Connecting Q & surveys: three methods to explore factor membership in large samples

Q methodology as invented by Stephenson (Stephenson, 1953) was “designed to assist in the orderly examination of human subjectivity” (Brown, 1980, p. 5). Q incorporates quantitative factor analytic methods into a broadly qualitative, interpretive framework (Brown, 1996) and is perhaps one of few truly mixed methodologies (Stenner and Stainton Rogers, 2004). Q techniques are usually applied to research questions of a qualitative kind, typically: “What is the nature of attitudes and beliefs held by community (or individual) X on the subject of Y”. Each participant expresses her point of view by sorting a set of items. Factor analyses based on the correlations between all participants’ Q sorts are used to identify underlying value sets and shared beliefs.