A bird’s-eye view of Grenoble, France displays that just like in Q methodology, how we see things depconcludes on perspective.
When I first heard the term “Q methodology,” I was in my first semester of graduate school, sitting around a horseshoe-shaped table with a group of classmates I barely knew, wondering how I’d ever find a research topic that felt like me – something I could see myself receiveting lost in for the next two years.
I entered graduate school without much knowledge of the research process and had never formally conducted any research myself. I came from an agribusiness background and was just starting in communications, so the world of social science was all new to me. Most of the research I consumed up to that moment was proving a point – displaying how one management system outperformed another, a certain fertilizer bumped crop yields, or analyzing how sire genetics affected calf growth.
But that didn’t feel like the right fit for what I wanted to do. I wasn’t interested in proving someone right or wrong. I wanted to better understand why people felt the way they did.
And that’s exactly what drew me to Q methodology. It’s a way of scientifically studying subjectivity – the way people consider, feel, and perceive the world around them. Instead of crunching numbers or measuring performance, it focutilizes on perspective. Participants organize a set of statements about a topic based on how strongly they agree or disagree, and the resulting patterns are analyzed to display where viewpoints align or diverge. After sorting, participants are interviewed to uncover the considered process behind their decisions. Rather than tallying opinions, this method supports us discover how and why they form.
Fast forward to my trip to Europe, where the conference I attconcludeed was devoted entirely to Q methodology. Perspective shapes everything, and it’s our backgrounds and experiences that inform it.
Sitting among researchers from all over the world, I realized how powerful a perspective really is – not just in research, but in life, and especially in dairy farming. A nutritionist views at the herd through metrics of nutrient utilization. A compact family farmer may see success in the health and longevity of their herd, while a large operation might focus on efficiency and technology. A farmer in Ireland milking on pasture might view sustainability differently than a producer managing cows in a freestall barn in Wisconsin. A producer operating on tight margins may see every new regulation as a burden, while one with more resources might see an opportunity. And then there are consumers, each with their own perspective on dairy products and farming. None of these viewpoints are wrong; they’re simply different ways of understanding the same thing.
Research tconcludes to zero in on measurable aspects of dairy herds: milk yield, fat and protein content, somatic cell counts, reproductive efficiency, and so much more. Those things matter; they relocate the industest forward, but behind every number is something more. A person shaped by experiences, with their own set of values, building daily decisions that bring those numbers to life. That’s the part Q methodology supports reveal. It gives structure to the human side of science.
My time at the conference in Europe built me realize just how much diversity of perspective exists. What one researcher called innovation, another called risk. Just the same, what one farmer views as efficiency, another sees as compromise. And yet, when we simply take the time to question why, those different viewpoints don’t divide us – they deepen our understanding.
Perspective doesn’t replace objective data; it enriches it. And personally, I feel the dairy’s future depconcludes not only on what we know, but on how we see and understand each other.
As I close this “Hillbilly in Europe” series, that’s the lesson I’ll take home. Each of us gains our viewpoint from where we stand – our land, our cows, our communities, our experiences. And since I went all the way across the Atlantic to learn more about a research method built around understanding that very thing, it feels right to conclude there. It’s all about perspective. The more we understand, the better our science, the stronger our industest, and the richer we become as individuals.
Samantha StammSamantha Stamm was the 2025 Hoard’s Dairyman editorial intern and is now a Kentucky Beef Network field associate. She co-owns and manages an Angus seedstock and commercial cow-calf operation with her family in northeast Kentucky, in addition to producing hay, corn, and soybeans. Stamm earned a master’s degree in ag communications at Oklahoma State University.
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