Students’ free option power of learning is an important part of students’ power of learning. It emphasizes respect for students’ learning rights and freedom, so that students have a certain freedom of learning choice. In the theory and practice of Chinese higher education, undergraduates’ free option power of learning has long been weakened and restricted by various factors. This study provides an understanding of the current situation of undergraduates’ free option power of learning through 20 interviews with undergra duates from a university in Central China in a pilot project, whose purpose was to provide students with freedom in selecting higher education options. The interviews address three areas where students were given the option to select: (a) learning content, (b) learning processes, and (c) learning environments. Discussion follows on the problems experienced by Chinese undergraduates’ in the free option power of learning project. Lastly, as China hopes to expand this project beyond the pilot, we advance recommendations to promote effective implementation of the free option power of learning of Chinese undergraduates, such as: (a) establishing sound laws to ensure the effective implementation of the power of students; (b) empowering undergraduates to have more choice to choose and change their majors; (c) carrying out the flexible program duration to let students have free choice of getting credits; and (d) establishing a sound and perfect transfer mechanism to let students have more choice of universities.

Development and popularization of new communication technologies generate new dimensions of opportunities and threats associated with learning and using technologies as well as with their sociocultural consequences. The article presents four dimensions of social perception of these threats and opportunities: creativity, representative potential, psychological attitude, privacy and control. They were distinguished on the basis of two research projects using qualitative research techniques. Particular attention was dedicated to generational usage of technology. In this way, the paper may be the basis for distinguishing the dimensions of technological competencies.

In recent years, the amount of empirical research on populism has increased dramatically. The purpose of this text is to analyze these strands of existing research on populism which employ qualitative methods. Additionally, the paper discusses their basic categories and research design, and highlights the advantages and drawbacks of each of these approaches. The paper presents the three most influential trends in qualitative research on populism: ideology analysismorphological approach, discourse theory, and historical-discursive analysis.

This paper discusses issues related to the participation in culture of adults with moderate intellectual disabilities. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a study interpreting and constructing participation in culture by members of this group. I was interested in how such people experience culture and how they interpret it and what significance they attach to its various manifestations. This piece of research was located in the current of constructivist and interpretative studies, which has enabled the application of the biographical method. The research project used four individual, in-depth and partially structured interviews and narrative analysis.
The narratives told by the interviewees reveal the subjective sense and meaning imparted by people with intellectual disabilities to their own participation in culture. The narratives have shown the difficult adulthood and the resulting problems of everyday life. The biographies of adults with intellectual disabilities living with their parents show the complexity of adulthood and the resulting attributes. Due to the difficulties of everyday life, the reality constructed by the narrators is filled with regret, anger, disappointment, sadness and longing for normality. Negative emotions do not allow them to develop, to open up to people, to build relations with them. This results in a limited participation of adults with intellectual disabilities in culture in a broad sense of the word.

The work discusses a methodological critique of research concepts, designed and introduced in social sciences, under the positivist and humane paradigms and in ‘mixed’ research. Attention is paid to consecutive stages of a research project (its key points are indicated) and also to needed reflection as well as seeking answers to numerous questions concerning the right structure of projects described in academic articles and monographs.

The article presents the results of an Internet questionnaire examining high school graduates’ (general education high schools and technical high schools) perceptions on aesthetical and cultural education in the institutional context. The study was based on students’ narratives gathered by means of a purpose- designed interview questionnaire using the methodology of interpretive anthropology in relation to the perspective of an ‘insider’ or a ‘local’. The results were further organised accordingly with the strategy of horizonalisation, which made it possible to construct a model encompassing all the participants’ contributions.

These reflections tackle a specific understanding of researching everyday life, which presents itself as a methodological demand, i.e., as a constitutive element of the new forms of inquiry. Consequently, the discourses revolve around the specificity of the anthropology of everyday life, as seen from various angles entailing third wave of sociology, cultural anthropology, and symbolic interactionism. It also elaborates on the methodological issues encompassing idiographic, emic characteristics of a qualitative inquiry that with relation to everyday life can provide a useful and cognitively attractive tool of reconstructing the world of different cultural groups.

The article describes the innovative method of qualitative research, Collective Biography Writing (CBW), which is not well known or not known at all in the pedagogical research of the region of Central and Eastern Europe. This method is especially useful in the re-exploration of issues connected with being, becoming, development, and learning in the context of education and pedagogical research. The article presents the theoretical foundations of the CBW method and its basis in the notions of being as emergent within the encounter, intra-action, entanglement of agencies, and the significance of matter. An outline of the scientific procedure is also presented.

The article raises the issue of research in artistic expression and creativity used in therapy. Such research requires an interdisciplinary approach combining the humanities (art studies) and the social studies (pedagogy, psychology, sociology), which causes issues with implementing a consistent research perspective. The author points out a few issues, called “sensitive areas”, and analyses them in relation to the disabled people theatre. These are: the presentation status of such groups, the dangers of subjectivism or the necessity of implementing the qualitative research model, the methods of research documentation.

The subject of the article is the activity of female art groups, especially their development and dynamics, described in a form of distinct stages. The number of such groups is growing together with changes of women’s position in society and allowing of their activity in art. This analysis belongs to research on environmental aspect of creativity. The article bases on qualitative research - free-form interviews - with representatives of four fine-art groups based in Łódź. Artists belong to different generations. The aim of the research was the reconstruction of experiences and meanings that are attributed to activity in such groups. The patterns of development of female art groups were described on the basis of 18 women’s statements representing various fields of fine arts; and, additionally, analysis of existing documents. On this basis the stages of long-standing activity of such groups and the dominance of artists’ activity were distinguished. Certain stages can be distinguished also during single art enterprise, like exhibition.

Qualitative research is always about some form of intervention into the real world, however that intervention is always mediated by various material practices employed in the research process. This article engages with material practices accompanying research to discuss the ways in which they influence the research process, the observed and the observer. More specifically, this article attends to the use of video technology in qualitative research to reflect upon the material practices that not only make the world visible but also shed light on the research process through which such worlds become known. Reflections from research on institutions and institutional life are used to demonstrate points of interaction that transform the worlds of research and the worlds of everyday life.

The article concerns the methodological and theoretical aspects of research carried out in the environment of intellectually disabled people. The issues of intellectual disability pose a challenge for researchers; individuals with an intellectual disability constitute a specific group, the research of which requires an interpretative approach, that is, open and flexible research methods. Therefore, the main stress in the article is on proving the usefulness of the interpretative perspective, along with the advantages of adopting the grounded theory methodology to research this category of people. These approaches make it possible to adjust the research strategy to the characteristics of the explored research area. They allow for in-depth analysis of empirical data and thus create conditions for an accurate depiction of the researched environment. Making reference to research on the environment of intellectually disabled people, the usefulness of grounded theory methodology procedures was assessed in a broader context of research conducted in the interpretative paradigm.

The article is an example of research done with the biographical method within the framework of educational biography. In the text I present the key elements and stages of the applied research procedure (biographical workshops for young adults) and an example of using it in practice (i.e., obtaining qualitative data from written self-narratives, supplementary techniques and the analysis and interpretation carried out by the narrator). The research conclusions highlight the significance of using tasks of this kind in work with young adults. They show the opportunities but also limitations of using the biographical method, which result from the subjects’ young age. They describe a number of functions (including auto-therapy) that help them formulate their own judgements, gain autonomy in making decisions, and the sense of control of their own lives.

Rozważania podjęte w artykule dotyczą orientacji wartościujących przejawianych przez czeskich uczniów, na stałe zamieszkujących w Stanach Zjednoczonych Ameryki. W ostatnich kilkudziesięciu latach język czeski w tym kraju znajduje się w regresie. Nasi rodacy, którzy przybyli tu w trakcie głównej fali emigracyjnej w większości już się zamerykanizowali, dlatego jest niezwykle ważne, by szkoły z czeskim językiem nauczania nadal prowadziły naukę języka czeskiego oraz przekazywały informacje o czeskich realiach, co pozwoli na włączenie tego języka do systemu wartości nie tylko osób niedawno przybyłych, ale i pozostałych generacji. W badaniach własnych wykorzystano metody projekcji, służące opisowi przez uczniów preferowanych wartości, jak również pogłębionego wywiadu, umożliwiającego poznanie znaczenia języka czeskiego dla uczniów żyjących poza granicami kraju.

Research Paradigm Considerations for Emerging Scholars (2021), edited by Anja Pabel, Josephine Pryce, and Allison Anderson, published by Channel View Publication (DOI: 10.21832/9781845418281), is notable among methodological publications for its scientific openness and permission to experimentation in the research process. The book’s target audience is postgraduate HDRs, emerging scholars and higher-degree supervisors, lecturers in methodology seeking to enhance their reflexivity. According to the authors, it is the reflexive approach that differentiates this book from other methodological books, especially those intended for researchers who are in the process of development regardless of their academic status. Among Polish methodological books there is no publication which as clearly as the book Research Paradigm Considerations… encourages the development of cognitive research curiosity by applying and developing already known paradigms but also by modifying them depending on the socio-cultural context of the research. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for practical applications of paradigms, but the subject of their research cannot be clearly categorized.

In recent years, discourse in education sciences has focussed on the study of the reflective thinking of teachers. Researchers, however, do not agree on how the reflective thinking of teachers can be measured. This qualitative study looks for an answer to the question whether a cognitive map is suitable for the discovery of teachers’ reflections. The study analyses the reflections of a secondary school teacher of mathematics using an unstructured cognitive map. The sample was selected on the basis of availability. The analysis of the map was done deductively, in a concept-driven way, on the basis of the number of contacts (edges) and concepts, central, peripheral and isolated concepts and their degrees, and the levels of the map. The teacher involved was recorded commenting on the process of map-making, which was then transferred to writing. The text corpus was then analysed inductively, in a data-driven way. The results show that the teacher interpreted his own activity - which depends on pedagogical knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical situations - in a complex manner. The filter function of beliefs can be observed when the teacher’s activities and thinking did not match because some internal and external factors. The data from the map contributed to analysis of reflections and the analysis of the map added new elements to existing techniques.

The paper discovers the presence of abduction in teachers’ activities and emphasises the role of trichotomous systems (abduction, deduction, induction) in discovering human reality. The paper focuses on the presence of abduction in education sciences research, and its main goal is to detect abduction in teaching activities and classroom interaction. Abduction is a type of reasoning requiring philosophical, logical, and psychological background, distinct from induction and deduction, and it contributes to a viewpoint in social research that strives to make research in human reality easier to understand. The qualitative study involved explores the presence of abduction in teachers’ communication based on unstructured observation. The observation was carried out in a primary school. The objects of observation were the Geography, Art, and PE classes of the same teacher. The data of the class observation were recorded verbatim. The records were processed using an inductive, data-driven method after the classes. The reliability of the process was ensured by intracoding. The results of the observations reflect the presence of abduction in classroom interaction. The results showed that abduction appeared in the Geography, Art, and PE classes observed, and every class witnessed right and wrong abductive conclusions. The paper is relevant to anybody interested in the appearance of abduction in education sciences research and aims at completing the arsenal of tools available for analysing teachers’ activities.

Online interviews in qualitative research of the pandemic period: inclusive potential, risk of exclusion, and quality of collected data

The paper is devoted to online interviews that gained significant popularity during the pandemic. The text has two main goals. The first was to reflect on the possible mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion of various categories of research participants. The second objective was to analyze the impact of the communication channels used with the respondents on the quality of the collected qualitative data. The study exhibits that online research is gradually becoming more inclusive, and the argument of digital exclusion is becoming increasingly outdated. The respondents’ education may still exclude, especially among lower than secondary education respondents. At the same time, the formula of online interviews offers a significant proinclusive potential, which was reflected in the participation in the study of a number of informants who could be permanently unavailable under traditional research. Research also shows that online interviews are generally effective. However, the application of diversified communication channels results in systematic and measurable differences in the collected data. Considering various aspects, Zoom offered data of better quality than Skype. On the other hand, mobile applications (and phone calls) do not constitute a natural alternative, and it is difficult to recommend them.

Application of Howard Gruber’s Theory „ESA” in the qualitative research on creative didactic work realized by academic teachers-innovators

The main aim of the article is to present the genesis and main assumptions of the theory The Evolving Systems Approach to Creative Work by Howard E. Gruber as well as an account of qualitative research into the experiences of academic teachers in the creative didactic work. In these studies the ESA theory was used both for the preparation of the research concept and for the analysis and interpretation of the obtained research results. 13 academic teachers participated in the research, introducing to the education of students for at least 5 years: pioneering adaptations, creative modifications, their own original didactic solutions including: concepts, strategies, methods, techniques and tools, workshops, students’ assessment systems. In the research there were applied the multiple, descriptive case studies, there were carry out semi-structured interviews and analysis of documents (publications, pictures). In the research was carried out a vertical analysis which resulted in the creation of an individual model of creative work for each research participant as well as a horizontal-cross-sectional analysis for all cases. On the grounds of many regularities found in studied cases the author of article presents proposition of systemic model of creative didactic work concerning examined innovators.

Tunnel to the Third Power – art-based research in the practice of higher education

The article presents the artistic-educational-research project Tunnel to the Third Power, implemented by two communities related to artistic and educational spaces: a group of students of Artistic Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Warsaw, who are prepared to work as art educators, and the second group: the students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The methodological basis of the implemented activities was art-based research. The theoretical basis of the project was the art-as-pedagogy of Clair Bishop and the widely commented educational turn in contemporary art. The artistic basis was the project of the artist Piotr Grabowski Tunnel. The importance of mankind for the future. The article discusses the assumptions of the project, its implementation and research conclusions. The student project was also shown as an example of using art-based research in the practice of higher education.