Horses for courses – but no favourites. A reply to three commentaries

Our paper (Hignett and Wilson 2004) has elicited a range of responses from the commentaries. Hancock and Szalma (2004), and Desnoyers (2004), are largely supportive of embracing the challenge to take a wider perspective for the theoretical foundations for ergonomics, whilst Kanis (2004) looks in detail at operational issues citing two examples where both qualitative and quantitative approaches could be used. We have achieved our aim of provoking a discussion and are heartened by the support for the use of qualitative methodology in ergonomics research and practice.