, longitudinal integration, qualitative follow-up studies, case selection, data transformation, human and automated coding, and validity and transparency. The session aims to bring together established and innovative approaches that treat qualitative and quantitative materials as connected but distinct forms of evidence within survey research.