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Audio-diary methods are under-utilised in contemporary qualitative research. The purpose of this paper is to discuss participants and researchers’ experiences of using audio-diaries alongside semi-structured interviews to explore breastfeeding experiences in a short-term longitudinal study with 22 first-time mothers.

The authors provide a qualitative content analysis of the participants’ feedback about their experiences of the audio-diary method and supplement this with the perspectives of the research team based on fieldwork notes, memos and team discussions. The authors pay particular attention to the ways in which the data attained from diaries compared with those from the interviews.

The diaries produced were highly heterogeneous in terms of data length and quality. Participants’ experiences with the method were varied. Some found the process therapeutic and useful for reflecting upon the development of breastfeeding skills whilst negative aspects related to lack of mobility, self-consciousness and concerns about confidentiality. Researchers were positive about the audio-diary method but raised certain ethical, epistemological and methodological concerns. These include debates around the use of prompts, appropriate support for participants and the potential of the method to influence the behaviour under scrutiny. Interview and diary accounts contrasted and complemented in ways which typically enriched data analysis.

The authors conclude that audio-diaries are a flexible and useful tool for qualitative research especially within critical realist and phenomenological paradigms.

This appears to be the first paper to evaluate both participants and researchers’ experiences of using audio-diaries in a detailed and systematic fashion.

This paper discusses the use of diary‐keeping as part of an evaluation of a complex, community‐based health promotion initiative, using the Mobile Information Bus (MIB) as an example. The MIB was designed to provide health and related information for living adolescents in rural areas of Northeast Scotland. The general strengths and limitations of diary‐keeping as a research method are discussed alongside an account of the evaluators' experiences of using this method within the MIB context, as well as suggestions for improving the efficacy of diary‐keeping as a research method. In addition, the results of an extensive literature search on the topic of diaries as a research method are reported. As part of the MIB evaluation, the diary provided a contemporaneous, in‐depth account of the intervention in operation. Those engaged in evaluation of similar types of projects (particularly related to process evaluation) may find the use of a project diary a useful adjunct to other research methods.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what it means to do intersectional research in an organisational ethnographic case study addressing gender, race, power and change. The main contribution of this paper is a methodological one. The focus is on the relevance and experience of adapting two qualitative research methods – diary study and photographic method.

The paper describes the design, implementation and impact of the diary and photographic methods. Both research methods combine personal reflection with group dialogue. The case study is framed by feminist analysis of the gendered organisation and examines subjectivities and gender power relations embedded in organisational culture.

Insights from the case study indicate the importance of participatory methodologies for deepening organisational research in the context of an organisational ethnography; the adaptability of the diary and photo methods; the effectiveness of open questions for reflecting on race and gender when participants know the research context; the significance of reflexive practice; the importance of a process approach for organisational analysis and change.

The case study findings are generalisable. The adaptations of the two key methods are applicable for research in practice. The concrete methodologies are significant for intersectional research inside organisations. The choice of intersections to be studied will depend on the research context.

The case study shows methodological refinements for researching gender, power and difference inside organisations.

The paper provides methodological insights into how to conduct intersectional and deep organisational research.

The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a model for patient co‐creation and learning based on diaries for use in health‐care service development. In particular, the study aims to investigate the process of patient co‐creation and different mechanisms through which health‐care service providers can learn from the patient.

The study is based on an action research approach. First, a development phase for patient co‐creation and learning leading to a proposed model was conducted. Second, a test phase of the diary‐based method was performed on 53 patients in three cases: orthopaedic care, rehabilitation care and gastroenterology care.

The study suggests a model for co‐creation and learning in health‐care service development through three learning methods. First, the model may be used as a means for generating and collecting patient ideas; second, a single patient's story can be illustrated and can serve as incentive for health‐care service development and creation of patient‐centred care; finally, a larger number of diaries can be analysed and combined with patient surveys to provide a deeper understanding of how the patient experiences health care services.

This study extends the research on diary‐based methods as an operationalisation of co‐creation in two ways. First, the study offers new and more diverse ways of using the rich material provided by customer diaries in the development of services. Second, the study suggests a co‐creation approach of involving patients in health‐care service development through patient diaries.

The purpose of this paper is to show how an application of the qualitative diary method reveals the gendered organisation.

The paper draws on the author's experience of her own design and implementation of the diary method, using qualitative diaries, dialogues and interviews. The application is known as the “diary project” and is carried out in a case‐study organisation in which the researcher is addressing wider questions about gender, change and organisation.

The outcomes show how the diary project methodology is effective for learning about gender norms and practices embedded in organisational culture. Reflections on the interface between the personal and the professional, the formal and the informal, emotion, sexuality and power, hierarchies and difference, draw out significant organisational phenomena which shape advantage and disadvantage and unequal access and control.

The diary project methodology is about the organisation in the present. To study gender embedded in the organisation requires the organisational researcher to also work with other research methods, to achieve a deep understanding.

The experience of the diary project is that it offers organisational researchers and change practitioners a methodology for study and intervention.

The paper is of use to readers looking for a participatory organisational research methodology to examine the gendered organisation. Findings highlight the value of the diary project methodology for a deep analysis of organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to the call of alternative methodologies for studying household dynamics and aims to contribute to method development in international marketing research.

Based on the Viennese Diary Study, a methodology was developed to study Vietnamese middle-class partners’ decision making. This allows for dyadic analyses and keeping track of the decision and mutual influence history in an emerging market.

The methodology proved suitable to be used in a transitional economy, which is characterized by specific cultural aspects, such as the embeddedness of decisions in close relationships and traditional role specialization.

While the diary method is time and resource-costly with rather small sample size, it allows for detailed insight into everyday decision making. Further research might want to extend participation in the method to the extended family, which is of high importance in collectivistic cultures.

Since partners in a household independently reported their perceptions and behaviours during decision processes each day, the methodology allows for dyadic analyses and keeping track of everyday decision making. In addition, the role in decision making of each spouse can be analysed.

The purpose of this paper is to report on and evaluate focus groups and privacy diary/interview methods used in a qualitative study of on‐line privacy.

The paper is a discursive evaluation of two methods employed to study on‐line privacy, informed by and situated in interpretive and constructivist approaches to knowledge.

The paper argues for the value of qualitative research methods in study of on‐line privacy. It confronts the positivist paradigm that informs much of the work in the field by foregrounding the need for methodological plurality in the study of privacy as relational, situated, dynamic and contextual. It deals with the notion of “sensitivity” as well as introducing often neglected issue of logistical challenges in qualitative research.

The paper contributes to the existing debates about the value of employment of qualitative research methods broadly, as well as in the study of on‐line privacy more specifically. It demonstrates a range of advantages and challenges in use of the two methods, providing recommendations of how to supplement them. It opens up the discussion of process of sensitizing of the participants and thus the “co‐construction” of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the reliability of questionnaires as a method of quantifying household food waste (FW), thus providing context regarding the validity of existing Italian estimates.

A total of 30 households were involved in a diary study that was conducted for one week. The participating households were first asked about their FW quantities in a questionnaire. Half of the households who filled their diaries properly were then audited through waste sorting analysis performed on their garbage. Non-parametric tests were used to test for differences in FW estimates between audited and non-audited households, as well as differences among estimates obtained through different quantification methodologies.

Edible FW was estimated to be 489 grams per week based on questionnaires, and 1,035 grams per week based on diaries. In the audited sub-sample of households, FW estimates were 334 grams per week based on questionnaires, 818 grams per week based on diaries and 1,058 grams per week based on waste sorting analysis.

Given the small sample size in the present study, future studies can utilize larger samples to assess whether the differences identified in estimates can be replicated. Future studies can also inquire into the behavioral biases that led consumers to underestimate their FW.

Results of the present study point against the use of questionnaires to quantify household FW, hence raising some doubt on the reliability of existent Italian estimates. Where waste sorting is unfeasible, the use of adjustment methods or diaries is suggested to better inform policies.

This study is one of the first on FW quantification that tests three different methodologies on the same sample, and is the first to do so in Italy, where estimates are still very poor.

Microfinance impact evaluation studies help in discovering client needs which are diverse, special and different from the needs of the conventional bankable clients. Thus, such area of market research is becoming essential for microfinance institutions for designing better client-centred products. In this research, the authors discuss the specific model of household economic portfolio (HEP) for qualitative impact evaluation in microfinance. The paper aims to discuss the complexity limitations of the HEP. Solutions are provided for overcoming these limitations. The modified household economic portfolio (M-HEP) model is simplified and detailed, and two types of diaries are suggested for implementing it.

First, the authors briefly review the literature on impact assessment methods in microfinance and on the HEP model. In the second part of the paper, the M-HEP is suggested and discussed in detail. In the third part, the authors present a case study to illustrate the additional information that can be generated by using our suggested research tool and model. Finally, the authors wrap up with a summary of the findings.

Solutions are provided for overcoming the limitations of the HEP model. The suggested model (M-HEP) is simplified and detailed, and two types of diaries are suggested for implementing it. The case study shows that, certainly, time and money are related. While time may mean money for a rich person, for a poor person, if money is not forthcoming, she may spend time on non-income generating work that adds to her social esteem. She may also consume inexpensive assets because spending time at low cost is important. Finally, she spends time in conducting activities for which she cannot afford to pay.

The paper offers two novelties. First, it details the interactions between the elements of the HEP model of Chen and Dunn. This improvement to the original model is highly important for defining the measures that are required for redrawing the economic portfolio of an individual. The second novelty is in suggesting the collection of time-use and financial daily data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a combined diary is used in microfinance research. These two novelties allow the application of a modified version of the highly interesting HEP model in spite of its complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how student‐written diaries and journals serve as a specifically feminist pedagogy for teaching feminist economics, thereby challenging the lecture‐based techniques used to teach and uphold the mainstream, market‐fundamentalist paradigm.

The approach involves the author's observations and experiences using student‐written diaries to teach a feminist economics course.

Student‐written diaries have the potential to dislodge both the market‐fundamentalist economics paradigm and the lecture‐based teaching method that dominate the undergraduate economics curriculum. Student‐written diaries are especially useful in teaching feminist economics courses which strive to elevate women's economic status and/or to reduce the androcentric bias in economics. The paper describes how student‐written diaries are used to achieve both of these goals and to create a more inclusive classroom culture, while simultaneously challenging market fundamentalism.

The paper offers a new pedagogical technique to be used for teaching feminist economics courses and for countering lecture‐based courses that focus on market fundamentalism.