Introducing ‘hard’ interpretivism and ‘Q’ methodology: notes from a project on ‘county sport partnerships and governance’
These research notes from a ‘live’ project set about introducing two methodological aspects of research to scholars and students of leisure and sport. First, the meta‐theoretical underpinning of the live project is discussed and explained. This goes beyond a standard statement of the project’s epistemological position by emphasising the need to clarify work that lies ‘on the border’ between epistemologies. Second, the paper introduces a novel and little known research tool termed as ‘Q methodology’. This is an effective procedure to understand agents’ subjectivities and fits, logically, with the epistemological approach outlined previously. Such a tool offers students and scholars an exciting new way to understand the beliefs of those we seek to study.