Part 4 So far in this weekly series on qualitative health research, I’ve talked about where QHR came from, and the important parts played by criticality and the ‘insider’ or emic perspective. This week I want to look at power. Perhaps one of the most important methodological decisions a qualitative health researcher will make in undertaking a piece of research is exactly how much theydesign, and how much is done with the people they are researching. Perhaps not surprisingly then, attacking the traditional power of the quantitative researcher and the institutions they represent has led to some of the most radical technical developments in QHR and healthcare … [Read more...] about Qualitative Health Research: A guide for the perplexed – Power
CPN Digest #72
Something for the weekend: Keep an eye on telehealthIf you record, they will not come – but does it really matter? Student attendance and lecture recording at an Australian law schoolCfP: Healthy Environments: A Medical Humanities SymposiumA bad cup of tea and the birth of modern statisticsThe Story of Ralstonism, One of History's More Bizarre Health MovementsThe power of critical thinking in learning and teaching. An interview with Professor Stephen D. BrookfieldA life of long weekends is alluring, but the shorter working day may be more practicalEthnography in health professional educationCritical reflective practice and its sourcesAnother work is possibleMore surveillance … [Read more...] about CPN Digest #72
Qualitative health research 101
Part 3 Over the last two weeks I’ve been writing about some of the key principles lying beneath qualitative research. A lot of people think that qualitative health research (QHR) is just about asking people about how they feel, and writing lengthy research papers that are ‘simply talking trivialities in high sounding language’ (Cheek 1998). But that’s because qualitative health research is often misunderstood, badly taught, and confusing for practitioners reared on the red meat of clinical trials. (There is an important ‘other’ reason, but we can’t get to that just yet). In the first in the series (here), I explained a bit of the history of QHR, and in last week’s post (here) I … [Read more...] about Qualitative health research 101