The Crossroads of Real-World Contingency in Qualitative Research: Challenges,Lessons and Resilience

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and other major contextual circumstances, including the aftermath of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong between 2019 and 2020, underline the necessity to reconsider contingency for qualitative researchers with local and transnational interests. These circumstances of contingency are complex and multi-layered. This article describes the experience of designing and conducting in-person field research on inclusive pedagogical practice with teachers in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study utilised a multiple case study approach and adopted teacher interviews and lesson observations as primary sources of evidence. The article demonstrates that maintaining contextual sensitivity and methodological flexibility, as well as appreciating the contingent and ongoing nature of qualitative inquiry, are essential to upholding research rigour. The article concludes by discussing the need to recognise contingency as fundamental to real-world qualitative research. It argues that weaving contingency into the design and conduct of qualitative studies is therefore pivotal to capturing worthwhile evidence and contributing to robust knowledge.

Introduction

Since 2020, many of us, including teachers and qualitative researchers, have had deep and embodied experiences of Morin’s (1999) maxim, ‘expect the unexpected’ (p.41). Meanwhile, the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in 2019 (hereafter the Anti-ELAB Movement), has been marked as a watershed in Hong Kong’s modern history (Wang, 2023). These unprecedented major contextual circumstances have had significant impacts on qualitative research with both local and transnational interests. In particular, they have underscored the necessity to reconsider real-world contingency for qualitative researchers.

Real-world qualitative research guides usually offer generic suggestions on managing practicalities when facing contingency in the field (Robson & McCartan, 2016). However, the translation of qualitative methods and tools into the field became ever more challenging and intricate during the global pandemic. Many of the qualitative studies undertaken at the time took a necessary but complicated turn to virtual data collection methods and online fieldwork, reflecting on their methodological, ethical and practical complexities (Githaiga et al., 2023; Roberts et al., 2021).

Researchers based in risky fields and closed contexts have strived to accentuate the significance of contingency. In existing discussions, methodological flexibility seems to be pivotal when conducting fieldwork in risky settings (Chambers, 2020; Janenova, 2019). However, there is still ample room for consideration when contingency not only occurs during fieldwork but also persists throughout the qualitative research process. Furthermore, contingency in the real world can be complex and multi-layered. This is particularly true in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic, which coincided with the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement. In such context, contingency not only embodies difficulties or disruptions but also broadens complicated opportunities. For once, the study that informs this article was able to continue face-to-face fieldwork in Hong Kong during the pandemic, despite various challenges along its research process. In light of this, consideration of real-world contingency is, and has always been, necessary in real-world qualitative research, whether it is based in risky settings or closed contexts or not.

This article bridges this gap by exploring the methodological insights and research lessons on real-world contingency gained from designing and conducting a qualitative multiple case study on inclusive pedagogical practice in Hong Kong between 2019 and 2022. Although the insights and lessons on contingency are drawn from the experience of doing an educational study in Hong Kong during the pandemic, they can also be illuminating for a wider range of social science disciplines and topics across various field settings. Qualitative studies need to handle challenges of contingency regularly during their research process, irrespective of whether the research is conducted online or in-person, in Hong Kong or other national contexts, before, during, or after the pandemic.

I begin this article with a comprehensive literature review on the matter of contingency in real-world qualitative inquiries. Thereafter, I examine the context of the Hong Kong education sector during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of constant contingency for qualitative research. I then critically reflect on the research process of the study that informs this article: its design, study context and fieldwork sites, participants, data collection and analysis, methodological rigour, and issues of ethics, positionality and reflexivity. Eventually, I draw relevant methodological insights and research lessons from the experience of this study and existing literature.

Literature Review: Contingency in Real-World Qualitative Research

The discussion of contingency is problematic but critical in real-world qualitative research. Many research guides carefully consider the theoretical, methodological and procedural aspects of designing and planning social science studies. Some of them mention contingency as an inevitable reality of fieldwork and offer practical suggestions. For example, Robson and McCartan (2016) warn that researchers should not expect the research process to simply work out from raising questions to generating answers without any sudden interruptions, difficulties or changes, even when the study is equipped with a well-thought-through research design. Buchanan and colleagues (2013) represent field research as ‘the art of the possible’ and emphasise an opportunistic side of fieldwork because it ‘is permeated with the conflict between what is theoretically desirable on the one hand and what is practically possible on the other’ (p.53).

Insider accounts of social science research and fieldwork demonstrate that it is important to develop practicality management principles and strategies to navigate the study process. Hodgson and Rollnick (1995) give a list of aphorisms, such as ‘Getting started will take at least as long as the data collection’ (p.4) and ‘A research project will change twice in the middle’ (p.5), to inform behavioural and mental health researchers about what to anticipate in real-world studies. Similarly, Robson and McCartan (2016) contribute some valuable strategies for researchers to arrange practicalities when conducting studies, such as expecting that steps of the research process are unlikely to follow one another sequentially and organising arrangements and schedules for research activities as soon as feasible.

These are sound, practical lessons that we can learn from experienced social science researchers. In Deem’s (1996) autobiography on her academic career in sociology, education and women studies, she describes that the process of research has ‘frequently been contingent, rarely linear, sometimes accidental and often serendipitous’ (p.6). That is, she contends that contingency is integral to social science studies. I argue that this is particularly the case for real-world qualitative research. Moreover, some of the challenges stemming from contingency are not only practical but fundamentally related to qualitative research rigour and, therefore, merit further discussion. Although the criteria for determining qualitative research rigour are still under debate, for the purpose of this paper, I adopt credibility (how authentic the research represents the actual phenomenon), dependability (how consistent and stable the research’s data and procedures are), and transferability (how generalisable the research is to other contexts) as its key components (Miles et al., 2020). This discussion is particularly critical, considering how the COVID-19 pandemic and other contextual circumstances, such as the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement in 2019 in Hong Kong, have exacerbated and complicated the challenges of contingency for qualitative research studies with both local and transnational interests.

To date, research conducted during or after the Anti-ELAB Movement in Hong Kong has mainly approached it as an instance of anti-authoritarian social movements. Yet, little extant literature addresses the methodological issues of conducting social science studies during or after the Movement. Yuen et al. (2022) point out that the evolving, spontaneous and increasingly decentralised mass protests in Hong Kong during 2019 generated unique challenges for well-established survey methods, including systematic sampling procedures and onsite face-to-face interview surveys. In response to these methodological challenges posed by contextual contingency, the researchers adopt a mixed mode of sampling and survey methods, combining onsite face-to-face surveys and post hoc smartphone-based online surveys, whilst being transparent about how they address the issues of validity and reliability. Their work, albeit not specifically focused on qualitative research, provides a valuable reflection that designing and conducting social science studies amidst constant contingency requires researchers to be responsive and adaptive without losing sight of methodological rigour.

Meanwhile, researchers working in the so-called risky fields (i.e. closed contexts, authoritarian regimes, conflict and post-conflict zones, and regions affected by violence and terrorism) have endeavoured to draw attention to the impacts of contingency in fieldwork. Compared to normatively stable fields (i.e. ‘Western’, ‘liberal’, ‘democratic’ or ‘open’ settings) such fields arguably place greater demand on researchers to continually redesign their studies while keeping a lookout for unexpected circumstances during the research process and potential risks for both the participants and themselves (Janenova, 2019). Extensively and rightfully, the research literature focusing on risky fields provides valuable insights into negotiating access, positionality, establishing trust in field relationships, ethical integrity, and safety issues in the face of constant contingency and potential danger (Chakravarty, 2012; Glasius et al., 2018; Leggett, 2018; Lunn, 2014; Stroup & Goode, 2023).

Quantitative researchers adopting survey methods indicate that conflict zone research should maintain clarity about their study purposes and organise a design that optimally meets their purposes (Rosenberg, 2024). To address the challenges of validity and reliability of surveys in conflict zones, Mneimneh et al. (2014) propose five principles: (1) retaining an adaptive approach at all stages of the survey; (2) adopting mixed methods approach to maximise flexibility and minimise limitations of the survey; (3) recruiting and training interviewers in a politically neutral manner; (4) tailoring data collection methods to specific conflict challenges; and (5) attentively addressing ethical considerations. Notably, the lessons learned in surveys during the Anti-ELAB Movement partly resonate with these principles.

In methodological reflections on qualitative studies concerning risky fields before the COVID-19 pandemic, flexibility in methods seems to be key when faced with contextual contingency. For example, Chambers (2020), who explores the development and influence of Internet of Things technologies in Nairobi through interviews with various stakeholders, reflects that adaptive methodologies and flexible positionalities are useful when fieldwork is disrupted during political turmoil. Similarly, Janenova (2019) presents a reflective analysis of the methodological challenges of conducting research in Kazakhstan. Adopting interviews, focus groups and Q methods, this work specifically discusses the issues of data access and quality and possible strategies to mitigate the obstacles in the political environment of an authoritarian regime. Janenova suggests that these challenges can be addressed by triangulating methods to cross-check data from different sources, and cautiously adapting each qualitative method to suit the politically suppressed context. However, methodological challenges of contextual contingency may emerge not only in negotiating access and gathering data but also during other phases of qualitative research. Thus, abundant room remains for discussion on how researchers can navigate methodological challenges to maintain qualitative research rigour over the study processes in the face of constant contingency, particularly within those collectively termed as risky fields or closed contexts (Koch, 2013a).

This is when the complexity and multi-faceted nature of contextual contingency needs to be accounted for in qualitative research in both risky fields and more stable settings. One reason is that extant literature shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the challenges of contingency when many researchers had to shift their fieldwork online. For instance, Fosu (2024) presents a reflective account of the ethical challenges and knowledge production process of conducting remote ethnographic fieldwork with research assistants in Uganda during the pandemic. Their article concludes with the insight that remaining flexible in research design and during fieldwork is closely connected with the ethical principle of ‘do no harm’ (p.9), not only to the participants but also to the research assistants involved in their study, particularly when uncertainty is part of fieldwork in peacebuilding research and practice in conflict-affected environments. Likewise, Kazbekova and Schewe (2023) critically discuss the methodological issues of conducting cross-language research in Kazakhstan during the pandemic. This work draws on the researchers’ experiences of carrying out online interviews on environmental policy development with governmental administrators and adopting content analysis to overcome the limitations of the study and offer insights into researching during the pandemic in closed contexts. Eventually, they emphasise that researchers need to have additional research techniques at hand to be flexible and prepared for drastic changes and disruptions.

These reflections on maintaining methodological adaptability when researching online appear to echo those before the COVID-19 pandemic in risky fields. Whilst current qualitative research literature on the pandemic offers extensive reflections on methodological and ethical issues of conducting studies online, it mainly regards the pandemic as problematic disruptions instead of a mixture of both challenging obstacles and complicated opportunities, woven together as contextual contingency for researchers. Furthermore, little is discussed about possible responses to contingency and methodological strategies for maintaining qualitative research rigour throughout the study process if face-to-face fieldwork was still possible during the pandemic.

With reference to the preceding analysis, it is essential to clarify and operationalise contingency as the central thread of this article. Contingency is embodied by unexpected and unpredictable contextual circumstances that can cause disruptions to and close down opportunities for qualitative research. Less discussed, however, is that contingency may also enable continuation, open up possibilities, or yield serendipity (Pieke, 2000). In either case, further arrangements, i.e. contingency plans, are necessary to maintain the rigour of qualitative research, depending on the time and resources available to researchers. This partly aligns with what researchers in risky fields have demonstrated in the extant literature: flexibility and adaptiveness are required across all study phases. Taking their argument further, I contend that contingency appeals to qualitative researchers to be not only reactively flexible but also proactively prepared in their methodology.

The aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement was marked by a substantial transformation in many aspects of people’s lives in Hong Kong society, including its legal system, a wave of emigration, citizens’ (especially young people’s) participation in politics, school curriculum and pedagogy, teachers’ perceptions of their working environment and professional identity, etc. (Wang, 2023; Xu, 2024). Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly shifted all aspects of the already complex lives of teachers in many countries: professional identities, working contexts, pedagogies, and interpersonal relationships (Marsh-Davis & Brown, 2024). Considering how profound and enduring these changes are, it is both rigid and constraining to design and conduct social science studies in a vacuum that does not expect the impacts of contextual contingency, particularly in qualitative research. Therefore, I argue that contingency is both the status quo and a necessity for qualitative research, and it always has been.

The multiple case study that informs this article shows the complex and multi-layered nature of contextual contingency. It is interwoven with the social phenomenon under inquiry of the study, i.e. the interplay between teachers’ inclusive classroom practices and their relationships with students, and its whole research process, not only during the empirical fieldwork. Contingency, thereafter, includes two distinctive but often overlapping aspects: contingency for myself as the primary researcher and contingency for the teacher participants.

Constant Contingency in Qualitative Inquiry: An Example of Hong Kong Education Sector during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The contingency for this study was associated with two major contextual circumstances: the Anti-ELAB Movement and its aftermath, and the everchanging situations and lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, these two sets of circumstances coincided for a certain period of time and, as some researchers argue, became intertwined within a set of intricate political dynamics (Yuen, 2024), making the contingency ever more complicated and fluid for the study.

The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement and Its Aftermath

The empirical fieldwork for this study took place between March 2021 and January 2022. Prior to its commencement, Hong Kong witnessed months of prolonged political demonstrations and extensive social unrest (Information Services Department [ISD], 2020). These started in early June 2019, when citizens protested against the Government’s proposal to amend an existing law to allow extradition of criminal suspects to countries and territories including Mainland China (Wang, 2023). Following sustained public resistance, the bill was eventually withdrawn in September that year (ISD, 2020). However, protests persisted until January 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak first struck Hong Kong (ISD, 2021). In the aftermath of the Movement, commentaries have highlighted significant changes in Hong Kong’s societal atmosphere and political landscape (Wang, 2023). In June 2020, National Security Law, which criminalises acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign or external forces, came into effect (ISD, 2021). Noticeably, a wave of emigration from Hong Kong has been triggered since 2020 (Wong et al., 2023).

The political and social fallout also brought about significant changes to Hong Kong’s education sector. The largest and most influential union for educational professionals, the Professional Teachers’ Union (PTU), was reprimanded by a Chinese state-run media for ‘helping to infiltrate schools with politics’, and the Education Bureau (hereafter EDB, the local education authority) severed all working relations with it (Chan, 2021). The Union soon disbanded in August 2021 (Yuen & Tong, 2021). From the 2021/22 academic year on, Liberal Studies, one of the four core subjects of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE, the de facto college admission examination), was reformed into Citizenship and Social Development, with substantial changes in curriculum content (Koon, 2022). National education (including Chinese history and culture, national affairs, Constitution, Basic Law, and the concept of national security) and values education have been prioritised and highlighted in the curricula across major schooling levels. The most recent curriculum guides for primary and secondary education reflect this shift (e.g. EDB, 2021; EDB, 2022). These drastic modifications of curriculum and assessment mark an emphasis on national security and Hong Kong’s further integration into the Mainland (Lui, 2023).

The aftermath of these incidents in and beyond the education sector has also descended on school lives and teachers’ work in Hong Kong. For example, Kwan (2023) analyses that the demonstrations and unrest during the Movement caused deterioration in the mental health of young adults, as observed and reported by teachers and social workers in schools. Notably, students who were directly or vicariously involved in the protests showed decreased trust towards teachers and social workers. In addition, Lui (2023) discusses how the substantial shifts to national security education in the school curriculum and pedagogy made local parents with school-age children feel anxious and helpless because they considered that these might affect their children’s academic and personal development. Interestingly, Xu (2024) carried out a study on pre-service teachers’ transformative learning during the Movement. Before it, teachers had a certain degree of freedom to express their social and political opinions in professional settings. However, teachers underwent a change of perspectives regarding their assumptions about education ideals and their roles as teaching professionals. Xu argues that the major changes in societal atmosphere, school environment, and curriculum during and after the social unrest have raised teachers’ concerns and there is a need for a genuine space that fosters professional dialogue, consensus, and agency.

Overall, recent research demonstrates that the Anti-ELAB Movement and its aftermath, particularly in the education sector, have contributed to a deep, ongoing shift in school lives and teachers’ working environment across many aspects of Hong Kong. These changes are likely to bring contingency to real-world qualitative research studies, including those situated in schools, as well as the social phenomena these studies set out to examine in this context.

The Everchanging Situations Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

The fieldwork for this study was conducted in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. To contain the virus, local educational institutions and schools considered different ways to respond to the everchanging situations of outbreaks between 2020 and 2023. In public-sector schools, these mainly included the suspension of in-person classes alongside the use of alternative modes of online teaching and learning.

During the first and second waves of the pandemic, between January and May 2020, Hong Kong witnessed a complete suspension of in-person classes in public-sector schools. After the third wave, which occurred during the summer holidays in July and August 2020, EDB advised schools to provide online live lessons for students from the beginning of the 2020/21 school year. Face-to-face teaching and learning were progressively restored from September 2020 but were suspended again when the fourth wave began in November 2020. Between February and May 2021, a hybrid mode of in-person and online teaching and learning was adopted, with about a third of students returning to schools for half-day face-to-face classes. When students stayed at home, schools offered online synchronous or asynchronous teaching sessions, integrated with remote learning materials such as digitalised worksheets and game-based activities. From May 2021, all students returned to school for half-day in-person classes every day. This arrangement was retained until January 2022, when the fifth wave of the pandemic led to a full suspension of face-to-face teaching and learning activities until April 2022.

Given the uncertainty and confusion during the pandemic and the severely limited opportunities for in-person teaching and learning, teachers experienced frequent changes to their work environments and had to adapt continually to utilise different teaching modes and methods (Lau et al., 2022). A study on the impact of the pandemic on Hong Kong primary and secondary teachers’ experiences (Moorhouse & Wong, 2022) found that their pedagogical and technological innovation went through three phases: (1) the reactive phase (when EDB first announced that face-to-face classes were suspended and teachers reacted according to the situations); (2) the experimentation phase (when teachers proactively explored substitute instructional strategies to ensure that their students could continuously learn from home); and (3) the stabilisation phase (when teachers developed more regular adjustments to online teaching). Despite their adaptability and resilience, these everchanging circumstances meant that teachers had to spend much more time preparing lessons and communicating with colleagues, students, and parents than before the pandemic (Lau et al., 2022).

Thus, studies show that the pandemic put Hong Kong teachers’ well-being at stake. During this period, the percentage of teachers working more than 51 hours per week saw a considerable growth, from 67% in 2020 to 81% in 2022 (HKFEW, 2022). Alarmingly, more than 87% of teachers reported experiencing relatively or extremely high levels of work-related stress (Lau et al., 2022). Major sources of stress involved coping with a hybrid mode of online and in-person teaching, managing hectic schedules, addressing students’ emotional difficulties, and worries about COVID-19 infection. Teachers’ sense of happiness experienced a gradual deterioration, particularly with the resumption of full-day face-to-face classes, which negatively affected their physical and mental health (HKFEW, 2022).

Scholars argue that the pandemic has transformed teaching, along with many other professions (Forde et al., 2024). To represent the unexpectedness, rapidity, and severity of the pandemic’s impacts on teachers and teaching, Marsh-Davis and Brown (2024) describe it as ‘a catalyst for change’ (p.309). Like the Anti-ELAB Movement and its aftermath, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused complex and multi-layered contingency for teaching as a profession, the Hong Kong education sector in general, as well as qualitative research and other social phenomena in this context.

The Study

Research Design

Between October 2019 and March 2021, I established key research questions, designed the study, and planned the fieldwork, during which Hong Kong was experiencing the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement (e.g. the enactment of National Security Law) and the first three major waves of COVID-19 outbreaks. In the early stage of the pandemic, lockdowns in many countries, such the UK, led universities and other research institutions to advise the cessation of most face-to-face academic fieldwork. It became increasingly uncertain for me to determine whether I would be able to conduct the fieldwork in person and whether adequate and trustworthy evidence could be gathered. The immediate challenge posed by contingency was whether to continue with face-to-face fieldwork, particularly in Hong Kong. This made it necessary to weigh in-person methods against online techniques. It seemed that the study would need to take a more opportunistic shift in the fieldwork to gather what was practically possible to cope with such contingency.

Yet, when designing research amidst contingency, apart from considering whether the fieldwork should be moved online due to practical and ethical complexities, a crucial issue that needs to keep in mind is the social phenomenon and the research questions that the study sets out to explore (Morse, 2020). The purpose of the study that informs this article was to explore the interplay between teachers’ inclusive classroom practices and their relationships with students. This educational phenomenon per se was theorised as complex, nuanced, contextual, and multi-layered, and, therefore, needed to be investigated in naturalistic settings (Coe, 2021; Silverman, 2020). A case study is concerned with the complexity and particularity of a social phenomenon within its real-world setting (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2018). Thus, a multiple case study design aligned with the theoretical underpinnings of the research. Furthermore, the case study approach provides unique advantages, particularly in the context of contingency. It allows for various sources of evidence and is especially strong in capturing the depth and richness of the case (Hamilton & Corbett-Whittier, 2013). According to quantitative researchers based in risky fields (Barakat et al., 2002), it is a well-established yet flexible approach and inherently offers more room for the choice of methods compared to fixed research designs such as experiments and surveys.

Meanwhile, this study applied critical realism as a robust theoretical tool to make sense of the variations in teachers’ practices amidst constant contingency (Stutchbury, 2022). This framework helped the data collection and analysis to uphold the research purpose of exploring teachers’ inclusive pedagogical practice, whilst recognising and respecting the complex and multi-layered dilemmas and contradictions in their working environments (Cabote et al., 2024), including the constant contextual contingency for the participants.

Study Context and Fieldwork Sites

The fieldwork of this qualitative in-depth multiple case study was situated in two public-sector schools in Hong Kong: a mainstream co-educational primary school and a specialist boys’ school for social development (i.e. for boys identified with social, behavioural, emotional difficulties). The schools were approached based on a list of potential schools actively involved in advancing inclusion in education in Hong Kong, as identified by a local university.

To reduce variability across the case studies conducted in different research sites, I initially planned to carry out fieldwork in both schools simultaneously. However, due to the uncertainty during the everchanging COVID-19 outbreaks, the fieldwork in the two schools was separated in time. Consequently, the timeline of the study spanned from March 2021 to January 2022 and was marked by several critical incidents in the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement and the everchanging outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Coinciding Contextual Circumstances and Timeline of the Multiple Case Study (Adapted due to Contingency).

Participants

The participants of this study comprised four teachers, two from the mainstream school and two from the specialist school, each in their relationships with two focus students. The teachers were purposefully recruited based on their interest and involvement in developing more classroom-based inclusive practice, and their commitment to establishing meaningful relationships with their students. Additionally, all teachers were teaching mainstream curriculum for students from Primary 4 to 6 at the time of the study. The eight focus students had been identified by the teacher participants from one of the classes they taught, as being more vulnerable to educational exclusion.

Data Collection

After conceptualising and operationalising the interplay between inclusive classroom practices and teacher-student relationships, it became clear that teachers, in relationships with their students, were the main bounded cases of this study. Accordingly, teacher interviews and lesson observations were suitable methods. Considering the significant impacts of the contingency on the teacher participants, particularly when teaching and learning processes mainly happened online, it would be necessary and worthwhile for this research to observe lessons and interview teachers on virtual platforms. It is also possible that teachers’ inclusive pedagogical practice was undergoing a transformation in the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement and the everchanging situations during the COVID-19 outbreaks. Moving the empirical fieldwork online may not be a choice to trade down to a more forgiving design, but a required research response to constant contingency.

Fortunately, the COVID-19 situation in Hong Kong was relatively stable, and face-to-face teaching and learning gradually resumed from February 2021. This made in-person fieldwork possible. However, the next challenge posed by contingency was the likelihood of repeated suspension of face-to-face classes and the unavailability of schools and teachers to participate in in-person fieldwork. In addition to considering and weighing a variety of methods and techniques, designing and conducting a case study involves establishing a ‘chain of evidence’ (Yin, 2018, p. 110). Precisely what issue the study is exploring and what research questions it is trying to address are particularly important in determining what type of evidence is required, how its chain of evidence is established, and which research sites to approach and which cases to focus on.

In light of this, not only were different types of interviews (e.g. individual, group, in-person, online, synchronous, asynchronous, verbal, text-based) and observations (e.g. in-person, online, participation levels, structures) thoroughly weighed and reserved as options, but also their numbers and sequential arrangements were cautiously considered and planned. Moreover, changes in the number of interviews and observations and their timeline were expected, and a certain degree of variations was permitted. I clarified the purposes of each intended research activity beforehand, so as to keep the social phenomenon under inquiry as the primary focus of the research. This allowed me to make timely, sensible, and tailored research decisions about other available sites, participants, and methods, and to treat them as genuine alternatives rather than inadequate substitutes when the original design became difficult to conduct amidst constant contingency.

In the original research design, I intended to invite each case study teacher to consider their understanding of inclusive classroom practices and reflect on their perspectives about their relationships with their focus students in interview 1. Then, I would join their classroom to carry out three units of lesson observations (observations 1 to 3). After this, I would conduct interview 2, followed by another three units of lesson observations (observations 4 to 6). Finally, I intended to discuss with the teacher their overall understanding of the interconnections between their inclusive classroom practices and their relationships with their students in interview 3.

At the time of the fieldwork in the first school, half-day in-person teaching and learning had just resumed, but the 2020/21 school year was coming to an end. The two teachers and their students were also preparing for the upcoming end-of-year examination period. Consequently, the teacher participants’ schedules were hectic in this everchanging working environment, and it became difficult for them to find time to meet me for an individual interview in the middle of the lesson observations. In addition, as the political environment became increasingly sensitive, the teachers were less willing to be audio-recorded and expressed concerns about being interviewed on their own. Therefore, after discussions with the two teacher participants, the second and third interviews were organised after all six lesson observations were completed. Moreover, interview 2 was conducted with the two teachers as a pair and was not audio-recorded, whilst interview 3 was changed into an asynchronous text-based interview via online messaging.

When I began the fieldwork in the second school, the pandemic situation in Hong Kong was relatively stable, and half-day face-to-face classes had been resumed for almost 6 months. However, after interview 1 and observations 1 to 3 were conducted, and just before the Chinese New Year school holiday, the fifth COVID-19 outbreak struck, and schools were again faced with a full suspension of face-to-face classes from January 14, 2022. Upon hearing this news, I promptly contacted the two teacher participants to discuss arrangements for the remaining research activities. Interviews 2 and 3 were postponed so that as many lesson observations as possible could be carried out in person. Eventually, five units of lessons were observed with one teacher and their class, and four with the other. To compensate for the reduced number of lesson observations, the two teachers were respectively asked to recall other critical incidents and reflections on their inclusive pedagogical practices during in-person interviews 2 and 3, which took place when they were on duty at school.

Data Analysis

Along with gathering worthwhile evidence from various sources in the four case studies, I concurrently analysed the dataset obtained and evaluated its rigour. Due to changes in the societal conditions amidst the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement and the ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks, it was highly likely that unanticipated influences and variations might occur in the interplay between inclusive classroom practices and teacher-student relationships. The possibility of unexpected phenomena in data analysis is a major challenge posed by contingency. To address this, this study aimed to establish a rigorous account of inclusive pedagogical practice within this context, drawing on the evidence gathered in the case studies.

However, this was not a straightforward endeavour. Inclusive pedagogical practice per se is a complex and multi-layered educational phenomenon, and there is diversity in how it manifests by different teachers in different contexts (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011). In preliminary and intensive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021) of this study, I noticed that although I set out to investigate teachers’ inclusive pedagogical practice, contradictory instances also emerged. This led to continuous interrogation and re-evaluation of the initial theoretical framework of this study, which had been developed based on previous research findings and discussions. Particularly, the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement and the COVID-19 pandemic might have influenced the phenomena under inquiry and contributed to the contingency in data interpretation. Gradually, it became clear that, to account for and address the deviant cases and give a much-needed comprehensive treatment of the data (Silverman, 2020), the theoretical lens of critical realism was especially helpful.

Methodological Rigour

Ensuring methodological rigour in qualitative studies amidst constant contingency is particularly problematic, as many of the textbook principles and strategies that determine rigour can be challenged in difficult research contexts (Janenova, 2019). I adopted multiple strategies to attend to the methodological rigour of the study.

The first strategy involved prolonged engagement, persistent observation, and thick, rich description (Creswell & Poth, 2018). However, amidst constant contingency, physical presence and personal immersion in the field could induce danger or become impossible. Moreover, participants, including school teachers and vulnerable groups of students, are particularly hard to reach, and the original research procedure and methods might sometimes be forced to alter halfway through the process. Consequently, this generic strategy was difficult to navigate. To cope with these challenges, researchers need to further provide procedures and methods that tactfully adapt to the new norm of virtual or remote presence while upholding credibility (Fosu, 2024). In this study, the engagement, observation and description were sustained through multiple methods: incorporating both online and in-person techniques as options, adopting adaptive procedures that aligned with the contextual contingency, and cooperating closely with the teacher participants. Furthermore, I regularly appraised the quality of the dataset to progressively re-orientate the study to consider other practical means of establishing, maintaining and tracing the chain of evidence so that the research purpose was fulfilled and research questions were answered (Yin, 2018). This was achieved through both forward preparedness and expeditious flexibility.

Another strategy used in this study to maintain methodological rigour was deviant case analysis (Silverman, 2020). As previously mentioned, whilst this study set out to explore teachers’ inclusive practices in classrooms, it also recorded contradictory practices. This was contingent on the complexity of teachers’ working environment, the Anti-ELAB Movement, and the situations of the COVID-19 pandemic. In data analysis, these deviant cases were constantly confronted with the provisional analytical scheme until all cases of practices and relationships were accounted for and a set of recursive themes were derived.

The strategy of triangulation was also seen through over the process of this research (Creswell & Poth, 2018). As part of the multiple case study design, this study adopted teacher interviews and lesson observations as main sources of evidence, which yielded different types of data. I collected data from four individual teachers from two types of public-sector schools in Hong Kong. I also included publicly available policy documents and datasets, introductory school visits, teachers focused discussions and student visual elicitations to obtain contextual evidence and to learn the perspectives of school principals and students. Triangulation helped enhance the scope and depth of the study, built resilience to cope with disruptions, and allowed opportunities for new insights.

Ethics, Positionality and Reflexivity

It is essential to recognise that my background as a professional teacher who had taught in a specialist school for students with physical disabilities in Hong Kong helped me obtain physical and virtual access to participants in schools. It also enabled me to cautiously navigate the local COVID-19 measures without inducing risks to my participants and myself. However, being a woman researcher born and raised in Mainland China and studying at a British university also influenced the participants’ perceptions of me as not fully an insider practitioner. Yet, this scholarly outsider position provided me with deeper understandings of the complexity of inclusive pedagogical practice and the magnitude of the impact of contextual contingency on this phenomenon in Hong Kong.

This study followed the ethical guidelines set by the British Educational Research Association (BERA, 2018), and ethical clearance was obtained through the University’s formal process. Before the fieldwork began, I gained consent from the principals of the two schools and the four participating teachers. Furthermore, I regarded my ethical responsibility in two interwoven but distinct dimensions (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004): procedural ethics (seeking approval from an ethics committee) and ethics in practice (pertaining to everyday ethical issues that arise in the research process). Given the uncertainty in Hong Kong after the Anti-ELAB Movement and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, both dimensions were practised with extra caution and reflection.

Findings and Discussion

The COVID-19 pandemic is ‘a catalyst for change’ for the teaching profession (Marsh-Davis & Brown, 2024, p.309) and many aspects of the society in many national contexts (Fosu, 2024), as is the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement. Qualitative research should take account of these changes and their evolving facets. The experience of designing and conducting a qualitative multiple case study in post-Anti-ELAB Movement Hong Kong amidst the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the need to reconsider methodological techniques and tools that have been developed for more ‘open’ fields or ‘stable’ times. I argue that the awareness of contingency is a vital exercise for all researchers, not only those working in risky fields or closed contexts. By referring to the existing literature and reflecting on the experience of this research as an example, the article draws two meaningful lessons for future qualitative research.

Upholding Contextual Sensitivity and Methodological Flexibility Amidst Contingency

This study reveals particular advantages of adopting a multiple case study design, utilising diversified methods and data sources, and maintaining methodological flexibility in constant contingency. This resonates with the extant suggestions made by both qualitative and quantitative researchers on researching amidst contingency in risky fields, whether before or during the pandemic (Janenova, 2019; Kazbekova & Schewe, 2023; Mneimneh et al., 2014).

This article also extends the existing literature on contingency. In different countries and at different stages, the pandemic played out differently (van Damme et al., 2020) and affected different strata of life in different ways (Onyeaka et al., 2021). In the case of this research, the temporarily stable COVID-19 situation in Hong Kong at the beginning of the fieldwork made personal immersion to explore the complexity and multiple layers of classroom teaching and learning not only feasible but also worthwhile. Initially, the window was open for physical lesson observations and face-to-face teacher interviews at the first school. However, soon after, the pressure of the end of the school year and the politically sensitive incidents led the study to switch to other forms of interview, which were more convenient and preferrable to the teacher participants at the time. In the second school, physical observations and in-person interviews were also viable at first. Yet, the study had to change the timeline of research activities and later curtail the number of observations. Nevertheless, the participants were still willing to take part in in-person interviews, which provided an opportunity to probe into teachers’ inclusive pedagogical practice in the context of the aftermath of the Anti-ELAB Movement and the school’s COVID-19 response measures.

The experience of this study exemplifies the compelling necessity of considering the complex and multi-layered real-world contingency, which presented contextual constraints and/or opportunities for research that required further arrangements. In light of this, I argue that context is crucial in accounting for contingency in qualitative research. This echoes Koch’s (2013b) reflection that a more dynamic understanding of the macro and micro context is needed to adequately translate qualitative methodological tools into field research, regardless of whether these contexts are termed as ‘open’ or ‘closed’. Furthermore, this understanding may include how contingency plays out in its given context.

For this study, contingency made it pressing to justify beforehand whether and why different methodological modalities, both in-person and online, were necessary to maintain continuous engagement with the teachers and students and sufficient to provide thorough descriptions of classroom life. This is critical to capturing the essence of inclusive pedagogical practice in its given context. Thus, making responsive contingency plans requires qualitative researchers to have a precise conceptualisation of the social phenomenon their study sets out to research (Hakim, 2000) and to maintain proactive sensitivity to how it might develop in the participants’ contexts under everchanging societal conditions (Morse, 2020). In other words, contextual sensitivity is the backbone of methodological flexibility. Whilst some of these observations are made in the research literature on quantitative survey (Rosenberg, 2024), this article extends this lesson for qualitative studies, drawing on the experience of this research.

Recognising the Contingent and Ongoing Nature of Real-World Qualitative Research

Educational phenomena are complex (Morin, 1999), and so are many other social phenomena. Furthermore, as Smith (2009) reflects, the judgements about the quality of educational research have always been, and can only be, ‘contingent on historical time and social/cultural/political place’ (p.92). This kind of contingency is inherent to real-world social science research (Deem, 1996).

This study demonstrates mostly beneficial outcomes of critical realism as an analytical lens to account for this aspect of contingency in qualitative research. It supported the study’s aim to make sense of the complex and multi-layered reality that arose in classrooms within particular schools. It also offered a balanced approach to assembling the multiple sources of data from the perspectives of teachers, students, school principals, and publicly available documents and weaving them into a comprehensive picture of inclusive pedagogical practice in context. In particular, it helped make sense of the unexpected phenomena and influences observed in this study, including those related to the context of post-Anti-ELAB Movement Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, intensive analysis adopting critical realism uncovered interesting themes: (1) the Movement, its aftermath, and the pandemic concurrently impacted teachers’ relationships with their students and their inclusive pedagogical practice in classrooms; (2) these effects were not straightforward but interwoven with other contextual circumstances, such as the schools’ policies and practices on grouping and inclusion, making the influences inconclusive and meriting further research. These themes represent instances that align with and contribute to the study’s original theoretical framework, as well as those that contradict, broaden, and deepen the understanding of inclusive pedagogical practice.

The focal point of this article is not to examine the appeal, controversy and challenges of case study as a research approach or critical realism as a theoretical framework. Nevertheless, the lesson drawn here is that the societal conditions, knowledge base and theoretical perspectives of the social phenomenon under inquiry are constantly changing and developing (Morse, 2020). Therefore, I expand the existing discussion on contingency by proposing the necessity for qualitative inquiry to proactively expect, acknowledge, and even plan for the unexpected to happen during the research process. This is significant not only in real-world field research in closed contexts (Pieke, 2000) but also in ‘open’ and ‘stable’ settings. As qualitative education researchers, we can attentively document these changes, thoroughly consider them, and move forward by advocating quality educational experiences for all learners.

Conclusion

At the time of writing, it has been more than 4 years since the Anti-ELAB Movement first broke out in June 2019 and the first COVID-19 outbreak struck in January 2020 in Hong Kong. Looking back, it was a precious opportunity, even a privilege, to undertake in-person, classroom-based fieldwork and complete a multiple case study with teachers in schools during the pandemic and the aftermath of the Movement. In this regard, it is crucial to learn from our experiences of researching in the midst of unfolding challenges of real-world contingency. Having to constantly stand at the crossroads of contingency has both forced and encouraged me, as a qualitative researcher, to reconsider what counts as quality real-world qualitative studies and how to ensure research rigour when so much is contingent on what happens in the context and beyond researchers’ control.

This article contributes to the scholarly discussion by reviewing how contingency has been considered in existing research literature. It outlines the complexity and multiple layers of contextual contingency in this multiple case study on inclusive pedagogical practice. It also documents and traces how research rigour was established throughout the study. By reflecting on this novel research experience, this article specifically highlights two lessons. First, contextual sensitivity and methodological flexibility are interconnected and need to be upheld amidst constant contingency. Second, qualitative inquiry ought to recognise its contingent and ongoing nature, both for a particular study and in a wider research context, where social phenomena are also constantly undergoing changes.

Although this study focused on inclusive pedagogical practice in Hong Kong classrooms, the lessons learned from this experience may also have worthwhile implications for qualitative research more generally. Real-world contingency in qualitative research is both necessary and integral. It is complex and multi-layered, interwoven with the design and conduct of qualitative studies and the social phenomena under inquiry. It induces disruptions whilst also presenting opportunities for research. It influences both the participants and researchers not only within their particular roles in the studies but also as individuals with complex lives beyond these positions. To be more resilient, weaving contingency into the design and conduct of future qualitative research studies is a pivotal step to take.