Please read this before sending me enquiries about Q methodology.

• I’m available for consultancy and collaboration about Q methodology, and to deliver courses and workshops (also online, also in Spanish). You can see sample teaching material here. If you wish to discuss any of these and the fees, please send me an enquiry.
• To learn more about the ‘qmethod’ package to analyse Q methodology data, see first the github page.
• For other (free) advice, please note that, given the large volume of generic enquiries I receive, regrettably I can only attend enquiries about the following two themes:
  • (a) Technical matters about using and improving the ‘qmethod’ package for R. For general questions about using the methodology, please read my methodological papers about Q (listed next), the ‘qmethod’ resources on github, Brown 1980 or other relevant references, or refer to the point above.
  • (b) Conceptual ones related to my field of research (environmental sustainability broadly).
• For general enquiries about using Q and/or if this is the first time you use the methodology and would like some general guidance, I strongly recommend Watts & Stenner’s “Doing Q methodological research” book, and/or sending a message with a specific question to the mailing list (Q-METHOD@LISTSERV.KENT.EDU; https://qmethod.org/mailing-list/), where many scholars working with Q will be glad to help you.

These papers about Q methodology I have written might resolve some doubts:

• Checklist to report Q methodology studies and outline of the research process, from research design to interpretation (in Figure 1); types of biodiversity conservation and environmental issues where Q has been applied. Zabala et al. 2018. When and how to use Q methodology to understand perspectives in conservation research. Conservation Biology | Document (Open access)
• Dot-based figure of Q results, first presented in this paper (a figure that you can produce with ‘qmethod’ for R). Zabala et al. 2017. Payments for pioneers? Revisiting the role of external rewards for sustainable innovation under heterogeneous motivations. Ecological Economics | Document | Accepted version (free) | Snapshot
• Outline of the standard analytical process, from correlation between Q-sorts to interpretation (in Figure 1). Zabala, Pascual. 2016. Bootstrapping Q methodology to improve the understanding of human perspectives. PLoS One | Document (Open access)
• Outline of results obtained with Q methodology, and features of the ‘qmethod’ package for R. Zabala. 2014. qmethod: a package to analyse human perspectives using Q methodology. The R Journal | Document (Open access)

Here is a response to a question I commonly receive, about software: for online data collection, I recommend HTMLQ. For data analysis, I recommend ‘qmethod‘. Both are free and open source, robust and versatile. Data can be imported into ‘qmethod’ from a range of formats, including data from both HTMLQ and PQMethod.