Conducting Person-Oriented Research

Abstract

In this topical issue, four articles present state-of-the-art scholarship concerning person-oriented research. The articles, authored by the teams of Bergman and Andersson; Schmidt, Perels, and Schmitz; Mutz and Seeling; and Strohmeier, Wagner, Spiel, and von Eye, cover an interesting range of topics and methods. Before introducing readers to these articles, we present an introduction to concepts of person-oriented research, from a conceptual and philosophy of science perspective (an overview taking a broader perspective, including the relation of person-oriented research to holistic thinking, can be found in the Bergman and Andersson article).