Part 8 - So how do you know if a piece of qualitative health research is good? In the seven blogposts that have preceded this, I’ve set out a personal critique of some of the problems I see all too often in qualitative research. I read and review dozens of qualitative health research articles each year, and my broader interest in the sociology and philosophy of health means I also get to read a lot of really good stuff too. So I’m claiming that as my mandate to offer some critical comments. So what makes for a good qualitative health research study, and how can you tell if you’ve found a diamond or just a bit of cheap plastic costume jewellery? Well I would say that the first thing … [Read more...] about Qualitative Health Research – A guide for the perplexed
Qualitative Health Research – A guide for the perplexed
Part 7 - Philosophy and the place of research methods Now we get to the heart of one of the most contentious issues in QHR. If you’ve followed the series so far, we’ve covered a lot of ground: sampling, generalisability, voice, and the ‘emic’ perspective, but we’re mining the motherlode now when we talk about the place of philosophy and methods in QHR. So let’s be clear from the outset, QHR places far too much emphasis on research methods and nowhere near enough on philosophy. Anchoring a qualitative study in philosophy is perhaps the most valuable thing you can do to a research study. Firstly, it guides every step of the process - every aim, and every question you pose of the … [Read more...] about Qualitative Health Research – A guide for the perplexed
Qualitative health research – A guide for the perplexed
Part 6 - Sampling and generalising The point of this series is not to cover what’s already in dozens of qualitative health research textbooks, but to offer some ‘back room’ insights into the possibilities and limitations of this underused resource. So far I’ve looked at where QHR came from, the concept of criticality, the ‘insider’ or emic perspective, power, and last week, your role as the researcher. Today I want to focus on one of the most common questions people pose about QHR, and that is “How can you possibly generalise from a study when you only have six participants?” This is a great question. Not only because it strikes at the heart of one of the important differences … [Read more...] about Qualitative health research – A guide for the perplexed
Qualitative Health Research: A guide for the perplexed – Power
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
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
Qualitative health research 101
Part 2 - Criticality Last week I offered an all too brief potted history of qualitative health research (QHR), in the hope that what follows makes more sense.There are a lot of misconceptions about QHR. Hopefully these blogposts will help clarify some core principles, and inspire people to see how incredibly powerful and useful good quality QHR can be. Now you could say the first principle I want to tackle today’s is so important that it almost defines the difference between what is true qualitative health research and what is a pale imitation. And that is criticality. More than any other principle, good QHR has always been critical. It has challenged convention; held a mirror held … [Read more...] about Qualitative health research 101
Qualitative Health Research – a guide for the perplexed
Part 1 The changes now taking place in healthcare should provide great material for really thoughtful, well-conduced qualitative health research (QHR). But sadly little of it is being produced, especially in physiotherapy, where the amount and quality of much of the qualitative research we have available is really quite poor. So over the course of the next few weeks, I thought I’d try to tackle some of this in a similar way to the way I hacked at the biomedical model last year (see here). My hope is that in doing this, people will understand more about QHR, and that might, in turn, lead to some new and exciting research. Before I begin, I should acknowledge that there are literally … [Read more...] about Qualitative Health Research – a guide for the perplexed