QRJ 2

in this issue
2 E D I T O R I A L
3 A R T I C L E S
3 Sensing the other: the catch of the surrendering self Catherine Robinson
16 But wait! Theres still more! Some unaccounted for aspects of qualitative
evaluation and research Fiona Gardner and Jennifer Lehmann
28 Metaphors we live by: ways of imagining practice Sally Denshire
47 Self-introspection as a research method in exploring consumption behaviour
at a special event Maria M Ryan, Madeleine Ogilvie and Simone Pettigrew
58 Flexible roles and reflexive souls in qualitative action research
Sally Theobald and Paul Duckett
80 Critiquing approaches to case study design for a constructivist inquiry
Jane V. Appleton
98 Interpreting free-form aviation concept maps through the integration of
semantically based thematic analysis and quantitative corpus linguistics
Lisa Stauffer Thomas, H. Peter Pfister and Peter Peterson
111 T E A C H I N G Q U A L I T A T I V E M E T H O D S
111 The issue of assessment in qualitative methods teaching Rosalind Hurworth
118 B O O K R E V I E W S [click here to view a complete list of books reviewed]
140 N o t e s t o C o n t r i b u t o r s
150 A Q R E x e c u t i v e A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s
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RESEARCH
QUALITATIVE
2
journal
o f f i c i a l p u b l i c a t i o n o f t h e a s s o c i a t i o n f o r q u a l i t a t i v e r e s e a r c h
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A R E F E R E E D J O U R N A L
cl i ck here f or more i nf o!
AQR Conference Sydney 2003
CALL FOR PAPERS 1620 July
Print ranges
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Contributions to the Qualitative Research
Journal should be emailed to the Editor,
Dr Darrel N. Caulley:
dcaulley@latrobe.edu.au
The journal uses the Publication Manual of
the American Psychological Association,
5th ed., 2001.
Full Membership: A$66
Student concession: A$33
To join the association download a membership form from the AQR website
(www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr). Complete the form and send with cheque or credit card
details to:
Dr Supyra Singh, Faculty of Education, RMIT University, PO Box 2476V,
Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia
CONTRI BUTI ONS
Welcome to the third issue of the Qualitative Research Journal (QRJ),
the official publication of the Association for Qualitative Research (AQR).
Most of the articles included in this edition, like our second edition, are
refereed papers from the AQR conference held in Melbourne in July
2001. The remaining papers accepted for publication will appear in the
December issue of the Journal. We have had very pleasing feedback
regarding the quality of the papers in the last issue of the Journal and
we are sure you will find the papers in this issue equally interesting.
It is with great pleasure that we announce the forthcoming conference
of AQR to be held in Sydney, July 1620, 2003. The convenor of the
conference is Joy Higgs, University of Sydney, Australia. The theme of
the conference is: Qualitative Research: Creating
Spaces for Understanding, with the subthemes of:
Creating space for understanding; Blurring boundaries
of lands and peoples; and Creating healthy people
spaces. For more information regarding the
conference, including the deadline for receipt of
abstracts, please check the appropriate page at:
www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr/.
Finally good reading!
Darrell N. Caulley and Carmel Seibold
Editors
edi tori al
E D I T O R S
Darrel N. Caulley
Institute for Education
La Trobe University Vic. 3086
Australia
Carmel Seibold
School of Nursing
Faculty of Health Sciences
Australian Catholic University
Locked Bag 4115, Fitzroy Vic. 3065, Australia
E D I T O R I A L B O A R D
Jan Browne
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Judith Bessant
Melbourne, Australia
Benjamin Crabtree
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
New Brunswick NJ, USA
Joy Higgs
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Ros Hurwoth
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Christopher Pole
University of Leicester, Leicester, England
Lyn Richards
QSR, Ringwood, Australia
Suprya Singh
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Annette Street
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Ruth Webber
Josef Zelger
University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
MEMBERSHI P 2002
V o l u m e 2 N o . 1 / 2 0 0 2
Erratum: In the previous issue (Vol 2, No. 1, 2002) of this
Journal in the contents page at the beginning, the name of
Ralph Godau was incorrectly spelt. The Editors apologise
for this.
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S e n s i n g t h e o t h e r : t h e c a t c h o f t h e s u r r e n d e r i n g s e l f / R o b i n s o n ( 1 3 p a g e s ) 3
Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2002, pp. 315
Sensing the other: the catch of
the surrendering self
Catherine Robinson, School of Sociology, University of New South Wales
ABSTRACT
In trying to make sense of my experiences of doing research on young home(less)
people in Sydney, I have become increasingly frustrated with methodological work
in which I can find little acknowledgment of the intense complicity of relations of
self and other. In this paper, I revisit the writing culture debates in an attempt to
identify or quilt (Saukko, 2000) a methodological approach which draws on the
embodied actuality of ethnography and also questions the assumed selfhood and
authority invested and guarded in the concept of the self-reflexive researcher. I
question the boundaries of self and other as they are upheld in much qualitative
writing and consider the impact on methodology of taking poststructural
epistemology and ontology seriously. In terms of my work with home(less) young
people, this means a consideration of how relations with young people were
negotiated through both partially locating and forgetting myself. Through Wolffs
notion of surrender and catch I bring together practical aspects of being with
young people and a theoretical/methodological approach which both uses and
undoes the body/self in the moment of the field. In understanding the body/self as
the field through which my negotiations with young home(less) people took place,
I dis-locate the notion of a clearly separated, researched other; I explore the
consequences of this approach both in terms of the way in which research is
conducted and imagined or represented.
Failing to conceive the other, we construct the stranger (Aug, 1998, p. 109).
In doing research on young people and home(less)ness in Sydney, I have come across
some surprising limits in work which I presumed would help me acknowledge processes
of relationality in the theory and practice of qualitative methodology. Indeed, it is
precisely because of the way qualitative research methods throw into focus social
relations that this style of research becomes an ideal vehicle to explore experiences of
connectivity and difference. What has marked my work with home(less) young people
has been the interesting process of learning how to be with others from radically different
backgrounds. I am now facing the challenge of trying to make sense of and write
experiences of self and other in my own research. The idea and methodological approach
of self-reflexivity espoused in most new ethnography and in qualitative research
more broadly, has much importance for my research in terms of opening out and
acknowledging the work (Coffey, 1999, p. 57) that goes in to facilitating successful and
sensitive participant observation and interviews. However, my focus on configurations of
self, space and belonging, and how I have come to see these inscribed and inhabited both
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through academic discourse and discourse of young people, has begun to throw awkward
questions at the notion of a located and self-aware researcher.
The tension in my work, which I sense in much qualitative research more generally, is
double. I work in a contemporary moment in which the limits of subjectivity are
pronounced unknowable yet my craft (and its considerable history) is precisely about
producing knowledge about those limits, about other people. Secondly, and following, I
am yet to encounter or develop a methodology, a way of knowing, which can recognise
fully its own inadequacies.
Self-reflexivity has been upheld as a key response to the second of these tensions. It is
generally felt that the researcher is more able to recognise the contingency and partiality
of any account produced about the other through examining their implication in the
research process. Interestingly then, the hallmark of the new ethnography as opposed to
the old is the positing of the self as the fundamental tool of research, replacing the
taxonomic drive of science or imperialist imperative. Reflexive as opposed to
objective research marks a new claim to partial truths and passing authorial authority.
Anzul, Ely, Downing and Vinz (1997, p. 331) for example, connect self-disclosure and
trustworthy qualitative writing. This return to the self in more contemporary
methodology would seem in some ways however, an unlikely response, given the serious
questioning of the knowing and intentional located self. If the self, the touchstone of
qualitative inquiry, is retained as highly questionable, then suddenly, the authorisation of
contemporary research self-reflexivity must also be upheld as highly questionable.
Indeed, the idea of methodology, of knowing how one comes to know, seems awkward
and imposed. In this light, to pose self-reflexivity as a response to the crisis of authority
in qualitative writing, is to only partially acknowledge the blind spots of this style of
knowledge production. The question then becomes one of thinking about the possibilities
of a methodology which can include itself as part of the unknown.
While I have covered a lot of ground here quickly, and it is easier of course to point out
difficult questions than to provide concrete ways forward, it does seem however, that in
contemporary methods work there is a strange gap in which these kinds of questions are
often not asked at all. Yet it would seem that the future of qualitative research lies in the
ability to take on board and respond to new configurations of space and self and otherness
(Aug, 1998, p. 122). In other words, methodology should match contemporary
experiences in its fluidity and in this, promote a recognition of the fluidity of self and
other, rather than a reinscription of categories of difference.
THE LIMITS OF SELF-REFLEXIVITY
The framing of qualitative research more generally as a collection of self-reflective
methodologies, is taken more carefully by some researchers than others. In her book The
Ethnographic Self, Coffey (1999, p. 3) clearly points to a gap in the way that qualitative
research writing deals with the self and fieldwork. For Coffey, despite gestures towards
an ethnographic epistemology which takes into account the contingencies of self, in
practice contingencies are sidelined, or attached as afterwords or introductions. Coffey
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demonstrates that much recent literature, while acknowledging the instrumentality of the
self in conducting qualitative research, does not explore this relation in any great depth.
As we are a part of what we study, a part of the data we collect, Coffey (1999, p. 47)
argues, then in writing and analysing data, we write and analyse ourselves, our
experiences, our conversations. We feel the physical, emotional and intellectual impact of
the field and it is this which drives us to write; it is this which ultimately shapes the form
and direction our writing and analysis takes. Further, in pursuit of making sense of others
lives we necessarily seek to sense and query our own borders and negotiate some kind of
map or measure of where things seem to sit in the world. We could understand fieldwork
as the rub or graze which accompanies a process of locally tracing the substance of
relations through which difference and sameness name each other. Indeed, I like Caplans
suggestive understanding of reflexivity which opens the possibility for self-becoming-
other and other-becoming-self (in Reinharz, 1997, p. 4).
This understanding of reflexivity it would seem to me, stands in some contrast to that
which stresses the researchers location of self within power hierarchies and within a
constellation of gender, race, class, and citizenship (Hertz, 1997, p. viii). At another and
contrasting level of criticism, the self as the tool of research as Wasserfall (1997, p. 151)
points out, necessitates a new kind of epistemological safeguard replacing objectivity
with a kind of honest self-regulating reflexivity which may not necessarily work all the
time (cf. England, 1994). If reflexivity and reciprocity are the touchstones of good
research, if the self is the key to conducting and interpreting research, in what ways could
a stress on reflexivity act to limit what counts as valid research material or research
experience?
The reflexive capacity of the researcher to shape interviews, assess power relations and
prejudices relies upon the ability of the researcher to know the shape and limit of her own
subjectivity as well as then be able to work with problems such as those Wasserfall faced.
As Kirby (1993, p. 105) notes of feminist reflexive approaches:
This innocent vision of personal honesty and cross-cultural interchange, with its loyal
recording of native desires, depends upon the notion of a self-present, Cartesian subject
whose own motivations are transparent to scrutiny and therefore open to easy correction.
As Probyn (1993, p. 105) asks, What conception of subjectivity is inscribed in
autobiography?, I want to ask, what conception of subjectivity is inscribed in self-
reflexivity? Who is the presumed self of self-reflexivity? Can the self guarantee or anchor
a methodology? Ironically, in the move to re-establish some ethnographic credibility,
while critiquing the objective subject, the boundaries between self and other are
reinscribed in a methodological discourse based in a recognition of differences between
researcher and researched. While at the heart of this focus lies a quest and need for
encouraging research sensitive to power relations and the positionings of the
researcher, as Nast (1998) argues, this kind of reflexivity seems more like reflectivity:
an interest in promoting a form of manageable self-reflection in which the researcher
becomes more aware of their specific location and identity. In other words, reflexivity-
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as-reflectivity becomes a solidifying process of mirroring and acts to centre and
locate subjects (1998, pp. 9598).
In this context, the potential messiness and relationality imbued in reflexivity remains
unexplored in many texts an issue Denzin (1997, pp. 224-227) argues is taken up in
new reflexive writing. I sense that and will go on to explore in greater depth later, a
more tentative and complex reading of reflexivity which throws greater opportunity and
challenges to the qualitative project of examining the relations of difference, especially as
these relations are negatively constituted in many social issues. Indeed, Wasserfall (1997,
p. 151) suggests a weak reading of reflexivity which more loosely encourages a
continuing examination of the self in relation to knowledge production, rather than a
strong reading with its implicit assumptions about its challenge to authority, difference
and power.
CLIFFORD AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY
In an attempt to negotiate the silences and tensions around the idea of the reflexive self, I
returned to the work of James Clifford (1986, 1988a) and the watershed writing culture
debates, specifically his piece On Ethnographic Authority (1988b, chap. 1). Returning
to the beginning of the new and textual turn in ethnography I had hoped would help
me realign some thoughts on reflexivity. Instead, Cliffords potted history of the
development of ethnography led at first to a less than clear way forward: interpretative
dialogical ethnography based in a concept of intersubjectivity.
At the basis of Cliffords critique of the Western approach to culture and anthropology is
his understanding that selfother relations are matters of power and rhetoric rather than
of essence (1988b, p. 14). From this point, Clifford is able to widely re-evaluate key
concepts of authority, authenticity and representation through a recognition of the
complicity of researcher self and researched self. While Cliffords (1986, 1988a)
exploration of different forms of self-reflexive writing in its broadly critical sense takes
the stage, Clifford also toys with ideas of collective identity as a hybrid, often
discontinuous inventive process (1988b, p. 10), intersubjective (1988b, p. 37)
heteroglossia (1988b, p. 51), but then falls back to an implicit acknowledgment that all
of this can only lead back to a coherence which an ethnographer must ultimately impose
on the text (1988b, p. 54). Representation or writing is seen to grate on or confound the
demands of accounting for the relational negotiations of fieldwork.
Ironically enough, it is the very uncertain and partial way Clifford begins to resolve the
problems of the old ethnography that inadvertently points the way to other possibilities.
As Clifford points out, one may read against the grain of the texts dominant voice,
seeking out other half-hidden authorities, reinterpreting the descriptions, texts and
quotations gathered by the writer (1988b, p. 53). Thus it seems the texts of old
ethnographers are precisely those which confound the progressive anthropological
history Clifford presents. Clifford (1988b) finds in rereading the monological texts of
Evans-Pritchard and Malinowski that all kinds of fascinating and moving resonances
spring to life. And yet, in the build to defend anthropology in the context of postcolonial
(and other) critique, Malinowski is nominated a complex transitional case (1988b, p.
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45) and this style of ethnography is subjective, not dialogical or intersubjective (1988b,
p. 37).
What Clifford fails to note it seems, is the significance of his own observations for
thinking about the strange conjunction of text, the implied other and the anthropologist.
Clifford, I argue, encounters the inter-subjective, the dialogical as already contained
within Evans-Pritchards and Malinowskis supposedly monological text and, in this
context, the continued mourning of the lost opportunities of representation is to reproduce
the distance or gap of reality and representation and observer and observed. Indeed,
Clifford notes (1986, p. 23) in an echo of Caplans comments, It has become clear that
every version of an other wherever found, is also the construction of a self . The
radical possibilities of this suggestion remain unpursued; without following out what
intersubjectivity or multisubjective might mean, Clifford engages a double move
which secures the authority of the ethnographer through displacement. To me, these are
the questions that Clifford raises but fails to (and perhaps cannot) ask: How is it that texts
somehow speak despite their authors? Can the limits of reflexivity and intersubjectivity
be known? Can coherence and intersubjectivity be spoken together?
Maybe the coherence of the author should not be so lamented, given the possibilities of
writing to move with the sense of others, unexpected and uninvited. I want to argue that
for reflexivity to be meaningful, it has to take its place in our writing, or more correctly,
we have to recognise its place in our writing. The coherence we place on a text or paper
as we write parallels that are made as we listen to informants talking, as we observe or
participate in a particular situation. And yet, Clifford argues, one should resist the
temptation to translate all of meaningful experience into interpretation as if experience
and interpretation could easily be known as epistemological categories. Is it that when we
write, suddenly the capacity for relationality dries out is writing necessarily the
announcement of the return of the Cartesian subject? It must be asked then, could a
limited reading of reflexivity actually be restricting the possibilities or development of the
idea of intersubjectivity? Is this what self-reflexivity ultimately must mean a
containment of the self in the last instance?
BEING WITH YOUNG HOME(LESS) PEOPLE
Find the place where your discourse is only made possible by its relation to the other
(Muecke, 1992, p. 205).
This profoundly suggestive comment made by Muecke in Textual Spaces for me captures
the deep relationality and indebtedness of self/other. As I have explored, I believe that
this indebtedness cannot always be captured or acknowledged through a process of
reflexivity. Through some examples from my own work, I open here some
understandings of self/other relations through an extension of the idea of self-reflexivity.
In my current work, I see myself as drawn to home(less) young people to help me
articulate some feelings I have about belonging, about home and self that wont sit
comfortably. It is only through researching and writing through the other, that I am able
to inhabit these ideas, feelings, hunches more substantially. In this, I have noted, I am a
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stranger to the city talking to those who make it their home. So my relation to young
home(less) people mirrors the beginnings of my understanding of the ways in which
home is necessarily implied and present in home(less)ness a kind of continued
exchange which is either repressed as in homelessness or remembered, nurtured,
rediscovered. My search for a way to talk about home and the importance of place gains
new release through my understanding of its (often fragile) presence in young peoples
experiences in Sydney streets and suburbs.
Centrally then, I have attempted to approach home(less) young people with the intent of
trying to allow a field of betweenness (Sparke, 1996) rather than assuming its shape a
priori (out there). Instead of setting up a separation from a field (distancing
immediately implied), I have tried to hold onto the singular lines of desire, intrigue and
hope for some kind of answering voice which already web my connection to young
(home)less people. In order to make sense of the self and body as the field of
fieldwork, I am going to discuss part of the process through which I went in developing
my presence as field moving from a distanced body/self to an approximated body/self.
By this I mean the process of body work (Coffey, 1999, p. 59) and the crafting of
relations (Coffey, 1999, p. 59) which are central in developing a site for communication.
Further, given my earlier arguments, I would also like to explore a weak reading of
reflexivity as it has played itself out in my research experiences. I take up Wolffs notion
of the potential of surrender (Wolff, 1976) as similarly important in establishing an
open field presence. More broadly here, I am trying to develop a sense of the body/self as
a field of inscription and reinscription, rather than a tool; a field in which all kinds of
resonances take their effect unexpectedly, a field in which past, present and future play
through and beyond the actions of the researcher.
Starting outreach at night with a church group was an absolute shock. In order to get to
know Sydney a bit better and begin to meet people who were or potentially might be
home(less), I volunteered time to serve food and hot drinks in various parts of the city
late on Friday nights. I had no idea what to expect, how to act, what to say. I was worried
about my association with a religious group and did not know the group well. Further, I
had no idea where we were as we travelled through the city. I felt very disoriented,
especially because it was late at night and even places I did know seemed to always look
different. At the first stop at Central Station there were always quite a few people waiting.
There would be some low murmuring as we unpacked the bus and set up tables from
which to serve hotdogs, cakes, hot drinks and packaged hot meals in takeaway containers
served from an eski at the side of the bus. I soon realised that having a job was what most
volunteers attempted to quickly negotiate and indeed to start with. I stayed close to the
van, careful to always manage to be the person doing the hotdogs, or offering big tubs of
cakes. Sometimes people argued over serving the hot drinks this required the person to
stay at the back of the bus the whole time busy.
As I grew more confident, however, I would just go and stand with groups of people and
chat and not hand around food at all. Mostly people wanted to chat over dinner
(occasionally there would even be someone with a portable television!) I would sit on
the pavement with old men or groups of younger people and talk about what had been
happening and where people might be staying. There was quite a cheerful note to the
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meal stops here people met up for a meal before getting on the night trains to sleep or
before heading off to various places in the city. Generally the same people each week
would be there and so gradually I felt I could talk to people more easily and without such
intense embarrassment about the whole situation of our meeting. Slowly I worked out
how to talk, how to stand or sit in such a way that I didnt appear too obviously afraid of
people or embarrassed about not knowing what to say. Moving away from the bus was an
important and difficult step; learning how to continue to be yourself in someone elses
space was the key lesson I learned from watching both the reactions of people who turned
up for a meal and the different ways of being a volunteer that people took up.
The next stop at Tom Uren Square in Wolloomooloo was a completely different situation.
About 50 people sleep around the area every night, so wed carry the eski of hot meals
around to peoples beds, quietly asking if anyone wanted a meal. I felt intensely
uncomfortable about this process, even though I could see that it was probably
worthwhile. Many people were asleep or passed out and often people would tell us to shut
up and fuck off because they had been woken up. Many had made a special home or bed
area from boxes, tarpaulins, mattresses, chairs and tables; some took special pride in
keeping much loved pets. Outside Mathew Talbot Hostel for example, an indentation of
the bricking was used as a mantle piece on which trinkets and pictures were arranged.
Often the same group of Koori men would be sitting around a table in the cul-de-sac, on
deck chairs or on beds on the pavement and always, their faithful dog would be with
them, or sleeping with her chin up on her owners body if he was asleep or unconscious.
Old men, women and mainly middle-aged people, singles and couples, all lay in bed and
most could be seen directly as we walked past. Some volunteers were sensitive to the
tensions of this invasion of privacy and others were not; some never moved from the van,
others specifically wanted to do this more difficult outreach.
It was generally with relief that we left this area. It was very dark and depressing and
there were often people who were ill or injured lying with no bed at all. The rows of
wrapped bodies secreted under the big rail overpass and around the buildings were very
surreal to see. From here we went to Williams Street a carnivalesque relief from the
quiet of Wolloomooloo. Sex workers (female and transgender mostly) would come over
for strong, sweet coffee and we always saved the doughnuts for the workers who were
worried about eating actual meals while trying to get work. This work scene involved
another etiquette food was served with serviettes and again we walked around with
cakes, in case workers were being watched by pimps and couldnt move too far. As in
Wolloomooloo, some coffee deliveries were made to people who couldnt come down to
the van. Generally people were bored and wanted a chat and a laugh while they drank a
coffee and then went back to work. This area was a lot less threatening than
Wolloomoloo, perhaps because there wasnt such a strong sense of transgressing space
the world that we were used to, traffic, shops and restaurants, seemed a lot closer from
here.
From here we usually went to The Wall, a place in Kings Cross where mainly young
people congregate and a place known for young male prostitution. Like Wolloomooloo,
this place on the side of a park was dark and quite threatening and a permanent hang out
zone. Usually the people (not always young people) were heavily affected by drugs which
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S e n s i n g t h e o t h e r : t h e c a t c h o f t h e s u r r e n d e r i n g s e l f / R o b i n s o n ( 1 3 p a g e s ) 1 0
made the situation very volatile and threatening. Many of the volunteers hated going to
the Wall it was always very late (between 1 am and 2 am) at this stage and people were
often belligerent and scornful of volunteers. Often young people were too sick to eat but
seemed to like the interruption of our arrival.
This was my introduction to the inner-city scene of home(less)ness in Sydney. The
importance of space to home(less) people and to the ways in which volunteers managed
their involvement in the scene became more and more obvious to me as a participant. The
different spatial text(ure)s we passed through from Central as a kind of meeting place,
Wolloomooloo as a living space, Williams Street as a working space to the Wall as a drug
space, involved a careful reading and appropriate shifting of the body: the way we moved
around (or not), even the kinds of food and drinks that were served (and demanded) at
each place changed. Just as the uses and users of places changed, as volunteers, we
needed to change our approach, the way we addressed people, the way we negotiated the
safe and reassuring space of the van, the way we negotiated ways of being busy (serving
tongs, cake boxes, takeaway containers), the way we negotiated each van stop. Each
volunteer had different ways of distancing themselves (or not) from the home(less)
people they served and more generally, people oscillated from the more stressful
situation of just being with home(less) people and then taking the role of being busy at
other times or as they became tired.
In the context of learning how to do successful and sensitive outreach, I had no better
way of learning how to be with home(less) people than to participate and talk to the
huge range of people we served in a night. The whole process of learning to be a
volunteer strongly resonated with learning how to be a researcher indeed this volunteer
work preceded in-depth interviewing. The fast and complex readings necessitated by
being in extreme situations with often very stressed or disturbed or upset people plunged
me into a deep awareness of my actions, thoughts and in particular, talk. To be able to
just talk to people was perhaps the most necessary and difficult skill to develop. The
situation in itself the random and chaotic nature of being out around the streets late at
night made talk so difficult, especially as later in the night people had reached the
critical point in their drug and alcohol use. It was being able to talk a whole bodily
movement towards a stranger that immediately opened interaction however, and from
this one would take on listening as another important way of being with people. Unless
this first and often embarrassing step of talking was made and you showed some sense of
confidence in yourself and in the other person, the whole situation of outreach (charity?
religious pity?) seemed incredibly stressful for both parties.
This process of developing a talking, listening body, a body that could be with others in
such an emotional and stressful environment was quite traumatic. Negotiating peoples
open-air sleeping and living areas was a particularly fraught and invasive process. As
Hastrup (1995, p. 123) notes, this reworking of self and other can be quite violent, and for
me, issues of guilt and shame were intensely difficult to work on. The giving out of food
was a very difficult situation to manage and it was a while before I would make myself a
coffee or eat a cake while doing outreach even though it was precisely in doing this that
often the boundaries between volunteers as givers and (home)less as receivers were
muddled.
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While a concentration on a sensitive recasting of the self (Coffey, 1999, p. 25) and
crafting of relations (Coffey, 1999, p. 48) was important, the immediacy of my
situation and the fact that I would often not see the same people more than once meant
that if I wanted to chat to people, it had to be done straight away. I would never know
quite what, or who to expect. At first I never knew how to start off a conversation with
people around the van: How was your day? What have you been up to? Whats
happening? Hello? These questions at first seemed painfully ridiculous, partly because, I
think I didnt mean them to mean anything, I just felt I should say something. After a
while I asked these questions more strongly: often people would just laugh and say, with
their bag of blankets in their hand, What the hell do you think Ive been doing?
Nothing!. I stood with another volunteer who asked a young guy what hed been up to
and the guy casually said, I actually died today, but they revived me. The clash of
worlds and words was so often completely bizarre and difficult that there was nothing to
do but laugh and in this sense, the best way of managing the situation was to try and not
to manage it, to just be. This self-exposure was the risk of this transient fieldwork and the
only possibility of surrender and catch (Wolff, 1976).
SURRENDER AND CATCH
A heightened awareness of my body and the bodies of others and the care with which I
had to move through different spaces not only suggests my implication in the field but
also suggests that I learned about some of the physical stress young people endured
through experiencing it myself. Hanging out doing volunteer work or later, in youth
centres, not quite sure of how to belong, what to do, being watched constantly and being
around some very violent, angry or sick people for me, volunteers, staff and for other
young people was at times very stressful. In this context, as Nast (1998, p. 107) argues,
rather than imagining the field as separate or other to the self and contact with this field
necessitating a quiet (but serious) reflection, it is absolutely necessary to show
reflexivity as an embodied process wherein the body is itself a field for registering and
negotiating difference. Imagining the body/self as somehow remote from a field of study
sets up specific relations of distance which deny the proximity, indebtedness and mess of
not just studying, but being with other people.
At one level, the process of doing reflexive fieldwork is a recognition of the implication
of the other in the ways that we come to form a sense of self and of body. It is not that
these implications are not already in place. However, the process of fieldwork simply
helps us carve a space in which to feel these edges of the body/self more keenly. In the
process of my fieldwork with young home(less) people, I have experienced feelings of
acute strangeness and difference, and acute self consciousness and embarrassment at
being perceived as a wealthy, healthy and sexualised being. At other times, it was by
openly occupying this body-space, rather than apologising for it, that I was able to
communicate more effectively with people.
Also vital, however, were moments standing on the street at night or in interviews in
which my body and the interviewees body seemed to dissolve: we had locked into such a
complex conversation that a moment of complete presence was experienced. Indeed,
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while reflexivity-as-reflectivity helped me develop a sensitive stance (mentally and
bodily) towards home(less) people, what remains interesting and more difficult to account
for is the fact that my best fieldwork was done when I had got over myself and
sensed my way into talking. These moments of the loss of self (or even an intense
heightening of a sense of self) as I have already suggested, do not sit easily with the more
reflexive-as-reflective experience of self and thus, as I have suggested are often not
discussed or are perceived as methodologically weak moments. The term field not
only excludes an embodied fielding of difference as Nast (1998, p. 107) argues, but also
excludes the moments in which the field actually seems to disappear - to be caught again
(and only partially) in moments like these when I rethink some of my experiences.
For Hastrup (1995), Coffey (1999) and Anzul et al. (1997), a careful and immensely
useful acknowledgment of the work (Coffey, 1999, p. 57) emotional, intellectual,
bodily that goes in to facilitating qualitative research is of vital importance in
attempting to acknowledge in depth some of the specific ways in which we try to make
research successful and sensitive. In particular, however, the demand in much qualitative
research to know the position of the researcher, the researchers location of self (Herz,
1997, p. viii; cf. Coffey, 1999, p. 17) seems to have escaped some of the deeper
ramifications of various poststructural approaches to subjectivity. What Clifford hints at,
what Kirby (1989) rethinks through Derridas notion of the general text, what Wikan
(1992) describes as resonance and what I am interested in pursuing here, is the strange
exchange that takes place in the field and of course, always before and beyond it. In what
way can we also think reflexivity as perhaps an involuntary reflex? Or even as a desire
for proximity?
I return to the work of Heidi Nast (1998) who I think raises some very challenging issues
which bring together cultural geography, poststructuralism and methodology in
interesting ways. In her piece, The Body as Place, Nast (1998, p. 94) sets out a
critique of the commonly employed use of reflexivity:
reflexivity is less about self-introspection, self reflection, self-conscious practices in
thinking and writing or self-emanating contemplation of how one positions and includes
oneself in relation to a subject of study (Marcus 1992: 489) than about learning to
recognise others construction of us through their initiatives, spaces, bodies, judgement,
prescriptions, proscriptions and so on
I think what is most interesting about Nasts work is the sense of the insecurity and
vulnerability of subjectivity. The idea of a controlled reflexivity Nast (1998, p. 95)
suggests, also acts to limit the capacities of the other to surface, surprise or horrify in
ways uncalled for: The me-centred process tames otherness making it something one
ably decides upon and crafts and something one chooses to learn about or reject. For this
reason, Nast would have us stretch the concept of reflexivity towards the other rather than
the self; focusing for example, on the ways in which my body-self-as-volunteer was
interpolated or inscribed differently in different city spaces.
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Perhaps what is most interesting, although less developed, is the idea of falling into
reflexivity and a recognition of a reflexivity connected to what is out-of-(our)-control
(1998, p. 95):
We are not taught the skill of engaging with processes and materialities that draw us bodily
into other worlds and that require that we let go of carefully crafted objectives, agendas
and models and give our bodies/spaces over to other bodies and places.
This is strangely echoed by Clifford (1986, p. 25):
The writing and reading of ethnography are overdetermined by forces ultimately beyond
the control of either an author or an interpretive community.
It seems then, that something else is at play in the meeting of self and other, as I sense my
way into being with young (home)less people. Once we start talking and images begin to
flash before us something happens. Suddenly, both teller and listener are engaged in an
extraordinary production, totally unexpected, perhaps involving events unrecalled for
many years or sudden realisations, even lies or hopes.
Wolffs (1976) graceful conceptualisation of the process of surrender and catch points
to the dichotomies of the experience of surrender and the possibilities of the yield,
harvest of that experience. As I discussed earlier, there is a tension between yielding in
self/other relations and the yield or catch of this experience, the data collected, the
experience written about. Together surrender and surrender-to may be seen to precipitate
a creative tension and a transformative process:
To surrender-to is to concentrate, to dedicate or devote oneself, to pay utmost attention.
Surrender-to has the characteristics of surrender, except they are consciously aimed at. If
what is surrendered to unexpectedly grows into the infinity of its experience, surrender-to
becomes surrender. That this may occur, that this unforeseeable, unpredictable
transformation may occur, only explicates the unforeseeability and unpredicability of
surrender and the indeterminability of its occasions. (Wolff, 1976, p. 26)
To surrender and catch involves transformation on different levels. Wolff discusses the
problem of transforming surrender into catch (1976, p. 170) and understanding the
nature of this transformation as movement from the world of suspension itself to the
world of the everyday (1976, p. 172). Wolff goes on to argue, however, that this
movement is not unidirectional; indeed Wolff senses himself as being in both worlds at
once (1976, p. 172). It is this oscillation which drives both the ability to surrender to
experience and the ability to make sense of experience. In setting out to surrender we may
achieve nothing but false surrender if we force (1976, p. 24), and yet, where we do
surrender, we enter into the most radical mode of being we are capable of (1976, p.
168). For Wolff, the desire to make sense of phenomenon and experience necessitates the
catch and the pull-back from total identification: ... since the surrenderer wants to know
there is the love of the catch, of understanding, conceiving, considering so that others can
be told what has occurred (1976, p. 23).
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I see elements of self-reflexivity being strongly paralleled in both Wolffs notions of
surrender-to and catch. The concept of surrender itself could perhaps be thought of
as a kind of reflexivity which moves towards the other, rather than towards the self.
While, as I have discussed, more generally, self-reflexivity should remain acknowledged
as a central part in the qualitative research process (including the ongoing analysis in the
doing of, and writing of, research), it is this wild aspect of surrender, the most radical
mode of being , which is written out of methodology perhaps because of its
insistence on randomness and its resistance to be easily reproduced as a basis from which
to perform authoritative academic work. I would suggest, however, that this move
towards recognising the serendipity or wonder of relationality is extremely productive in
undoing categories of identity a key project of contemporary theory. In terms of my
work, this has meant a following out of the theoretical and methodological implications
of coming to terms with the resonance of young peoples voices and experiences within
my own voice and experience.
In this context, the refusal of much qualitative work to engage in depth the more risky
questions posed by poststructural and postmodern thinkers requires much serious thought.
The weakness of the self as a guarantee for a particular style of methodology is not
addressed. Can there be a reflexivity which, like Wolffs pairing of surrender and catch,
acknowledges the mystery, the beyond of self which shapes our relations with others?
As it stands, I believe the refusal to explore this useful conjunction of debates restricts the
wider use of, and debate over the difficult and vivid material qualitative research
produces both the old and the new. Further, protecting boundaries of self as they
are upheld in self-reflexive research ultimately restricts debate around what actually
constitutes a self, a methodology, and indeed, what constitutes one method as opposed
to another. This should be a major concern for those interested in maintaining a healthy
debate about the direction, use and ethics of qualitative research, especially given, as
Aug (1998) points out, the wealth of experience anthropology and ethnography bring to
understanding relations of self. Part of the grip on the authoritative self must be given up
in order that new gains be made; therein lies the catch.
Acknowledgement
With thanks to Vicki Kirby, Ann Daniel, Rose Leontini, Alix Magney and Julie Pritchard
for encouraging feedback.
References
Anzul, M., Ely, M., Downing, M., & Vinz, R. (1997). On writing qualitative research: Living by
words. London: The Falmer Press.
Aug, M. (1998). A sense for the other: The timeliness and relevance of anthropology (A. Jacobs,
Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1994.)
Clifford, J. (1986). Introduction: Partial truths. In J. Clifford & G. Marcus, (Eds.), Writing culture:
The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 1-26). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Clifford, J. (1988a). The predicament of culture: Twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and
art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Clifford, J. (1988b). On ethnographic authority. In J. Clifford (Ed.), The predicament of culture:
Twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art (pp. 2154). Cambridge, Massachsuetts:
Harvard University Press.
Coffey, A. (1999). The ethnographic self: Fieldwork and the representation of identity. London:
Sage.
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Denzin, N. K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century.
Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
England, K. (1994). Getting personal: Reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research.
Professional Geographer, 46, 8089.
Hastrup, K. (1995). A passage to anthropology: Between experience and theory. London:
Routledge.
Hertz, R. (1997). Introduction: Reflexivity and voice. In R. Herz (Ed.), Reflexivity and Voice (pp.
viixviii). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Kirby, V. (1989). Re-writing: Postmodernism and ethnography. Mankind, 19, 36-45.
Kirby, V. (1993). Feminisms, reading, postmodernisms: Rethinking complicity. In S. Gunew & A.
Yeatman (Eds.), Feminism and the politics of difference (pp. 2034). Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Muecke, S. (1992). Textual spaces: Aboriginality and cultural studies. Sydney: New South Wales
University Press.
Nast, H. (1998). The body as place: Reflexivity and fieldwork in Kano, Nigeria. In H. J. Nast &
S. Pile (Eds.), Places through the body (pp. 93116). London: Routledge.
Probyn, E. (1993). True voices and real people. The problem of the autobiographical in cultural
studies. In V. Blundell, J. Shepherd, & I. Taylor (Eds.), Relocating cultural studies (pp.
105122). London: Routledge.
Reinharz, S. (1997). Who am I? The need for a variety of selves in the field. In R. Hertz (Ed.),
Reflexivity and voice (pp. 320). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Saukko, P. (2000). Between voice and discourse: Quilting interviews on anorexia. Qualitative
Inquiry, 6, 299317.
Sparke, M. (1996). Displacing the field in fieldwork: Masculinity, metaphor and space. In N.
Duncan (Ed.), Bodyspace: Destabilising geographies of gender and sexuality (pp. 212233).
Routledge: London.
Wasserfall, R. (1997). Reflexivity, Feminism and Difference. In R. Herz, (Ed.), Reflexivity and
voice (pp. vii-xviii). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Wikan, U. (1992). Beyond the words: The power of resonance. American Ethnologist, 19,
460482.
Wolff, K. H. (1976). Surrender and catch: Experience and inquiry today. Holland: D. Reidel
Publishing Company.
CATHERINE ROBINSON is currently working on a doctorate in
Sociology at the University of New South Wales. Through loosely
poststructural notions of difference, subjectivity and space, I am exploring
grief, home, inhabitation and belonging as these resonate in young
peoples experiences of being home(less) in Sydney. I am particularly
interested in the conjunction of contemporary theory and qualitative
methodology.
Contact details:
Catherine Robinson
School of Sociology
University of New South Wales
Kensington, NSW 2052
Australia
Phone: +61-2-9326-6264 or 0412 020077
Email: catherine.robinson@unsw.edu.au
!
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B u t w a i t ! T h e r e s s t i l l m o r e ! / G a r d n e r / L e h m a n n ( 1 2 p a g e s ) 1 6
But wait! Theres still more!
Some unaccounted for aspects of qualitative
evaluation and research
Fiona Gardner and Jennifer Lehmann, Social Work Department, La Trobe University,
Bendigo Campus
ABSTRACT
Qualitative methodologies and strategies are frequently used in evaluation and
research projects for the purpose of developing deeper learning and
understandings of the topic being addressed. These strategies include the use of
focus groups and in-depth interviewing, often over an extended period of time. Such
approaches lead to the collection of extensive data which are often in the form of
dialogues or narrative accounts of lived experience of the research/evaluation
participants. The analysis of this data reveals to the investigator not only the
expected and unexpected factors related to the research or evaluation questions,
but also a range of other information. This data is usually excluded from the final
documentation of the research or evaluation study.
This paper invites both newcomers and experienced investigators to consider what
can be learned from the excluded or other the material that lies behind, but is
lost from, the final presentation of a research or evaluation report. By drawing on
both an evaluation study over two years and a PhD research project conducted over
two years, the questions raised by the undiscussed data are considered. Issues
addressed will include consideration of the qualities needed to advance credibility
and trust in research participants; the additional roles demanded of researchers
undertaking a project; the skills needed to deal with usually complex motives, needs
and purposes of participants in studies and dealing with the unintended
consequences of projects?
INTRODUCTION
Each time we embark on evaluation or research activities we have in our minds both a
methodology and a method each of which informs the other (Babbie, 1989). We need to
develop both a logical and coherent approach to undertaking our evaluation or research
activities and a set of activities, or practice methods, which will lead to the gathering and
analysing of relevant information (Lincoln, 1995; Wadsworth, 1991, 1997). At the time
of developing methodology and methods we tend to see the bigger picture potential
pitfalls perhaps the unavailability of preferred participants, the difficulties of distance or
recording of information, or the administrative difficulties of recording data. However,
we often miss considering the micro dilemmas with which we could be faced during
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the actual doing of our investigations. Just as we often find that data collected in
evaluation and research is made up of the anticipated and the unanticipated, so is the
actual process of doing qualitative research.
Unfortunately, the unanticipated events occurring during the doing of investigations are
often disregarded. We suspect that mentioning those other things that happened might
reveal embarrassing mistakes, they might be considered just a distraction from the real
information being sought in the study, or they might reveal that the method was wrong, or
make us uncomfortable because what happened is awkward to explain! Worse still, we
might be concerned that revealing some of these events may detract from the credibility
of our investigation and subsequent results! In the development of this paper we have
chosen to take a positive view of the unexpected these events provide us with the
opportunity for deep learning and the development of reflective practice in evaluation and
research activities (Gergen & Gergen, 1991).
The value of reflection, and particularly critical reflection, is increasingly acknowledged
in social work, nursing, management and education research and literature. This is
acknowledged in the work of Boucher and Gardner (2000), and Gardner and Boucher
(2000), who found that reflective practice included both reflection-on-action and
reflection-in-action, with learning, itself, an emancipatory and empowering experience. It
is the nature of the sharing of achievements and dilemmas, and the sense of mutuality and
support, that generates learning and reflection leading to lifelong learning capacity. In
these disciplines interrelationships are the basis of exchanges about well-being, just as in
qualitative evaluation and research we often rely on interviewing and the development of
an interpersonal relationship to access information and understanding. As Jorgenson
(1991) comments:
For those of us who rely on face-to-face interviews in conducting our research, it is
becoming increasingly difficult to avoid reflecting on our personal relationship to the
research process, or to ignore our role in the construction of the facts we set out to
collect. (p. 211)
In undertaking any research and evaluation strategies, but especially qualitative
investigations, we need to consider how our own values and attitudes affect how we
approach research (Fook, 1996; Shakespeare, Atkinson & French 1993; Steier, 1991).
Language, too, is a significant factor affecting evaluation. Steedman (in Steier, 1991)
points out that Recognition of the fact that there is neither a single truth to be found in
acts of interpretation, nor a single method by which to proceed in such work, has been the
central contribution of contemporary hermeneutics (p. 57). The need for evaluation to be
useful to its users and participants is also valued (Patton, 1987, 1990). Patton (1997)
suggests that the value of such utilisation-focused evaluation has now become generally
accepted. Combining participatory action research and critical theory is advocated by
DePoy, Hartman and Haslett (1999), so that evaluation becomes an egalitarian process
with a high degree of participation by those being evaluated.
Similar developments have occurred in research methodology with Reason (1988) and
Heron (1996) emphasising approaches that are participatory and cooperative. Such
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strategies ensure that all participants in the research project are regarded with respect and
as being on an equal footing with those initiating the enquiry. Research based on these
approaches values the human participants and their context, and seeks to develop
knowledge and understanding in a collaborative manner that offers a sense of
empowerment to all those engaged in the enterprise (Blaikie, 1993). However,
methodologies which engage participants in close understandings with the investigators,
or that include participants as co-investigators, inevitably involve the management of
relationships and the exchange of information which is tangential to the topic of the study
(Morgan, 1983).
In many disciplines staff are being asked to engage in evaluation and research activities
either with externally appointed researchers or through internal mechanisms. Much of this
activity involves staff in thinking about their practice and evaluating it in some way. In a
variety of fields, workers have expressed their appreciation and the value they place on
opportunities for reflection (Johns & Freshwater, 1998; Sheppard, Newstead, Di Caccavo
& Ryan, 2000; Taylor, 2000). Research involving workers in reflection can help them
identify their tacit knowledge, that is, the intuition, common sense, or practice wisdom,
[which] is the implicit store of knowledge used in practice (Zeira & Rosen, 2000).
Identifying such knowledge can lead to the development of hypotheses about practice that
may then be tested through a variety of forms of research. This opportunity for reflection
was a valued experience for those participating in our evaluation projects. Typical
comments included: In hindsight for rural workers it seems really clear that , and I
had mixed feelings. I was pretty enthusiastic about raising awareness of [the issue] but I
struggled to fit it into my workload. I lost hours of work time and I have no back up.
Evaluation and research which relies on the collection of accounts and narrative from
participants through interviewing reveals most clearly the additional uses of the process
by participants and the wide variety of unexpected issues which might arise for the
investigator. This paper uses narrative information drawn from two studies. The first was
an evaluation of a rural health project carried out in Victoria over a two-year period. The
second was a PhD research study of change management in rural Social and Community
Services (SACS) organisations. Both investigations were carried out using predetermined
and clearly articulated methodological approaches and methods. Investigatory practices
included interviewing of participants on multiple occasions over the period of the studies,
the recording of these interviews and the use of transcript information as raw data for
analysis.
Both studies relied on the accounts of people whose daily work was associated with either
the delivery of the rural health program or managing change. The interviews were
unstructured, using only core topic areas to guide the discussion. This left the participants
free to tell the stories of their work, their perceptions of the context in which they acted,
and to reflect over many months on both the activities that engaged their attention and the
outcomes achieved. The data thus consisted of complex accounts that engaged with both
the personal and the professional, that had an unfolding nature, and were rich with
interwoven themes. Both projects involved making choices to omit information which the
investigators believed to be important, although not directly associated with the intent of
the project.
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KEY ELEMENTS OF PROCESS
The unanticipated events in investigations stem from a variety of causes. The first of
these concerns differences in expectations of the study process and methods themselves.
There may be a lack of clarity in meaning of expressions used due to the multiple uses of
terms, the past experiences of participants or differences in understanding of what is
wanted. Take the notion of engaging in an interview as an example: the interviewer may
be inexperienced, both interviewer and interviewee may have alternative styles of
interviewing, ranging from persistent and specific questioning to open-ended and
infrequent questioning, or the interview may be constrained by time or locational factors.
It is unusual for people to have exhaustively discussed the details of what is meant by
interviewing or what exactly is to take place in the process.
People have very different experiences of what, at first glance, appears to be the same
issue or topic, and have differing values and attitudes which are expressed in the course
of the interview narrative. In the projects referred to in this paper, people had markedly
differing notions of rural and of community development, for instance. In addition,
the needs of participants or stakeholders engaging in evaluation and research vary
considerably (McDermott, 1996). Needs may be associated with such factors as
credibility, influence or confirmation of self-efficacy. Language and its use may lead to
unanticipated consequences during interviewing. We all have a style of speech a
preferred way of conveying verbal information and it is not uncommon in initial
interviews for people to test out one another in terms of the language to be used in their
exchange.
Then there are the practical issues that determine unanticipated events. There are the
crises in study processes such as when an investigator becomes unavailable, or
participants circumstances change. The latter may cause a participant to see their
engagement in the study from a new perspective, an example being that a participant may
become aware that the outcome of the evaluation will impact on their future employment.
As researchers and evaluators we are often interviewing other professionals with their
own philosophical base, sense of their own knowledge and considerable experience
(Healy, 1996). In order to develop a relationship where such workers will share their
views at a deeper level, we need to establish that we can be respected. This may partly
come from having established connections and credibility in a particular field of work. It
also comes through demonstrating that we understand the complexity of issues being
raised and the difficulties this can mean for workers. Such understanding may be
conveyed through a comment from our own experience, empathic listening, pertinent
questions and follow-up probes. Gender may also be an issue here. We were both female,
frequently interviewing women, although the research project involved a number of male
managers. It is often important to express understanding both of the feelings of
participants and of their thoughts about their work as a means of building trust and
respect.
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As trust is developed in the relationship between participant and investigator, a sense of
reciprocity emerges in which each begins to feel that the interview(s) are useful as a form
of dialogue. Some participants express a sense of deepening clarity about the issues
involved in their work and explore possible ways with which to deal with these issues.
For some workers the interviews provide a much-needed form of debriefing. This can be
particularly so for workers in rural areas who have few colleagues and for whom being
able to speak confidentially is a major issue. Where interviews are regular over a period
of time, some workers link sessions to supervision or to a mentoring process; an
opportunity to use someone as a sounding board, a way of letting off steam or a way of
checking their own reactions.
There is much to be said for this aspect of investigative interviews. Rather than
participants feeling that they are giving of their time and knowledge without much gain in
return, they experience a direct benefit. It reinforces a sense that both people are involved
in a mutually beneficially relationship.
One of the issues often explored in investigations is the relative advantage of being an
insider or an outsider to the agency or project being studied (Smyth & Holian, 1999).
Generally being an outsider seemed to act as an advantage in the evaluation project, but
this was not the case in the research project. It seemed that staff of the program being
evaluated felt more able to talk about issues in depth because we had no stake in, and
often minimal knowledge of, the organisation concerned. It was clear that we were not
likely, for example, to be close friends or colleagues with staff with whom they were in
conflict and we didnt have an issue of loyalty to the organisation as our ongoing
workplace. This seemed to foster our working relationships over the two years of
evaluation. However, it is fair to say that our understanding of how organisations and
teams work, in general, was a form of insider knowledge that was important. We could
raise issues and make comments based on our past and current experience. This
congruence of understanding was important.
In the research project, insiderness, in terms of having a role responsible for managing
change within the SACS industry, was essential for the development of trust and
reciprocity which led to sharing of narrative accounts. The managers participating were,
over time, confident enough to talk about experiences unlikely to be discussed outside of
the research relationship, but which gave valuable insights into underlying emotional and
cognitive aspects of managing change.
The issue of insiderness/outsiderness had a second meaning in these projects: the sense of
being an insider or outsider in rural communities. Here the participants varied in how
they saw themselves, that is, whether they too were insiders or outsiders. Their
perceptions of this also had an impact on the outcomes of the studies. Again it was
important that, although we were essentially outsiders in their rural communities, we did
live and work in rural communities and understood the rural issues raised.
While understandings in relation to trust, reciprocity and insiderness are either necessary,
or helpful, in eliciting the complexity of material involved, they also raise dilemmas for
investigations. Much of the material that emerges has the depth and relevance essential to
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good qualitative investigations, but it is challenged by those who adhere to more
positivist approaches. There are issues of closeness versus distance of the investigator to
the purpose and nature of the investigation, and a need to address issues of reliability,
trustworthiness and credibility of the data.
THE EXPERIENCE OF THE UNANTICIPATED
Having endeavoured to put participants at ease and established a level of trust, the
interviewer becomes available to the participant for exchanges which are often beyond
the scope of the investigation (McNamee, 1994). One of the most common of the
unanticipated experiences relates to the area of confidentiality. Participants are likely to
convey a great deal of information in in-depth interviews, but not all of it is intended for
the purposes of the research, let alone for public scrutiny. Participants do not always
clearly state which information they would be happy to have made public, though they
may comment about the information they want to ensure remains confidential. For the
evaluator/researcher, the line is frequently blurred leading to the need to check with
interviewees that direct quotes can be used in the documentation.
The dilemma continues for the investigator, however, as some of the disclosed material
may be highly relevant to the investigation, even though it may be potentially harmful to
the participant if made known. In addition, the information may have come from third
parties who believed the knowledge to be shared in confidence. Disclosure of
unprofessional behaviours provide an example of the potential for damage to the
participant and emerge when statements are made like those below:
1 I embarrassed her into seeing me by sitting waiting in her office! (made by a
professional worker determined to make a more senior person see her
immediately).
2 Sharing information about mutual friends and contacts led to greater support (a
professional worker using personal and unrelated relationships to force a sense of
responsibility to support a project).
An example of the kind of comments that may cause harm to others is: [Agency name]
wastes money with high-class things in Melbourne, indicating criticism of senior
personnel in the organisation and disclosing information which is often known only to
insiders (Smyth & Holian, 1999). French (1993) suggests that she would sometimes
protect the research participants by hiding information which could be used against
them raising a number of ethical dilemmas for investigators, including the challenge to
their own credibility should such a decision become known.
The interview may also provide a vehicle for participants to discuss the undiscussable.
The writers experienced this in both projects, with a greater likelihood of this material
emerging in the later interviews. It is as though participants test the investigator at the
point when they become more familiar with the person with whom they have engaged.
This is followed by raising normally undiscussable issues if the interpersonal cues
suggest they will remain safe in the interview context. For instance, politically incorrect
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remarks like referring to a forum of professional staff and consumers as a whinge-fest,
and commenting there was no point in them thinking they could dictate how the dollars
were to be used! may be precursors, or test remarks.
Later in the projects, participants raised undiscussable topics with the aim of developing a
dialogue with the investigator. One example related to the difficulties experienced with
country-based workers and was heralded by the difficulty with using local workers is
that they can be parochial and constrained by their existing relationships and their
personal preferences for people or organisations. Amusingly, country workers say much
the same of their metropolitan counterparts, but the topic remains undiscussed between
representatives of the two groups! Getting rid of a staff member who was disruptive
and divisive is another example drawn from the management research project. Usually
such a discussion is couched in terms of having to discipline a staff member, the
managers need to observe the legalities, due process and rights involved in such
situations, and the difficulty of managing the process. Discussion about ridding oneself of
an employee has a different, and potentially dangerous connotation altogether and, if it
became public, could lead to a number of unpleasant consequences for the manager
concerned.
Reflective learning of participants, and also by the investigator, is common within the
interview context (Fook, 1996). This is seen as a positive outcome, but also has the
potential to change the nature of what is being evaluated and the perspectives of both
participant and investigator. One of the management research project participants
reflected back over three years of being a manager and discovered his priorities in life
were very different, prompting a decision to resign from his job even though he was
highly thought of by staff and the organisation. Other comments of participants indicating
a shift in thinking are:
(a) In hindsight, for rural workers it seems really clear that (a reflection of new
awareness of the different needs of rural workers).
(b) Its much easier to make inroads when you know the services and the area (the
realisation that specific prior knowledge facilitated her work).
(c) I had mixed feelings. I was pretty enthusiastic about raising awareness of
[issue], but I struggle to fit it in with my workload. I lost hours of work time and I
have no backup (realisation that involvement had to be limited).
(d) The program didnt get taken seriously for a while. It needs to come back to
people several times so it doesnt skim across the top of their attention
(reflecting on reasons for choosing to repeat the same activities several times).
Reflective learning is sometimes accompanied by self-reflection and the development of
self-understanding as exemplified by the participant who commented: And I think
youve hit, ah, an important point about one of the reasons why I was looking to leave
[the Agency name]! in response to a clarifying question asked by the interviewer. The
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tone of voice often provides a strong indicator of the emotional meaning of the statement
and in this case the tone was excited with the comment made as an exclamation.
Gaining an insight may be a positive experience, but equally, the investigator may be
faced with the acute disappointment of a participant whose revelation has had a negative
impact. One participant almost withdrew from the management research project as a
result of reading an interview transcript in which she found it hard to understand her own
responses. This was perceived as lacking competency as a manager, and as a professional,
as she believed managers should be articulate and placed great value on communication
skills. Another participant, engaged in the evaluation project, commented, I felt a bit
overwhelmed because the other participants had more knowledge again referring to
something which she believed she lacked.
Finally, there is the area of power and influence that emerges from in-depth interviewing
in a variety of ways. One is in the form of educating the investigator as in comments
similar to Its my role to This reveals an interesting paradox in which the participant
assumes that the evaluator/researcher is both knowledgeable and ignorant. The
investigator may have engaged with the participant based on trust, credibility and a sense
of mutuality, but at the same time needs to be told, or taught, what is often self-evident in
the project.
A second area of influence is suggested when the investigator is given unsolicited,
positive feedback about a staff member of the project who is also a close friend of the
participant and, who needs employment! A poor evaluation of the program concerned
is seen as having the potential to disband it, resulting in unemployment of the staff
member concerned. Hence, some attempt to influence the evaluator is regarded as
legitimate. Another form of influence relates to perspectives of participants who wish
their particular viewpoint to prevail. Examples were experienced in the evaluation project
in which an attempt to legitimise a particular meaning of community development was
seen as an important issue and the definition of rural always problematic! was being
contested (Cheers, 1998). A typical remark in reference to the latter was, Bendigos not
really rural you really need to get the program out there! The investigator is
sometimes regarded as an arbitrator in such debates and if the definitions are used in the
research documentation they may be used to legitimate a particular position.
Then there is the perceived influence and power of the investigator to speak on behalf of
others and, therefore, pass on key messages that a participant wishes to have heard.
Examples of this kind of attempt to influence include:
(a) Some people were really miffed at being left out (an attempt to have a small
group recognised).
(b) There is a strong tendency not to follow up people who are outspoken and
assertive particularly if they challenge the health professionals (from an
outspoken consumer who believed she had been sidelined).
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(c) Other people just reacted with well, whats it all about? (participant
conveying that people didnt think the project was so special).
(d) I would like the contacts I make with [Agency name] to be reciprocated
(wanting a reciprocal effort to be made, but says so via the evaluation rather than
directly).
However, this information, once disguised and incorporated into the evaluation or
research report, is probably not likely to have much effect on the intended recipients.
Investigators are unlikely to relay such remarks to others and often treat them as being
ventilation. This also allows the investigator to avoid a direct response to the issue and
thus to evade the use of influence or power in such situations.
Being able to express how they felt appears to be a particularly important part of the
research interview for participants (Hawkins, 1996). This ventilation is sometimes
evident as a general sense about how the participant feels as a worker in the agency or in
the community. One, for example, said, Its hard to maintain your morale under these
circumstances. They dont recognise my skills and expertise. For some people, this
related to their position or the project being undervalued in the agency. Another said, In
many ways I dont think it was deliberately done, but I did feel a bit undermined. Some
people had raised these issues within their agency or community, but continued to feel
unheard. Being able to express their feelings, sometimes with considerable force, helped
participants to decide on a course of action, or to deal with the feelings and then let them
go. As one participant said, Thats the feeling I had and it may have been unfair, but
thats how I felt!.
For staff from rural areas it was often particularly helpful to have someone from outside
their immediate community who could be trusted to maintain confidentiality and to whom
they could express their feelings. Several didnt want to be regarded as undermining the
credibility of a project, or their role in it, but needed to express their doubts to somebody.
As one said, It just didnt seem to me to be particularly well thought out in terms of what
the worker was supposed to actually do!.
Engagement in evaluation and research is often used by participants to access support and
dialogue. Many of those interviewed in the project felt they worked in isolation in some
sense. Some staff worked from home, others were in offices, but not necessarily with
people who were interested in, aware of, or sympathetic to the issues and dilemmas of
their role. As interviewers, it was evident that participants in the studies wanted our role
to include providing responses to their needs (Ryan, 1996). Given our own work
backgrounds, we could also genuinely understand the issues people raised and respond in
a supportive manner. Participants frequently reflected on how helpful it was to be able to
use the interviews to think about what they were doing, making comments like, this is
my debriefing, or this is my therapeutic session. One participant described the sessions
as really quite cathartic. Talking over the difficulties of the job was often seen as
valuable: Its hard to be on the line, representing an organisation that youre not really
familiar with.
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For some participants, knowing the interviewer had specific knowledge and experience
helped, particularly for roles which required working in a rural community: Its pretty
isolated working from home. Theres no one to bounce ideas off. I need to talk with
someone who understands rurality. This was important for both those who lived and
worked in rural areas, and those coming from outside: Its a no-win situation
Youre always seen as an outsider if youre not local or resident in the area. For others
understanding the complexity of the work role was important, having a sense of the
organisational dynamics: People dont understand the amount of effort it takes to ensure
that everyone is on the same wavelength about the project. For some, the relationship
was an opportunity to talk with a peer and they valued the level of mutual exchange and
opportunity to discuss ideas.
One of the dangers of this for the investigator is the potential for being swayed by the
views and experiences of the workers. Workers often have their own perceptions of what
should be happening in an organisation, conflicts with other staff and agendas relating to
their work area. As the evaluator, you may not hear the other stories of people involved.
Anyone who has worked in the human service field is likely to be conscious of how
differently five people will experience the same meeting. This raises the dilemma of how
much weight to give to the views of particular workers.
In addition, participants may ask your opinion about an issue or a particular situation:
Do you think its fair that ?. When a relationship of some depth and trust has been
established, the evaluator/researcher may feel quite uncomfortable in taking refuge in the
notion of objectivity. However, the possibilities of being misquoted or used to support a
political position have their own dangers. This is a very real dilemma for those
undertaking both evaluations and research projects.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Being aware of the unanticipated in evaluative and research activities shifts such
experiences into the realm of possible even likely events to be considered as part of
methodology and strategy. Talking openly about the unanticipated is a first step rather
than avoiding discussion of the many, very human, interactions that make up the
investigatory process. A key area for learning is how to build in strategies for dealing
with these dilemmas, often ethical, in new projects. One way to tackle this is to identify
the issues with participants and other stakeholders (for instance, funding bodies) in the
initial discussions about a project and developing helpful guidelines for everyone to use.
Investigators in evaluation and research activities need to develop the confidence to talk
about the kinds of information that will potentially emerge in the course of interviews.
This may provide direct and indirect means for both participant and investigator to decide
what information they want made explicit. For example, there are a number of purposes
for which participants might be given transcripts of their interviews, but an important one
might be to enable them to decide what information is used and which might need to be
deleted.
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Raising the potential for dilemmas in the research process, and naming them (as
ventilation, debriefing, etc.), may also contribute to participants dealing with issues in a
more appropriate context. For instance, in the writers experience, participants using the
interviews for supervision, consultation, support and training lacked these opportunities
on a day-to-day basis. If these needs had been met through the more appropriate
mechanisms of supervision and in-service training, it is likely that the need for such
relationships with the evaluators would have been lessened. However, those who were
involved in the project learned that attending to their needs in these areas is best attended
to when commencing a project role and are unlikely to fail to address these issues in the
future.
For those undertaking research and evaluation activities, the question of how one learns
to deal with emerging dilemmas is of paramount importance. The unintended aspects of
investigation need expertise and commitment to manage emotional, intellectual and social
issues that emerge in the process of investigation and subsequent choices about data.
Always investigators must balance academic, professional, personal and political
demands. However, the task would be much less onerous if we could share ideas and
strategies about the excluded in evaluation and research this paper being one small
attempt to open up the dialogue.
References
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Blaikie, N. (1993). Approaches to social enquiry. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
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academic staff working in a non-traditional program think it takes? Paper presented at the
Conference on Lifelong Learning, Central Queensland University. Rockhampton, Australia.
Cheers, B. (1998). Welfare bushed: Social care in rural Australia. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
DePoy, E., Hartman, A., & Haslett, D. (1999). Critical action research: A model for social work
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Fook, J. (1996). Making connections: Reflective practices and formal theories. In J. Fook (Ed.),
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French, S. (1993). Telling. In P. Shakespeare, D. Atkinson & S. French (Eds.), Reflecting on
research practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
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Publications.
Hawkins, L. (1996). Participation of the researched: Tensions between different paradigms. In J.
Fook (Ed.), The reflective researcher (pp. 97-110). St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Healy, B. (1996). In doing you learn: Some reflections on practice research on an advocacy
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Unwin.
Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative inquiry. London: Sage.
Johns, C., & Freshwater, D. (Eds.). (1998). Transforming nursing through reflective practice.
Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science.
Jorgenson, J. (1991). Constructing the interviewer/co-constructing family. In F. Steier (Ed.),
Research and reflexivity (pp. 210225). London: Sage.
Lincoln, Y. S. (1995). Emerging criteria for quality in qualitative and interpretative research.
Qualitative Inquiry, September 1995, 275289
McDermott, F. (1996). Social work research: Debating the boundaries. Australian Social Work,
49(1), 510.
McNamee, S. (1994). Research a relationally situated activity: Ethical implications. Journal of
Feminist Family Therapy, 6(3), 6983.
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Morgan, G. (1983). Research as engagement, In G. Morgan (Ed.), Beyond Method: Strategies for
social research. Newbury Park, California: Sage.
Patton, M. (1987). How to use qualitative methods in evaluation. Newbury Park, California: Sage.
Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research method (2nd ed.). California: Sage.
Patton, M. (1997). Utilization-focused evaluation (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Reason, P. (Ed.) (1988). Ventures in co-operative inquiry: Whole person medical practice. In P.
Reason (Ed.), Human inquiry in action: Developments in new paradigm research (pp.
102126). London: Sage.
Ryan, M. (1996). Doing longitudinal research: A personal reflection. In J. Fook (Ed.), The
reflective researcher (pp. 111124). St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Shakespeare, P., Atkinson, D., & French, S. (1993). Reflecting on research practice. Buckingham:
Open University Press.
Sheppard, M., Newstead, S., Di Caccavo, A., & Ryan, K. (2000). Reflexivity and the development
of process knowledge in social work: A classification and empirical study. British Journal of
Social Work, 30(4), 465488.
Smyth, A., & Holian, R. (1999, July). The credibility of the researcher who does research in their
own organisation: The perils of participant observation. Paper presented at the Australian
Qualitative Research Conference, Melbourne, Victoria.
Steier, F. (Ed.). (1991). Research and reflexivity. London: Sage Publications.
Taylor, B. (2000). Reflective practice: A guide for nurses and midwives. St Leonards, NSW: Allen
& Unwin.
Wadsworth, Y. (1991). Everyday evaluation on the run. Melbourne: Action Research Issues
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Wadsworth, Y. (1997). Do it yourself social research (2nd ed.). St Leonards, NSW:
Allen & Unwin.
Zeira, A., & Rosen, A. (2000). Unraveling tacit knowledge: What social workers do and why
they do it. Social Service Review, 74(1), 103123.
FIONA GARDNER (BA, DipSocStud (Melbourne) MSc(SocWk)
(Bristol)) is a Lecturer who coordinates the Social Work Department at La
Trobe University, Bendigo Campus. She previously worked in a range of
positions across the health and welfare field. Her research interests
include program evaluation, teaching and learning, the connections
between community work and casework, public welfare and rural social
work.
Contact details
La Trobe University
Bendigo Campus
Edwards Road
Bendigo, Victoria 3550
Australia
Phone: +61-3-5444-7232
Fax: +61-3544-47977
Email: F.Gardner@bendigo.latrobe.edu.au
JENNIFER LEHMANN (BA, DipSocStud (Melbourne) MsocSci
(Community Services Management) RMIT) lectures in Social Work at La
Trobe University, Bendigo Campus after many years in social work
practice and in management of community services. Her research interests
encompass social work management, program evaluation and qualitative
approaches, particularly those which use narrative data.
Contact details:
La Trobe University
Bendigo Campus
Edwards Road
Bendigo, Victoria 3550
Australia
Phone: +61-3-5444-7851
Fax: +61-3-5444-7977
Email: j.lehmann@bendigo.latrobe.edu.au
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M e t a p h o r s w e l i v e b y / D e n s h i r e ( 1 9 p a g e s ) 2 8
Metaphors we live by: ways of
imagining practice
Sally Denshire, School of Community Health, Charles Sturt University
ABSTRACT
The study of metaphor may seem removed from the practice of occupational
therapy. However, through exploring how occupational therapists use metaphor it is
possible to reach new understandings of occupational therapy practice in a not
dissimilar way to the lateral thinking in problem-solving for which occupational
therapists are anecdotally renowned. For my research into the phenomenon of
reflection in occupational therapy practice I adapted Deshlers (1990) steps for
metaphor analysis because of the autobiographical and hermeneutic bias of my
inquiry. From a pool of metaphors which carried themes implicit in my belief
system, seven key metaphors in published writings were selected by theme for in-
depth analysis.
This paper focuses on two of these analyses. The first metaphor analysis in the
series uncovers an occupational therapists creative and spiritual roles. The final
metaphor analysis reveals the experience of occupational engagement as everyday
ritual. As the metaphor analyses illustrate, the language in my writing carries certain
values and beliefs that have been used to make sense of the world as I see it. The
values in these metaphors then inform personal principles and concepts in a
developmental model of practice. The personal principles a practitioner may hold
are imbued with the values and attitudes carried in the metaphors they use.
Metaphor analysis offers a new strategy for exploring implicit knowledge in the
human-related professions.
INTRODUCTION
At first, the study of metaphor may seem removed from the pragmatic practice of
occupational therapy. However, through exploring how occupational therapists use
metaphor it is possible to reach new understandings of practice in a not dissimilar way to
the lateral thinking in problem-solving for which occupational therapists are
anecdotally renowned.
This paper reports on a significant part of the research I undertook between 1997 and
2000 into reflection in occupational therapy practice (see Figure 1) for the degree of
Masters in Applied Science Occupational Therapy. My intent is to convey something of
the process of analysing a series of metaphors that I have used in my writings as a youth-
specific occupational therapist. What I have come to understand in revisiting my writings
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is that the personal and professional flow together in confluence. In this paper I will
consider dimensions of metaphor and metaphor analysis with a focus on two of the
metaphor analyses in the series.
METAPHOR
I will begin by examining the anatomy of metaphor. Is metaphor just a figure of speech,
an ornamental device or does it have cognitive force? A metaphor bridges two distinct
semantic realms. Metaphors are pervasive in our everyday speech and writing and are
what Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have referred to in their title as the metaphors we live
by. We can understand metaphors as lived because they mediate our experiences.
Deshler recommends a broad, popular definition of metaphor as any comparison that
cannot be taken literally (Bartel, 1983, p. 3, cited in Deshler, 1990, p. 297). He notes that
metaphors have two subjects -- a primary subject and a metaphoric subject (Black, 1962,
cited in Deshler, 1990, p. 297). Further, the meaning of the metaphor is found in the
interaction between these two subjects which are better regarded as systems of belief than
as individual things. This emphasis on belief systems is pertinent to the analysis of
metaphor in my writings because belief systems are produced through metaphor. How we
act in the world and how we think are always metaphorical.
Richardson (1994) describes metaphor as the backbone of social science writing. She
writes: Like the spine, it bears weight, permits movement, is buried beneath the surface,
and links parts together in a functional, coherent whole (p. 519). The essence of
metaphor is the experiencing and understanding of one thing in terms of another. Social
scientific writing uses metaphors at every level. Often the values in metaphors enable
them to pass as literal terms rather than terms with figurative meanings. We speak of the
skeleton and the heart of a thesis, of songs in the key of life and of the head of an
organisation without realising we are using metaphors. In this way metaphors become
truths within practice that can remain unquestioned and constrain other ways of
knowing.
Blackburn (1996) calls metaphor the most important figure of speech. Philosophers ask
how the border between literal and metaphoric meaning is to be drawn, how we can
interpret metaphors with speed and certainty and whether they are vehicles of
understanding or only signposts. So: Metaphorical expressions in everyday language can
give us insight into the metaphorical nature of the concepts that structure our everyday
activities (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 7).
Miles and Huberman (1994) describe metaphor as conveying a more complete sense of
meaning of a process or event than would a literal description. This capacity which
metaphor has to capture an experience is illustrated by the metaphor Hospital Shock
(Clarke, 1976), a book title which has been a significant reference throughout my work
on youth-specific occupational therapy practice (Denshire, 1984, 1985b, 1993, 1996) in
which the author, Anne Clarke, recounts her experience of being in hospital and her
observations about the culture of hospital.
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A shock is a blow, fright, or electric surge. Hospital is a place where sick and injured
people are given medical treatment. When shock is used in reference to the site of
hospital, it is as if hospital is somehow responsible for the shock and hospital is
personified as an entity which causes shock. This hospital-being is comprised of many
elements. Is it staff who cause the shock, or is it buildings, equipment, procedures, or
other patients? Perhaps it is the sum total of all these things that can result in
disorientation, alienation and a sense of powerlessness for the person who is designated
the role of patient.
Another advantage of metaphor cited by Miles and Huberman (1994) is its value in data
synthesis and pattern making. In this way the analysis of metaphor has relevance to
reinterpretation and to theory construction for this study. In fact, Black (1993) draws an
analogy to an iceberg when he suggests that every metaphor is the tip of a submerged
model, an attribute which makes metaphor particularly relevant as a tool of analysis in
this study where a developmental model has been constructed.
With the surfacing of non-propositional knowledge (Polyani, 1966) by practitioners in
the human services it is timely for researchers and practitioners to investigate the beliefs
carried in the language we use to talk and write about practice. Such investigation permits
us to experience what Kittay (1987) has called the cognitive efficacy of metaphor (p.
9). The changes in creativity in language and in the history of science that are of
relevance to philosophers are also of potential concern to occupational therapy
researchers.
Kittay points out current shifts in thinking which I consider relevant to the use of
metaphor analysis in occupational therapy because of their antireductionist stance. These
shifts are a move towards analysis of ordinary language, a questioning of the notion of
the given, a breakdown of the synthetic/analytic distinction, an insistence on the theory-
ladenness of observational terms and progress in linguistics in formulating precise ways
of representing natural language. According to Kittay, metaphors allow epistemic
access (p. 39) and hold metaphorical truth (p. 303). Finally, she explains that the
cognitive content of metaphor is irreducible. My reading of what she says here is that a
metaphor can hold the essence or germ of an idea.
Thompson (1983) explains that Ricoeur maintains that the primary metaphorical unit is
not the word but the sentence. Further, that metaphor presupposes the establishment of a
tension between two terms in a sentence through the violation of a linguistic code (p. 50).
I have observed his preference for considering the context of the whole sentence in
presenting the metaphor analyses later in this paper. Ricoeur (Valds, 1991, p. 15) has
identified metaphor as the main source of semantic innovation and linguistic evolution
and, therefore, as a major question for various approaches to hermeneutics. In this way he
links philosophy and language, two of the major intellectual underpinnings of this study.
Against metaphor
Susan Peloquin (1996, 1998) is an occupational therapy academic who writes lucidly on
the merits of exposure to art and literature for the practitioner. Given these are her areas
of interest it is reasonable to expect that she would write in favour of metaphoric
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language. On this occasion (1990), however, she refers to what she calls lurid
metaphors in her critique of the meanings that were attributed to understandings of
AIDS at the beginning of this decade (1990, p. 276). Sontag has suggested that metaphors
often become vehicles for our anxieties about feeling (Sontag, 1977, p. 84, cited in
Peloquin, 1990, p. 272).
While Peloquin does turn to the literary world and to contemporary playwrights to
understand contagion and the AIDS experience in her closing section, she does not seem
ready to invoke the creation of new metaphors, metaphors which are not lurid as a
means of transcending fear. What Kittay has called the cognitive force of metaphor is
not acknowledged in my reading of Peloquin.
It is commonly suggested that the use of metaphors can be simply an excuse for sloppy
thinking, that they are somehow lesser because it is assumed that they stem from fiction
which is regarded as inferior to fact. Metaphor is listed merely as a linguistic device in
the fifth edition of the publication manual American Psychological Association
(American Psychological Association, 1994). The reader is cautioned to use metaphors
sparingly; although they can help simplify complicated ideas, metaphors can be
distracting (p. 46). At least the cognitive power of metaphor is grudgingly alluded to
here. But a certain scientific distaste for figurative language is also conveyed, as if there
is no place for such a writing style in the neutral use of scientific language.
Occupational therapists who accept this recommendation without qualification may do
the documentation of our practice a disservice. In disregarding the vitality of practice and
the new understandings that metaphor can contain, we may reduce our public writing to
the procedural rather than capturing the essence of a complex practice. Such views on
metaphor continue to polarise literal and metaphoric meanings, rather than to recognise
that meanings are fluid.
However, there has been a fear of metaphor and rhetoric throughout history, as Lakoff
and Johnson (1980) have explained. The split between objectivity and subjectivity is at
the root of this fear, which has existed in the objectivist stance of quantitative research in
the health sciences which privileges the literal rather than the metaphoric and fact
rather than fiction. This fear of subjectivity is implicit in much current occupational
therapy practice with the valuing of objective over subjective and in the scientific
neutral use of clinical terms.
However, neither should subjectivity and the Romantic tradition hold sway. What is
needed for a deeper understanding of practice is a tool that enables reflection through a
combination of imagination and reason (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Metaphor can be used
in this way. While we can never exist outside of language we can move within it. In order
to come to a better understanding of the true extent of practice we need to keep
experimenting with ways of writing about occupational therapy. The metaphoric level is
one way of doing this.
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Metaphor in personal and professional contexts
Conle (1996) explains that the term resonance was originally used by the literary critic
Northrop Frye (p. 310). He used images and specific metaphors from the Bible, notably
the grapes of wrath to illustrate resonance. Resonance has been described as
metaphoric correspondence. The key structure in the resonance process is metaphor.
Conle (1996, p. 297) describes resonance as a process she observed:
through experiential storytelling, preservice teachers connected specific items in current or
past experiences to a narrative of their own or someone elses experience. Subconsciously,
they created metaphorical correspondences between two sets of narrativised experiences.
The important binary relationship which Conle identifies parallels the phenomenon I am
describing. This is simply that those values which continue across personal and
professional worlds have a certain resonance which is carried in metaphors. And that
metaphors themselves manifest a certain resonance between their disparate domains, in
their bundle of shared meaning.
Educational activists make use of metaphor to make connections between the personal
and professional life of teachers. Palmer (1997), for example, writes about the inner
landscape of a teachers life in his discussion of identity and integrity in teachers (p. 15).
Metaphors also abound in what could be regarded, to use a dead metaphor, as the
bastion of scientific discourse: the biomedical literature. According to Mattingly (1994,
p. 42), biomedicine is organised around several potent metaphors. The way in which
cancer is described using the terminology of warfare has been documented by Sontag
(1977). Such metaphors serve to separate the person from the disease in contrast to the
life-oriented metaphors discussed in the occupational literature.
Metaphor in the occupational therapy literature
In their landmark ethnographic study of clinical reasoning, Mattingly and Fleming
document the deeper meaning of the activities that therapists use as metaphors for
complex actions (Fleming, 1994). Games and artefacts used in therapy sessions can take
on symbolic meanings, a symbolic level of practice which is under-documented in the
Australian literature (Hocking & Wilcock, 1997).
Some therapists interpret clients metaphors, whereas other therapists are more
comfortable with staying at the procedural level of practice. Mattingly and Fleming found
that the metaphoric message of everyday activities tended to be stored up and then
recalled during later therapeutic encounters (Fleming, 1994). Crabtree (1998), in her
recent discussion of images of clinical reasoning used by occupational therapists in the
literature since 1982, described the rope, threads plaited and tying the ends
together (p. 121) as logical, story-oriented, relational and phenomenological ways in
which therapists have conceptualised the complex processes of clinical reasoning.
Fazio (1992) presents ways in which occupational therapists use story-telling and other
metaphoric forms in their work with children and adolescents, including those in hospital.
She considers the therapeutic power of the metaphor in terms of psycholinguistics and the
ability of psychosocial practitioners to use metaphorical communications to communicate
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
simultaneously with the conscious and unconscious mind of the client in therapy sessions.
She notes the ability of very young children to pretend and communicate metaphorically,
as do Game and Metcalfe (1996).
What Fazio calls living metaphors are similar activities to those we used with young
people in hospital in the Youth Arts Program. Fazio refers directly to the imagination of
the occupational therapist when she says that the techniques presented in her paper can
act as stimuli to guide the occupational therapists creative imagination toward more
meaningful therapeutic outcomes (p. 119).
In the literature of occupational science, Pierce (1996) examines images and analogies
that are to do with the work of scholars. She cites Clifford Geertz (1983), who has
speculated that there has been a shift in the metaphors that scholars use from those of
machinery and hard science to more humanistic representations including drama, text and
the game. The scholars Pierce interviewed about their work, tended to describe what they
did in terms of other forms of work. The men she interviewed gave farming analogies,
whereas the women spoke in terms of the work of the housewife, of love and cooking
(p. 131) spanning personal and professional domains. Professors described their scholarly
work as a puzzle (p. 132). It is not surprising to find such an occupational emphasis in
the language of scholars who study what humans do.
METHOD
The study
In my own research I used a deep level of reflection combining metaphor analysis and
terminology-based analysis to reinterpret my practice as an occupational therapist through
my writings. My contemplation occurred at the confluence point of the social sciences
and the humanities (Tesch, 1990, p. 69) and my inquiry was simultaneously critical and
reflective. Figure 1 depicts graphically the journey of reflection I undertook.
Articulate thoughts by
laying open patterns
of thinking
Developmental model and
reinterpretation of practice
To the explication of
occupational understanding
From an under-
ground practice
Becoming aware of my
world view
Autobiographic reflection
How my being in the world
manifests in my practice
Terminology-based
analysis and metaphor
analysis
F i g u r e 1 : T h e
j o u r n e y o f
r e f l e c t i o n
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The data
The data for analysis were nine pieces of my writing from 19832000. They consist of six
publications about the evolution of my occupational therapy practice, a published
childbirth report with me as a client, a co-authored book chapter and an unpublished
transcript of spoken narrative and reflection about particular life experiences. This data-
set is an autobiographical sequence of stories about practice and life comprising my
writings premotherhood (Denshire, 1984, 1985a, 1985b; Denshire & Bennett, 1985) and
writings since becoming a mother (Denshire, 1989, 1993, 1996; Denshire & Fortune,
unpublished transcript, 1998; Denshire & Ryan, in press).
Tools of analysis
Language-based analysis, consisting of a combination of metaphor analysis and
terminology-based analysis, is my methodological technique (Deshler, 1990; Winchester,
1998). It has been used to seek out themes and reflect on personal-professional linkages
arising in the data. A companion paper on the methodology of terminology-based
analysis, derived from lexicography that I used is in press.
Processes of metaphor analysis
My analysis in this paper is of figures of speech, specifically metaphor (Deshler, 1990).
Significant metaphors in the data are unpacked to attain progressively deeper levels of
meaning about the contexts and concepts which comprise practice. During critical
reflection about my life-writing, I identified particular figures of speech that were
compelling in that they conveyed my desire for a creative practice of occupational
therapy. For example, the key metaphor identified was:
The Occupational Therapist integrates the firelight of creativity. (Hurst, 1988, p. 161, cited
in Denshire, 1993, p. 24).
I found this sentence containing a metaphor in the references at the end of one of my
articles (Denshire, 1993). This metaphor, about what author Stephanie Hurst considered
to be one of the tasks of an occupational therapist, resonated in my imagination because
of its alchemical symbolism and because of its ambiguity which leaves the meanings of
integrates and firelight of creativity open to the interpretation of the reader.
Imagination is something involved in any flexible rehearsal of different approaches to a
problem wrongly thought of as opposed to reason (Blackburn, 1996, p. 187). Such
processes of imagination are central to metaphor analysis, because of the necessity to
sense connotations and blend concepts in new ways when carrying out this sort of
analysis. Metaphor analysis also employs a type of phenomenological reflection.
Phenomenological reflection involves a subjective process of delving into a phenomenon
and approaching it from different angles, taking metaphorical, poetic or mythical
perspectives (Tesch, 1990) by working in the space between language and experience.
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Of particular relevance to the analysis is Deshlers explanation of metaphor analysis:
To interpret any metaphor, an intuitive leap to connect aspects of two distinct semantic
realms is required. The subjects in juxtaposition are both similar and dissimilar and it is the
readers task to construe shared features (1990, p. 297).
The border between the literal and the figurative meaning (Blackburn, 1996) is of
relevance here. Metaphors that are external to the particular piece of research, that seem
incongruous at a superficial level, can prefigure the analysis by bringing a truth value
code belonging to another domain, as suggested by Jameson (1981, cited in Richardson,
1994, p. 519).
I used Deshlers (1990) steps as a starting point for analysis and tailored them for the
purposes of this study (see Table 1). My main criteria for adaptation were first, that I
particularly wanted to use the method to trace beliefs carried in metaphors used in my
life-writing. Second, I did not find Deshlers temporal emphasis to be particularly
historic. Rather, he stressed the opportunity for emancipation provided by metaphor
analysis done in discussion groups within adult education contexts. So I made some
changes to reflect my autobiographical and hermeneutic bias.
In each metaphor analysis, I began by citing the nominated metaphor in a sentence and
introducing the criteria I used in my analysis, that is., the characteristic of occupational
engagement and the personal value in that metaphor. I return to the example in order to
clarify this rather abstract format, The Occupational Therapist integrates the firelight of
creativity (Hurst, 1988, p. 161, cited in Denshire, 1993, p. 24).
The characteristic of occupational engagement under consideration is the creative process
and the corresponding personal value carried in that metaphor is that of human creativity.
The context of the writing in which the metaphor is used is explained and my career
phase at the time of writing is given. Then, I unpack the meaning of the metaphor by
describing in detail its meaning to a literal subject. Because of the subjective nature of the
analysis, I use personal understandings rather than dictionary definitions to unpack the
meaning of each word. I then reflect on values, beliefs and assumptions embedded in the
literal and figurative meanings of the metaphor.
I question the metaphors meaning by comparing the metaphors connotations with my
life experience, knowledge, values and belief systems to confirm or deny the meanings
derived from the metaphor. And finally, I ask whether I now affirm these same
assumptions, beliefs, values or understandings.
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T a b l e 1 : M y s t e p s f o r m e t a p h o r a n a l y s i s
( e x c e p t f o r s t e p 5 , a d a p t e d f r o m D e s h l e r , 1 9 9 0 )
1. Cite metaphor in a sentence (from reference list/writings/recollections),
with the title of metaphor analysis, occupational characteristic and
personal values.
2. Context
Explain context of metaphor and career phase.
3. Meaning
Unpack one metaphor by describing in detail its meaning to a primary
subject.
4. Reflection
Reflect on values, beliefs and assumptions in the meanings of the
metaphor.
5. Question the validity of this metaphors meaning by comparing this with my
life experience, knowledge, information and values of belief systems that
confirm or deny the meanings derived from the metaphors. Do I now affirm
these same assumptions, beliefs, values or understandings?
6. Discuss my beliefs as they relate to the occupational characteristic carried
in the metaphor.
I will return to the example I used earlier, The Occupational Therapist integrates the
firelight of creativity (Hurst, 1988, p. 161, cited in Denshire, 1993, p. 24). This metaphor
invokes ancient symbolism to describe what may be an unexpected task for occupational
therapists in the present efficiency-driven climate where the artistry of practice is
frequently devalued.
The study uses metaphor analysis as a means of reconfiguring the relationship between
personal and professional domains. The space between literal and figurative levels of
meaning is of particular interest because of symbolic aspects of occupation raised in this
inquiry. At this stage of the professions development the symbolic level is more often
part of an underground practice (Fleming & Mattingly, 1994). We can use metaphor
analysis to open professional ethics to different forms of knowledge.
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SELECTED FINDINGS FOR METAPHOR ANALYSIS
The practice of occupational therapy is never neutral. It always stems from a composition
of beliefs, values and ways of imagining which are constituted within the language we
use to describe practice. In order to map my current understanding of the phenomenon of
personalprofessional confluence I selected language which reveals the belief system
embedded in my writings.
I have found Moustakas (1990) phases of heuristic research can be useful signposts for
communicating about metaphor analysis. I have used his framework to discover what was
in my writings. This paper organises my findings for metaphor analysis into early phases,
the phase of illumination and the phase of explication.
Early phases
My engagement with my writings in the early stages of analysis was a period of sorting
and adjusting for me. This phase involved sorting my writings into piles that could yield
meaningful data for subsequent analysis and adjusting to the notion of critically
reviewing my own work and remaining true to the data I had in hand. Inevitably, it was a
period of trial and error.
Given that my professional writings were about life occupations and if we accept the
concept of personalprofessional confluence it follows that my personal framework is
inherently occupational. At this stage the task was to find an appropriate methodology to
help me answer the question about understanding personalprofessional confluence in my
writings as an occupational therapist, and developing a model from the findings. In short,
I had to find the best way to work with the data to come up with a model.
Then, an unscheduled and serendipitous reflective task presented itself. I was invited to
collaborate on an autobiographical narrative and reflection during a writers retreat. The
collaborative writing of this chapter acted as a catalyst, shedding light on the entire
process of analysis because of the distinctly autobiographical nature of both the writing
and the inquiry. The chapter (Denshire & Ryan, in press) and interview (Denshire &
Fortune, unpublished transcript) were subsequently included in the data-set.
I followed values in my belief system that were already mentioned in my
autobiographical interview and reflection (Denshire & Ryan, in press), to see how they
manifested themselves across the complete data-set and I started to make longitudinal
connections. Sometimes, values were manifested in metaphors or connected to metaphors
in some way. This process organised the metaphors and other figurative language on web
charts according to personal values such as human creativity (see Figure 2).
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F i g u r e 2 : F i g u r a t i v e l a n g u a g e r e l a t e d t o h u m a n c r e a t i v i t y
HUMAN
CREATIVITY
Valuing creative world,
creativity of humans "played
out" in my practice
Door: a centre of
alternatives
Use their imagination
The new and untried
Working on "the edge"
Senses are heightened
Open the window
Contact initially
self-generated
Release this innovative
potential in people
The creation of masks, etc.,
storytelling workshop
OT integrates the
firelight of creativity
Outside the mainstream
Everyday moments
of discovery
New lands
A new approach
New ways
Is a sort of motif in my work
Values very different
Pioneering and innovative
approach is isolation,
feel at variance
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The phase of illumination
My reflections on two of the seven essential metaphors that emerged in the phase of
illumination are analysed below. The task for this phase was to discover how personal
values are carried in language. Here I present analyses of two essential metaphors with
individual titles that bring out the occupational characteristics of everyday ritual. Each of
these characteristics corresponds with a personal value. Towards the end of each analysis
I talk about my beliefs as they relate to the occupational characteristic carried in the
metaphor.
Creativity as firelight
The Occupational Therapist integrates the firelight of creativity (Hurst 1988, p. 161,
cited in Denshire, 1993, p. 24).
Context
This is a metaphor in the title that Stephanie Hurst gave to her workshop at the Australian
national occupational therapy conference in 1988. As I have already mentioned, this
metaphor is one of the references in my occupational analysis of the Youth Arts Program
at the Childrens Hospital (Denshire, 1993).
This article was written when I was a research occupational therapist. I cite the work of
Hurst in a discussion of creativity, something which Miller and Fox have called the
forgotten link in occupational therapy (1988, p. 3, cited in Denshire, 1993, p. 19). This
citation is in a section on theoretical considerations, where I begin to explore the
derivation of youth creativity as a philosophy of approach. The discussion takes
interdisciplinary perspectives into account and, in particular, questions the domain of
concern of occupational therapy, specifically occupational therapy with young people
(Denshire, 1993).
Meaning
Describing the occupational therapy practitioner as integrating the firelight of creativity
implies an energy, a spark transmitted in the creative act which keep fires burning. Fire is
an ancient symbol in alchemy, the mediaeval form of chemistry which tried to find ways
of changing all metals into gold. This firelight does not appear to be owned; rather my
understanding is that it fuels a common energy which can be drawn on.
What is it that the occupational therapist changes in her interaction with the patient?
Perhaps she integrates the firelight, meaning she can be a catalyst to creativity by relating
to the client as what Clark, Ennevor and Richardson (1996, p. 374) have referred to as an
occupational being rather than as a patient. In the same vein, Moreno (1978) in
Metaphor
Creativity as firelight
Occupational
characteristics
Creative process
Personal values
Human creativity
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theorising about psychodrama maintains that creativity and spontaneity are
complementary.
Reflection
There are values of healing and creativity at work in this metaphor, aligning the work
done by occupational therapists with the alchemical and the metaphysical. This
particularly alternative view of therapy is one which I can only now explicate within the
phenomenological, hermeneutic level of thinking enabled by this inquiry. This metaphor
can be regarded as the organising metaphor in the metaphor analyses. It subsumes the
others because of its power to shed light on the symbolic nature of occupational therapy.
The intuitive, imprecise experiences of humans with light sources and with fire can be
seen as primeval, beyond everyday meaning, as metaphysical.
In reflecting on my autobiographical narrative, I link creativity and innovation when I
say:
I value the creative world and anything to do with creativity and humans is important to me
as an individual. That value is certainly played out in my practice as it would be in a lot of
occupational therapists practice Innovation is a sort of motif in my work and in my life.
It's like working on the edge, I would like to make what is often called nonprepositional
knowledge visible. We need to articulate things that are outside the mainstream. So yes,
innovation is a key component in what I do (Denshire & Fortune, unpublished transcript).
Beliefs to do with valuing the creative world and the creativity of humans recur in my
writings. These beliefs are carried in other metaphors such as work of art and
creativity, the forgotten link in occupational therapy. Such metaphors can serve to
remind those who may have forgotten that the practice of occupational therapy stems
from both art and science. The nexus of creativity and spirituality is clearly apparent in
the final metaphor analysis which follows.
Occupational therapist as Pied Piper
T h a t O T s a P i e d P i p e r ! ( u n s p e c i f i e d r e c o l l e c t i o n )
Context
The act of reflecting on my written data also caused me to recollect things that were not
recorded. One unspecified comment concerned me being referred to as a Pied Piper
(Marelles, 1977, p. 120) in my role as youth-specific occupational therapist.
Meaning
The old story of the Pied Piper, in which a charismatic stranger spirits away the towns
children with music (after not being paid for ridding the town of rats) can be construed as
being about the power of music to enchant (Bettelheim, 1976). But it can also have the
more sinister connotation of the Piper leading away forever all the children of the town
except the lame boy. Here, I am being referred to as this fairytale character by another
staff member.
Metaphor
Occupational therapist
as Pied Piper
Occupational
characteristics
Ritual magic
Personal values
Broad spirituality
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Reflection
Given that occupational therapy sessions with young people in hospital often took place
in the youth centre across the road from the hospital, perhaps the youth-specific
occupational therapist was regarded as someone who took young people to an unseen
place, hidden from the gaze of ward staff. The emphasis on peer group work and creative
occupation was not well understood by some medical and nursing staff in the early years
of the program. But gradually this changed as the underground practice became more
public.
Now the New Childrens Hospital has institutionalised fantasy elements in its design and
architecture. Play has metaphysical elements. I am reminded of the anthroposophical
belief in the wisdom of fairytales (Grahl, 1970). I wonder how such ancient beliefs can be
reconciled with modern medicine? Melucci (1996) considers questions of space, time and
ritual magic in therapy despite the estrangement of illness by technological apparatus. An
element of magic is common to both the experience of ritual and the play of metaphor to
create new meanings (Game & Metcalfe, 1996).
More than once, charge sisters reminded me that, this is a hospital, not a circus, when I
requested space or other resources to use for art-making or performance by young people
in hospital. Circus has connotations of noise and commotion, colour and movement, of
the throng and the carnival, which contrast to the attitude that hospital is a still, solitary
place of compliance and silence with no colours. The speaker implied that there were
expected standards of behaviour in the institution and that requests for occupational
resources did not fit with these standards.
Now, my students create lifespan rituals and exhibitions in the subjects I teach. The
occupational characteristic of ritual magic ties in with my personal value concerned with
a broad spirituality. The meaning I attribute to ritual magic is concerned with the
ineffable, inexplicable processes of healing and transformation that self-expression can
elicit. I have facilitated ritual behind the hospital walls, and community theatre and
performance are part of my heritage as shown in my autobiographical reflection:
I remember at that time I did some corporeal mime for expressive rather than performative
reasons. Then I saw the job at the Childrens Hospital and applied for that. (Denshire &
Ryan, in press)
The phase of explication
In this final phase of metaphor analysis I set out to capture the essence in what was
revealed by the previous phase of illumination. My journal reflections in the phase of
explication were concerned with revelation of the spirituality in the everyday ritual of
engagement in occupation:
Its a surprise that spirituality is a prominent theme in my writings about practice. I didnt
think I wrote overtly about spiritual things in my public writing, even though theyve
always been significant to me personally
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The findings for my analysis revealed seven characteristics of engagement in occupation.
These seven characteristics are first, that engagement in occupation mobilises human
creativity; second, that engagement in occupation occurs in a sacred space; third, that
engagement in occupation can symbolise transition and innovation; fourth, that to engage
in occupation we use familiar objects and environments; fifth, that engagement in
occupation can redress the disruption of hospitalisation; sixth, that engagement in
occupation can be done collectively; and, finally, that engagement in occupation can
activate ritual magic.
Ultimately, the metaphor analyses reveal that the meaning I attribute to my engagement
in occupation, both personally and professionally, has characteristics of everyday ritual.
Practising occupational therapy as an everyday ritual can be transformative (do Rozario,
1994). Ritual is not just empty repetition of social convention, but an active remaking of
the world.
It is in this deepest level of analysis that I find personal values and beliefs that overarch
my working life. In fact, work is subsumed in life. I experience an interconnectedness
across life spaces. Hospital was a setting for my personal life and my work life. The
values that undergird my practice, what I see as worthy, are made explicit in the
metaphors that carry them (see Table 2).
T a b l e 2 : O c c u p a t i o n a l c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f t h e p e r s o n a l v a l u e s
c a r r i e d i n m e t a p h o r s
Personal value Metaphor Occupational characteristic
Human creativity Creativity as firelight Creative process
A broad spirituality Space as sacred The space in which
occupation occurs
Underground practice Door as symbol Transition
Interconnectedness Hospital as home Objects and environments
are familiar
Humanising institutions Hospitalisation as disruption Disruption caused by
hospitalisation
Humanising institutions Hospital as a living being Collectivity
A broad spirituality Occupational therapist Ritual magic
as Pied Piper
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CONCLUSION
An emphasis on exploring language for practice, particularly figurative language,
reverberates throughout this paper. As the metaphor analyses illustrate, the language in
my writing carries certain values and beliefs that have been used to make sense of the
world as I see it. The values in these metaphors have been used to inform personal
principles and concepts in my developmental model of practice. They are particular to
me. Other authors would use metaphors that hold personal meaning for them. The
personal principles a practitioner may hold are imbued with the values and attitudes
carried in the metaphors they use.
I have tried to convey something of the process of analysing a series of metaphors that I
have used in my writings as an occupational therapist. Inevitably, the study used
metaphor analysis as the means of reconfiguring the relation of personal and professional
domains as autobiographical. The values which I have continued to hold in my career as
an occupational therapist across my personal and professional life spaces facilitate a
confluence between personal and professional worlds for me. I perceive that personal
values relating to altruism, expressiveness and hidden practices are continuous in my
engagement in occupation as an occupational therapist, as a mother and now as an
educator and researcher.
Further research into the character of the language we use for practice is needed. To
revitalise our practice we sometimes need the freedom to experiment with the use of
images and figurative language rather than always conforming to traditional writing
styles. Aristotle wrote in praise of metaphor and poetic language:
ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best
get hold of something fresh (Rhetoric 1410b, cited in Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 190).
What Game and Metcalfe (1996, p. 44) call poetry and the play and making in
language can usefully be compared with the play and making involved in engagement in
occupation. The nonrational dimension of self needs to be able to appear as embodied
feeling and creativity, as manifestations of symbolism. In order to be open to the other in
our clients, we need to be able to be open to ourselves and to the otherness of oneself.
The use of metaphor allows us to do this.
Following the use of a history-of-ideas methodology, Hocking and Wilcock (1997)
concluded that description of the symbolic level of practice has not yet permeated the
Australian literature. Their review of the professional writings of occupational therapists
over 42 years revealed the influence of mechanistic thinking on the way therapists
perceive objects such as wheelchairs as functional tools devoid of subjective or symbolic
meaning. There is an undeniable symbolic aspect in doing everyday rituals and in the use
of objects which have particular meaning for an individual. But this level of practice is
not often articulated by therapists (Mattingly & Fleming, 1994).
While occupational therapists are already making use of metaphor in their writing this use
of figurative language can be extended. The richness of metaphor, or what Kittay (1987)
has called its cognitive force, can be used to help therapists understand the life-
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world. Metaphor analysis has emancipatory potential. Deshler (1990) notes that the
analysis of metaphors facilitates transformative learning because they exert influence on
our socialisation (p. 312). I would include professional socialisation here. Further, he
suggests that the creation of new metaphors can reinterpret oppressive social forces, such
as those associated with economic rationalism. Finally, he suggests that metaphor
analysis leads to action based on new meaning perspectives. For occupational therapists I
believe this action can be about using congruent language for practice.
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks to Dr Simone Fullagar for advice on thesis publication; to Susan Ryan for
an introduction to Deshlers method of metaphor analysis and to Colleen Mullavey-
OByrne for thesis supervision.
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SALLY DENSHIRE (Dip OT NZ, M App Sc (OT) Syd) is a Lecturer in
the School of Community Health, Charles Sturt University. Sally recently
completed her Masters degree in occupational therapy by research at the
University of Sydney. Her inquiry uses a combination of language-based
analysis methods to explore the confluence of personal and professional
life spaces in a sequence of life-writings.
Contact details:
School of Community Health
Charles Sturt University
PO Box 789
Albury, NSW 2640
Australia
Phone: +61-2-6051-6761
Fax: +61-2-6051-6989
Email: sdenshire@csu.edu.au
!
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S e l f - i n t r o s p e c t i o n a s a r e s e a r c h m o d e l / R y a n / O g i l v i e / P e t t i g r e w ( 1 1 p a g e s ) 4 7
Self-introspection as a research method
in exploring consumption behaviour at a
special event
Maria M Ryan, Madeleine Ogilvie and Simone Pettigrew, Faculty of Business and Public
Management, Edith Cowan University
ABSTRACT
The use of introspection as a data collection method has been keenly debated in
recent literature. This paper explores introspection and its use in examining
peoples' feelings and consumption behaviours at a significant event. The event
chosen for this research was the night of New Year's Eve, 1999. This time
symbolised the turn of the century for many people, providing a unique opportunity
to conduct research into consumers' thoughts, feelings and behaviours during a
significant event. The authors of this paper participated in the research process as
part of the sample. Guided introspection in the form of an open-ended question
survey instrument was employed to obtain data from a sample of 126 consumers
(including the authors). Respondents recorded their feelings and expectations for
New Year's Eve on the morning of the 31

December 1999. They were prompted to
outline if they had purchased any special items for the night, what reflections they
had at 1999 and their thoughts for the year ahead. Numerous themes emerged from
the rich, descriptive data. This paper focuses on the authors' own introspections,
discussed with reference to the emerging themes from the total sample and
detailing added insights obtained from the authors' self-analysis of their
introspections. The paper supports the use of introspection for obtaining
experiential data from participants of significant events. Furthermore, the
combination of researcher and respondent introspection methods provide a rich
and meaningful view of consumption behaviours.
INTRODUCTION
While New Year's Eve 1999 (NYE99) was not technically the eve of a new century or a
new millennium, the media attention received by the event demonstrated beyond doubt
that it was highly symbolic for millions of people around the world. Indeed, New Year's
Eve 2000, was not afforded as much attention or media focus as NYE99. Belk,
Wallendorf, and Sherry (1989) note that people are prone to defining some occasions as
sacred and others as profane. The media hype surrounding NYE99 indicated that the
event was perceived to be a sacred time in the lives of people from many cultures
around the world. The occasion thus provided an ideal opportunity to study consumption
behaviours as they occur at a time of great social significance. According to Belk et al.
(1989), people use consumption to express their values at sacred times, with consumption
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behaviours specifically used to communicate links with other individuals and with society
as a whole.
This paper discusses the use of introspection and, in particular, researcher introspection as
a data collection method to capture the feelings, reflections and anticipations of people on
New Years Eve, 1999. It proved to be a useful technique in gaining responses from
respondents who, at the time, were difficult to contact directly. The study sample of 126
respondents included the three authors of this paper. While other papers have reported
findings from the study as a whole, this paper focuses on the three researchers'
introspections, detailing added insights obtained from the authors' analysis of their own
introspections.
The paper commences with a discussion of introspection as a data collection technique.
The analysis and findings from the study are discussed with reference to the total sample.
Transcripts from the three researchers' introspections are then presented. These are
discussed with reference to the themes emerging from the data overall and with particular
emphasis on the opportunity to reflect and use retrospective introspection, incorporating
consumption behaviour analysis from the "inside" (as discussed in Gould, 1995).
INTROSPECTION IN GENERAL
Introspection as a tool for empirical consumer research has generated a great deal of
debate in the literature (Ericson & Simon, 1980; Gould, 1995; Hixon & Swann, 1993;
Nisbett & DeCamp Wilson, 1977; Wallendorf & Brucks, 1993; White, 1980). It was first
used in the field of psychology, and documented in the late 1800s (Boring, 1953). Boring
(1953, p. 170) states that introspection involves looking into our own minds and
reporting what we there discover. Gould (1995) defines introspection as internal
focusing. The essence of introspection is self-reflection. It is often in the form of verbal
reports or narratives from respondents, with limited researcher probing or guidance. The
technique aims to explore the feelings and emotions associated with the experiences of
the respondent that may not be overtly apparent to others (Wallendorf & Brucks, 1993).
Early empiricists held the view that ideas of the mind came from either experience of the
world which caused feelings and sensations, or from reflection which was the inner
sense that provided knowledge of the minds behaviour (Boring, 1953). Both sensations
and introspection were disregarded by many empiricists as difficult to verify. The growth
of the positivist movement resulted in the technique losing favour for some time. With
the development of interpretive and postmodern thought, introspection has again become
a considered data collection method in consumer behaviour (Gould, 1995). Psychologists
have revisited introspection and acknowledged that with careful use it can be a valuable
source of data relating to cognitive processes (Ericsson & Simon, 1980). As discussed by
Hixon & Swann (1993) a modest amount of self-reflection can lead to self-knowledge
and insight, particularly when the topic of reflection is the "internal self".
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TYPES OF INTROSPECTION AND THEIR USES
There are at least five types of introspection used in consumer research as listed by
Wallendorf & Brucks (1993). They can be outlined as: researcher introspection, where
the researcher provides the introspection and is the only subject of the study; guided
introspection, where a sample (large or small) of subjects is asked to provide their
reflections, feelings, emotions about a specific purchase or event, usually orally but also
via written questionnaires. The third category is termed interactive introspection and is
used when the researcher and the subject are experiencing the same life experience,
thereby providing a bond that can result in richer, more in-depth descriptions and
insights. This type of introspection has not been as refined or used as often in the
consumer behaviour literature. Syncretic combinations of introspection utilise researcher
introspections along with the introspections of other respondents. There is no interaction
of researcher and respondents but the researchers introspections are simply added to the
respondent data and analysed accordingly. The final introspection method is reflexivity
within the research. This method involves the use of participant observation and involves
the use of written recordings of the researchers feelings and experiences as they study
the respondents.
THE CHOICE OF INTROSPECTION IN THIS STUDY
The data collection method chosen for this research depended upon considerations of
relevance, accuracy, timeliness, and cost (Blankenship & Breen, 1995; Rosnow &
Rosenthal, 1996). In particular, the research was required to capture respondents feelings
and emotions at a time as close as possible to the actual event, without impacting (thus
causing potential nonresponse) on the activities planned for New Years Eve 1999.
Respondents were required to be reflective and answer in a personalised manner. The
choice of a self-completed data collection technique provided a number of benefits: 1)
they eliminate large cost and bias factors; 2) they elicit responses on a variety of intimate,
personal topics; 3) they gain insights beyond what is often achieved in an interview
situation; 4) they are successful in obtaining responses from people difficult to interview
(Blankenship & Breen, 1995; Couper & Stinson, 1999); and 5) they have proven to be
more reliable than answers to face-to-face interview questionnaires on autobiographical
topics (Conrath, Higgins & Mc Clean, 1983).
Guided introspection was chosen for this study as it provided the opportunity for
respondents to reflect on their planned activities for the night, and detail their beliefs and
feelings freely. As the research focused on uncovering consumers experiential view of
New Years Eve 1999, the use of guided introspection was considered appropriate
(Gould, 1995). Respondents were assumed to be aware of the days (Friday, 31 December
1999) significance even though they may or may not have believed that the true new
millennium or turn of the century was occurring. Due to the media hype surrounding the
night, it was assumed that most people had thought about the occasion and made some
judgement as to what they would be doing. This self-analysis process fits in with what
Gould identifies as events that are sufficiently ego involving so that respondents can
relate their personal internal processes (1995, p. 719). The topic of New Years Eve
1999 was a well-known, specific event, which enabled self-insight by respondents.
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APPLICATION OF GUIDED INTROSPECTION
The application of introspection as the data collection method for the current study was
based on determining the most effective way to get responses without interfering with
peoples celebrations and therefore intruding on a (potentially) special event in their lives.
The data collection method consisted of distributing a request to complete the statement,
Tonight is the turn of the century and I , with optional topics such as: what are you
doing tonight?, how do you feel about what you are doing tonight? to be included in their
responses. Figure 1 illustrates the format. A covering letter to respondents accompanied
the request outlining when to complete their response, to write about their thoughts,
feelings, and emotions, and to write as much as they could. Respondents could disagree
with the opening statement (that it was not the turn of the century) if they wished and still
describe their evening activities. Respondent anonymity was assured in the letter.
As this research was of an exploratory nature, a representative sample was not required.
A convenience sample was used, with the use of snowballing as respondents were asked
if any of their friends would complete the request.
The request was distributed directly to 120 people in late December 1999. The method of
distribution was a combination of email messages and personal delivery. Of the 120
requests distributed directly, 80 were returned completed, representing an overall
response rate of 66 per cent. Reasons for nonresponse included: feeling the request was
too intrusive and personal (8), some email requests were not read until after the event due
to recipients not logging-on over the Christmas period (5), and many requests were
forgotten due to the busy Christmas and New Year activities (10).
An additional 46 responses (37 per cent of the final total) were recruited via the
snowballing technique. This involved asking respondents to pass the survey form on to
other potential respondents. The final total was 126 completed responses.
As previously indicated the researchers themselves participated in the research and
contributed to the total responses. This allowed for some retrospective introspection to be
undertaken by the researchers as they could reflect on the nights' activities and their
initial concurrent introspections. This is further discussed in the following paragraphs.
Figure 1: New Years Eve 1999 request
New Years Eve 1999 research
Please complete the following statement, noting how you are feeling and what your expectations
are for tonight. Will it be any different to any other New Year celebration? Why? or Why not?
You may like to consider mentioning the following points:
what you are doing tonight
how you feel about what you are doing
why you are doing it
the people you are with tonight contd overleaf
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what you expect to happen at midnight tonight
what (if any) reflections you have on the past year
your plans for the future
Have you made any purchases for tonight? (e.g. a new dress, any memorabilia for 2000, a
special bottle of champagne)
Here is the statement to complete (please write as much as you can):
Tonight is the turn of the century and I
FINDINGS
Although not a representative sample, attempts were made to cover, gender, age and
income categories. A bias towards female respondents was evident, with 79 females and
47 males in the sample. However, it is considered a significant number of males did
respond. Respondents occupations were skewed toward white-collar workers (82), with
12 blue-collar workers, and the remainder comprising unemployed, students, retired and
home duties occupations. To some extent this was a reflection of the researchers own
immediate networks, but also this type of research tends to gain responses from higher
educated respondents (Couper & Rowe, 1996; Couper & Stinson, 1999). In terms of age,
29 per cent of the sample members were younger than 30 years of age, 55 per cent were
between the ages of 30 and 50 years, and 16 per cent were over the age of 50. While most
sample members were Australian, 22 were from other regions, mainly Britain, the USA,
and Asia. There was no discernible difference in the quality of responses received
according to the country from which the respondent originated or the method of survey
distribution employed.
Analysis of data
A grounded theory approach was used to investigate the emotions and symbolic meaning
that consumers embedded in New Year's Eve, 1999. Gr ou nde d s tu die s r el y o n t he cl ose
ex amina tio n of emp ir ica l d at a p rio r to foc us ed rea di ng in th e l ite ra tur e ( Gl ase r & Stra uss ,
19 67 ; Goul di ng, 19 98 ; Lock e, 19 96) . By rev er sin g t he us ual o rde r o f lit era tu re rev ie w a nd
da ta co lle ct ion , a g rou nde d app roa ch se eks t o a dap t pre vio us fi ndi ng s t o t he sp eci fi c
ch ar act eri st ics of t he phe no men a u nd er stu dy (Hirs ch man & Th omp son , 199 7).
The topic for this research project was selected prior to the determination of the most
appropriate research methodology. The objective was to explore the relevance of NYE99
to consumers. A grounded approach to data collection and analysis presented itself as a
useful methodology for addressing the requirements of the research task. This involved:
(1) selecting a specific social process (celebrations of New Years Eve, 1999); (2)
conducting a literature review after the data was collected; and (3) allowing the central
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themes to emerge from the data rather than being forced to fit a preconceived theoretical
framework (as per Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
Emerging themes
When analysing the 126 responses, the common themes emerging from the data included
the significance of alcohol in preparing for the nights activities, respondents reflections
on the past and their feelings toward the future. These are discussed briefly in the
following paragraphs.
The role of alcohol in respondents' plans for the evening was found to be highly
significant, with 72 per cent (91) of respondents mentioning the intention to consume
some form of alcohol throughout the course of the evening. More females (65, 82 per
cent) than males (31, 65 per cent) specifically nominated alcohol consumption as an
aspect of their plans for celebrating, although males were more likely to communicate an
intention to consume large amounts of alcohol on this occasion.
Around half of the study respondents (72) discussed their feelings about the directions
their lives had taken over the previous 12 months. The general tone of many of these
comments was a combination of discontent and disappointment. In total, 34 accounts of
the past (47 per cent) were classified as predominantly negative and 17 accounts (24 per
cent) were classified as predominantly positive. The remaining 29 per cent of responses
relating to the past were in the neutral zone. The negative feelings were often reported to
be the result of work-related stress and the perception of an ongoing time-squeeze that
prevents the establishment and maintenance of satisfactory social relationships. Despite
relative levels of affluence a significant proportion of respondents appeared to feel that
their quality of life was unsatisfactory. The indication is that relatively high levels of
consumption are not capable of ensuring or even promoting the perceived quality of life
for consumers.
Of the 126 respondents, 79 per cent (100) made some reference to the future in
discussions of their plans for NYE99. When discussing the future, respondents frequently
discussed: (1) feelings relating to work, (2) intentions to travel, and (3) concern for
general and specific others.
In terms of the data collection method used in this study, the results were reviewed to
establish whether introspection was successful in gaining insightful responses from
participants. Younger people (under 29 years of age) were less inclined to reflect as much
as the older respondents. When they did, they were more inclined to reflect on issues that
related to themselves directly (their jobs, relationships, and travel). The older respondents
also reflected on self-issues (taking care of self, relationships, health and family) but were
more inclined to mention world issues such as peace in the world, global warming and the
future of mankind, particularly in reference to the future of their children or
grandchildren.
As Im writing this, rather than reflecting on my past year and my future direction, Im
thinking of my 7 grandchildren and wondering what the future will bring them. (Female,
50s, Australian)
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In discussion with respondents after completing the request, the task was not seen as
intrusive on the days activities. Indeed some respondents found the task useful in
consolidating their thoughts on the occasion. A noted benefit was that respondents could
find their own time in completing the request. The length of responses was between one
and two handwritten pages (shorter for e-mail responses). Most respondents wrote a
written narrative of their plans and anticipations of the event. In a small number of cases
(12 responses, 9.5 per cent) the responses consisted of short phrases answering the
prompts with little or no self-introspection.
The three researcher introspections reflected a number of the common themes discussed
in reference to the total sample. In addition, the researchers each reflected after the event
to gain a retrospective insight to behaviours. Transcripts from each of the researchers are
presented, preceded with an introductory discussion.
INTROSPECTION 1
In the first introspection, as evident in all three transcripts, NYE99 is to be spent as a
family celebration, which impacts on the choice of venue and the style of the occasion.
Introspection 1 highlights the researchers' Scottish heritage with the mention of "first
footing". The Scots, believe in the tradition of first footing (Forbes 2000). Ideally the first
person to cross your door in the New Year should bring in the coal, they should be
offered something to eat and something to drink. The symbolic belief behind this tradition
is that by doing so in the coming year you will never be hungry or thirsty, nor be cold.
The aim is to start the year as you hope it will proceed.
Tonight is the turn of the century and I will be going to the zoo with my family to
celebrate an early countdown. It seems important to me to spend this occasion with them,
and as they are little the options of places to go are limited.
We will then return home and celebrate at home with a quiet drink with my husband
once the children are asleep. We will probably watch the ABC to see what is happening
around the world and then sit outside and enjoy the warm evening in the garden.
At midnight I do not believe anything eventful will happen; however in the back of
my mind there is an element of mystery and suspense, just in case.
I look to the new year with anticipation of good things to come and new challenges in
work and family life.
I ponder if my family will also have a successful and healthy year, in particular I think
of my elderly parents and father who has been very ill this year and wonder if he will see
2001.
I reflect back on 1999 and think of my good friend Sophie who died this year and is
not with us. I think how difficult it has been juggling work and family and hope that this
will get easier as they get older.
I think of all the great places I have travelled and fun events I have attended my
friends 40th birthday on a specially hired boat, Singapore, Melbourne, Mexico.
I have made no special purchases for tonight besides some good food for tomorrow to
ensure the Scottish tradition of first footing never be hungry, never be thirsty, never be
cold, and some champagne and nibbles for tonight. I will try to wear something nice I have
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a long white dress I would like to wear. However practicality prohibits this as I will be
sitting on the lawn with a two-year-old climbing all over me. I shall wear some special
silver earings and necklace, which I have recently purchased along with some exotic
perfume (this should hopefully replace the need for the white dress). I shall be wearing
black trousers and a silk shirt instead.
INTROSPECTION 2
The following introspection illustrates the added insights gained by retrospective
reflection, and the changing perspective dependent on the timing of the research.
Tonight is the turn of the century and I will be spending it with my husband and children
and some of his family, 8 children and 9 adults in all. A great family get together,
progressive dinner as we are all on the south coast of N.S.W. holidaying. We have entree at
our house. I am relaxed about the nights activities as we are close and what will happen is
expected. We decided "something" had to be done to celebrate tonight and a progressive
dinner resulted. It's "black tie" mainly due to my suggestion as I just happen to have a
satin cream number in my suitcase that I bought for $10 at an opportunity shop, so black tie
it is!! I love an excuse for a party and I love to do something special so we are doing
some special surprises.
We have Y2K bags for each guest the usual whistles, poppers sparklers, lollies and a
Berocca for the adults!! That's just to set the mood. The last New Years Eve my husband
and I enjoyed and really partied was pre-children it was important for both of us that the
children were included in tonight's celebration as we just feel we want to be with them on
this special night. When they look back and ask where were we? We can tell them we were
all together. However, I still have it in me to want to party like the pre-children days. So we
have some sort of compromise I guess.
1999 has been a race thru' time year and I'm hoping 2000 will be slower and more
meaningful.
In retrospect I always feel reminiscent at New Year and this one was no exception.
In fact, it was more so. After some telephone calls back home near midnight I was feeling
rather flat and realised I really wanted to be with friends and family (mine) back home. It
was a sad welcoming in the new millennium as it turned out for me. All that shopping with
the Y2K bags and the champagne cocktails didnt compensate for the fact that I was in the
wrong place for my New Year celebration. On New Year's day, I spent several hours on my
own shopping at a quaint little crafty tourist town and felt much better! I purchased items I
would not normally buy for myself (jewellery, personal stationery) as I considered I
deserved it and then had a mug of coffee and cake which was so indulgent to do on
my own.
INTROSPECTION 3
This introspection describes many of the themes previously mentioned but within
different contexts. It provides insights into the complexity and compromises that surround
a significant celebratory event.
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Tonight is the turn of the century and I am a little apprehensive due to Y2K problems
and problems getting our evening organised. We had wanted to spend it with a certain
couple and they have pulled out at the last minute. My husband and I are planning to spend
the evening together, and with our three-year-old who will go to bed around 9pm (after
watching the Sydney fireworks on TV).
My husband bought gourmet foods and Moet champagne (Millennium packaging) to enjoy
at home during the evening. Other than that we haven't bought any memorabilia.
1999 was a hard year, and I am looking forward to more time with family and friends
in 2000. I have decided that I need to review my priorities to make sure that I am living my
life the way I want to rather than the way I end up living it by succumbing to life's
pressures.
At this point I am a bit horrified at the world that my daughter is going to grow up in -
global warming, pollution, wars, numerous massive natural disasters, corrupt politicians
etc. I hope the next century will be kinder to both the planet and its inhabitants than the last.
Overall, I am looking forward to tonight, but it would be nice if we were doing
something more exciting. But between the costs of taxis and meals and drinks and the
danger or driving with Y2k.
In retrospect coming from Sydney (the home of grand fireworks spectacles), I
was very keen to be able to see some fireworks at midnight. Of course, the television
coverage was always going to include copious amounts of spectacular fireworks, but it
wasn't going to be same unless I could see some with my own eyes. I naively assumed that
there would be fireworks happening at Fremantle and/or Hillarys, both of which we can see
from our back balcony. I was therefore certain that watching fireworks would signify
midnight in a special way for us. Unfortunately, neither location appeared to have been
selected for NYE fireworks, and the mosey out to the balcony at midnight proved futile,
leaving me feeling disappointed and somehow let down.
On the positive side, we put time and effort into buying lots of gourmet foods and
French champagne (Millennium packaging), far more than three people (including our
three-year-old) could ever manage in a single evening. Given our self-inflicted isolation, we
compensated by over-indulging in all those special foods (and beverages) that we would
usually only consume in limited quantities due to cost and artery damage. It was wonderful
to be able to spend the time with my husband and daughter, and I was aware that this was
an infinitely better option than being at some club with my single friends who just wanted a
significant other with whom to share the event. As planned, we watched NYE occur across
Australia on television, and then after midnight sat up for another hour or so to see it
progress across the world. Given the tendency of our daughter to wake us up early in the
morning, there was no temptation to stay up any later than about 2am.
DISCUSSION
Accessing respondents to examine their thoughts and behaviours of people at significant
events is difficult. While introspection has its weaknesses (Ericsson & Simon, 1980;
Wallendorf & Brucks, 1993) it does provide an added tool for the researcher to gain
meaningful data on specific events and consumption experiences. In addition, researcher
introspection can be valuable in exploring the nature of human behaviour particularly
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when researchers experience, consume and live in the same environment as the research
situation.
The researcher introspections were not analysed for their various demonstrations of
consumption behaviours in this paper, as it was not the purpose to present content
analysis of the transcripts but an illustration on how the technique could be an effective
data-gathering method in a specific situation.
The resultant data obtained from this research approach provided a rich and meaningful
insight into the emotions, motives and behaviours of sample respondents on New Years
Eve 1999. The use of self-completion guided introspection is a valuable addition to the
techniques traditionally used to elicit consumers feelings, behaviours and motivations at
significant events. In particular, it is useful in obtaining experiential data from
participants of highlight events such as weddings, birthdays, and Christmas and New
Year festivities. These participants are traditionally difficult to access.
Self-completion guided introspection can be limited to the literacy of the sample under
study. In this research, New Years Eve was experienced by all in the population.
Segments within the population with poor literacy rates and non-English speaking people
were not explored. Further research into using the technique at other events and
comparing interview data with introspection findings from the same event would gauge
the contribution introspection can make to understanding consumer behaviour at specific
events.
References:
Belk, R. W., Wallendorf, M., & Sherry, F. (1989). The sacred and the profane in consumer
behaviour: Theodicy on the odyssey. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(1), 138.
Blankenship, A. B., & Breen, G. E. (1995). State of the art marketing research. Chicago:
American Marketing Association.
Boring, E. G. (1953). A history of introspection. Psychological Bulletin, 50, 169189.
Conrath, D. W., Higgins, C. A., & McClean, R. J. (1983). A comparison of the reliability of
questionnaire versus diary data. Social Networks, 5, 315322.
Couper, M. P., & Rowe, B. (1996). Evaluation of a computer-assisted self-interview (CASI)
component in a CAPI Survey. Public Opinion Quarterly, 60, 89105.
Couper, M. P., & Stinson, L. L. (1999). Completion of self-administered questionnaires in a sex
survey. The Journal of Sex Research, 36(4), 321330.
Ericsson, K. A., & Herbert Simon (1980). Verbal reports as data. Psychological Review, 87,
215251.
Forbes, B. R. (2000). Reclaiming Scottish hogmanay. The World and I, Washington, 15(1), 236.
Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine Publishing
Co.
Gould, S. J. (1995). Researcher introspection as a method in consumer research: Applications,
issues, and implications. Journal of Consumer Research, 21, 719722.
Goulding, C. (1998).Grounded theory: The missing methodology on the interpretivist agenda.
Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 1(1), 5057.
Hirschman, E. C., & Thompson C. J. (1997). Why media matter: Toward a richer understanding of
consumers relationships with advertising and mass media. Journal of Advertising, 26(1),
4360.
Hixon, J. G., & Swann, Jr W. B. (1993). When does introspection bear fruit? Self-reflection, self-
introspection and interpersonal choices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64,
3543.
Locke, K. (1996). Rewriting the discovery of grounded theory after 25 years? Journal of
Management Inquiry, 5(3), 239245.
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Nisbett, R. E., & DeCamp Wilson, T. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on
mental processes. Psychological Review, 44, 231259.
Rosnow, R. L., & Rosenthal R. (1996). Beginning behavioural research: A conceptual primer.
New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc.
Wallendorf, M., & Brucks, M. (1993). Introspection in consumer research: implementation and
implications. Journal of Consumer Research, 20, 339359.
White, P. (1980). Limitations on verbal reports of internal events: A refutation of Nisbett &
Wilson and of Ben. Psychological Review, 87, 105112.
MARIA M. RYAN is Lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty of Business
and Public Management at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western
Australia. Her research interests include consumer behaviour, the impact
on consumption of individuals' attachment to their environment, teaching
and learning methods, and research methods. Maria has published
competitive papers at an international and national level on consumer
behaviour issues and research techniques. In addition, she has worked
extensively in the marketing research industry.
Contact details
Lecturer
School of Marketing, Tourism and Leisure
Faculty of Business and Public Management
Edith Cowan University
100 Joondalup Drive
Joondalup, WA 6027
Australia
Phone: +61-9-9443-6478
Fax: +61-8-9443-6479
Email: m.ryan@ecu.edu.au
MADELEINE OGILVIE is Lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty of
Business and Public Management at Edith Cowan University, Perth,
Western Australia. Her major interests are in the fields of marketing
research, semiotics, and communication. Prior to working at ECU,
Madeleine worked extensively within the pharmaceutical industry in sales
and management. She has consulted for both public and private
organisations on many facets of marketing and management. In addition,
she is a qualified workplace assessor and manages her own small
business.
SIMONE PETTIGREW is Senior Lecturer in Marketing in the Faculty
of Business and Public Management at Edith Cowan University, Perth,
Western Australia. Her research interests include alcohol consumption,
ageing consumers, and qualitative research methods. Prior to working at
ECU, Simone held a variety of marketing management positions in
private industry, primarily in the energy sector.
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F l e x i b l e r o l e s a n d r e f l e x i v e s o u l s / T h e o b a l d / D u c k e t t ( 1 3 p a g e s ) 5 8
Flexible roles and reflexive
souls in qualitative action
research
Sally Theobald, International Health Division, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Paul Duckett, Psychology Division, University of Northumbria
ABSTRACT
We reflect on our experiences of conducting qualitative research from within two
distinct though complementary disciplinary frameworks: gender and
development/feminism and community psychology.
We first use a sociopolitical lens to examine the historical role participants have
played in social science research. We then outline the epistemological,
methodological and ethical concerns of our respective fields. We reflect on what our
feminist and community psychological approaches say about the relationship
between researcher and researched, and the research goals of participant
empowerment, social action and social justice. We each describe one of our
qualitative action research studies that show how these research concerns informed
our research practice.
The first study explores women workers perceptions, understandings and reactions
to occupational health hazards in the electronics factories of northern Thailand,
where research praxis supported and sustained the setting up of a womens health
centre. The second study explores employment interview experiences of and
socioeconomic barriers faced by disabled people
1
in central Scotland, where
research praxis confronted and dismantled employer discrimination. We discuss the
kaleidoscope of roles and identities that researcher and researched negotiate
and construct for themselves and each other (especially when working across
difference Thai/non-Thai; worker/nonworker; disabled/nondisabled). We reflect on
our social, cultural and political positioning and agency as researchers through
describing the gradual unfolding of our multiple research identities and interactions.
We show how this carved open spaces for participatory research and action and
consider the synergy between our feminist and community psychological research
approaches.
We conclude with a call for more reflexive and flexible approaches to qualitative
research roles, and for more socially, culturally and politically sensitive, transparent
and accountable research practices.
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PERFUMES AND POLLUTANTS THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANT'S
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PLACE AND SPACE IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Historically, research participants in social science have been the subject of observation
and inspection. Seen through a sociopolitical lens, the research participant occupies a
severely disempowered role characterised by passivity and compliance. The label
subject is still commonly used by social scientists to describe those they study and
betrays assumptions of the passivity of the prescribed role (Mearns & McLeod, 1984).
The social scientist acts as the professional/expert, decides what questions to ask and
where, when and how to ask them. The respondent occupies a passive role of respondent
with the research data flowing one way from the participant to the researcher (indeed
flow of information in the other direction is often regarded as methodologically
problematic). The flow of information is guided by the research expertise of the social
science researcher. This political framing of relations between the researcher and the
researched hold true both for quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry, though in
the latter there is considerable room for redress.
The disempowerment of research participants is chartered throughout the rise of the
social sciences in the academy. This is demonstrated, for example, early in psychology's
history where the move from introspection to cognitive-behavourism shifted the locus of
psychological expertise from participant to researcher (Danziger, 1988, 1990). The
dominant paradigm of the physical sciences (positivism) has been widely adopted in the
social sciences heralding a conspicuous politic of research process and outcome. The
researcher is ascribed the status of expert and s/he
2
is gifted the intellectual and
professional property rights over social scientific knowledge. The research participant is
demoted to novice and their social scientific expertise, gained through anecdotal
observation, subjective reflection and experiential learning, becomes problematised as
empirical effluent that has to be purified through the work of the social scientist.
The space for participants to control the research process and outcome has been
considerably restricted, particularly by the widespread use of deception, misinformation,
single-blind and double-blind studies, closed-ended question surveys, esoteric scientific
and statistical language and strictly controlled and artificially contrived experimental
settings. There is a conspicuous history of alienation of participants from the research
process in traditional research practice particularly so for respondents who belong to
disempowered, marginalised groups. This has problematised the relationship between
researchers and participants and has arguably put both on the defensive. Increasingly,
oppressed groups are telling researchers to fuck off (Jenkins, 1971). Disability
researchers are continually warned of becoming the denizens of the disability industry
(Davis, 1990). The increasing practice of researchers paying research participants does
little to redress this, and indeed contains its own problems (Manz & Gioia, 1983;
Haywood & Rose, 1990). This is not to argue that financial payment should not be made
it may be extremely important for participants on low incomes. Rather, what is needed
is a great deal more reflexivity that challenges our thinking on how to secure the interests
of participants and on the nature of participants' involvement in the research process.
The change in the social sciences from using the term subject to participant signifies
more a shift in semantics than practice. However, within the social sciences there has
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been increasing attention paid to the politics of research relationships. Specifically, recent
concerns have addressed the risk to the authenticity of data because of power inequalities
between researchers and participants (Riger, 1992; Duckett, McCall & Fryer, 2000).
Criticisms of the political processes inherent in social science research have been
vociferous. Calls for a change in the political relations of research production have come
from many quarters. These include feminist critiques of research methodology (Finch,
1986; Hollway, 1989; Ribbens, 1990), innovations in community psychology (Rappaport,
1990; Duckett & Fryer, 1998), participatory action research (Whyte, 1991), and social
movements that burgeoned in the 1960s, such as the disability movement (Oliver, 1992)
and the women's movement. Feminist epistemology in particular is focused on bringing
to the fore other types of knowledge, such as womens subjective experiences and a
critical rejection of positivist approaches (Wolf, 1996).
Calls from feminist and community psychology epistemology have created spaces for
participants to occupy more diverse and more active, egalitarian research roles in
democractised research relationships. We believe the need to redress the politically
denuded role of participants evident in traditional research relationships is emphasised
when working with participants who occupy marginalised and disempowered social and
political roles (Duckett & Fryer, 1998; Fryer, 1999; Fryer & Feather, 1994).
GROUNDING FEMINIST THEORY SALLYS OVERVIEW
Feminist theory has grown exponentially since the 1960s. At first impetus came from
emergent womens movements in the USA and Europe, and it then became entrenched in
contemporary intellectual life, as feminist concerns began to appear in the curriculum in
higher education and other educational settings (Andermahr, Lovell & Wolkowitz, 2000,
p. 1). Within the USA, much of feminist theory has sprung from literary criticism;
whereas in Europe feminist theory has its strongest roots in the social sciences and
sociology (Andermahr et. al., 2000.). My own exploratory academic and political path
through the complex and contested debates and discourse of feminist theory and feminist
thought(s) is grounded disciplinarily in geography and development studies (gender and
development). An example of one strand of feminism that I have been particularly
informed by is critical feminism, which:
incorporates historical analysis into work and tends to be multi-disciplinary and multi
dimensional, linking economical, political, cultural and psychological issues together. They
[critical feminists] tend to be innovative, searching into the subjective and objective and
showing how gender is constructed and deconstructed. (Mbilinyi, 1992, p. 42)
CONCERNS/DILEMMAS IN FEMINIST THEORY AND HOW THEY RELATE
TO RESEARCH
The editors of the journal Feminist Review claim that in the late 20th century, feminism
has been simultaneously strengthened and fragmented by recognition of difference and
the resulting pluralisation of identities (Hall, et al., 1999). They state that A major, and
troubling, questions for many feminists has ...been how to move beyond the rhetoric of
both identity politics and its deconstruction, while finding a way to go on thinking and
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acting politically (Hall et al., 1999, p. 1). Discussions of how to deal with difference
have been at the forefront of discussions about research taking place under the broad
framework of feminist theory as the paper goes on to reveal.
My aim is not to try to find an analytical path through the complexity and contested
terrain of feminist writings on methodology. As Roberts comments that to try to answer
the question What is feminist research? would mean to offer a knitting pattern approach
and to deny the diversity and creativity of research, and worse, could move towards
replacing prescriptions of what is sociologically or scientifically right with
prescriptions of what is from a feminist point of view (Roberts, 1992, p. xx). I wish to
explore how personal reading and interpretation of feminist writings on research
methodologies, epistemologies and ethics shaped an experience of doing research.
GROUNDING COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGICAL VALUES PAULS
OVERVIEW
Psychology's past is pitted with calculated and caustic infringements on the human rights
of disenfranchised and marginalised groups in society. Women, ethnic minority groups,
people who experience mental health difficulties, people with learning difficulties
3
, gay
men, lesbian women and low-income groups have all found themselves brutalised by
psychological discourse. This has been achieved most conspicuously through the political
use of intelligence testing and construction of classification systems of mental
disorders that have been used to support incarceration, medical sterilisation and the
denial of employment, income and voting rights. The diligent work of George Albee has
helped ensure the impropriety of much of academic psychology does not go
undocumented or unaddressed (Albee, 1988, 1996; Albee & Perry, 1998), yet such
improprieties of psychological research and practice are still common. Today, psychology
is engaged in the widespread reification of intrinsically social and economic problems
within communities as individual medical aberrations requiring clinical and medical
treatment rather than sociopolitical intervention. Within the social sciences Liazos (1972)
cautioned against the political impropriety of focusing on the deviance of the powerless
at the expense of ignoring the deviance of the powerful in his seminal paper The poverty
of the sociology of deviance: Nuts, sluts, and perverts.
Increasing numbers of psychologists are seeking to position themselves against
oppressive practices in psychology. Many are locating themselves within the field of
community psychology where community is used less as a taxonomical tool signifying
the area of psychological enquiry they study, but more a signifier that positions them
ethically and politically towards psychology in particular and the social sciences in
general. Community tempers the title of the psychologist with particular ideological
and ethical concerns. These include the way community psychology:
_ positions itself critically against all forms of victim-blaming ideology;
_ seeks to work in ways that are empowering for members of socially, economically
and politically disempowered, disadvantaged and marginalised groups;
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_ avoids reifying intra- and interdisciplinary boundaries between professional, para-
professional and nonprofessional groups; and
_ seeks to identify and remove structural, socioeconomic inequalities.
However, this is not to say that community psychologists consistently translate these
concerns to the processes involved in their engagement with research participants, though
we would say that they should if community psychology is to attain ideological and
ethical consistency. It is also unclear whether the label community psychologist is
always used to signify the psychologist's ethical and ideological orientation, particularly
in the UK where the label is becoming usurped by clinical psychologists working in
community settings (Duckett, 2000a).
SYNERGY BETWEEN GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT/FEMINISM AND
COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGICAL VALUES AND RESEARCH GOALS
Participant empowerment
Empowerment is an intentional, ongoing process centered in the local community,
involving mutual respect, critical reflection, caring and group participation, through which
people lacking an equal share of valued resources gain greater access to and control over
those resources. (Cornell Empowerment Group, 1989, cited in Zimmerman, 2000, p. 43).
Julian Rapp port, an influential figure in community psychology in North America, has
written extensively about community psychology's fundamental concern with
empowerment (Rappaport, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1990). Community psychologists seek to
redress structural power inequalities that oppress marginalised groups in society.
However, this is not to suggest that empowerment is something done by professionals to
groups of disempowered people. This would mimic the very patterns of paternalism that
serve so effectively to oppress women, disabled people and other marginalised groups in
society. Rather, the emphasis is as much on avoiding getting in the way than showing the
way, giving a voice than listening, working towards liberation than avoiding
oppression. The goals of empowerment and emancipation are self-actualising, not gifts
bestowed through the benevolence of powerful, majority group members.
In the context of social scientific research the reasons for engaging in empowering
practices with disempowered participants are not only ethical, but empirical. As
empiricists, our concern is in whose interest is it for participants to be authentic, open
and honest with us? As social scientists working with a community psychological value
system and a gender and development/feminism perspective, our concern is in whose
interest is the research being conducted and who will directly profit from the outcomes of
the research process? This second question was voiced with considerable veracity by
Becker (1963).
To gain authentic and trustworthy data, researchers can seek to create opportunities for
the participant to have a greater stake in the research. This is a dominant theme to
Participatory Action Research (PAR) when participants take ownership of elements of
the research process it increases their investment of time and energy in that process
(Whyte, 1991). Seeking ways of engaging cooperatively with research participants in the
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planning of the research process and the collecting and interpreting of the research
material may further help ensure that not only are participants being authentic with us but
that those accounts are authentically developed and rendered in research reporting. Rather
than participants being ancillary workers they can become central stakeholders and co-
constructors of the research process. Such issues lie at the heart of gender and
development/feminist and community psychological value systems.
Social action and social justice
Traditional social scientific paradigms seek to restrict the political activity and reflexivity
of the researcher, promote a deeply entrenched conservatism and recommend a slow
moving progress-through-osmosis approach to social change. Whilst the social sciences
have been reasonably effective in documenting the high levels of distress and
disadvantage endured by disempowered people within communities, they have been
conspicuously ineffective at influencing social policy (Heller, 1986). Research that is
divorced from an emancipatory political agenda may do little to empower research
participants but further disempower them.
Research informed by gender and development/feminism and community psychological
values emphasises social action and social justice to counter the oppression of
marginalised and disempowered groups in society. Again, it would be easy to fall into
paternalistic practices where professionals intervene through action to help
marginalised groups who are unable to help themselves. We risk adopting paternalistic
and inherently oppressive practices if our actions are premised on a belief that
communities are dependent upon the benevolent predisposition of the resource rich and
politically and organisationally powerful. As community psychologists and gender and
development/feminists we see ourselves amid action not just in action (Duckett, 1998a).
Therefore, the emphasis is not so much seeking to create change than seeking to identify
and sustain existing patterns of change. For example, in relation to disability issues, the
disability movement has been active for several decades (Swain, Finkelstein, French &
Oliver, 1994) and there is little that is attractive in professionals reclaiming this activism
as products of their own work (Oliver, 1991).
Ideologically, the focus on both action and justice guards against practices that blame
victims where wider corporate and political forces are more readily culpable. It is this
aspect of our own value systems that ties us to the social justice underbelly of the work
we do. Our values are left unsatisfied by and indeed create friction with neo-liberalist
discourses embedded in the political rhetoric behind the New Public Health Movement,
the Risk Society and Social Capital. The problems that scar many communities and the
problems that are in need of most immediate attention are those tied to economic
deprivation, and patterns of oppression and exclusion rather than the lifestyle choices,
risk-taking behaviours and active citizenship or civil society.
Focusing on broader structural causes require we engage in suggesting a political and
organisational level of intervention and directly challenges the status quo of the social
and political structures in society. To leave individualised causal accounts unchallenged
would be an act of complicity in maintaining the sociopolitical structuring of society.
These structures damage communities and sustain oppressive practices centred around a
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person's sexuality, ethnicity, gender, age, mental health status, religion, lifestyle, social
class, physical/sensory/mental impairment, and/or occupation.
Implications for research roles
Our assertion is that feminist researchers and community psychologists should avoid
occupying roles that make themselves less visible to the community. By this we mean we
are at risk of not being known to the communities in which we work. Typically academic
researchers occupy an opaque position in the fabric of communities. This is frequently the
case whilst working in different country or cultural contexts, but also holds true in the
UK, where researchers are usually situated within academic institutions and research
organisations. Physically they are often removed. Several universities around the UK are
built on specially designed campus locations and/or have names
4
that make clear the
boundary between the institution and the community. There is so often a split between
town and gown.
As with the empowerment agenda and social action/social justice focus, concerns over
action and justice resonate with our concerns with research roles. We feel it is important
to avoid professional identities that restrict movement and to seek those that allow
fluidity in our empirical work. We therefore avoid remaining in research roles that limit
ourselves to the empirical activities of collecting and collating data from the field.
Though important activities, these may preclude researchers benefiting from additional
opportunities of interacting in positive ways in research settings, ways that allow us get to
know those who engage as participants in our research activities and allow those who
become involved in our research activity to get to know us.
Researchers typically make themselves opaque by, as social scientists, claiming political
neutrality. They often write themselves out of their research reporting through such
grammatical trickery as using the third person, passive tense (the researchers
interviewed; interviews were conducted) rather than the first person active tense (We
interviewed). The researcher is concerned that objectivity be maintained so that
empirical facts can be seen to exist independent of the observer (Nidditch, 1977).
Research findings sit independent of the researcher who finds them. This is at the very
core of their removed presence. The researchers presence disappears as they become
automatons of the research process.
Kelly, Burton and Regan (1994), Wolf (1996), Kemp and Squires (1997), Jones, Nast and
Roberts (1997), Madge, Raghuram, Skelton, Willis and Williams (1997) and many
strands of feminist thought are advocating for an acknowledgement of the silences
while reporting work and the need for a reflexive account of the research process,
offering insights of the insider as to how it proceeds, its difficulties and compensations
(Maynard, 1994, p. 3). These discussions of feminist epistemologies place great emphasis
on the role of researcher, the dialectic of difference, and the need for reflexivity as a way
of giving meaning to research analyses and outcomes. They cite the need to problematise
the position of researcher and the relationship between the researcher and the
researched, as this will inevitably shape the questions asked, the interactions taking
place and the analyses drawn within the research process. So insights from feminist
epistemologies urge us as researchers to discuss some of these issues of personal location
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in a reflexive fashion. It is a mistake to assume researchers enter research settings
unaccompanied by social and political values. Central to this rejection is the notion that
being objective and value-free is not only impossible, but it is also undesirable
(Wolf, 1996, p. 4).
The political involvement of empirical work can be appreciated at differing levels.
Campbell (1967) and Heller (1986) acknowledged the potential for political bias in the
actions of research administrators and in the way research is funded and results are
reported. Such commentators direct our attention outwards to view how research products
are used. However, they either ignore or overlook the political values held by the
researcher her/himself. To recognise that research can be administered politically is not as
controversial or troublesome to traditional research as the view that researchers are
politicised. Our position is that politics are involved at the very core of scientific enquiry.
This position is informed by Critical Theory that asks our attention be focused on the
political constitution of the researcher and, as such, the political nature of the research
process, not just research outcome. Our research practices represent the very social and
political values we hold. Our reporting of our research are representations of the values
we bring to our research observations (e.g. Social Constructionism).
Thus, our assertion is that communities must know where researchers stand on social and
political issues, that they become visible as social and political agents. Community
members may then be better able to judge whether they think researchers and what
researchers do have any relevance to their lives. If researchers are to be relevant to
community needs and a resource for social action and social justice, at the very least they
need to be known and visible to community members. These issues are extenuated when
working across cultural difference.
Scheyvens and Leslie (2000) discuss the multiple ethical dilemmas facing researchers
working with Third World women in cross-cultural contexts. They state how debates
about difference and who can really know or speak or represent has led to a crisis
of legitimacy for western researchers who research across difference be it race, gender,
class, sexuality, impairment or any of the multiple identities we find ourselves occupying.
Some researchers have withdrawn from research feeling that difference in identity
precludes the right to research; whereas others have found axes of similarity upon which
to conduct their research. Vociferous debates have recently surfaced in Disability Studies
on the right of nondisabled people to engage with disability research (Branfield, 1999;
Duckett, 1998b). Another response to the dilemma of research and representation is to
acknowledge (as reflexive approaches urge us to do) and work with difference. Chaachi
and Pittin (1996, p. 23) state, Difference and distance between researcher and subject are
commonly evident in e.g. class, caste, ethnicity and nationality. Difference however does
not preclude good research. Scheyvens and Leslie (2000, pp. 128129) share a similar
approach concluding that we can research across difference and What is essential is that
those studied should not merely be seen as source of data through which a researcher can
further his or her career; the research should be accountable, reflexive, and research
should be a two-way process of interaction. The next part of the paper describes our two
studies and the process of putting value into practice.
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SALLY'S STUDY DEALING CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH DIFFERENCE: HOW
MY READING OF FEMINIST DEBATE ON EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS AND
METHODOLOGY INFORMED MY RESEARCH
For 18 months (between 1997 and 1998) my research
5
took place in an industrial export-
processing zone in Lamphun, Northern Thailand in and around the Northern Regional
Industrial Estate (NRIE). Since the mid-1980s the Thai government has been proactive in
seeking to attract foreign direct investment and multinational companies, and the
construction of industrial estates is one strategy to ease the path of international
investment (Phongpaichit & Baker, 1996). In the industrial estates outside Bangkok and
the Eastern Seaboard
6
trade unions are nonexistent (Theobald, 1999). The factories in the
NRIE are mainly Japanese and produce microchips and electronics goods for sale on the
global market. NRIE workers and their families testimonies of ill-health have been
debated in the national press and portrayed in popular music
7
.
At an operator level, factories located in the NRIE employ mainly nonunionised young
(16-28 years old) female migrant workers. These young women leave their largely rural
homes to live in workers dormitories in Lamphun and work as operators in the
electronics factories. It is these young women workers who constituted the researched
during my project.
The research questions
My overall aim was to understand the decisions and priorities of women workers in the
NRIE vis a vis their work, their health and their future. The specific research questions
evolved throughout the fieldwork as I began to be more aware of workers experiences,
decisions and priorities. By the end of the fieldwork my research questions were refined
to the following:
(a) How does gender inform management structures and practices within the
workplace?
(b) How do workers experience, understand and articulate the range and prevalence
of health hazards in their work?
(c) In a context where there are no trade unions, what are workers perceptions,
reactions and strategies of (non) resistance to the evolution of actual or potential
hazard in the workplace?
Multiple identities: Experiencing difference during the research
Much of the discussion from feminist theory of the silences in research centres on the
nature of the relationships and the power differentials at play between the researcher and
the researched. I problematised these issues within my own research relationships. Within
gender and development discourse that focuses on industrialisation there has been
discussion of insider/outsider relationships. Lim (1990), for example, criticises the work
of Elson and Pearson (1981, 1984) as coming from a first-world perspective. Moreover,
Salzinger (1997) states that her work on (Export Processing Zones) (EPZs) is more
real, as through joining the production line she becomes an insider, thereby forging
commonality and distancing difference. This was not an option for me in the NRIE. Thai
culture pays a great deal of attention to appearance in conversations, interactions and
relationships. Being six foot, large, white, blond, English, English speaking, atheist and
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living out of the context of my familial relationships set me as different from the
appearance and realities of the large majority of Thai women. I felt that in terms of
physical appearance, identity and language the differences between women workers and
me would always override constructions of commonality.
This difference was a source of constant fascination and questioning, as workers tried to
ascertain who I was and what I was doing. I tried to be as honest as possible in response
to all their questions, while at the same time knowing that my responses were integral to
workers perceptions of myself and how they in turn would react to me. In the eyes of
workers my identity was merged between friend, child
8
, researcher
9
, sexual confidante
10
,
and English teacher
11
. Likewise, in my eyes the identity of workers merged between
friend, surrogate parent and student. I felt that difference did not disrupt the process of
friendship formation between me and women workers, but rather added a certain
dimension to the relationships that evolved. However, there were also some similarities
between the location and experiences of women workers and myself, that moved us
beyond insideroutsider relationships. We were of similar ages and mainly of the same
nonmarital status often subject to similar dilemmas and traumas in our relationships.
Constructions of commonality aided the process of friendship and closeness.
Multiple identities: Choosing methods that are sensitive to difference
To begin with I used open-ended, interactive and participatory research methodologies,
such as open conversations and participant observation (living in a workers dormitory).
This is important, as in the beginning, especially as a result of our differences in
experience, I was learning about the realities and priorities of women workers and was in
the process of formulating and reformulating what my research questions and foci should
be. Through time, open-ended conversations with certain women were built up to be life
histories, as we traced through different themes and life events together. Such an
approach is consistent with insights derived from feminist epistemologies as through the
recognition of different subject positions, an interactive research process is prioritised. It
is also consistent with Villarreals (1992) concept of boundaries as open conversations
present ways in which workers can offer their own analyses and interpretations. The
research process needs to be a dialogic process jointly shaped by the researcher and the
researched.
As my understanding of women workers experiences grew and my research questions
became more consolidated, I felt I could attempt to further systematise the information
through the use of thematic interviews, focus groups and questionnaires.
Working with and across difference towards social action
Women workers in the industrial estate shared their hopes, fears, aspirations and lives
with me. They taught me how to cook Thai food, how to wai in a temple and took me
back to their villages to meet their families. By allowing me access into their lives, I
gathered realms of data, obtained my PhD and secured an academic post. Many feminist
texts (and a gut feeling) emphasise that research should transcend an extractive process
and lead towards creating positive social change. This is where our differences and
multiple identities could be built upon constructively. I differed to Thai women workers,
in terms of my situated knowledge, my ability to speak English and my access to political
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and economic networks. Women workers acknowledged these differences and found
ways for us to build on them for example, they asked me to teach them English. I taught
some workers English informally in their (very limited) free time in their dormitories. We
also set up an English language course
12
at the office of the Union for Civil Liberty, a
nongovernment organisation (NGO), based in Lamphun. The Union for Civil Liberty is
working towards promoting the social, political and human rights of NRIE workers and
Lamphun residents.
Workers also asked me individually for advice on sexual practices, contraception and
sexually transmitted diseases. As many Thai women are having their first sexual
relationships on arrival in the NRIE, they feel the need to seek advice on this experience.
As a non-Thai, I was often seen as a safe bet to confide in, as I would have no links back
to their family to reveal their behaviour. Berninghausen and Kerstan (1992) had a similar
experience in their research in rural Java, where they found that Strangers are often
entrusted with secrets from various sides because of their position as social
outsiders (1992, p. 5). Also as a westerner, I was seen as sexually
experienced/knowledgeable and unshockable and therefore a good person to discuss
sexual issues with.
As workers shared their experiences they expressed the need for accessible and neutral
information about both occupational and reproductive health. Through joint
understandings of our experiences and differences, together with notions of commonality,
women workers and I were able to work together in the planning and creation of the
Lamphun Womens Health Centre (LWHC). The LWHC, which is funded by the Dutch
agency NOVIB, provides training and information in occupational and reproductive
health issues, as well as a safe space for women workers. My involvement in this process
was in the systematic analysis of workers expressions of need about health information
(through the research process) and translation of this into a proposal format. The LWHC
has the following short- and long-term objectives:
Short term
To increase the availability of information to workers and residents of Lamphun on
issues of occupational and reproductive health.
To enable larger numbers of workers and local residents to protect themselves from
problems stemming from occupational and reproductive health issues.
To increase the training and skill upgrading opportunities available for workers.
To provide a safe place community area for women workers.
Long term
To enable the formation of support groups or networks of women who have/have had
particular experiences or problems. For example, groups of women who have
experienced sexual violence, occupational sickness, the birth of a child who has
mental or physical impairments.
To enable women to come together and negotiate with the state and factories to
provide for their specific needs. For example, the provision of crche facilities within
the factories.
To provide well-attended and ongoing training courses and seminars.
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The main rationale behind these objectives is that health and training opportunities were
articulated by workers as their specific needs. Knowledge and information on health and
training (e.g. language, self-defence, etc.) are also skills that workers can use throughout
their life cycle, taking them beyond their time as workers in the NRIE. In a time of
economic downturn, some workers fear that activities focusing just on worker identity
(such as occupational health) may be perceived by employers as potentially dangerous,
thus leading to dismissal. However, health (and in particular reproductive health), training
and the provision of information are more neutral issues, relevant to both workers and
nonworkers.
The LWHC was opened in 1999 and currently provides information to women workers
and women of Lamphun. The centre holds events that aim to generate discussion and
exchange of ideas about health issues and problems. For example, on World AIDS Day in
2000, a drama/documentary video on the experience of catching HIV was shown
followed by a discussion. Women also come to the centre to learn Japanese language and
basic computing skills. Workers who are involved in activities at LWHC and the Union
for Civil Liberty have become increasingly interested in computers and in particular, in
the possibilities, networks and channels for information, exchange and advocacy offered
through the Internet. Many workers spoke of the wish to search for information relevant
to their particular needs
13
and to exchange experiences, ideas and activities with workers
and worker organisations in other national contexts. We are currently in the process of
applying to the Department of International Development Innovation fund for the
purchase of Internet-ready computers, and the necessary training about how to use them,
for workers at UCL and the LWHC. The products of their oppressive working conditions
have the potential to be used as a catalyst for social change by carving open opportunities
for information exchange, networking and advocacy and the possibility for better working
conditions.
Summary
Feminist epistemological and methodological debates informed my research experience
in two main ways. Firstly, the feminist call for an open and reflexive account of both the
research experience and research relationships framed my reflection. This involved
critically engaging with the multiple roles and identities we construct for ourselves as
researchers and researched, and what this means for the research process. Secondly,
the feminist celebration of the subjective and focus on research towards social action
and change guided my involvement in creating spaces for change. Through engaging with
the process of setting up the LWHC and together with workers developing operational
research proposals to provide Internet access to facilitate exchange and dialogue with
workers both nationally and internationally, my involvement is ongoing and moved
beyond normative research practices.
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PAUL'S STUDY MOVING FLUIDLY BETWEEN RESEARCH ROLES: HOW
MY COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGICAL VALUES SUSTAINED MULTIPLE
RESEARCH IDENTITIES
From 1994 to 1997 I was involved as a community psychologist in a participatory action
research project on the employment interview experiences of disabled people (Duckett,
1998a; Duckett, 2000b). This involved me working alongside a broad range of research
participants including disabled and nondisabled people, people who were unemployed,
employed and employers. I worked with participants using a variety of empirical methods
and participatory action research strategies.
Context of the research project
The concerns of disabled people in the UK are embedded within deep-rooted social
settings and systems. The social, economic, political and cultural context of most direct
relevance to my research included:
the disproportionate risk of disabled people to be unemployed or underemployed;
hostile labour market conditions with high levels of unemployment and
underemployment;
punitive disability and unemployment legislation;
dominance of a medical model ideology (disabled people in need, burdened by
impairment) implicit in the socio-economic structures of corporate and state
institutions and the voluntary sector; and
a disability movement that was gradually challenging the dominant ideology and
cultural beliefs that sustains disabilism.
During the research it was important for me to attend to the social and political relations
that developed between participants and myself. Here I reflect on the flexibility and
diversity of social and political roles participants and I undertook.
Flexible research roles
During the project I became researcher, advisor, advocate, colleague, and friend.
Similarly, participants became participants, advisees, benefit claimants, consultants, and
friends. These roles were multiple, developing throughout the research process. I focus on
one participant Jack to show how these roles unfolded.
Jack was a white, unemployed, disabled man in his mid forties who lived in an area of
high economic and social deprivation in central Scotland. I called on his house one
evening to conduct an individual interview. When our interview finished he asked if he
could use the benefit advice I was offering to check his welfare benefit entitlements. We
arranged a time to meet again to do so. A few weeks after our benefit advice interview
Jack contacted me by letter asking for further benefit advice. We were intermittently in
contact in this way over several months and on occasion this required me to offer more
concrete and active support for his benefit claims. Jack and I next met when I invited Jack
to become involved in the intervention stage of the project. We met along with other
research participants in both steering and consultancy groups. The research relationship
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that developed between myself and Jack points to the flexible and diverse blend of social
roles we engaged in. It is to these that I now turn.
Researcher/participant
Jack and I first met as participant and researcher. I was arguably more prepared for my
role than Jack was for his, given for me it was vocational and for Jack it was transitory. In
this project these were the roles participants and I initially entered.
Working with community psychological values, securing positive outcomes for
participants was central to my research approach. However, this was positioned fairly
abstractly for the majority of research participants while I was occupying the traditional
research role. Both social action and justice were distal outcomes of our research
engagement. I could strive to make a participant's involvement a positive experience
through using a person-centred interviewing protocol (Mearns & McLeod, 1984) in
interviews and offer the promise that the participants stories of economic and social
oppression would eventually be put in print. However, securing more immediate positive
outcomes from this process was less tangible while I was occupying the traditional role of
researcher. This called for me to adopt flexibility in my role that led me to adopt
additional research roles to make these positive research outcomes more tangible.
Advisor/advisee
The most immediate and practical means to achieve a positive outcome from the research
process for research participants on low incomes was to offer welfare benefit advice. In
the benefit advice interviews we occupied quite different roles to that of participant and
researcher. Advising participants on their benefit entitlements led me to spend a
considerable amount of research time concentrating on benefit entitlement information.
This was a role that required a careful and methodical approach to reviewing the benefit
entitlement literature
14
. As was the case of my role as researcher, I undertook the role of
collecting, analysing and presenting material, but now it was for very different reasons.
The material was not to be used as research material, but as the participant's own private
material which they used for their own purposes. Our research roles had changed. I
remained a data collector and the participant remained data provider, though unlike in
traditional research roles, I worked in waiting-mode and participants worked in seeking-
mode. (Participants would contact me when they required updates on their entitlement in
light of changes in their employment and domestic circumstances and changes in welfare
benefits legislation the latter being frequent during the course of the project). Thus
participants became the initiator of contact and became more active in the research
setting. This was the first nuance in our social roles that stemmed from my working with
community psychological values.
Advocate
My research role changed to advocate when Jack sought support with his claim for
disability welfare benefits. Jack felt considerably intimidated and confused by the whole
process of claiming benefits
15
. In this instance I advocated on Jack's behalf offering to
write letters on his behalf and represent his case to the Benefits Agency. I would take on
the role of an advocate with a number of participants in negotiating with the Benefits
Agency.
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With my role changing from advisor to advocate, the participant's role in turn changed.
The participants task was not solely data provider, we had become engaged in a collective
task, we had to mutually decide a course of action in regard to the Benefits Agency and
thus our roles were negotiated. Through situating myself more publicly on the side of
disempowered research participants, my role of advocate led me to become more deeply
involved in two disability self-advocacy organisations. I joined one as a committee
member and the other as a group advisor to fulfil my role of supporting and becoming an
ally for disabled participants. I needed to work by and on their side. Here, participants
and I were engaging in a more public, though individualistically focused form of social
action and social justice.
Consultants
Our research roles changed again as participants and I entered yet further research praxis:
the intervention stage of the project. We became engaged in action to dismantle employer
prejudice against disabled employees by working as a collective in four separate
consultancy teams managed centrally by a steering group. In these meetings we became
colleagues working together to establish a mutual exchange of information and to work
on a jointly decided course of action. This was unlike individual interviews where the
method was a vehicle for the participant to relate her/his story to me, or the benefit advice
interviews where I sought to relate information to research participants. In these groups
we decided upon a strategy for consulting with local employer organisations on their
policies towards the recruitment and retention of disabled employees. The steering group
identified four major employer organisations with whom they wished to work that had
previously expressed an interest in the research project. During steering group meetings
we decided upon a plan of action that involved the development of a Code of Practice
(Duckett, 1998a) based on the employment experiences of members of the steering group
and upon the empirical evidence I had collected during the research project. Participants
and I then organised ourselves into four separate consultancy groups whose role would be
to develop the Code of Practice through direct negotiations with each employer
organisation, tailoring the Code to each employer's organisational culture. I thus
established a distinctly collaborative research relationship with participants. Furthermore,
through securing funding for these groups, participants received a consultancy fee for
their work particularly important considering the low income of disabled participants.
More crucially, for the first time in this project we entered our flexible research roles to
effect positive change wider than for project participants. This flexing of our research
roles was intimately bound to my community psychological values not just confined to
concerns for participant empowerment, but the overarching concerns of social justice.
This change in research roles entailed a more public move from documenting to
challenging discrimination against disabled people.
Friend
With Jack, my research role most clearly turned to becoming a participant's friend.
Towards the end of the project Jack asked me to support him at an interview he had
scheduled with a medical professional. Jack had found the social environment at his
workplace particularly disabling. Jack wanted to resign from his employment but needed
a letter of support from a medical professional otherwise he would lose his eligibility for
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welfare benefits
16
. He asked if I would sit with him during the interview. He felt I would
be able to more easily articulate his circumstances to the medical professional than he
could himself. I would have construed my role as advocate, but Jack referred to my role
as having a friend along. I therefore refer to my role in the way Jack articulated it.
I met Jack an hour before his appointment and he was understandably anxious. For Jack,
an unsuccessful interview would mean he would either have to return to a working
environment that was causing him considerable distress, or leave work but not be eligible
for any form of income. We shared some time together going over what he wanted from
the meeting and how he was going to present his concerns. Jack told me how he felt
unable to express himself and be assertive when confronted by medical professionals. He
asked that I help him to express himself. He showed considerable faith in my ability to do
this and, of more satisfaction to me, he was unquestioned in his belief that I knew his
employment and impairment circumstances sufficiently to be able to speak on his behalf.
We went into the interview focused, if not a touch afraid. We came out an hour later with
great relief, a touch of euphoria and broad smiles on our faces the interview was a
success. We also exchanged quizzical looks as we realised that Jack had articulated his
concerns extremely effectively throughout the interview and I had not uttered a word.
Jack was generous enough to tell me that my being with him during the interview had
helped. He told me he was glad to have a friend in the interview with him to support him
if he needed it.
I am unsure if this was the only time I occupied the role of friend with a participant
during the research process. Reflecting back, I feel several other friendships formed, but I
feel it would be presumptuous to say this is how participants viewed these research
relationships. Even if Jack was the only participant where such a role developed it has, I
think, important implications for research roles and the empirical data that such roles
allow us access to. A friend is someone whom you know well, whom you regard with
liking, affection, trust and loyalty. A friend is someone who is an ally, who is on your
side. I sought to position myself on the side of participants in my role as advocate and
consultant and to show loyalty in my role as advisor. Where Jack described our
relationship as being friends it suggested we had got to know each other at a deeper level
than these other roles suggested. The empirical drive behind the research was to enter
participants' frames of reference to explore rich levels of contextualised meaning in their
experiences of employment interviews. Developing friendships during the research
process may be indicative of a successful empirical venture. Here, perhaps more than any
other role, I got to know research participants and participants in turn got to know me.
Summary
These are examples of the many research roles I occupied during the project. Each
allowed me to participate in people's lives and in research settings in a positive and active
way. My community psychological values encouraged me to step out of the traditional
research role and into additional roles that would allow participants, and I, to be more
actively engaged in the research process. Participants and I engaged in a variety of social
settings and roles. This offered me multiple perspectives on research issues. As well as
gaining an enriched understanding of participants' experiences, it made me much more
transparent to participants.
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However, with such multiple and flexible roles there was a greater degree of insecurity
and uncertainty for me over my research role, most clearly during consultancy group
meetings where I could not control the course and content of our meetings nor our
eventual praxis. I had to relinquish some control over the research process and engage
reflexively with my social and political involvement in the project. This also meant I had
to invest a considerable amount of personal energy in the research process. This was, at
times, an exhausting and challenging project to be in. It may similarly have been
exhausting and challenging for research participants who became deeply involved in the
project, but I feel there were also considerable rewards for us all. Though I mostly reflect
in this section on the multiple roles I engaged in, this also offered a variety of roles for
participants to become engaged in. Participants were considerably freed from the
traditional roles of subjects. For steering group and consultancy group members, this
extended to a paid consultancy role. Generally opportunities were opened for participants
in this project to become more active in research settings, to occupy a place and space
that rather than being disempowering, created opportunities for participants to engage
directly in social action towards social justice alongside the researcher.
Working with difference
Respect for diversity is empty unless the disadvantaged groups have access to political and
economic networks. In an absence of such access, a celebration of plurality may simply
give the dominant group an excuse for nonaction. (Mitter, 1994, p. 21)
Dualism constructs the sociopolitical world around binary oppositions
disabled/nondisabled, female/male, nonwhite/white, Thai/non-Thai
unemployed/employed, child/adult, homosexual/heterosexual and is sustained in a
discourse where one binary is preferred and offered social, economic and political
privileges. Difference dealt with in this way creates oppression (Watts, Trickett, &
Birman, 1994). Valuing difference has the potential to move us beyond a dualised
account of the world and away from oppressive practices. It can lead us towards a
discourse that sustains multidimensionality, equality and democracy.
The challenge stemming from many strands of feminist thought is how to work with
difference in identities and positionalities to carve the path towards positive social action.
Harvey (1993) argues that it is possible to throw off some of the shackles of our personal
history/herstory and internalise what the condition of being the the other is all about.
He argues that in order to avoid an essentialised exclusionary politics, there is a need for
a sympathetic approach and mutual understanding. Feminist writer, Yuval-Davies (1993,
1994) introduces the concept of transversal politics as a way to work politically and
progressively with and across difference.
Valuing diversity also has a prominent place in the history and future of community
psychology (Trickett, Watts, & Birman, 1993, 1994). While psychology has spawned a
diverse number of specialised subdisciplines, each of these sub-disciplines is typically
founded on a common ideology a male, white, heterosexual, nondisabled, middle-class
way of thinking. This has been challenged by the growth of the psychology of women,
ethnic psychologies, gay/lesbian psychologies, and the psychology of disabled people.
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Each of these critiques views difference positively and finds a valued place for the
other that has been marginalised in the past. These new branches of psychology point
to the need for diversity to be explored both through the nature of the questions we ask
(multilevel analysis), and the people with whom we work (multidisciplinary approach).
Both our projects illustrate the kaleidoscope of roles and identities that researcher and
researched can negotiate and construct for themselves and each other (especially when
working across difference Thai/non-Thai; worker/nonworker; disabled/nondisabled),
and the benefits this accrues. Our focus on valuing diversity extends to the positive
benefits we experienced in collaborating on this paper. We come from distinct
disciplinary backgrounds (Gender and Development/Feminism Sally; Psychology
Paul). In writing this paper we found a welcome synergy between our ways of working.
We uncovered our different ways of storytelling and of traversing oppressive silences and
in doing so found our diverse ways of work were enmeshed in a common value system
that respected diversity and sought social justice through social action and participant
empowerment. We conclude that where professional sensitivities can be calmed and the
cross-fertilisation of ideas between previously separate disciplines achieved, the prospects
are for a pollination and enrichment of scientific discourse a much needed pragmatism
for researchers working in complex and rich social and organisational settings. Ultimately
this may require us to concede academic territory in the interests of wider empirical,
pragmatic and political aims. The call for social justice and the valuing of diversity is not
just concerned with what we talk about but with whom we talk and the way we talk.
CONCLUSION
Our research was essentially a social and political activity. Our values and beliefs made
us political agents in these settings, particularly in the intervention stages of our project.
Further, in the intervention stages of our projects, our political agency made us agents of
change in the field, using our cultural capital, political and social networks and
socioeconomic resources we became catalysts for change rather than distillers of data.
We feel disquiet at talking only about the data that came from the qualitative methods
we used often the expectation placed upon us by colleagues working within more
traditional forms of empirical enquiry. As subjective, social agents who are
contextualised in organisational settings and politicised by personal values and beliefs,
we came out of research settings with much more. Through our empirical endeavours we
gained experiential awareness of our research topics set within multiple layers of
meaning: from the personal across to the political. Through reflecting on the macro,
systemic levels and micro interpersonal levels of our projects, valuing and immersing
ourselves in the sociopolitical diversity of the environments we worked in, we flexed our
roles to engage in socially, culturally and politically sensitive practices. We sought to
make ourselves transparent, accountable and useful as social science researchers and
focused on participant empowerment and social action in pursuit of social justice.
Notes
1
We use the term disabled people as this is the label preferred by the disability
movement an international political movement run by and for disabled people.
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2
We use nonsexist pronouns though psychology has predominantly explored male
experience at the neglect of female experience. So in this respect our use of
nonsexist language misleads as to psychology's distinctly sexist practice (re: Albee
& Perry, 1998).
3
Terminology used to label people with learning difficulties does not cross cultural
boundaries. In Australia, the phrase intellectual impairment is preferred by some;
in North America the term mental retardation is used a term people with
learning difficulties find particularly offensive.
4
We both work in institutions whose links to their immediate community context
are severed through the corporate branding they adopt. The University of
Northumbria at Newcastle was semantically dislocated from its roots when it
became rebranded as the University of Northumbria. Colonialist discourse
underlies the branding of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine: a name that
distances itself from the realities of the lives of many Liverpudlians or as one taxi
drive told us we aint fecking tropical in Liverpool luv [sic]!
5
The research was for my PhD (Theobald, 1999) under the supervision of Dr Ruth
Pearson and Dr Rhys Jenkins. The PhD was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and
the University of East Anglia.
6
This industrial development stretches from Bangkok along the Eastern Seaboard
toward the Cambodian border.
7
In the early 1990s there was well-publicised sickness and death amongst NRIE
workers. For example, the Bangkok Post (1994a, b, and c), declared that between
11 and 23 people died from work-related causes in the NRIE up to 1994.
Controversy surrounding sickness and deaths in the NRIE has reverberated around
Thailand through varied media, including newspapers, radio, word of mouth and
popular music.
8
In terms of Thai culture and Buddhism, I was often like a child, and my worker
friends would lead me through complex rituals and ceremonies, explaining their
importance and context. Sometimes when I was taken back to a workers village
where no central Thai was spoken, I was also like a child as I could not understand
what was being discussed, and everything had to be explained to me in central
Thai.
9
I explained to women workers about my research and that I was a PhD student at a
British University.
10
Providing information on sexual and reproductive health.
11
Throughout the period of my research I taught English at the Union for Civil
Liberty, an NGO working for and with workers in Lamphun.
12
I taught English on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Inclusive of overtime, NRIE workers
working days are from 8 am 8 pm (day shift) and 8 pm 8 am (night shift). To
complement these long working days we held the English classes from 5.30 pm
7.30 pm for workers on night shift and 8.30 pm10.30 pm for workers on day shift.
13
There is a lot of information on occupational health hazards stemming from the
electronics industry, from a range of different sources, on the Internet.
14
I joined the Child Poverty Action Group (a UK campaigning anti-poverty
organisation), and maintained a subscription to the Lisson Grove computer
program (a program that calculated UK welfare benefit entitlements).
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15
In the UK, as in many other countries, the process of claiming welfare benefits is
complex and, particularly with means-tested benefits, can be experienced as
considerably intimidating and stigmatising.
16
In the UK, leaving your place of employment voluntary means you are not eligible
for welfare benefits while you are unemployed.
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SALLY THEOBALD is a Lecturer in Social Sciences and International
Health. Her main research interests are gender and health and workers
organising strategies.
Contact details:
International Health Division
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Pembroke Place, Liverpool, L3 5QA
UK
Phone: +44-0151-708-9393 ext. 2195
Fax: +44-0151-708-8733
Email: sjt@liv.ac.uk
Website: www.liv.ac.uk/lstm/lstm.html
PAUL DUCKETT is a UK-trained community psychologist. His main
research interest involves emanicpatory and participatory action research
involving disabled people.
Contact details:
Dr Paul Duckett
Psychology Division
Northumberland Building
University of Northumbria
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST
UK
Phone: +44-0191-227-3446
Fax: +44-0191-227-3190
Email: paul.duckett@unn.ac.uk
Website: www.unn.ac.uk/~evpd1
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C r i t i q u i n g a p p r o a c h e s t o c a s e s t u d y d e s i g n f o r a c o n s t r u c t i v i s t i n q u i r y / A p p l e t o n ( 1 8 p a g e s ) 8 0
Critiquing approaches to case study
design for a constructivist inquiry
Jane V Appleton, Department of Professional Studies, Oxford Brookes University
ABSTRACT
This paper critiques the use of case study in a qualitative study of health visitor
decision-making in which a constructivist approach underpins the methodology.
The major proponents of case study research are Yin (1994) and Stake (1995) who in
their respective texts offer two quite diverse approaches to case study investigation.
Despite increasing numbers of qualitative researchers adopting case study designs
in their inquiries, there is little evidence of detailed critique and comparison of these
two different approaches to case study research. This paper therefore debates the
suitability of both approaches to case study research within a constructivist inquiry
by comparing Yin (1994) and Stakes (1995) explication of their methods using the
following parameters: definition of a case, type of case study, rationale for method,
paradigmatic orientation, sampling approach, use/location of theory and time.
Key words: Case study, constructivist inquiry, health visiting, Robert Stake, Robert Yin.
INTRODUCTION
Case study is a valuable strategy in nursing and health research and its adoption as a
research approach appears to be increasing in popularity. This paper will examine the two
major, yet quite different approaches, to case study research offered by Robert Yin (1994)
and Robert Stake (1995). Despite increasing numbers of qualitative researchers adopting
case study designs in their inquiries there is little evidence of detailed critique and
comparison of these two divergent approaches. Indeed the literature on case study
research is in parts conflicting and sometimes unclear. Furthermore and somewhat
paradoxically many qualitative studies adopt Yins (1993, 1994) rather positivistic
approach with little justification and an apparent neglect of conflicting epistemologies.
This paper, while comparing Yin (1994) and Stakes (1995) approaches to case study on
a number of common parameters, will also debate the suitability of these approaches to
case study for a constructivist inquiry of health visitor decision-making.
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH STUDY
The study in progress reported on explores the decision-making processes of health
visitors in the United Kingdom (UK) when deciding to increase input and support to
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families over and above routine health visitor contact levels prescribed in Community
Trust protocols. A health visitor is a registered nurse who has undertaken a further year of
training focusing specifically on child and family health, health promotion and disease
prevention, as well as wider public health issues. Most health visitors are based in the
community, employed by Community National Health Service (NHS) Trusts and work in
attachment to general practitioners within primary care groups (PCGs). Assessment of
family health needs is a key aspect of the health visitors role in which a range of skills,
knowledge and judgements are used. These assessments are crucial in determining levels
of health intervention to be offered to families by the health visiting service. In todays
economic climate where the value of preventative services is increasingly being
questioned, there is a real need for health visitors to articulate and account for their
practice effectively.
The focus of the study is an attempt to understand the factors that influence a health
visitor in making a decision to offer a family extra support and to find out what the
essence of that support might be. Currently limited empirical evidence exists about the
nature of health visitors professional judgements and their decisions to increase support
to certain families. Achieving some understanding of the complex nature of professional
judgement is a complex and evolving issue. In order to develop knowledge about this
important but neglected area of practice, it was considered crucial that health visitors be
studied at work with clients in their own social settings. A constructivist approach to
inquiry was therefore adopted. The constructivist believes that realities are wholes which
cannot be understood in isolation from their contexts (Lincoln & Guba 1985, p. 39) and
was appropriate for examining the concept of professional judgement in its entirety,
including recognising the potential influence of multiple interacting factors which may be
operating.
In order to examine health visitors work practices with clients, home visits to families
receiving increased intervention(s) are being observed, recorded and analysed by the
researcher. Following these observations, in-depth interviews with health visitors and
their clients are undertaken. Thus an interactive epistemology (Guba & Lincoln, 1989,
p. 89) has been adopted and qualitative data collection and analysis procedures are being
utilised in order to focus on the emic perspective. Three case study sites, which will be
described in more detail later in the paper, have been selected in order to generate a rich
and detailed data source.
CASE STUDY: AN OUTLINE OF THE METHOD
There is much confusion about the case study method. A review of the literature indicates
that there appears to be a lack of clarity about what determines a case, discussed in
detail later in the paper, and this situation is exacerbated by the fact that case studies
have been used in several different ways (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Mariano, 1993; Ragin,
1992). For example, Meier and Pugh (1986), Yin (1993, 1994), Stake (1994, 1995) and
Sharp (1998) regard case study as a research strategy, Lincoln and Guba (1985) view it as
a technique for reporting the findings of a naturalistic inquiry, while other researchers
have described case studies as evaluation tools (Patton, 1990; Yin, 1993; Marshall &
Rossman, 1995). Many researchers agree that case study research can be either
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quantitative or qualitative, or a synthesis of both approaches (Runyan, 1982; Yin, 1994;
Stake, 1994; Sandelowski, 1996).
Further complications emerge from the fact that many different definitions of the term
case study can be found in the literature. One of the most popular is proffered by Yin
(1994, p. 13) who regards case study as an empirical inquiry that investigates a
contemporary phenomena within its real life context, especially when the boundaries
between phenomena and context are not clearly evident and in which multiple sources
of evidence are used. Robson (1993) defines the term case study similarly to Yin (1994),
while Stake (1994, p. 237) provides a less specific definition of case study stating that it
is both the process of learning about the case and the product of our learning. The
intensive and in-depth nature of this type of investigation is further highlighted by
both Powers and Knapp (1990, p. 17) and Woods and Catanzaro (1988, p. 553).
From these many definitions it can be determined that case study is indeed an intensive
analysis in which the inquirer attempts to examine and understand key variables which
are important in determining the dynamics of a situation, in order to provide detailed
insight into a specific phenomena of interest. In an attempt to clarify confusion
surrounding case study as method, Sandelowski (1996, p. 526) has suggested that it
refers to both a process of inquiry (studying a case, or designing and executing a case
study) and its end product (the case study or case report). The case study is an approach
which can be applied to a variety of problems and questions and is not restricted by any
procedural considerations (Meier & Pugh, 1986, p. 195). Furthermore, a variety of
methods can be used in the collection of multiple sources of data to gather a more
complete picture about the topic of interest.
In an outline of the case method, Mariano (1993, p. 313) has stated that four key elements
should characterise all case studies, these are context, boundaries, time and intensity.
Mitchell (1983, p. 192) describes how all cases are located within some wider context.
In the current study the health-visiting service and the phenomena of professional
judgement are being studied in context, which is seen as essential for understanding to
take place. Lincoln and Guba (1985, p. 39) suggest that studying phenomena in context is
important for a number of reasons. Firstly, in order that the inquiry method can influence
what is observed, that is the research interaction should take place with the entity in
context for fullest understanding (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 39); secondly the belief that
context is an important element in determining the applicability of study findings; thirdly
the fact that values are an intrinsic part of contexts and can determine study findings, and
finally, the belief in complex mutual shaping rather than linear causation, which suggest
that the phenomenon must be studied in its full-scale influence (force) field (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985, p. 39).
For the novice case study researcher the use of the terms boundary and boundaries
can undoubtedly cause some confusion. It is important to recognise that some researchers
use the term boundary to depict the actual nature and periphery of the case, how it
might be constrained in terms of time, events and processes (Creswell, 1998, p. 64),
whereas others use the term to describe the blurred edges between the phenomenon of
interest and its natural study context. Stake (1978, 1995), Bromley (1986), Ragin (1992)
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and Mariano (1993) all highlight the importance of clearly depicting the boundaries of the
case study investigation because of the wealth of detailed information that can be
generated. Stake (1995, p. 2) describes the case as a bounded system and stresses that it
is important to identify what is and what is not the case so the boundaries are kept
in focus (Stake, 1978, p.7). What is happening and deemed important within those
boundaries (the emic perspective) is considered vital and usually determines what the
study is about as contrasted with other kinds of studies where hypotheses or issues
previously targeted by the investigators (the etic) usually determine the content of the
study. Ragin (1992, p. 5) also describes boundaries around places and time periods as
being important in defining cases. Experience would suggest that depicting the
boundaries of a case is not always an easy task. In contrast Yin (1994, p. 13) uses the
term boundaries to describe the sometimes indistinguishable links between object of
interest and study context, rather than the limits of the case.
In terms of time, Mariano (1993, p. 323) highlights the fact that the researcher needs
sufficient time and opportunity to become familiar with and understand the context within
which the person or event is embedded. The inquirer studies the phenomenon under
investigation in an exhaustive fashion and having adequate time available can facilitate
the collection of multiple sources of data that can inform understanding about a particular
phenomenon. The intensity of case study research is reflected in the need for the
researcher to focus in an in-depth fashion on one issue on understanding the case itself
(Stake, 1994, p. 8). It is only through thorough immersion in the research setting, that a
researcher is able to unearth the intricacies and subtleties of the case.
SELECTING AN APPROACH TO CASE STUDY RESEARCH
The two major proponents of case study research are Robert Yin (1993, 1994) and Robert
Stake (1995) who in their respective texts offer two quite different approaches to case
study research. Yin (1993, 1994) favours both qualitative and quantitative approaches to
data collection within case study, whereas Stake (1995) offers an approach which is
essentially rather philosophical and focuses purely on qualitative aspects. Embarking on a
constructivist inquiry of health visitor decision-making, the researcher needed to adopt an
approach to case study which was commensurate with the philosophical underpinnings of
constructivism, yet the research literature provided little evidence of a detailed
comparison of the perspectives of Yin (1994) and Stake (1995). This dearth of relevant
material was surprising, and may indicate the fact that nurse researchers continue to
undertake case study with an apparent neglect of, or a limited understanding of the
underlying philosophy of the method. Thus the remainder of this paper will attempt to
explicate the decision-making processes used to assess the relevance and appropriateness
of these two approaches for a research study using a constructivist framework. The
following discussion of the case study will present a comparison of the perspectives of
Yin (1994) and Stake (1995) using the following parameters: definition of a case, type of
case study design, rationale for method, paradigmatic orientation, sampling strategy,
use/location of theory and time. These comparative elements are summarised in Table 1.
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T a b l e 1 : C a s e s t u d y : A c o m p a r i s o n o f t h e p e r s p e c t i v e s o f R o b e r t Y i n
a n d R o b e r t S t a k e
Comparative elements of
case study
Yin Stake
Definition of a case A case is a contemporary
single unit, phenomena or
issue of study. An object of
study, sometimes referred to
as a unit of analysis (Yin,
1993, p. 10).
A case is an object of study.
The case is a specific, a
complex, functioning thing
each case is an integrated
system and has a boundary
and working parts (Stake,
1995, p. 2).
Types of case study design The case study design can be
single (either holistic or
embedded) or multiple, as
well as descriptive,
exploratory or explanatory
(Yin, 1993).
Three types of case study
design: intrinsic, instrumental
or collective case study
(Stake, 1994; 1995).
Rationale for method Suitable for the study of:
how and why questions
focus is contemporary
issue(s) or unit(s)
in real-life settings
where no researcher
control
using multiple sources of
data
for qualitative and
quantitative approaches.
Suitable for the study of:
contemporary issue(s) or
unit(s)
in real-life settings
where no researcher
control
using multiple sources of
data
focusing on qualitative
inquiry
to construct an in-depth
understanding of a single
case/issue or multiple
cases.
Paradigmatic orientation Positivism and postpositivism. Interpretivism
constructivism.
Sampling approach Replication logic. Potential for
literal replication or theoretical
replication.
Purposive sampling.
Use/location of theory 1 Case study should ideally
be guided by theoretical
propositions.
2 Through the use of
analytic generalisation
case study results may be
generalised to an existing
theory.
Theory may emerge through
the case study, but there is no
insistence on theory
development.
Time A great deal of time needed
for the intensive and detailed
study of the case.
A great deal of time needed
for the intensive and detailed
study of the case.
(Summarised from: Yin, 1993, 1994; Stake, 1994, 1995)
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Definition of a case
A number of researchers (Ragin, 1992; Yin, 1993, 1994; Stake, 1995; Woods, 1997) have
all noted that the key difficulty which many researchers face when utilising the case study
strategy is the problem of clearly articulating what is the case and for some the unit of
analysis. Yin (1993, p. 10) highlights this problem when he states, No issue is more
important than defining the unit of analysis. What is my case? is the question most
frequently posed by those doing case studies. In fact there appears to be a general lack of
clarity in the literature about what actually can constitute a case and this does pose
difficulties for the novice case study researcher.
Sandelowski (1996, p. 526) has explained that the purpose of examining a case is to
optimize understanding of the One. It would appear then that many researchers view the
case or one as either an individual, a group, an activity, an incident, an organisation or
structure or group of organisations (Polit & Hungler, 1991; Stake, 1995; Woods, 1997;
Creswell, 1998; Cowling, 1998). However, both Bromley (1986) and Mariano (1993) go
further, stressing the study of the unit in a situation (Bromley, 1996, p. 25) that is, in
context. Indeed, Yin (1994, p. 13) describes a case as a contemporary single unit or
phenomena of study examined in context, where the boundaries between phenomena
and context are not clearly evident.
Bromley (1986) and Ragin (1992) also suggest that a case can be process. However,
Stake (1995, p. 2) would disagree with this fact, regarding the focus of a case study to be
an object of study as opposed to a process. Stake (1995, p. 2) states that the case is a
specific, a complex, functioning thing and suggests that each case has a boundary and
working parts. Stake (1994, p. 236) expands on this point further when he says that:
a doctor may be a case but his doctoring lacks the specificity, boundedness, to be called a
case. An agency may be a case. The reasons for child neglect or the policies for dealing
with neglectful parents would seldom be considered a case. Those topics are generalities
rather than specificities.
Yin (1994, p. 17) criticises this view of the case as a specific as being too broad, but the
researcher feels that this criticism is unwarranted as Stake (1995, p. 2) does stress the
importance of each case being an integrated system.
Indeed Ragin (1992, p. 6) has suggested that many researchers will not know what their
cases are until the research, including the task of writing up the results, is virtually
completed. This adds a further dimension and seems to indicate that the inquirer is
unlikely to be clear about all aspects of the case at the beginning of an inquiry and that
the true make-up of a case is likely to unfold only as the study progresses.
Faced with this confusing mass of literature and miscellaneous viewpoints two questions
appeared to be important when attempting to define the nature of the case in the current
investigation of health visitor decision-making. Firstly, is a definition of the case really
important? And secondly, if it is, what is its purpose? The literature appears to suggest
that in fact anything can be considered a case as long as the researcher depicts it clearly.
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Quite simply, it is the phenomenon of interest and context that constitute the case. Yet,
detailing the various dimensions of the case can be problematic when the researcher is
faced with the many complexities of a case and a complex issue. However, what seems to
be important is not purely describing its substance but clarifying how the case will inform
data collection and lead to an understanding of the phenomena of interest.
Type of case study
At this stage the author found it useful to refer to the different types of case study
associated with the perspectives of Yin (1993, 1994) and Stake (1994, 1995). Yin (1993)
states that case study research can focus on either a single case or on multiple cases and
can be further defined as descriptive, exploratory or explanatory. A descriptive case study
design documents a full description of the phenomenon of interest within its context (Yin,
1993). An exploratory case study is aimed at defining the questions and hypotheses
of a subsequent study or determining the feasibility of a research project (Yin, 1993,
p. 5). While the explanatory case study attempts to demonstrate causal relationships.
Stake (1994, 1995) on the other hand suggests that it may not always be possible to place
case studies into particular categories, but does describe three different types of case
study design. Firstly, intrinsic case study design which is undertaken when a researcher
wishes to seek clarity and understanding about a particular case (Stake, 1994, 1995). In
this type of design it is the unique case which is of interest (Stake, 1994). Secondly, he
describes instrumental case study in which a particular case is examined to provide
insight into an issue or refinement of theory (Stake, 1994, p. 237). In this type of design
the case is not the primary focus instead the case is used to explore and comprehend
another issue. The third type, collective case study, is essentially an instrumental case
study expanded to incorporate a larger number of cases. It occurs when a researcher
studies a number of cases together to explore a particular event, population or
phenomenon.
For the purposes of this investigation in which the researcher is attempting to capture
some of the issues and complexities surrounding health visitors professional judgements
in real life contexts, the case study was regarded as instrumental in design. This was
because the researcher was attempting to further her knowledge and understanding of
professional judgement, rather than focusing on the particular health visitors, clients, their
interactions or the Community Trusts themselves. Where this type of instrumental study
is broadened to include more than one case, it is termed a collective case study. In the
current study the researcher is intending to examine health visitors use of professional
judgement and formal guidelines in identifying families requiring increased health visitor
support. Health visitor professional judgement is being examined in three separate
Community NHS Trust study sites, one Trust where no assessment guidelines are used, a
second where fairly prescriptive guidelines are issued to health visitors and a third where
guidelines focus on the intuitive use of assessment. By selecting three slightly different
cases the intention is to increase understanding about the phenomena of interest,
professional judgement; thus a collective case study is being undertaken.
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So, how is the case defined in the current health visiting study?
The findings from preliminary research work and the literature on health visitor
assessment practices indicate that health visitors decisions to increase their support
levels to vulnerable families may be influenced by multiple interacting contextual factors.
These contextual factors include : Community Trust health visiting policy/protocols and
guidelines, clients home environments, National Health Service policy, general practice,
primary health care, social services, voluntary and statutory organisations, and
professional practice issues. Thus the three cases selected for this study needed to include
all these factors and possibly other significant elements which may emerge during the
processes of data collection and analysis (Ragin, 1992). Each case has therefore been
defined as health visitor interactions with clients receiving increased health visiting
support in one Community NHS Trust in the context of the above interacting factors.
(See Figure 1: The case, context and issue following page).
Rationale for method
The case study strategy is a particularly useful technique to use when little is known
about an issue. It therefore seemed an ideal approach to adopt when exploring
professional judgement and decision-making in health visiting. Case study was selected
as the researcher intended to undertake an intensive and detailed examination of a
contemporary issue (health visitor professional judgement in determining families
requiring extra health visiting support), within a real life setting (the context of the health
visiting service) using multiple sources of data to elicit greater understanding about the
case. In the UK health-visiting service, it is becoming of increasing importance for
practitioners to be able to clearly articulate and justify-assessment decisions in practice.
To examine health visiting in any other setting than its real-life context would involve
applying artificial constraints to practice and it would not therefore be possible to achieve
a true picture of the reality of health visiting.
In choosing the case study for this exploratory qualitative inquiry of health visiting, the
researcher could have adopted either Yin (1993, 1994) or Stakes (1995) method of case
study as the preferred strategy. For both approaches emphasise the importance of
studying phenomena in their natural and uncontrolled environments, where multiple
sources of data are often used, where the focus is in-depth understanding and the inquirer
attends to cases as wholes and strives to comprehend their essence (Sandelowski, 1996,
p. 526). Stake (1994), however, does emphasise that his approach to case study is
qualitative in nature.
Yin (1994, p. 1) has outlined a number of factors which need to be considered when
determining whether the case study is the appropriate research strategy to utilise in a
study: a) the type of research question, b) the control an investigator has over actual
behavioural events, c) the focus on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life
context. He also stresses that case study is the preferred approach when how and
why questions are being asked (Yin, 1994, p. 1). However, it also seems extremely
important to explicate the particular approach to case study which will be utilised and this
will undoubtedly be influenced by the researchers own epistemology and philosophical
viewpoint (Woods, 1997). In the case of the current study the researcher needed to adopt
an approach to case study which is consistent with constructivist assumptions.
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F i g u r e 1 : T h e c a s e , c o n t e x t a n d i s s u e
THE CASE Boundaries
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS
THE ISSUE
Health visitor's use of professional judgements
and formal guidelines to identify families
needing extra support
I
N
T
E
N
S
I
T
Y
T
I
M
E
THE CASE
Health visitor
interactions with
clients during home
visits in one NHS
Community Trust
P
r
i
m
a
r
y

h
e
a
l
t
h

c
a
r
e

&
p
r
i
m
a
r
y

c
a
r
e

g
r
o
u
p
s
C
l
i
e
n
t
s

h
o
m
e

e
n
v
i
r
o
n
m
e
n
t
s
S
t
a
t
u
t
o
r
y

o
r
g
a
n
i
s
a
t
i
o
n
s
Social
services
Community Trust health
visiting protocols/
policy guidelines
Voluntary
organisations
National Health
Service policy
P
r
o
f
e
s
s
i
o
n
a
l

p
r
a
c
t
i
c
e
Organisational
issues
THE CONTEXT
Paradigmatic orientation
Although Yin (1984, 1993, 1994) advocates both qualitative and quantitative approaches
to case study development, Stake (1995, p. xii) regards Yins (1994) text as being
essentially quantitative in nature. Yins (1984) distinctive case study design certainly
appears to have developed from a positivist viewpoint although in his first book, Case
Study Research Design and Methods, he does not explicitly state this. Interestingly in a
later applied work, Yin (1993, p. 47) is more clear about the philosophical roots of his
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
work, saying the approach here has been to base case study research within the
framework of the scientific method to develop hypotheses, collect empirical data, and
develop conclusions based on the analysis of such data. Furthermore, and to his credit,
Yin (1994) provides clear and fairly prescriptive guidance for the novice researcher
embarking on the conduct of a case study investigation.
Stake (1995) on the other hand offers an approach to case study research that is
essentially philosophical and focuses purely on qualitative aspects. Stake (1994, p. 236)
argues that the purpose of case study research is to optimize understanding of the case.
The inquirer attempts to seek out the complexities of the case to provide greater insight
into an issue of interest and he highlights the need for researchers to select cases that
seem to offer opportunity to learn (Stake, 1994, p. 243). The terminology which Stake
(1995) uses in his text The Art of Case Study Research is certainly more in keeping with a
constructivist viewpoint than the language used by Yin (1993, 1994). Stake (1995) is also
far less prescriptive than Yin (1993, 1994) though at a cost. Whilst Stakes (1995) text
does provide examples from case study research it is somewhat vague in its overall
approach. This results in a text which offers the novice case study researcher limited clear
guidance about undertaking a qualitative case study.
It would appear that Stakes (1995, p. 99) approach to case study is closely influenced by
a constructivist epistemology, the belief that knowledge is constructed rather than
discovered and the belief that research inquiry can never be value free. He states that no
aspects of knowledge are purely of the external world, devoid of human construction
(Stake, 1995, p. 100) and that multiple views about the case should be described. Indeed
Stakes (1978, 1994, 1995) approach to case study research appears to be consistent with
some of the key principles of constructivist inquiry. For example, Stake (1994) recognises
the impact of unique contexts and their influence in shaping each individual case.
The case study strategy also fits in well with the requirements of a constructivist ontology
that emphasises the holistic nature of realities and the importance of studying phenomena
in their natural uncontrolled contexts. It is also useful for studying multiple realities,
because many issues can be examined in-depth within a particular context. As Stake
(1995, p. 8) notes, the real business of case study is particularization, not generalisation
and its focus on the emic perspective (Stake, 1978). Case study research focuses on the
uniqueness of situations, which reflects Guba and Lincolns (1989, p. 22) emphasis on
idiographic interpretation and relevance of local particulars. The final case study report
often provides rich, complex and holistic descriptions about the phenomena under study
involving a myriad of not highly isolated variables (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Stake,
1978, p. 7). Case study reports can help readers in their own construction of knowledge
through vicarious experiences (Stake, 1994).
The inquirer undertaking a study using a constructivist framework may feel
uncomfortable with Yins (1993, 1994) approach to case study for a number of reasons.
Firstly, there does not appear to be any recognition in Yins (1993, 1994) work of the
importance of tacit knowledge and intuitive processes in data collection and analysis. A
further feature of Yins (1993, 1994) approach to case study, which stems from its
positivist roots, is the fact that he recommends researchers use traditional quantitative
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criteria such as construct validity, internal validity, external validity and reliability to
evaluate the quality of a case study. These terms certainly do not fit well with the
constructivist paradigm, where Guba and Lincoln (1981) and others (Sandelowski, 1996;
Marshall & Rossman, 1995) have recommended that researchers address issues of
trustworthiness and rigor through the use of truth value, applicability, consistency
and neutrality.
However, it is interesting to note, that in terms of assessing external validity, Yin (1994)
acknowledges that formal or statistical generalisation (gained by generalising from the
study sample to the wider population) is not appropriate in case study research. Instead
Yin (1994, p. 36) recommends the researcher seeks analytic generalisation in which the
researcher strives to generalise a particular set of results to some broader theory and to
use this as a template against which to compare the empirical results of the case study
(Yin, 1993, p. 50; Firestone, 1993). This raises two problems for the constructivist
inquirer, firstly in the fact that the constructivist is attempting to construct knowledge and
theory that is exclusive to the particular context under study. Preferring to view
constructions as unique contextual entities, he/she is certainly not attempting to generalise
findings to some existing theory. Secondly, in constructivist inquiry the concept of
generalisability is modified to that of transferability, with the responsibility lying with
those who seek to apply the study findings to other settings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This
latter view is supported by Stake (1995, p. 85) when he states that people can learn much
that is general from single cases. In case study research he describes the adoption of
naturalistic generalisations which reflect the conclusions arrived at through personal
engagement in lifes affairs or by vicarious experience so well constructed that the person
feels as if it happened to themselves (Stake, 1995, p. 85). This highlights the need for the
researcher to describe case study contexts in detail to develop vicarious experiences for
the reader, to give them a sense of being there (Stake, 1995, p. 63).
Another area of conflict for the researcher undertaking a constructivist inquiry surrounds
the issue of explanatory case studies where Yin (1993, 1994) explains the researcher is
concerned with presenting data to explain causal relationships. Certainly constructivists
would argue that it is impossible to explicate causes from effects, believing that all
phenomena are in a state of mutual simultaneous shaping (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p.
39). The quality criteria of internal validity is therefore not regarded as a suitable measure
in a constructivist inquiry.
On closer examination, other features of Yins (1993, 1994) case study strategy are
inherently not in harmony with a constructivist methodology; for example, Yins (1994,
p. 54) recommendation that each case study should be preceded by a planned protocol
to guide the investigation. He advises that the case study protocol should include the
following areas:
An overview of the case study project (project objectives and auspices, case study
issues, and relevant readings about the topic being investigated)
Field procedures (credentials and access to the case study sites, general sources of
information, and procedural reminders)
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Case study questions (the specific questions that the case study investigator must keep
in mind in collecting data, table shells for specific arrays of data, and the potential
sources of information for answering each question)
A guide for the case study report (outline, format for the narrative, and specification of
any bibliographical information and other documentation). (Yin, 1994, pp. 6465).
These protocols appear to be formal statements of intent which are intended to provide
direction for researchers undertaking a case study and are important in increasing the
reliability of the research (Yin, 1994). However, these features of the case study protocol
are quite alien to the constructivist paradigm where it is regarded that detailed design
issues cannot be given in advance; [but] must emerge, develop [and] unfold
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 225). Yins (1994) case study protocol is commensurable with
the design specifications of the positivist paradigm. Constructivists, however, believe that
study designs should be allowed to emerge as the researcher interacts with study
participants in the natural context and begins to understand and get a feel for important
issues. This was certainly an important consideration in the current study of health visitor
decision-making, where the researcher had few preconceived ideas about the concept of
professional judgement and needed to refine her thinking as the study progressed.
Lincoln and Guba (1985, p. 226) state that design in the naturalistic sense means
planning for certain broad contingencies without, however, indicating exactly what will
be done in relation to each. Therefore while it is appropriate for a constructivist study to
have clearly defined objectives and initial plans for preliminary data collection, these
plans are not set in tablets of stone and are often tentative in nature (Erlandson, Harris,
Skipper, & Allen, 1993; Appleton & King, 1997). This constructivist viewpoint contrasts
markedly with Yins (1994, p. 24) positivistic approach which recommends the case
study researcher formulates propositions, time boundaries to define the beginning and
end of the case and to establish the boundaries of data collection and analysis processes.
Sampling approach
Whether Yin (1993, 1994) or Stakes (1995) approach to case study is adopted, both aim
to fully explore and understand the particular case or cases selected. As stated earlier
formal generalisation, on the basis of probability sampling, is not the intention of either
approach and Yin (1994, p. 31) says that this is because cases are not sampling units
and should not be chosen for this reason. Yin (1994, p. 32) suggests that the selection of
a case will emerge from the clear specification of the studys research question with a
potential aim toward analytic generalisation. He compares the selection of individual
cases (through replication logic) to a laboratory researcher choosing topics for
experimentation (Yin, 1994). He states that multiple cases should be selected at the
beginning of a study to either (a) predict similar results (a literal replication) or (b)
produce contrasting results but for predictable reasons (a theoretical replication) (Yin,
1994, p. 46). This analogy of multiple case studies with multiple experiments is
extremely disconcerting for the constructivist inquirer. A constructivist inquiry would
contain no such explicit assumptions at the outset of inquiry, but should be influenced by
the multiple realities that are encountered as the study unfolds.
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Stake (1994, p. 236) argues that the purpose of case study research is to optimize
understanding of the case. A case is initially selected because of its relevance to the
phenomenon under investigation. Stake (1994, p. 243) highlights the need for researchers
to select cases that seem to offer opportunity to learn.. The inquirer then attempts to
seek out the complexities of the case to provide greater insight into the issue of interest.
This reflects an adoption of purposive sampling techniques to gather information rich
cases (Patton, 1990, p. 169), with the intention of building up a range of information and
constructions about the case(s).
In the current study of health visitor decision-making the researcher had no preconceived
a priori theory or specification about sample selection for the main study. Instead insights
were to emerge following preliminary work and the analysis of documentary evidence
which influenced the sampling strategy for the main study. A purposive sampling strategy
was adopted to identify four Community NHS Trusts study sites willing to participate in
the main study where a range of guidelines were issued to health visitors to assist them in
identifying vulnerable families. The researcher was interested in exploring whether or not
these guidelines influenced a health visitors professional judgement in deciding to
increase support to vulnerable families. A maximum variation sampling strategy was used
to identify one pilot site, one Community NHS Trust where guidelines were not used, one
area where fairly prescriptive guidelines were issued to health visitors and one area where
the guidelines emphasised the intuitive use of assessment. Patton (1990, p. 172) describes
maximum variation sampling as a strategy aimed at capturing and describing the central
themes and unique variations which can emerge in an inquiry. According to Lincoln and
Guba (1985, p. 201) the object of the game is not to focus on the similarities which can
be developed into generalisations, but to detail the many specifics that give the context its
unique flavour.
Using a volunteer sampling strategy a total of five health visitors from each of the three
Community NHS Trusts were selected to participate in the observation/interview stage of
the main study. In view of the potentially sensitive nature of the accompanied home visits
the researcher felt it was most appropriate to select a volunteer health visitor sample who
seemed receptive to the research and cooperative. It was important to select health
visitors who felt comfortable and confident in being accompanied on home visits to
families to whom they were offering extra support. The researcher determined that these
practitioners would be able to offer a variety of constructions to assist her understanding
of the nature of professional judgement. As this was an initial stage of inquiry, to have
selected respondents who had no interest in the study would have been illogical as it is
unlikely that the aim of the accompanied home visits to vulnerable clients would have
been achieved (Morse & Field, 1996). Health visitors were thus selected on the dual basis
of perceived cooperation and on the basis of what they [could] contribute to the
understanding of the phenomenon under study (Erlandson et al., 1993, p. 91).
It was planned that all clients involved in the observation and home visit would be
selected by their health visitor as caseload manager. The criteria for selection were that
clients were currently receiving an increased level of input from their health visitor (as
defined by the health visitor) and would be agreeable to participate in the study (to be
observed and later interviewed by the researcher). Because of the sensitive nature of the
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research, it was felt important that the health visitors maintained control over the
selection of clients taking part in the research. A nominated sampling approach was
therefore utilised. Morse (1991, p. 130) defines a nominated sample as one where an
informant is invited to suggest another participant, and the researcher uses this referral to
solicit the second person to be a part of the study. The benefit of this type of sampling
strategy is that it may be the only way for a researcher to reach the group of interest, in
the case of this study, vulnerable families who were receiving extra support from the
health visiting service.
Use/location of theory
Yin (1994, p. 28) argues that a fundamental stage in case study research is that prior to
data collection theory development should take place which can direct subsequent data
collection and analysis processes. Yin (1993, p. xiii) states that the function of theory is
twofold: not only is [it] helpful in designing a case study but it also later becomes the
vehicle for generalising a case studys results. He points out those naturalists such as
Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Stake (1983) attempt to avoid prior commitment to any
theoretical model (Yin, 1994, p. 14) and Yin (1994) clearly regards this stance as a
weakness. However, constructivists would argue vehemently that it is impossible to adopt
a theoretical framework at the beginning of the study as not enough can be known about
the constructed realities which may exist in the context under investigation. Arguably if
this were the case there would be little point in undertaking the research in the first place.
As Lincoln and Guba (1985, p. 41) note no a prioiri theory could possibly encompass
the multiple realities that are likely to be encountered. The constructivist researcher
prefers to regard theory as emergent (Erlandson et al., 1993, p. 16), although it is
recognised that the researchers own values and prior experiences will be an important
element in determining the type of study to be carried out.
Case study research has been traditionally criticised for the inability to generalise findings
from one or a limited number of cases (Mitchell, 1983; Powers & Knapp, 1990; Mariano,
1993; Dale, 1995). Indeed Mitchell (1983, p. 207) argues that the validity of the
extrapolation depends not on the typicality or representativeness of the case but on the
cogency of the theoretical reasoning. However, Stake (1994) disapproves of researchers
focusing on the potential generalisability of cases which he terms the typification of
other cases (Stake, 1994, p. 238) rather than their intrinsic and uniquely individual
worth. Stake (1994, p. 238) suggests that damage occurs when the commitment to
generalise or create theory runs so strong that the researchers attention is drawn away
from features important for understanding the case itself.
In contrast to the positivist view of generalisation, Stake (1995, p. 85) states that case
studies are undertaken to make the case understandable and that generalising to a
population is not the intention. This viewpoint is certainly consistent with Lincoln and
Gubas (1985) constructivist philosophy. Stake (1995) appears to adopt the view of
fittingness as outlined by Lincoln and Guba (1985) and suggests that naturalistic
generalisations may be achieved when others read the final case study report and view the
findings as meaningful in terms of their own experiences. His approach to case study in
emphasising the uniqueness and particularisation of the case does not insist on theory
development.
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Time as a factor in case study research
Both Yin (1993, 1994) and Stakes (1995) approach to case study research acknowledge
that intensive and detailed study of the case takes time (Yin 1993, 1994; Stake, 1995).
This intensive period of investigation can last a relatively short time (e.g. few days) or
can continue for some time (e.g. many years), as is often the case in social anthropology
(Mitchell, 1983; Neuman, 1994; Sharp, 1998). The inquirer quite literally immerses
himself or herself in the setting or situation and collects extensive evidence to describe
and/or explain the case" (Mariano, 1993, p. 315). The researcher scrutinises the
phenomenon of interest in an exhaustive fashion and having sufficient time enables the
collection of multiple sources of data to inform understanding of the phenomenon.
This recognition of the importance of the time element of a case study inquiry fits
particularly well with constructivism. Lincoln and Guba (1985), Erlandson et al. (1993)
and Stake (1995) have all highlighted the need for the researcher to spend a great deal of
time gaining access to study sites, building up relationships and contacts with potential
respondents before beginning to understand their constructions of reality. This has been a
crucially important factor in the current study where the researcher has spent considerable
periods of time gaining access to the study sites, utilising skills of diplomacy and
sensitivity. This has involved attending meetings with senior nurses and liaising with
ethics committees who both played an important gate-keeping role. Lack of
understanding by one of the medically dominated ethics committees about the purpose
and nature of qualitative research was a major obstacle in gaining approval for the study
in one site. This was further exacerbated by the sensitive nature of the study. The
researcher also attending a meeting with all health visitors in each site to describe and
give details about the proposed research. A researcher using this methodology has to
recognise the importance of effective communication at many levels and that a lot of time
needs to be allocated for writing letters, making telephone calls, holding meetings and
providing explanations for individuals in the planned study settings (Appleton & King,
1997). Stake (1994, p. 242) stresses the importance of the case study researcher needing
to spend long periods of time in case study sites personally in contact with activities and
operations of the case, reflecting [and] revising meanings of what is going on. At the end
the day, the process of gaining access and the progress of the case study will rely on
participants goodwill.
In summary, the Stakes case study strategy was deemed as best fitted to the study under
progress. Stake (1995) in his description of the case study strategy stresses the need for
the adoption of qualitative methods to establish meaning and portray the multiple
viewpoints of the case. Other factors which appear commensurate with a constructivist
philosophy are Stakes (1994, 1995) commitment to the use of data triangulation to gather
more complete data about the case and clarify different meanings. Lincoln and Guba
(1985) have previously established triangulation to be a crucial aspect of constructivist
inquiry. This emphasis on data triangulation can enable the researcher to make sense of
what is happening in a case. Stake (1994, p. 72) also appears to recognise the skills and
adaptability required of the human researcher as instrument when he states there is much
art and much intuitive processing to the search for meaning about the case.
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What is perhaps most useful about Stakes (1994, 1995) contribution to case study
research is his discussion about the three different types of case study design: intrinsic,
instrumental and collective case research, as discussed earlier in this paper. It is also
interesting to remember that Stake (1994, 1995) is quite specific about what can/cannot
be regarded as the case. Certainly for the current investigation of professional
judgements in health visiting, Stakes (1994, 1995) description of instrumental case study
research has been helpful in determining the nature and boundaries of each case.
However, the key reason for adopting a case study strategy in the current research study
is that it offers the constructivist researcher a framework for sampling cases which can
then be helpful in structuring the organisation and analysis of the triangulated case study
data. As described earlier, case study is a particularly useful approach for examining a
phenomena in its natural context, recognising the complexities of the real-life setting and
integrating multiple sources of evidence. It seemed a particularly appropriate strategy for
examining in more depth the issue of health visitor professional judgements in
determining families needing extra support.
Not very surprisingly, and in keeping with the rest of his text, Stakes (1995) description
of how to go about analysing case study data is fairly intangible. In fact he reinforces this
point when he states, I seek to make sense of certain observations of the case by
watching as closely as I can and by thinking about it as deeply as I can. It is greatly
subjective (Stake, 1995, p. 77). He goes on to say that each researcher needs through
experience and reflection, to find the forms of analysis that work for him or her (Stake,
1995, p. 77). Unfortunately, this does not provide much guidance for the novice case
study researcher grappling with the issues of case study design. The author recommends
that anyone intending to adopt Stakes (1995) approach to case study, should consider
very carefully analysis approaches prior to entering the field.
CONCLUSION
The case study strategy has much to offer the intrepid nurse researcher intending to study
a current practice issue within its real-life context (Yin, 1994, p. 13). This paper has
attempted to critique the two quite different approaches to case study research offered by
Robert Yin (1994) and Robert Stake (1995), and to assess their potential relevance for use
within a constructivist inquiry of health visitor decision-making. While both approaches
clearly have strengths and weaknesses, this paper has offered an explanation as to why
Stakes (1995) approach to case study research fits most appropriately with the
philosophical roots of constructivism. Fundamentally, the author believes that any
researcher who adopts a particular authors approach to case study strategy should
consider very carefully his/her own philosophical standpoint and be clear that they can
justify methodologically the particular approach adopted. It no longer seems acceptable to
state that one is undertaking a case study without being clear and consistent about the
particular approach adopted.
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Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). London: Sage
Publications.
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JANE V. APPLETON (BA (Hons). MSc. RGN. RHV. PGCEA) is a
Principal Lecturer in research education at Oxford Brookes University in
England. Her research interests include professional judgement,
community nursing and health visiting/public health issues. She has
published several articles and book chapters focusing on vulnerable
families, child protection and children in need work.
Contact details:
Principal Lecturer
Department of Professional Studies
Oxford Brookes University
Level 4, Academic Centre
John Radcliffe Hospital,
Headington, Oxford, OX3 9DU
UK
Phone: 01865 221962
!
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I n t e r p r e t i n g f r e e - f o r m a v i a t i o n c o n c e p t m a p s / S t a u f f e r T h o m a s / P e t e r s o n / P f i s t e r ( 1 3 p a g e s ) 9 8
Interpreting free-form aviation
concept maps through the integration
of semantically based thematic analysis and
quantitative corpus linguistics
Lisa Stauffer Thomas, School of Behavioural Sciences, The University of Newcastle
H. Peter Pfister, School of Behavioural Sciences, The University of Newcastle
Peter Peterson, Department of Linguistics, The University of Newcastle
ABSTRACT
Australian General Aviation (GA) currently requires two types of formal summative
student assessment, that is, operational flight tests and written knowledge
examinations. Formal assessments might be supplemented by graphic knowledge
representations if those representations could be validly and reliably interpreted. A
total of 48 free-form concept maps on the topic of the visual landing approach from
novice and experienced GA pilots were analysed using structurally based concept
map analysis methods. An additional domain vocabulary or semantic corpus
was constructed from decontextualised aviation texts in order to measure the
centrality and salience of specific visual landing approach themes by matching
decontextualised concept map words to this corpus. Although the present emphasis
is on the visual landing approach, the technique described may be applied to
comparable restricted knowledge domains when no other method of assessing
conceptual validity exists.
INTRODUCTION
The visual landing approach (VLA) is a flight manoeuvre with an operational beginning
at a distance from a preselected landing point and at a height above ground that should
permit the aircraft to descend at a safe rate and angle from that distance, and an
operational conclusion at the point at which the aircraft enters ground effect before
landing (Thom, 1998). Achieving competence in performing a visual landing approach
marks a significant achievement for novice pilots, and, arguably, the ability to safely
control an aeroplane on approach in diverse atmospheric and operational conditions
remains an indication of flight expertise throughout all aviation experience levels.
Typically in General (i.e. civil, nontransport) Aviation a flight student is first introduced
to the principles of the VLA in a briefing session by a flight instructor, and then practices
the VLA during repeated aerodrome circuit patterns while the instructor observes from
the co-pilot seat. When the instructor considers that the student can safely fly a circuit on
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I n t e r p r e t i n g f r e e - f o r m a v i a t i o n c o n c e p t m a p s / S t a u f f e r T h o m a s / P e t e r s o n / P f i s t e r ( 1 3 p a g e s ) 9 9
his/her own, and following a pass in a mandatory pre-solo written examination, the
student pilot is allowed to fly a first solo circuit of the aerodrome, concluding with a
visual approach and landing (Civil Aviation Safety Authority, 1993). Flight instruction
syllabi are oriented towards observable and measurable outcomes. Relatively less
emphasis has been placed on how pilots organise what they learn. The standardised,
multiple-choice examinations, as, for example, the Australian pre-solo exam, are not
generally designed to tap into conceptual understanding (Hoz, Tomer & Tamir, 1990;
Markham, Mintzes & Jones, 1994).
Although the visual landing approach has been intensely researched since World War II,
with particular emphasis on the role of perceptual guidance and information pick-up
(Lane & Cumming, 1956; Lewis, Blakely et al., 1973; Riordan, 1974; Lintern & Liu,
1991), research on pilot behaviour has not translated into lower General Aviation crash
rates (Li & Baker, 1999). There would be undoubted benefits for the flight instruction
community from the ability to identify a flight students VLA specific conceptual pattern
by using an appropriate knowledge-representation technique, one which is sensitive both
to the individual and across groups, and which does not require any specialised
psychological testing not generally available nor required in General Aviation flight
training.
Not all knowledge representation methods are suitable for domains which, like aviation,
include a notable perceptuo-motor content, and are also highly procedural (Paillard,
1991). The use of concept maps in other highly procedural fields as diverse as basketball,
meat grading, and music composition (Novak, 1990) suggested this relatively low-
inference strategy as a potentially appropriate representational technique for use in
aviation and in particular for exploring pilots understanding of the visual landing
approach. Concept mapping derives from David Ausubels work on cognitive learning
theory (1963) and his assimilation theory of learning (1978), which focuses on
meaningful learning as the process of interaction between new information and pre-
existing knowledge structures. It enables relations to be made visible in a two-
dimensional node-link propositional network representing the common structure of a
body of knowledge (Regis, Albertazzi, & Roletto, 1996). Two concepts, each joined by a
labelled link which identifies the nature of the relationship, form the basic proposition.
The overall network of these propositions constitutes a concept map.
Concept maps are assumed to be equivalent to either the whole or to some understood
part of the thinking process (Stuart, 1985; McClure, Sonak & Suen, 1999). However, a
concept map is not analogous to a mental schema, which is more usually described as an
abstract structure of information. Neither is a concept map equivalent to a cognitive map,
which is assumed to represent the individuals psychological structure of knowledge, but
does not set out necessary relationships between the components of different forms of
knowledge (Anderson, 1984). While concept mapping shares some similarities with other
knowledge representation methods based on judgements of specific conceptual or
categorical similarity or dissimilarity or which incorporate knowledge structures as input
(see for example Cooke (1989), Goldsmith, Johnson, & Acton (1991), and (Seamster,
Redding, & Kaempf (1997)), it has no direct epistemological analogy.
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Concept maps are constructed holistically on a topic by an individual or a group. Concept
map construction methods range from the highly constrained fill in the blank variety, in
which both a structural template and full conceptual content are provided, through to the
fully free-form, with neither structure nor content supplied in advance (cf. Al-Kunifed &
Wandersee, 1990). Although requiring some specialised training, the general principles of
concept map construction can be taught potentially in less than one hour (Irvine, 1995;
McClure, Sonak & Suen, 1999). Concept mapping may be used both within ordinary
classroom situations and privately (Taber, 1994), and when properly presented is
regarded positively by instructors and students (Edwards & Fraser, 1983).
VISUAL LANDING APPROACH CONCEPT MAPS
Twenty-five male novice flight students concurrently enrolled in an undergraduate degree
course in aviation studies and eight experienced Australian aviators (seven male, one
female) with a range of General Aviation qualifications were instructed in the principles
of concept map instruction. Neither the novice nor the experienced participants were
screened on a gender basis. The gender proportions are in accord with the general
distribution among Australian holders of flight licences, as reported in a personal
communication from M. Thomas of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (1999). Seven of
the eight experienced pilots held commercial pilot licences; these seven also held an
instructor rating.
Each participant provided either one or two free-form concept maps for a total of 48 (37
novices, 11 experienced) concept maps on the specific topic of a non-emergency, visual
landing approach in a powered, fixed-wing aircraft. Otherwise there were no restrictions
on either form or content, and there was no time limit for completion. There was an initial
presumption that the experienced pilots concept maps would converge on structure or
content and permit the construction of an expert template against which those of the
novices could be compared. Subsequent analysis of the VLA concept maps was two-
pronged. One objective was to identify which, if any, aspects of the concept maps
systematically differed between experienced and novice pilots. The other was to
determine which methods of concept map interpretation might prove useful within a
General Aviation training environment.
FLIGHT INSTRUCTORS INTERPRETATIONS OF CONCEPT MAPS
Six Australian flight instructors individually reviewed a representative selection of nine
of the student-produced VLA concept maps and were invited to comment on any aspects
of the maps they chose. The purpose was to determine if flight instructors could interpret
a students concept maps meaningfully solely on the basis of instructing experience.
None of the six had any other involvement in the study. Five of the six had no prior
awareness of concept maps; the sixth had had a slight exposure to the principles
underlying knowledge representation in his role as a secondary school teacher.
All six instructors noted details on different maps that they considered to be errors, as
indicated by incorrectly linked information or by the omission of essential information.
There was a general consensus that concept mapping might have some limited role in
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
flight instruction, if only as a trigger for conversation between a student and instructor.
However, there was also a consensus that, for concept mapping to be used systematically,
and specifically as a supplementary assessment tool, an externally supplied scoring
method would be necessary.
NUMERICAL SCORING OF CONCEPT MAPS
The quantitative concept map analysis used in this study was based upon the scoring
protocol developed by Novak and Gowin (1984). This method awards one point for each
valid concept and each valid relationship, which indicates the extent of knowledge, one
point for the first branching and three points for each successive branch (progressive
knowledge differentiation), five points for each hierarchy (knowledge subsumption), 10
points for each crosslink that transverses concept hierarchies (knowledge differentiation),
and one point for each example (specification of knowledge). All category scores may be
added to arrive at a single value (Novak, 1981) or scored separately (Markham, Mintzes,
& Jones, 1994).
When numeric values were computed for all 48 VLA maps, the average combined
category scores for the experienced pilots (M = 82.45, SD = 42.13) exceeded those of the
novice group (M = 55.27, SD = 29.09), although confidence in the validity of these
derived numerical values was undermined by questions related to structural classification.
The assignment of points assumes that concept maps can be read from the top, or most
subsuming, concept (Novak, 1998). However, unlike linear text, there is no single
intended order for reading a concept map (Taber, 1994) and even experts frequently
disagree on the assignment of numeric scores to concept maps (Heri, ONeil, Chung,
Dennis, & Lee (1997), leading to recommendations that all scores from concept maps be
used with caution and only in conjunction with other methods (McClure, Sonak, & Suen,
1999).
Interpretation becomes increasingly more difficult the further a map structure diverges
from a hierarchical form, and it has been suggested that nonhierarchical forms may be
best analysed qualitatively (Williams, 1995). When a system of structural categorization
loosely based upon that proposed by Kinchin, Hay and Adams (2000) was applied to the
VLA concept maps, only 15 per cent of all maps could be unequivocally assigned to an
hierarchical category (Appendix). Moreover, as the majority of all the propositions (524
of 869 or roughly 60 per cent) had not been assigned semantic labels by their authors, an
evaluation based upon the distinction between correct and incorrect propositions became
problematic.
Figure 1 contains examples of chain-form concept maps supplied by two students, both of
who had successfully completed their first solo flights at roughly the same stage of their
flight training. Chain structures suggest a sequential do list similar to a pilots checklist.
Both figures have been transcribed from the pencil and paper originals for clarity.
Although the map on the right, when rotated 90 degrees, might equally be classified as an
hierarchical structure subsumed under the main concept of make adjustments for wind,
there is an arguable sequential intent in the composition. The map represented on the left
could equally be considered as a very sparse spider structure emanating from the concept
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
lineup with runway but the series of concepts in both arms are specified as actions.
However, as none of the links in these maps were labelled, the full intent of the
representations could not be determined.
Even more contentious than these practical obstacles to concept map interpretation is the
fundamental assumption that propositions should be identified as correct or incorrect.
Counting only valid concept map links may lead to an undue emphasis on factual
knowledge, and do so at the expense of a true appreciation of an individuals
understanding and perspective. Moreover, neither a scoring metric nor a structural
classification, either singly or jointly, would be sufficient to evaluate the validity of
concept map propositions in the absence of expert judgement. When the target domain is
a discrete body of knowledge, an expert effect may reasonably be expected (Spence &
Brucks, 1997); its lack may indicate the presence of methodological disagreements
(Shanteau, 1992), although a consensus model may emerge when data are analysed from
a different theoretical perspective.
F i g u r e 1 : A c o n c e p t m a p submitted by a 57-hour student pilot (left) and a 20-hour student pilot (right)
Line up
with runway
Other air
traffic
What action
I need to take
after landing,
i.e. other aircraft
Target on
runway to
aim for
Wind
Checklist
Is runway
clear?
Brakes
Carbie heat
Under-
carriage
down
Trim
Airspeed
Power
setting
Flaps
Distance
from runway
compared to
height limit
Rate of
descent
Height
Visual
aids
landmarks
Altitude
Listen for
radio calls
Check
runway
is clear
Prelanding
checks
Make
adjustments
for wind
Adjust
power
Relate
checking
to horizon
Keep constant
approach angle
Make sure
aiming point
remains fixed
Stay lined
up with
centre line
Full flaps
Carbie heat
in, in case
of go-round
Keep above
stall speed
Under-
carriage fixed
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CONSTRUCTION OF THE VISUAL LANDING APPROACH CORPUS
An ancillary concept map evaluation method was developed which required that the
concept maps be decomposed into their semantic primitives and compared semantically
against a separate domain-specific word collection, or corpus. A corpus is a collection of
words constructed to reflect the most representative semantic features of a natural
language (e.g. Toglia, Battig et al., 1978; Hofland & Johansson, 1982), or, as in this case,
to reflect the semantic norms of a defined domain or cultural group.
This word collection was neither a tagged corpus, which identifies the grammatical use
of the constituent words, nor a nontagged corpus, based solely around word
frequencies. It might be termed an indexed corpus, since word source category
information is preserved. This VLA-specific corpus was created from written texts on the
subject of the visual landing approach and from transcriptions of VLA-related speech,
and was intended to supplant the role of an expert template in the evaluation of concept
map components. However, where an expert template would by its nature exclude those
semantic and thematic components present in a map but absent from a template, the
corpus was intended to be maximally inclusive and to encompass a broad spectrum of
English language VLA words. The comparison of concept map themes against this Visual
Landing Approach corpus produces tendency statements rather than discrete data
categories, for semantic frequency itself cannot be assumed to be veridical to domain
validity. Similarly, the presence of two words in a relationship does not entail the
correctness of that relationship. However, for a nonfunctional content word, frequency
may be considered to reflect domain centrality with respect to industry norms.
The corpus inputs were drawn from every decade between 1910 and 2000, and both
written and spoken word genres were included in order to neutralise any word frequency
characteristics or biases which tend to arise from idiosyncratic semantic sources (Biber,
1988).
The three separate input types compiled into the VLA corpus were (with their word
counts):
transcriptions of five unstructured interviews with Australian flight instructors
(10,470);
77 responses to a VLA phenomenological probe of Australian pilots (2,178);
92 text excerpts (27 from the UK, 47 from the USA, 11 from Australia, 3 from
Canada, 3 from New Zealand, and 1 from Norway (in English)) (46,179).
Despite the fact that roughly one-fifth of the 92 text source documents derived from
academic sources, that is, either published by an academic press or written by an author
with academic credentials, none of these could be considered as academic publications on
the basis of style. Another twenty per cent were excerpted from popular aviation
magazines and Internet sources, with the remaining 60 per cent deriving from general
sources related to practical aviation instruction. Although there exists no independent
documentary benchmark against which to measure this selection, together these texts may
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
be assumed to be broadly indicative of the practical, nontheoretical literature available to
pilots in Australia. The interviews and probe results increased the amount of specifically
Australian semantic content. The corpus was analysed for subjective bias through a
posteriori semantic analysis, including such standard measures as type token ratios, Zipf
distributions and the Yule K, which together are analogous to a numerical goodness of fit
test (Sichel, 1986); the results fell within reasonable limits
1
.
The methodological union of concept maps and corpus linguistics may be controversial if
the proposition is considered to be the most primitive analysable concept map structure
possible (Ruiz-Primo & Shavelson, 1996). However, when the concept maps themselves
do not conform structurally with the prerequisites of standard analysis metrics, there is
justification for considering concept maps as if they were literary compositions and
therefore subject to analysis techniques adapted from literary and linguistic domains. As a
nongrammatically based method for identifying domain specific topics, this technique
may be appropriate for use with both native and non-native speakers with a reasonable
domain-specific vocabulary (Stensvold & Wilson (1990).
The corpus inputs were converted to unformatted running text and sorted on individual
words in Microsoft
Word, then entered as a file of 58,887 words (4646 discrete lexical

entries) into Microsoft
Excel. A two-step semantic weighting procedure was applied to

the corpus components in order to standardise the contributions of all the extracts, which
differed in both absolute and relative lengths. Within each of the three input categories,
each individual component was normalised based on relative word count to the mean
word count of that category. The three categories were subsequently normalised based on
the mean word count of the three categories. This produced a differential numerical
weight for every orthographic word in the corpus. The weights for words having the same
word stems, including identifiable abbreviated forms, were added to produce a summed
weight for every word type
2
. The resultant weight values ranged downward from
approximately 1707 to 0.2 in a lognormal distribution.
The concept maps were similarly converted to unformatted text and sorted on discrete
words to produce an overall list of 3123 VLA word occurrences. Each individual concept
map word adopted the summed weight of its equivalent corpus word. If the corpus has
been properly constructed, it should reflect the VLA words in roughly the same
distribution as a typical pilot might use in describing the Visual Landing Approach. For
the 42 concept map words that found no match in the corpus, their weights were zero.
The words in concept maps do not only occur as semantic units, but combine to give
meaning to the overall pattern of linked propositions. It has been suggested that word
frequency, when correlated with contextual diversity, can be a major determinant in the
stability of conceptual representations (Burgess & Livesay, 1998) and that highly linked
concepts tend to be more stable, more accessible, and more likely to be transferred to
novel situations than minimally linked concepts (Prawat, 1992). By extension, the more
linked occurrences of a word in a concept map, the greater is the salience of that word
in an individuals domain knowledge.
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Individual concept map words weighted word values were adjusted upwards based on
the number of links in which a word participated in order to incorporate a saliency
dimension based on propositional links. Each concept map proposition was identified,
and the values for a word incremented for every time that the word participated in another
linked proposition. This increased the relative value of words in interconnected
propositions by the number of those connections. For example, if a concept word featured
in three propositions, it trebled in associated value. The relationship of individual map
words and their linked map word counts are illustrated in Figure 2. With one notable
exception (for carburetor with an individual count of 22 and linked count of 74), the
most highly linked words tend to be associated with individual words at the higher
individual word weight range. This might be expected for English language function
words. However, the concept map contents were generally expressed in a truncated,
ungrammatical form with generally few function words in relation to content-laden
aviation related words.
F i g u r e 2 : O c c u r r e n c e s ( c o u n t s ) of individual words and linked-words in all concept
maps (y axis) in descending order by their corpus-associated weights (x axis)
74
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
These relationships are further illustrated by the three word examples. In Figure 1 (left),
airspeed features in two propositions (power setting airspeed, airspeed trim)
with an associated value of 408.7054 (2 x 204.3527). However, in the same map
attitude features in three propositions (line up with runway attitude, attitude
visual aids landmark, attitude height) with an associated value of 676.8834 (3 x
225.6278). In Figure 1 (right) speed features in only one proposition (full flaps keep
above stall speed) and attaches to a value of 380.3665. Attitude does not appear in this
map. The numbers of individual and linked counts from all the concept maps for these
words are presented in Figure 3.
The examples of attitude, airspeed and speed were intentionally selected from the
full word list since they had been previously identified in an exploratory survey by the
first author as highly evocative and salient VLA-related themes (Duff, Wilks & Pfister,
1999). They tend to be strongly related with flight path control by Australian pilots, and
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
the associated weights for all three words are highly placed in the first quartile of all VLA
corpus weights. The relative presence or absence of such salient elements may provide
instructors with indications of the elements to emphasize or de-emphasize during training
sessions (Wilcox & Sahloff, 1998).
F i g u r e 3 : S u m m a r y w o r d c o u n t s from linked propositions (left) and individual
occurrences (right) for attitude (corpus weight 225.6278), speed (corpus weight
380.3665), and airspeed (corpus weight 204.3527)
92
77
48
39
38
24
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Attitude Speed Airspeed
Using this procedure permits concept map content to be interpreted and ranked on the
basis of domain-related centrality rather than correctness. For example, students
concept maps can be assessed for the presence of qualitative thematic groupings such as
speed attitude or control. Their overall semantic salience can then be related back
to the knowledge structures in their concept maps to give the flight instructor a more
complete picture of a students understanding than is currently available from the
mandatory flight industry examinations.
SUMMARY
In the future, Australian General Aviation will undoubtedly embrace a graphic form of
knowledge representation as a supplement to formal assessments of flight procedures
such as the Visual Landing Approach. Whether the method chosen is concept mapping or
another representation technique is of lessor importance than the ability to interpret the
domain themes represented. The corpus-based method which has been described is not
intended to be used on its own, but it does permit an individuals domain knowledge to be
assessed within a broader industry context, without forcing experience into pre-defined
categories, and once constructed, a domain vocabulary can be readily filtered to suit the
particular philosophy, methodology or requirements of a flight school.
Notes
1
Fuller results from this semantic analysis are available upon application to the first
author.
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
2
The specifics of the corpus construction are available upon application to the first
author.
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Education, 7(1), 7381.
Taber, K. (1994). Student reaction on being introduced to concept mapping. Physics Education,
29, 276281.
Thom, T. (1998). The flying training manual. Williamstown, Victoria: Aviation Theory Centre.
Toglia, M., Battig, W. et al. (1978). Handbook of Semantic Word Norms. Hillsdale, New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wilcox, S., & Sahloff, M. (1998). Another perspective on concept maps: Empowering students.
Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 3(7), 464469.
Williams, C. (1995). Concept maps as research tools in mathematics. Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco California.
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APPENDIX: STRUCTURAL CLASSIFICATION OF CONCEPT MAPS
Kinchin, Hay and Adams (2000) ranked the three principal structures which they
identified in student maps (spoke, chain, and net) in terms of more meaningful learning
and the increasing integration of a conceptual framework. The five structural categories
defined in the present study are not directly analogous to that of Kinchin et al., however,
and the relative positions of the nominal data categories in this chart do not presuppose a
similar underlying logical progression.
The web form, which has a network of links but no conceptual centre or hierarchical
head, has some similarity to the spider semantic maps of Deese (1965). The spoke, which
has an identifiable central concept from which links radiate, differs from the web, that is,
if there is a discernable central concept it is a spider structure, but a lack of centrality
indicates a web structure. A chain has a progression of linkages proceeding from an
initial concept. The addition of a hierarchical form was intended to follow Novak and
Gowin (1984). A number of maps combined at least two distinct irreducible sub-
structures from amongst the other four, warranting a separate amalgam category.
T a b l e A 1 : S t r u c t u r a l c l a s s i f i c a t i o n o f V L A c o n c e p t m a p s b y f l i g h t
e x p e r t i s e c a t e g o r y
Spoke Chain Hierarchy Web Amalgam Other Total
All 13 13 7 6 8 1 48
Experts 3 1 3 2 2 0 11
Novices 10 12 4 4 6 1 37
LISA STAUFFER THOMAS (BA (Franklin and Marshall); MAR MDiv
(Lancaster Theological Seminary); BSc (Aviation) (Hon 1st Class)
(Newcastle)) is a PhD candidate in aviation studies.
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H. PETER PFISTER is head of the School of Behavioural Sciences, the
University of Newcastle. His areas of interest include aviation psychology
and human factors.
PETER PETERSON (MA (Wellington), PhD (Newcastle)) is head of the
Department of Linguistics, the University of Newcastle. Special interests
include English grammar and language acquisition.
Contact details
The University of Newcastle
Callaghan, NSW 2308 Australia
Phone: +61-2-4921-5761
Fax: +61-2-4921-6906
Lisa Stauffer Thomas and H. Peter Pfister
School of Behavioural Sciences
Peter Peterson
Department of Linguistics
Email H. Peter Pfister: Peter.Pfister@newcastle.edu.au
Peter Peterson: Peter.Peterson@newcastle.edu.au
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T e a c h i n g q u a l i t a t i v e m e t h o d s s e r i e s a r t i c l e n u m b e r 3 / H u r w o r t h ( 7 p a g e s ) 1 1 1

S E R I E S A R T I C L E N U M B E R 3
A r e g u l a r s e c t io n b y R o sa l i n d H u r w o r t h , C e nt r e f or P r o gr a m E v a l u a t io n , F ac u l t y o f E d uc a t i o n, U n i v e r s i t y o f M el b o u r ne
The issue of assessment in
qualitative methods teaching
As far as can be ascertained, there has been a deafening silence regarding a consideration
of ways to assess students undertaking Qualitative Methods (QM) courses and yet this
topic is often contentious for both lecturers and students alike. For lecturers, assessment
can be a particularly complex issue because there are often conflicts between lecture
beliefs about how this should occur and the expectations and regulations placed upon
them by tertiary institutions. Many students also recognise such problems. So, this article
sets out to examine some current assessment processes observed and to critique various
forms using points of view put forward by both lecturers and students.
VARIETY OF ASSESSMENT SITUATIONS OBSERVED
In the 10 courses observed and discussed in the first two articles in this series (Hurworth,
2000, Hurworth, 2002) there was considerable variation in assessment set in QM courses
both in Australia and in the UK. For several courses there was a strong belief in students
learning through practice and so it was expected that a major part of assessment would be
an individual student project. In these cases courses were presented as an integrated
package with projects pervasive through all teaching tutorials and workshops. Not
surprisingly, such assessment drove courses right from the start and became a matter of
continual concern for students. In the remaining courses assessment was seen as a
somewhat separate exercise that took up one particular section of the course, went on in
the background or came right at the end.
The timing of when students would be told the details concerning assessment varied
greatly. Sometimes students knew from the outset exactly what the assessment was going
to be and were presented details via a handout, or verbally in the first class. In other cases
it was very late before details of assessment became clear. In fact, in one instance where
two lecturers were sharing the teaching, the matter of assessment was never resolved (as
each lecturer gave their own version to students) so that eventually two forms were
accepted! Other confusions also arose such as in one course the lecturer forgot to
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allocate a task for a final 10 per cent of marks and in another, students had been presented
with such a vague outline that they spent weeks trying to fathom what was required.
NUMBER OF TASKS REQUIRED
Another variation in assessment organisation came through the varying number of tasks
expected. This ranged from one major piece of assessment to five smaller components.
Specifically the requirements for the 10, mainly semester-length courses were:
Course 1 Research proposal (15%), Literature review (20%), Participation
(5%), Individual project (60%)
Course 2 Research proposal or (due to confusion) a piece of research (100%)
Course 3 Individual project (to include a literature review, a detailed and critical
discussion of the research process and a discussion of the findings)
(50%); Examinations (50%)
Course 4 Report on the trial of forms of data analysis (50%); Proposal
emphasising data analysis method (50%)
Course 5 Display of data (50%) as a basis of a report (50%)
Course 6 Preliminary research design (10%); Research report (40%);
Preparation for lecture presentation (10%); Examination (40%)
Course 7 Essay to critique qualitative methods in five studies (50%); Research
proposal (50%)
Course 8 Take-home examination (100%)
Course 9 Reflective journal (20%); Research proposal (40%); Critique of one
article (20%); Examination (20%)
Course 10 Reflective journal on learning QM (10%); Reports on qualitative
studies read (10%); A list of guiding principles for Naturalistic
Inquiry (5%); An individual case study including a reflexive journal
of the process (75%).
Some lecturers felt that their courses were under-assessed (e.g. Course 8). Students also
saw danger in there only being one piece of QM work upon which all marks relied. They
saw advantages in having several pieces spread across a course and asked for a gradual
diffusion of work to the lecturer as this would allow feedback (Course 8).
On the other hand one lecturer (Course 10) felt his course was over-assessed. He had set
multiple tasks. His students agreed with him saying, There were too many tasks for a
one-semester subject. Those in Course 9 felt even more strongly that they had been
over-assessed in relation to the course length of only seven weeks.
VIEWS ON POTENTIAL FORMS OF ASSESSMENT
Small-scale individual student projects
Most lecturers believed that that the best form of assessment would be for students to
undertake a project, but due to a variety of factors (such as time, class size and the
complex nature of qualitative work)) some did not feel this was possible. This meant that
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only a half chose to make practice a major component of assessment, firmly believing
that you only learn by doing. However, the practice took very different forms and
included:
incremental work towards an ethnographic study of a group (Course 1)
a case study of an individual or single unit of analysis following the principles of
Naturalistic Inquiry (Course 10)
requiring an answer to a sociological question related to a topic of personal interest
(Course 30).
Others were more prescriptive, defining specific areas within which to work. In one
instance (Course 5) this also allowed the problem of time to be overcome because a
situation was created whereby, using a real situation, everything but the data collection
process was expected. Having heard from the commissioner of the research about the
rationale, context, aims and design, the class was presented with data that had already
been collected and transcribed, which students then had to display and analyse before
each wrote an individual report. This process seemed to work really well and it was stated
that the output was of high quality.
While this way had produced pieces of work from each individual, Course 6 expected the
opposite with individual pieces assembled into a group report. This in turn was expected
to contribute to an externally funded report. Each tutorial group had to choose a particular
area upon which to focus and then each student chose an associated topic to research. The
results then had to be assembled into a tutorial group report that, in turn, was to be
presented at a plenary session. However, there were issues with the whole approach as a)
generally only the spokesperson for each group turned up for the plenary session and b)
some students perceived the task as exploitation.
Overall, though most lecturers who assessed such student projects were pleased at the
overall efforts made and said that there were many interesting studies of a high standard.
So, they clung to their belief that projects were a valuable form of assessment even if it
was at some personal cost to the lecturer (such as a tremendous marking workload with
up to a 100 students enrolled in a QM course).
Even though many students complained about the time-consuming nature and
commitment required to carry out such projects, the majority perceived personal benefits,
saying for example that:
Collecting and sorting out data and writing a final ethnography were positives because of
the learning process where I made mistakes but learnt through them.. (Course 1)
Indeed, those students who experienced a purely theoretical course felt deprived because
there was no possibility of applying theory or class exercises (a form of practice
substitution) and because assessment tasks were sometimes ill-conceived. Consequently,
they pleaded, Please give us a real task to do as the assessment tasks were poor (Course
9) and added I would have preferred a more practically oriented approach as we need to
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do some participant observation or in-depth interviewing as part of our assessment
(Course 8).
Research proposal
Several courses expected a research proposal, either as part of the assessment or as the
sole piece. It was thought to be particularly useful as a preliminary activity prior to a
student project, thereby preventing any of the projects from getting too big as that is
what tends to happen with enthusiastic and inexperienced students (Course 6). The
lecturer in Course 7 also felt that a proposal was a sensible form of assessment because
it need not be changed annually; all elements taught within a QM course can be applied
and it can lead on to projects or theses.
Reading
There were uncertainties about whether reading should be tied to assessment or not. Some
lecturers actively discouraged such reading because they did not want students to think
theres one book and in that theres one page and if they know that by heart theyll get a
high mark (Course 2). Another lecturer, however, thought that testing of textbook
material was necessary. So when students asked if the exam would be on set texts they
were told that certain chapters would be important. The lecturer defended her position by
explaining, One of the main reasons for giving that sort of test is to get them to come to
grips with the reading as I know they wont read it otherwise (Course 6).
Meanwhile, another four courses had incorporated other types of reading as discreet
pieces of assessment. In previous years Course 8 had used reading as a basis of the first
half of the assessment where:
They had to go to the library and select two qualitative articles on the same topic. They
then had to write a report to address things like: What were the research questions? Why
did the author use a qualitative design? They then had to talk about what was included
about the method and had to compare and contrast how the results were presented and
finally to assess the contribution each made to knowledge. (Course 8)
However, even though perceived as a useful exercise, it had to be abandoned as the
lecturer found the marking of over a hundred critiques too much.
In similar vein to the prior example, the lecturer of Course 7 asked students to look at five
studies used in the field of their choice in relation to the methodology used. Therefore, it
was like having to do a mini literature review but from a methodological viewpoint.
Still thinking comparatively, the lecturer of Course 10 asked students to borrow books
that used QM and expected them to make a one-page critique of three of them to show
how researchers had represented reality. This approach had been trialled for several years
and was found to be a successful way to introduce students to a range of writing styles
and presentation formats.
Sometimes lecturers found more subtle ways to incorporate reading tasks into assessment.
For example, one asked for a critical review of a short article which presented a
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qualitative study. Students initially thought this was going to be easy but then realised
that there was a great deal more to it than met the eye:
Its short but you need to have done all of the other reading because shes not just asking
you whats in it. You have to say how it could or should have been done. You cant just sit
with it and go through it. I tried to do that and then I had to start all over again! (Course 9)
Certainly overall, where reading had been required, all lecturers involved felt that such
exercises had been valuable.
Examinations
Examinations were used as a form of assessment within four of the 10 cases. Two of
them were theory-only courses and three used exams in conjunction with other forms of
assessment. Only one course relied exclusively on an examination.
Typical kinds of questions posed were:
Seeing is believing: Discuss.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of participant observation?
Outline two types of interviews and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
Discuss the concept of triangulation and its uses.
Some courses had examinations imposed upon them and had to accept the situation but
those involved often found this assessment form a puzzling and inappropriate way to test
QM knowledge. In addition, some students felt that they were assessed enough through
other means and so an exam was redundant.
Interestingly, two courses that demanded a student project also expected a written
examination. One lecturer explained that this reflected the course objectives of mixing
theory with practice:
We said we wanted an exam as well as practical work. We always had that right from the
start as a traditional university approach so you got 50 per cent of marks from the exam
and 50 per cent on the project. (Course 7)
In the other case (Course 6) the lecturer was also in favour of exams as she felt that a
series of essays would be too time-consuming for students and lecturers alike. Unusually,
she decided on a 20-item multiple-choice test which would be quick to mark. The
students, however, were not pleased with this decision complaining that this is the
antithesis of the thick rich description and didnt give us the opportunity to show what
wed learnt (Course 6).
Overall, there were different viewpoints about exams as a testing technique for QM.
Some lecturers noted that examinations had the advantage of being so much easier to
develop and certainly easier than to think about students fieldwork processes (Course
9). Even so, the lecturer from Course 7, which assessed both theory and practice, came
down on the side of projects still:
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I put more store by what they do in projects than on exams. Anyone can work out
wonderful exam answers but it really shows if you have the skills or not when you do a
project. Somebody whos good in exams and not at practical work can still do well but they
wont achieve heights of excellence as a good researcher. (Course 7)
Take-home exam
Only one of the 10 courses relied totally on a take-home exam (Course 8). The students
had to answer three of five questions with no answer to be longer than 800 words (this
was set to ensure succinctness as well as helping to contain marking) and students were to
provide illustrations to demonstrate how the methodological issues could be applied.
Students knew there was to be this kind of exam right from the first week but the
questions were not made available until about halfway through the course. The reason for
this was that from experience, it was known that one of the dangers of providing
questions early is that, once students have them, attendance at lectures tends to dwindle or
students only come to sessions applicable to the exam.
Student views on this type of assessment were mixed. Some liked it as they could spend
more time on background reading and mulling things over than in a conventional exam.
Meanwhile, many other students found it daunting as they had not undertaken this type of
assessment before and did not know how to tackle it. At the same time it was recognised
that it placed students under extended pressure because as you are given the question
and the time it has to be spot on and so is very hard to do well. Its also very time-
consuming in comparison with other types of assessment (Course 8
Another weakness was also pointed out by only one other lecturer who had experienced
this assessment form. He had not found take-home exams to be successful for QM:
The take-home exams were an absolute disaster. They were not the great revolution that
everyone in the department had argued about they were actually about who could run
fastest to the library in order to get to the books that related to the questions posed. Quite
frankly students performed no better either. (Course 7)
More unusual types of assessment for QM
Some lecturers incorporated some different assessment elements. These comprised:
marks for attendance, participation and discussion (Courses 1 and 6)
journal keeping reflecting on the learning of QM (Courses 5, 9 and 10).
Journal-keeping was felt to be both a way of making students reflect upon the course
being undertaken and to experience one way of eliciting qualitative data. For two courses
it was also thought to be a way of coming to terms with the qualitative paradigm after the
quantitative one so many of them had already encountered.
However, a danger noted was that there was a temptation just to record what happened in
class rather than to reflect. In addition, output from such journals was variable in quality
depending on the commitment, personality and learning style of the student. For instance,
one student exclaimed that she loved it and was writing heaps (Course 10). For most
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V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
though the feeling was, I have never been a diary keeper and so found it difficult and a
chore. As a consequence the lecturer of Course 10 felt that the task was burdensome on
top of other assessment demands and so decided to abandon this form.
REFLECTION ON ASSESSMENT
This article has demonstrated that the matter of assessment for QM is not a
straightforward one. The only clear messages seem to be that multiple-choice and written
examinations seem to be less appropriate and two or three small pieces of assessment
should be expected through a course so that QM skills and knowledge can be built up
incrementally.
Certainly, particular difficulties regarding assessment seem to arise from lecturer beliefs
about assessment confronting factors such as university regulations, student
characteristics, length of course and class size. These factors can drive assessment
decisions that may not be the most desirable for the lecturers or students concerned. For
instance, lack of time and large classes often precluded assessment through practice, even
though this was considered by all lecturers to be preferable to more traditional forms of
university testing.
As a result, several of the lecturers observed were still trying to find the best way to
assess students by trialling a number of assessment types and combinations, all with
advantages and disadvantages. Often assessment choices seem to come down to the least
of all the evils by finding the best match between what the lecturer wants to achieve
from the course and what factors such as time, energy level and class size allow.
References
Hurworth, R. (2000). Teaching qualitative methods: Series article number 1. Qualitative Research
Journal, 1 (1), 1213.
Hurworth, R. (2002). Teaching qualitative methods: Series article number 2. Qualitative Research
Journal, 2 (1), 8589.
ROSALIND HURWORTH is Director of the Centre for Program
Evaluation, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Contact details:
Director, Centre for Program Evaluation
Faculty of Education
University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010
Australia
Phone: +61-3 8344-8624
Fax: +61-3 8344-8490
Email address: r.hurworth@unimelb.edu.au
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B o o k r e v i e w s ( 2 2 p a g e s ) 1 1 8
TITLE: Venus on Wheels: Two Decades of Dialogue on
Disability, Biography and Being Female in America
Geyla Frank
University of California PressM Berkeley, California, 2000, ISBN: 0-520-21716-0, 169 pages plus
notes (58 pages), bibliography (38 pages), index (16 pages), paperback
Venus on Wheels is a 20-year cultural biography focused on the life of Diane DeVries, a
woman who reported that the only thing thats wrong with me is just that I dont have
any arms and legs (p. 27). Geyla Frank, is a Professor of Occupational Science and
Occupational Therapy and of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She
explains cultural biography as a cultural analysis focusing on a biographical subject that
makes use of ethnographic methods, along with life history and life story, and critically
reflects on its methodology in action as a source of primary data, including the effects of
power and personal factors such as the mirror phenomenon (p. 22). According to Frank,
the purpose of a cultural biography is to examine not only how an individuals
experiences and consciousness are shaped in a particular cultural milieu over time but
also how the biographical self contributes to cultural processes and transformations (p.
22). Dianes life is thus, a powerful exemplar of changes in attitudes towards disability
and being female in mainstream American culture during the second half of the 20th
century. Yet, in this masterpiece of self-reflection and mirroring about the meaning of
disability in her own life and that of Diane DeVries, the reader learns almost about as
much of Frank as DeVries and the culture to which they belong.
The book is an enthralling integration of formal and informal interviews, observations of
Diane and key people in her life, analysis of documents including letters, clinical records
and Dianes unpublished autobiography. In addition, there is retrospective and
contemporaneous self-reflection. Frank draws on anthropology, philosophy,
psychoanalysis, narrative theory, law, and the history of medicine. All of this is set within
the historical and cultural context of America. As such, the book serves as a model, and
lays the critical groundwork for the new genre, cultural biography. Franks candid
reflections when confronted with the dynamics of power and accountability in
ethnographic representation make essential reading for anyone considering using, or
wanting to understand further, an interpretive research methodology.
Venus on Wheels is captivating, poignant and at times, may be unsettling to the reader. As
Frank states, Diane offers her life and experience as a mirror for all people, not just those
with disabilities. The book is not only a fascinating blend of theory and practice but also
provides the reader with 58 pages of endnotes, 38 pages of references, and a very detailed
index. It is of no wonder that it has recently been awarded the Eileen Basker Memorial
Prize in Anthropology, which recognises outstanding contributions in the area of gender
and health.
Lou Farnworth, Senior Lecturer, School of Occupational Therapy, La Trobe University,
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TITLE: Postmodern and Poststructural Approaches to
Nursing Research
Julianne Cheek
Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 2000, ISBN: 0-7619-0675-4, 175 pages, paperback
This text, available since 2000, has been welcomed by novice and seasoned researchers
who seek to understand and/or work within the emerging field of postmodernity. (I differ
from the author, in employing a discourse of postmodernity which encompases
poststructuralism.)
The author, Julianne Cheek, a noted researcher and academic, offers the reader an
introduction to several issues which are often cited as barriers to entering this research
field: the complexity and diversity of postmodern thinking; the difficulty in securing
funding; the apparent limited use of postmodern research findings; and, the absence of
a clearly delineated research process. She approaches each issue quietly and gently,
seeming to chat with the reader.
Her style is in marked contrast with that adopted by many postmodern theorists: it aims to
subvert any initial animosity generated by inaccessible academic discourse. Indeed, her
writing style invites the reader or so it did for me to stay with her as she leads them
through difficult terrain. For Cheek, the world of postmodernity does constitute difficult
terrain: her text aims to help the hopeful traveller develop a navigation map. The frequent
citation of her text in postgraduates postmodern thesis work attests to her success in
helping many of them in doing so.
While the title of the text specifies nursing research (perhaps a marketing ploy), Cheek
stresses its relevance to the broader field of health care. She draws on research into the
work of nurses and doctors to demonstrate the possibilities of postmodern inquiry. For
her its merit lies in enabling practitioners to identify the discursive contexts in which they
are located, and in which they locate themselves, other practitioners and their
clients/patients. This mapping work can lead to critical scrutiny of the forces constituting
these locations. As she puts it:
The unsettling effect of postmodern thought on what we may have come to take for granted
in health practice realms is one of its greatest contributions offering possibilities for
bringing about change and allowing other voices and perspectives to surface. (Cheek,
2000, p. 21)
The impetus for change lies in the desire to challenge the effects of the practitioners
practices, that is, to subvert their generative and limiting power. The researcher may, for
example, ask: Do the work practices of the nurse encourage or stifle her patients
participation in decision-making? Several questions may follow: What are the boundaries
of the nurse/patient relationship? How are they set up? What are their implications for the
patient? How does she understand her relationship with the nurse? Research that asks
such questions may contest some of the taken-for-granted, cherished, notions of the
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Cheek argues cogently that the researcher must engage in similar scrutiny of her research
practices, being aware that:
Research methodologies are texts which are framed by, and in turn frame,
understandings about the nature of knowledge and about certain views of the way to
research any given aspect of reality [Hence, the researcher should] explore the
concepts and assumptions embedded in any methodology employed and consider the
effect that these assumptions have on the research undertaken, including the way it is
reported. ( Cheek, 2002, p. 63).
To assist the researcher in this task, Cheek provides an overview of the Foucauldian
approach and the poststructural approaches of discourse analysis and deconstruction. She
examines their philosophical underpinnings and, in the second half of the text, looks at
the discursive practices these generate from proposal to report writing.
Cheeks emphasis on the formative power of the author/researcher, and hence their need
to be aware of their discursive location, would suggest that she should explicate early in
the text her positioning within the diverse field of postmodernity. While the reader can
construct Cheeks location from the text, this reading is the readers, not Cheeks. And
while, as Cheek reminds her reader frequently, any reading will be informed by the
readers discursive frames or background assumptions, such a presentation may help
prevent possible unintended readings.
Indeed, in working though the text I was troubled at several points. My concerns relate to
Cheeks language. At times she appears to belie her contestation of the modernist view of
language as a neutral objective, value-free conveyer of aspects of reality (Cheek,
2000, p. 40). Only she can decide whether her language use denotes a conscious
intersecting of modernist and postmodern frames to assist the neophyte postmodern
researcher, or unconscious slips or, indeed, whether my reading differs from her
intent. For, as she notes:
Every textual reading is a negotiated one .. in the sense that there is a negotiation on the
part of the reader between the viewing position created by the text and the understandings
that the reader brings to that text. (Cheek, 2000, p. 55)
Specifically, I note her frequent reference to the use of a postmodern approach when
referring to the doing of research; for example, the approach that is being used
(Cheek, 2000, p. 5). For me, this usage suggests an instrumental portrayal of
postmodernism as if it is amenable to being operationalised into a set of universally
applicable strategies that can then be implemented a view contested by the diversity of
research practices she presents to the reader. Also of concern is her use of diverse
understandings of reality.
Cheek (2000) speaks of the reality of actual research (p. 13) and of alternate ways
of representing the same reality (p. 41), while also stating that postmodern thought
challenges The recognition of reality as comprised of multiple voices, views and
representations (p. 19). At times she appears to work with oppositional discourses of
reality: reality as discursively framed and reality as a given which can then be viewed in
multiple ways. For example:
Postmodern thought emphasizes that reality is plural and that there are multiple positions
from which it is possible to view any aspect of reality. This applies to the often taken-for-
granted reality of nursing and health care. Any writing/speaking done about nursing or

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
health care is an attempt to explore that reality. It will and can only ever be a partial
analysis, in that it draws on only one of a number of possible positions from which to view
the reality in question. (Cheek, 2000, 20)
The possibility of an underlying true reality is further suggested by her occasional
reference to the power of postmodern inquiry to illuminate aspects of the everyday
reality of health care (Cheek, 2000, p. 29), and to the reflective power of
representations.
Modernist notions are also suggested in Cheeks use of the term evolve: for example,
the potential for nursing and health research to evolve and develop multiple research
approaches (p. 11). Perhaps generate or produce may better capture her intention.
Indeed, she points out that postmodern thought challenges and problematizes the
notion of advances and progress in health care (Cheek, 2000, p. 19).
I am also wary of her use of the language of limitations. She refers to the strengths
and limitations of these [poststructural and postmodern] approaches (Cheek, 2000, p.
13), and asserts that discourse analysis has limitations (p. 55). My concern is not the
validity of her assertion but, rather, the relevance of a notion that of limitation which
can imply the possibility of perfection or truth.
A final point regarding Cheeks language relates to her implied use of a pure/applied or
theory/practice dichotomy. She states: Practical, specific and concrete research
outcomes are needed in practice-based disciplines such as nursing, but so are thoughtful
practitioners who can influence and change practice. The two need not be mutually
exclusive (Cheek, 2000, p. 11). This view seems at variance with a postmodern stance
which posits that doing is imbued with knowing: the two are inseparable.
However, my concerns about the consistency of her language do not detract from my
belief in the value of Cheeks text. It meets its objective of offering the reader an
introduction to the field of postmodernism, of exploring its variability and potential to
generate powerful research practices. I conclude with Cheeks plea for health care
practitioners to engage in this work, If we are only interested in improving what is, it
may well be that we will never explore what might be it is self-defeating for
occupations such as nursing, not to pursue postmodern and poststructural approaches to
research (Cheek, 2000, p. 11 her emphasis).
Nina Bruni, Former Associate Professor of Nursing Inquiry, Department of Nursing and
Midwifery, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Successful Writing for Qualitative Researchers
Peter Woods
Routledge, London and New York, 1999, ISBN: 0-415-18847-4, 158 pages, paperback
The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it
(Samuel Johnson, 1757).
This is how Peter Woods begins his book on writing. He indicates that the book is mainly
concerned with academic writing such as appears in books, learned journals, theses and
dissertations, conference papers, research reports, commissioned articles, and the
professional media (p. 1).
The author points out, Writing is particularly important in qualitative research, because
its warrant rests on description, narrative, argument and persuasion, unlike quantitative
research with its reliance on statistical and technical instruments (p. 2).
The introductory chapter attempts to give a short overview of the nature of qualitative
research but this is unsatisfactory in a short space. The next chapter is titled Getting
Started and Keeping Going. This is a very good chapter to give to postgraduate students.
The author talks about the pain involved in writing and getting through the pain
threshold. The author uses famous English novelists as models for qualitative writing. He
gives numerous interesting examples of how writers spend their writing day, the amount
of writing per day planned for, and the ploys used by writers to overcome mental
blockages. The section on the various stages in planning writing is very helpful. The
chapter ends with a quote from the novelist Graham Greene:
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose
or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is
inherent in the human situation.
Chapter 2 talks about a standard approach to organisation. The chapter is less about
writing up the data, but more about the organisation of the data. Thus the chapter does not
seem to be on the topic of the book. I disagree with two of the authors characteristics of
categorisation of the data. One is that all data must fit into categories. My experience is
that it is not necessary to put all the data into categories. The second one is that categories
are mutually exclusive, that is, a piece of data can only go into one category and one
alone. I find that some data can go into more than one category.
Chapter 3 is on alternate forms of writing and presents the reader with a great range of
possibilities including performance texts; poetry; story and fiction; polyvocal,
heteroglossic, multigenre constructions; film and video; photography; art and drawing.
Style is the title of Chapter 4. It is an excellent chapter, and one which I will
recommend to my students who are doing theses. The section on metaphor is particularly
good. The author gives quite a number of examples of expressive writing in the form of
short extracts from larger pieces. However, it is not easy to do expressive writing, and
every thesis writer is not going to be able to do it.
The chapter on editing gives some very useful advice to writers. I found it confirmed
some of the advice I give to my thesis students but had never heard an author give before.

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
For me, the chapter on collaborative writing is unique since I have never come across the
topic described like this before. The author describes how emails are used in the team
process. The advantages of collaborative writing over individual writing are clearly
demonstrated. I recommend this chapter to a research team which has to write up the
results of their research.
The last chapter deals with writing for academic journals and writing books. It would be
very valuable for first-time writers of these. For example, postgraduates often do not
understand how refereed journals work. The author gives the notes for referees from the
British Educational Research Journal. What is also valuable is a number of referees
reports on submissions to journals which give the reader knowledge of a number of faults
that can be avoided in journal articles. The section of the chapter on book publications
gives the Routledge book proposal guide, the Open University Press guide to referees of a
book proposal and a specimen book proposal, which would all be valuable to the first-
time book writer.
Except for Chapter 2 on the standard approach to organisation, the rest of the chapters of
the book would be valuable to the first-time writer of qualitative research. Overall, I
would recommend this book for postgraduate students especially for thesis writers.
Both the Woods and Wolcott (following review) books would be valuable to research
students. If I could only recommend one, it would be the Wolcott book. I learnt more from
this book, and I think my students would too. Besides, the book has an engaging and
chatty writing style which makes it easy to read and enjoy.
Darrel N. Caulley, Institute for Education, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Writing Up Qualitative Research
Harry F. Wolcott
2nd edition, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 2001, ISBN: 0-7619-2429-9, 202 pages, paperback
Turning to Harry Wolcotts book, Writing Up Qualitative Research, it is in vast contrast
to Peter Woods book. Harry Wolcotts writing style is chatty and informal, whereas
Peter Woods writing style is more academic and formal.
Harry Wolcotts quote for the book is:
If I lived twenty more years and was able to work, how I should have to modify the Origin,
and how much the views on all points will have to be modified! Well it is a beginning, and
that is something (Charles Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 1869).
I should give this quote to some of my thesis students who want to write on forever, being
perfectionists, and wanting to tinker more with their thesis.
Wolcotts advice is that you should start writing from the beginning of your project or
thesis. He stresses the importance of having a writing plan, even a table of contents with
numbers of words indicated, right from the beginning, and he requires this of his thesis
students.
Wolcott contrasts freewriters with bleeders. Freewriters simply let the words flow: make
no corrections, check no spelling or references, dont even reread once they are on a roll.
With computers it is easy to correct and change later. The term bleeders is based on an
observation attributed to sports journalist Red Smith, Theres nothing to writing. All you
do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Bleeders are methodical. They get their
writing right the first time or at least only go to a second draft. I am a bleeder and most of
the organisation and ideas are in my head. I believe the reason is that I grew up in an era
when there were only typewriters (and I could not type) so, without word processing,
your first draft was very close to your final draft.
In Chapter 2 Wolcott makes some useful suggestions about getting going including
how to begin, when to begin and where to begin. He makes distinctions between
description, analysis and interpretation. To Wolcott the most critical step in the research
process is writing a problem statement to guide your work. He also warns that it is better
to have few categories in the analysis rather than many.
The third chapter is titled Keeping Going. Wolcott states that anything goes that
results in a tangible written product moving toward a working first draft that offers a
toehold for subsequent revision. I find this chapter jam-packed with useful advice on how
to keep up the momentum of writing as well as useful advice on the writing process in
general. To me the most useful advice was setting aside an amount of time everyday;
(Wolcott sets a minimum of four hours) for writing when working on a writing project.
As Wolcott (p. 51) states, Think how you could churn out books if you wrote only one
page every day!

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
In Chapter 4 Wolcott puts forward some revolutionary ideas about the reporting of
qualitative research, specifically linking your research with the literature, with theory and
with method. For example, he suggests that the dissertation writer not write the typical
Chapter 2 literature review, unless the students supervisor or department demands it.
Wolcotts alternative is to draw on the work of others on a when-and-as-needed basis. In
fact according to Wolcott, when-and-as-needed can serve as a mantra for the whole of
Chapter 4. Wolcotts view is at odds with those who see the literature review as a
fundamental part of a dissertation.
As with literature, Wolcott does not believe in a parade of theory in the early section of a
report or dissertation. Rather he argues the writer draw on theory towards the end of the
report when they are interpreting their data. While Wolcott does not mention the notion
of grounded theory, he does argue that discovery is our forte and we should not try to
emulate the theory-driven research of physics.
Wolcott argues that while the role of theory tends to be underplayed in writing up
qualitative research, the role and importance of method are more often overplayed,
Wolcott produces a very interesting and useful diagram of a tree to the branches of which
are attached the various types of qualitative research strategies. He classifies these
strategies into three categories: participant observation, interviewing, and archival
research (searching documents or studying artefacts). I disagree with Wolcotts assertion
that the very label participant observation itself contributes to confusion because it is
used both as a cover term to refer to all qualitative approaches and as one particular
variant among them (in contrast to an observer study, an interview strategy, etc.) (p. 89).
In my experience participant observation is not an all-inclusive term to refer to all
qualitative research approaches. Wolcott sees participant observation as the unifying
central activity of all qualitative work (p. 91) In his tree diagram of qualitative
research strategies he misses such strategies as discourse analysis and action research as
well as the newly emerging strategy of autoethnography.
Chapter 5 has the title Tightening Up!. Wolcott uses the following analogy to begin his
chapter: Some of the best advice Ive ever found for writers happened to be included
with the direction for assembling a new wheelbarrow: Make sure all parts are properly in
place before tightening (p. 109). In this chapter Wolcott offers some very helpful advice
on editing, provides various alternative ways to concluding a study, what to do when
running out of space, how to crowd more in, and how to cut more out.
Chapter 6 is a good reminder to the reader of all the details (often tedious and mundane)
that need to be considered when Finishing Up, the title of the chapter. Most of the
material was not new to me, except how to do an index to a book, which Wolcott
recommends should be done by the author.
In the last chapter Wolcott gives some useful advice on getting published. He is very
emphatic that you write your book before looking for a publisher. This is contrary to the
advice given by Peter Woods in his book which insists that you look for a publisher at the
outset before you start writing.
Both the Woods (previous review) and Wolcott books would be valuable to research
students. If I could only recommend one, it would be the Wolcott book. I learnt more from
this book, and I think my students would too. Besides, the book has an engaging and
chatty writing style which makes it easy to read and enjoy.

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Phenomenology: Qualitative Research Methods
Edited by Robyn Barnacle
RMIT University Press, Melbourne, 2001, ISBN: 0864591-53-5, 111 pages, paperback
It was with great delight and some trepidation that I approached this new book on
phenomenology. I was glad to see what appeared to be an easy reference guide to this
much-maligned methodology, yet wary that it may, yet again, demonstrate
misunderstandings that have become so commonplace around this topic. The original
principles of phenomenology as a philosophy, set tentatively in place by Brentano and
then, more famously, by Husserl, have so often been ignored or boldly taken out of
context by modern, humanist psychologists. Novice researchers seeking methodological
guidelines for their work have been led astray. Michael Crotty (1996, p. 2) has written
extensively about this. He says:
What seems to have happened is that while the rhetoric of phenomenology proved
attractive, the phenomenological method itself was interpreted in the light of prevailing
concepts and became fundamentally distorted this was even more true of those who
followed Schutz down phenomenological pathways within sociology.
I am pleased to say, that generally, the writers of this book have adhered to the principles
of phenomenology.
Like all criticism, this review must be taken (or not) within its own context. Allow me,
before I continue, to confirm that I am indeed, a devotee of Crotty. I am passionate about
Husserl, and that my reading of Heidegger and Schutz is relatively limited. Consequently,
I am more hesitant to criticise research based on the works of the latter scholars. My
thoughts on phenomenology are constantly changing I have rejected the approach put
forward in my own thesis that was written in 1995 and I should say too, that I have less
formal qualifications than the writers of Phenomenology: Qualitative Research Methods.
So now, with a clear slate, I shall proceed.
Phenomenology is a potpourri of individual journeys into its namesake. Overall, the
studies are phenomenological in the sense that they transcend the subjective data of the
co-researchers to seek the objects of the particular phenomenon. In this important regard,
it is a valid resource for its target readers postgraduate research students.
It provides individual, personalised accounts of research projects, that could serve as
examples of the sorts of things one can do within the realm of phenomenology.
The authors refer to the book as a monograph, as it is the fourth title in a series of
publications on qualitative research, produced and published by RMIT University. The
monograph is divided into three sections that look at random divisions in
phenomenology. Section One is titled, Hermeneutical Phenomenology, and comprises
two very different approaches to hermeneutical research, by Barnacle and Sharkey.
Section Two, called, Existential Phenomenology, contains three, distinctive essays.
Welchs, Finding a Way Through The Maze, gives an informative, step-by-step
account of one persons venture into phenomenology. Lathams, A Journey Towards
Catching Phenomenology and Brearleys, Creative Forms Within Phenomenological
Research, both give candid, personal accounts of what it is like to do research. In the last

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
section, Interpretive Sociology, Hallebone presents an extensive analysis of her
research results, which have relevance to the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz.
Robyn Barnacle, the editor, writes the first essay, Phenomenology and Wonder, and
(presumably) the Introduction. Her background in philosophy allows her to make some
interesting explanations of some of the more bewildering concepts facing new
phenomenologists. Her treatment of Descartes Cartesian model and Husserls
perspectival nature of understanding allows the reader to enter into the fascinating area
of first principles, without the hindrance of excessive and forbidding terminology.
Barnacle also discusses the idea of phenomenology as an emergent methodology that has
an unavoidable, reflexive quality. This broader view of phenomenology is well situated
at the start of the book. However, perhaps because of the vast area of knowledge covered
here, within the restraints of limited space, I found the writing a little obscure in places. I
was concerned that some of the introductory comments about phenomenology may be
misleading to postgraduate students who lack experience with it, since the writing may be
misunderstood to imply that any sort of qualitative research could, arguably, be called
phenomenology. Barnacle says, As for what phenomenology is, definitions abound, and
in line with our aims in this monograph we do not wish to give ascendancy to any
particular candidate. She then goes on to explain the etymology of the word
combining the words phenomenon and logos to mean the study of phenomena hardly
enlightening, given the methodological context of current thinking. Barnacle alludes to
the spirit of phenomenology Although the intention is to leave open the question of
what phenomenology is, areas of commonality are apparent the wonder of opening up
to a subject of inquiry is central but beginning researchers need more of the nitty-
gritty, I think.
An attempt should be made to answer that eternal question, What is phenomenology?
within the terms of this monograph, or at least within the terms of the individual writer.
Barnacle makes mention of rigor, but the statement itself is somewhat erudite Also
central is the rigor involved in phenomenology: its attentiveness to particularity and
recognition, as well as problematisation of the effect of the researcher in the research
process. I am not suggesting that these statements are inaccurate. They are not, but they
seem a bit slippery for the hands of novice researchers, especially if they are unsure of
what it is that they should be rigorous about. From Barnacles writing, the reader gets the
sense that the author was inspired by the research process. As it is a more general and
conceptual look at phenomenology, I suggest it might be of more interest to experienced
researchers. The tone of the writing is sophisticated and perhaps not easily accessible to
those embarking on phenomenology.
The second essay is much easier to read. Paul Sharkey uses plain English to explain his
research project and his ontological angle on hermeneutical phenomenology. Its direct
manner makes for a stark contrast to some of the other essays that tend to offer only
vague impressions of phenomenology. Lathams work on catching phenomenology is
almost dizzy with extended metaphor, which sometimes obliterates the meaning of the
text. This is a pity, because the content itself is fascinating. I found the lack of
punctuation in this monograph distracting, as too, the awkward grammar. I wonder if
modern phenomenologists confuse thickened language with dense language van
Manen has a lot to answer for!
My greatest concern with this text is that, although each writer overtly sets out to study
the objects of experience through phenomenology, there are occasional, careless
comments that imply the presence of, what Crotty (1998, p. 48) might call, rampant
subjectivism. This is misleading and contrary to the very foundations of Husserlian

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
phenomenology. It occurs even in the work of those who have cited Crotty, who is
probably the most influential, modern critic of this flaw in research that claims to be
phenomenology. Lathams research question, what understanding the world was like for
children , might better have been, What counts as a childs understanding of the
world?, where the focus of the question is on the object of the phenomenon rather than
on the subjective experience of the co-researcher. Brearley does a similar thing, and there
are parts of the paper that suggest to me that some of her early interest in action research
had permeated the project and tainted the phenomenology:
I had two objectives in undertaking this research. My first objective was to increase
awareness and understanding about the human experience of transition in organisational
change, and in a more general sense, to encourage greater humanity in organisation. (p. 75)
Neither objective is focused on the essential, phenomenological objects of experience, it
seems.
I found Brearelys article engaging, nevertheless, and wondered how her research would
have developed had she pursued her action research approach, or moved back towards
Husserls transcendental phenomenology. With the latter approach, she would not have
had to be concerned about self-indulgence, as transcendental phenomenology is a solo
pursuit through which essences are intuited via transcendental subjectivity. Brearley cites
some handy references for other branches of qualitative inquiry, namely, case study and
action research, and these may be of interest to those embarking on the research journey.
Page numbers of references, however, were sadly omitted.
Welchs article, Finding a Way Through the Maze would be a good, first article to read
as it is refreshingly plain. It balances personal insights to the research dilemma with
echoes of Crottys big-picture view of qualitative inquiry, as presented in, The
Foundations of Social Research (Crotty, 1998).Welch engages the reader with humour:
The process of analysing the participants text dialogues was initially tortuous, as I, `the
meaning maker and collector of wisdom, began to elicit what I considered to be the
essence of their experiences. (p. 68)
Welsh touches on exactly the sorts of basic things that the neophyte researcher would
want to know Finding a focus for the study, Selecting participants for the study,
Engaging the participants, What I have learnt to date all appropriately direct and
potentially relevant to the target reader.
Hallebones article is a little far out from the phenomenological mark, I think. This book
is supposedly designed to offer basic information about phenomenology. I am surprised
that some basic Husserlian structures have not been set in place as a sort of yard stick by
which to measure the heights of the reconstructions and reinterpretations of the original
thinking and its terminology. I cant see that Hallebones article has much to do with
phenomenology. Fortunately, she explains this point herself:
My general approach is closer to critical theory but the micro level in which my empirical
research is generated uses an interpretive (phenomenological) perspective. (p. 88)
There is little explanation or description given of the micro level. For researchers (on
the fringe of phenomenology) interested in Shultzs approach, this article may be useful,
and Hallebone is careful to point out aspects of her research that are not
phenomenological in the strict sense. She warns the reader of Shultzs use of the term

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intersubjectivity, but I would go further and state that such usage bears almost no
resemblance to Husserls meaning of it, which he conceived within the context of
transcendental subjectivity and the epoche. These Husserlian ideas are essential to
phenomenology, yet they have been frequently overstepped throughout this publication.
May I direct your attention once again to Michael Crottys quotation at the start of this
review.
The fashionably flexible view of phenomenology accommodates the idea that the
methodology can be stretched to fit all sorts of research that involve co-researchers and
interviews. It concerns me that this may serve to endorse a popular misconception that
any interpretive research is more or less phenomenology. How far can phenomenology be
contorted before it loses that which is essential to its shape. I am reminded of the
classroom whispers game, where each person passes on the whispered message until
finally, when the last one announces what he or she has heard, it is nothing like the
original. The introduction of Phenomenology states, it is hoped that the question of
what it is like to do phenomenology, like the deeper question of what phenomenology is,
will be one that is not finalised for the reader the authors intend to stimulate questions
rather than to answer them (first page not numbered). The book achieves this aim.
Phenomenlogy offers the reader plenty of ideas about the sorts of things one can do as a
qualitative researcher. It focuses mainly on the existential and hermeneutical traditions
that have grown out of the work of disciples of Husserl, with little (real) reference to the
accomplishments of the master, except as they might exist in the remnants of his
terminology. But this is a hard comment, because most modern phenomenologists
follow the same traditions, and my own work is in transcendental phenomenology; so I
am biased! I have become a much more informed student for having read this book. I
made a point of checking details that were unfamiliar to me, nearly always to discover
that they were quite accurate. Phenomenology is a mish-mash of genres and content. Its
patchy. It offers excellent reference lists and plenty of ideas about what can be done as
qualitative research. The individual writers have very different styles. The articles are
pitched at varying reading levels with differing prerequisite and presupposed knowledge.
The advantage here, is that there might be something for everyone.
References
Crotty, M. (1996). Phenomenology and nursing research. Melbourne: Churchill Livingstone.
Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Jocene Vallack, Institute for Education, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry
& Practice
Edited by Peter Reason & Hilary Bradbury
Sage, London, 2001, ISBN: 0 7619 6645, 445 pages plus index (11 pages), hardback
In the tradition of the Sage handbook series this is a landmark book because it redefines
contemporary action research. The editors use action research as an umbrella term to
bring together the work of a range of theoretical and methodological approaches that have
emerged from different disciplines, different traditions and philosophies across a variety
of political commitments. They describe their intention to set up a conversation between
perspectives without any particular tradition or approach dominating the debate. The
main criterion for inclusion in the handbook was a demonstrated approach to inquiry that
was participative, grounded in experience and action-oriented.
The handbook is divided into four sections: Groundings, Practices, Exemplars and
Skills. A helpful feature of the book is an 11-page section called Chapter Outlines that
provides a summary of the content of each chapter. I have bookmarked this section as it is
particularly useful in orienting me quickly to material contained in the different sections
to follow.
At the outset it is important to state that this book is not a book for the novice action
researcher. It is definitely not a how to do action research book. In keeping with the
aims of the handbook series, it orients the beginner to the different streams of action
research and the kind of debates in which they are located. The editors have attracted an
impressive array of action research luminaries and the Groundings and Practices
sections are examples of these researchers articulating and defending their favourite
forms of action research in contention with each other. Thus we encounter arguments for
action research as a socio-technical process, a strategy for race equality, a basis for
feminist action, an emancipatory process informed by critical theory, a cooperative and
participative style, a pragmatic approach to educative transformation, a humanistic
method, a transpersonal technique, a socially-constructed practice, systems thinking in
action, action learning and action science. Some chapters will feel familiar and some will
challenge the world view of the reader. The language of some authors will entice one
reader whilst repelling another.
Sometimes book introductions only introduce the content to follow and can be skimmed
through. This introduction deserves a close reading because, while it meets the
requirements to introduce, it also sets out the theoretical basis upon which the editors
defend the promiscuity of their selection of authors representing very different traditions.
As such it provides the postgraduate student with a structure for dealing with the diversity
and contradictions to come. The introduction also contains models that depict the
characteristics of action research, the dimensions of a particular world view and the
resultant questions for validity and quality in inquiry of this nature.
I enjoyed the Groundings section as I was familiar with the earlier work of most of the
contributors so it was fascinating to see how their ideas had moved in the light of
postmodern and postcolonial critiques. Borda presents an eloquent history of the
liberationist participatory research movement pulling together the diverse threads of its
development from utopian, participatory views to another way of thinking based around
complexity, chaos, postmodernist liberation. In a similar way Bell takes us through the
history of infusing race into the action research discourse in the US. This is written

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
powerfully and well, challenging global research discourses. Maguire ably describes the
recognition of the contribution of feminism to the development of action research. She
proposes that any action research that does not take account of feminist processes is not
in the liberatory tradition. The importance of the critical theory to action research is
traced by Kemmis as he reflects on his own journey with the work of Habermas. Kemmis
is acknowledged as one of the giants of action research and his work is referenced
constantly throughout the handbook. This is one of the most difficult chapters in the book
for a neophyte. Habermas work is extremely complex and Kemmis presupposes the
reader brings to the text their own literacy in the lexicon of the concepts and theories of
critical theory. Yet with careful re-reading this chapter is a rich repository of conceptual
work on a grand scale and sits well against other chapters that deliberately take a small
and focused view of one dimension of action research.
The Practices section was seductive in enticing me to think about other possibilities. It
demonstrates the various preoccupations that have shaped different forms of action
research cooperative inquiry, the centrality of relationship building, the place of language,
the place of ethnodrama and the place of technical knowledge and statistics. A number of
chapters express the commitment to cooperative inquiry and the centrality of relationship
building in action research. Others focus on the place of language in expressing and
analysing narratives, poems and metaphors. This was familiar territory for me but when I
read Mienczakowski and Morgans compellingly argument for the place of ethnodrama to
create action researchers who are reflexive, reflective performers I was challenged into
thinking about engaging with such a strategy. Likewise my recent immersion in a medical
context where evidence derived from scientific studies is the basis for all decisions, set
me reading the material on action science in a new light.
The section of Exemplars provides an opportunity to look over the shoulder of action
researchers and learn how they make their way through the complexity of the challenges
in their context. The contributions from various parts of the globe provide a tapestry of
ideas and cultural complexities from information technology to photos and creative arts,
mothering in Australia to indigenous knowledge. This section is a good read and provides
a lot of helpful hints for all action researchers.
The final section on Skills provides some reflective accounts of dealing with the choices
and subtleties of action research. Once again Wadsworth delights with her sensitive,
strongly theorised map of her facilitation process. Her text is constructed to tell stories
within stories to show how her journey unfolded. Likewise the chapter by Rudolph,
Taylor and Foldy takes us on a different form of systematic journey with helpful
illustrations of the strategies associated with action science that is illuminating of their
work processes and reflections.
This is definitely a book of treasures to delve into and emerge enthused and encouraged.
Its diversity is its attraction as there is something to be learned in every chapter.
Professor Annette Street PhD, Professor of Cancer & Palliative Care Studies, Director,
LTU/A&RMC Clinical Nursing School, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Action Research: A Pathway to Action, Knowledge
and Learning
Nita Cherry
RMIT University Press, Melbourne, 1999,. ISBN: 0-86459-020-2, 144 pages, paperback
In contrast to Handbook of Action Research (previous review) this book takes a much
more focused and small palette approach. Cherry is clear that this book is intended to
assist those colleagues who supervise postgraduate action research projects and for the
students doing projects. There is a very practical feel to this book. It is brief with judicial
use of short chapters and clear headings, dot points and highlighted text. Cherry poses
many helpful questions and introduces a range of solutions that are both theoretical and
pragmatic.
The book opens with some definitional and explanatory work on action research and
action learning. This is a difficult task and Cherry attempts this with integrity as she gives
voice to the challenges to forms of action research and action learning that leave them
changing the way people think and act but not impacting on the underlying social and
organisational structures.
The book then goes on to explore the work of the action researcher; the place of reflective
practice; the difference between the paradigms that shape forms of action research; the
development of a critical subjectivity and the creation of meaning through narrative.
These are all important topics and the strength of Cherrys work lies in her ability to pose
helpful questions and synthesise complex arguments. However, the reader needs to be
aware that much of this material is skimmed over rather than debated. Similarly Cherrys
interest in a postgraduate student audience and the management focus of her students
means that the main focus of the action research she espouses is the facilitated action
research done for a client.
The layout enables the reader to dip in and out to find answers or stimulating questions to
facilitate progress. Although I prefer the spiral shape to an action research cycle rather
than a circle as it indicates movement, I consider that the prompts in the cycle provided
by Cherry are helpful reminders of the tasks at each stage of the cycle. The appendices
provide exemplars of action research projects by four postgraduate students that provide
reflections on the lessons learnt in the action research process in different management
situations.
Overall, I consider this book a valuable addition to my action research library. It provides
a resource of questions, ideas and issues for postgraduate students and research
colleagues to discuss, and pointers to the debates that need to be followed up elsewhere.
Professor Annette Street PhD, Professor of Cancer & Palliative Care Studies, Director,
LTU/A&RMC Clinical Nursing School, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Speed Bumps: A Student-Friendly Guide to
Qualitative Research
Lois Weis & Michelle Fine
Teachers College Press, New York, 2000, IBSN: 0-8077-3966-9, 131 pages, paperback
The authors dedicated Speed Bumps to new researchers, eager to engage, cautious about
the work, and committed to a practice of ethical social research (p. vii). Why call the
book Speed Bumps? The authors answer as follows:
Speed bumps: raised places in the road that limit ones speed. When we are moving too
fast, we must suddenly slow down or be thrown off course. Knowing that qualitative work
can easily throw young (and veteran) researchers off course and that slowing down helps to
prevent that, we offer a set of essays in which we explore our methodological and ethical
concerns as they have emerged in our recent research on urban America (p. 1).
The book is unique in that it seeks to integrate political and ethical reflections on
qualitative research with practical suggestions for how to actually do it.
Chapter 1 offers a concrete example of the authors urban ethnographic work as an
example of the product of qualitative research. The chapter draws upon research
involving 154 in-depth interviews with white, African American, and Latino young
adults, aged 2335, about their experiences since leaving high school. The chapter
describes their views on cops, crime and violence. I found it interesting that when white
women, African American women and Latinas (Latino women) talked about violence it
was domestic violence they referred to, which is a sad reflection on life in poverty-
stricken urban America. It is noteworthy that no white male talked about domestic
violence, whereas 92 per cent of white females did.
The data reported in Chapter 1 is drawn from the authors 1998 book The Unknown City:
The Lives of Poor and Working Class Young Adults. With regard to their research, the
authors state:
Even though policies are written today for the poor and working classes, we have yet to
hear from them. Our goal, then, was to unearth the voices of people usually not heard and
to excavate theses voices across a range of lifes activities. (p. 26)
Chapter 2 describes the methods used by the authors in their study. The methods used
were in-depth interviews and focus groups. The coding of the transcripts was done on
hard copy and then transferred to the qualitative data analysis computer programs
Hyperqual or Ethnograph for retrieving. The rigour of the coding was tested by using
more than one coder for the same text. The interrater (intercoder) reliability coefficients
were at least 0.80 between raters for each code, which is quite good. The authors point
out that the coding categories are constituted of, but not necessarily identical to, the
themes that constitute later writing. It is interesting to note that the authors carried out
focus groups after the in-depth interviews, mainly with those interviewed. The aim of
these focus groups was to probe further issues that had come out in the individual
interviews. The process of analysing both the individual and focus group interviews took
over a year.
The authors analyses suggest that young urban adults from the poor and working classes
constitute an unknown, unheard-from, and negatively represented constituency of
American democracy, and that they have much to say back to policy makers and the rest

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
of America. The goals of the authors in their research (reported in The Unknown City
1998) were to examine the commonalities and fractured nature of American society as
low-income people settle for crumbs in one of the richest nations of the world (p. 36).
The third chapter of the four-chapter book is their reflections on the work on their writing
of the book The Unknown City, particularly how to represent poor and working-class
urban dwellers at the end of the 20th century. The authors reflect on the power inherent in
the relationship between the researcher and the research participant, and how the signing
of the informed consent form is often meaningless to the signer. The authors speak about
the fact that researchers tend to report the great stories, those which are interesting, and
leave out the mundane aspects of peoples lives.
The use of different methods to study the same phenomenon is one form of triangulation.
Typically, researchers look for convergence in the data obtained by different methods.
However, Weis and Fine found that the individual interviews produced different stories
from focus groups. They searched for the very contradictions between methods that
would most powerfully inform policy.
The authors raise what they call the triple representational problem:
We ponder how we present (1) ourselves as researchers choreographing the narratives we
have collected; (2) the narrators, many of whom are wonderful critics, while some, from
our perspective, are talented ventriloquists for a hateful statues quo; and (3) the others
who are graphically bad-mouthed by these narrators, for example, case workers blamed for
stinginess and disrespect by women on welfare (pp. 5354)
Of all the four chapters, I found that the authors reflections on their research gave me the
most insights. Chapter 4 is a series of short reflective essays by graduate students on their
research conducted under the umbrella of the grants obtained by Weis and Fine. Some of
these essays are interesting, others less so.
The whole book sees research through the lenses of race, class and gender, and I found
that a bit tedious, as I feel there are other lenses to see the world through. My main
criticism of the book is that the book does not fulfil what its subtitle and first few pages
say the book is about. The subtitle of the book says A Student-Friendly Guide to
Qualitative Research. It is certainly not a guide and it is certainly not student-friendly as
some of the discussions of research concepts are quite sophisticated and are not
introductory. I was expecting an introductory book on qualitative research which I could
hand to beginning postgraduate qualitative researchers to read.
What is the book about then? It is a meta-narrative on the research done by the authors
and reported in their book, The Unknown City. It is their reflections and insights gained in
doing their research for the book. As I indicated above, the last chapter contains
reflections on the research done by the authors postgraduate students. The authors
commitment to social justice is unwavering and to be admired. I found the book an
interesting read and it is certainly one insight into research oriented to race, class and
gender.
Reference
Fine, M., & Weis, L. (1998). The unknown city: The lives of poor and working class young adults.
Boston: Beacon.

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Readme First for a Users Guide to Qualitative
Methods
Janice M. Morse & Lyn Richards
Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 2002, ISBN: 0-7619-1891-4, 262 pages, paperback
During my many years working as a research consultant and more recently teacher of
qualitative computing techniques, I frequently came across novice researchers and
students frustrated by the lack of advice on qualitative research available. Often it
appeared that enrolment in a qualitative computing workshop was more about learning
qualitative methods than qualitative software. In fact, The Association for Qualitative
Research was initiated to provide, the novice qualitative researcher, a much-needed
forum for the dispersion of knowledge from the more experienced researcher. Morse and
Richards have also recognised this need and written Readme First for a User's Guide to
Qualitative Methods for the novice qualitative researcher, and in particular those without
a mentor.
Readme First is divided into four sections: Thinking Research, Inside Analysis,
Getting it Right and Beginning Your Project. The first section, Thinking Research
,begins at the very basics by helping the novice researcher to choose a topic, select a
method and design their research. The second section Inside Analysis covers creating
data, types of data, managing data and ways of analysing the data. Section three Getting
it Right covers issues in regard to rigour of the analysis and the writing up of the
research. And section four Beginning Your Project addresses the more practical aspects
of research, such as writing the research proposal, reviewing the literature and choosing
an appropriate method.
A demonstration CD of the NVivo software has also been included in the back cover of
the book. The NVivo CD provides the researcher with the opportunity to experience how
qualitative data can be managed with specialist computer software. A sample project
Body Image has been provided in the form of four tutorials: Tutorial 1: Making and
designing a project, Tutorial 2: Making and managing data, Tutorial 3: Different
ways of coding and Tutorial 4: Creating concepts and storing ideas. Finally, the
Readme appendix provides comprehensive details on the how to use the NVivo CD and
tutorials.
In summary, I thought Readme First is an excellent introductory text which achieves
what it set out to do. It offers the novice qualitative researcher an excellent and thorough
introduction to all aspects of qualitative research including qualitative software. I would
certainly offer the advice to my colleagues, clients or students about to embark on their
first qualitative research project to Read me first.
Dianne Goeman, Research Officer, Co-operative Research Centre for Asthma, The Alfred
Hospital & Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Qualitative Analysis: Practice and Innovation
Douglas Ezzy
Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, Sydney, 2002, ISBN: 1-86508-523-5, 190 pages, paperback
This book by an Australian qualitative researcher and academic is a welcome addition to
the growing number of qualitative research texts available for beginning students in the
area of qualitative research, and teachers of qualitative methods. The text is comprised of
six chapters The first, Theory and Data: A Hermeneutic Approach discusses the place
of theory and theoretical frameworks or perspectives in qualitative research, focusing
specifically on symbolic interactionism and grounded theory, postmodernism , feminist
standpoint epistemologies and hermeneutics. The author makes the point and clearly
articulates the way in which sophisticated qualitative researchers within hermeneutics,
postmodernism and symbolic interactionist grounded theory engage in a cycle of relations
between theory and data; the purpose being to build theories about the way in which
meanings and interpretations of research participants are patterned and produced. While
this chapter may be heavy going for the beginning researcher it will be a useful additional
reference for teachers of qualitative research methods and will prove invaluable to the
novice researcher as an ongoing resource.
The second chapter, Politics, Rigour and Ethics, discusses issues of rigour covered by a
number of other qualitative texts. However, the strength of this section is the way in
which the author details the influence of postmodernist, feminist and hermeneutic theory
in linking issues of rigour to the construction of knowledge. Another strength of this
section is the discussion of the politics of research and the need for the researcher to view
their research as inherently political, with the potential to influence public policy
particularly true of qualitative researchers within the health field.
The third, fourth and sixth chapters Data Analysis During Data Collection, Coding
Data and Interpreting Text and Methods of Analysis and Writing About Qualitative
Data, I found the most useful and would recommend these chapters to any potential
researcher proposing to undertake a qualitative research study. Chapters three and four
set out in a user-friendly way, procedures to follow in data collection and analysis that
are relevant to most qualitative methods. The sixth chapter describes in detail the way in
which writing is at the heart of the research process. Using examples from his own
research studies, the author discusses ways in which writing, and thinking about writing,
can be facilitated, as well as handy hints on writing for particular audiences.
The fifth chapter, Computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis provides an overview
of the method of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDA(S)) detailing the
strengths and weaknesses of CAQDA(S) in relation to specific approaches and briefly
introducing the packages in common use. This is useful information for the beginning
researcher who is often at a loss to know if to use a CAQDAS and if so what package.
In conclusion I highly recommend this text.
Carmel Seibold, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic
University, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
TITLE: Advanced Focus Group Research
Edward F. Fern
2001, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 2001, ISBN: 0-7619-1248-5 254 pages, paperback
Focus groups have become the in thing and a buzz term. Over the last twenty five
years this method of qualitative data collection has become increasingly popular and used
right across the social sciences. To reflect this uptake there has been a growing literature.
Much of this has concentrated on: how to carry out focus groups generally (e.g.
Greenbaum, 1998; Krueger, 1988, 2001; Morgan, 1993; Morgan & Krueger, 1998;
Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990); a consideration of how such interviews can be applied to
particular disciplines (e.g. Grunig 1990; Hurworth, 1996; Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub
1996); or to consider one individual problem or issue (e.g. Kitzinger, 1994; McDonald,
1993; Ward et al. 1991).
Ferns book takes us much further and gets the reader to move away from previous
written and rather static how-to prescriptions regarding focus group interviewing, to
thinking about this tool in new and more perceptive ways. The book therefore keeps the
title promise of being advanced. It is, therefore, not intended for novices but has been
written as a book for those who already have a fundamental knowledge of this
qualitative method (Preface x). However, it has been written in language that is
accessible to all.
Overall, the text deals with some complex issues that researchers and moderators
(interviewers) need to recognise when deciding to use focus groups for data collection. It
considers the focus group process in-depth and reveals many of the complexities
encountered while creating and executing this technique. To do this Fern approaches the
task systematically, using a conceptual framework, in order to assist the reader/researcher
to make informed decisions throughout a focus group study. This framework, presented
in the first chapter, specifies relationships between seven elements that affect all focus
group processes and outcomes. These comprise: group composition; the research session;
group process factors; group cohesion; the focus group discussion process; the focus
group moderator; and the final outcomes. These are presented diagrammatically (p. 12) as
a kind of roadmap to demonstrate possible causal relationships between elements.
This framework then provides the basic underpinning for the next few chapters as each of
the seven elements are tackled in considerable detail in the next chapters. For instance,
under group composition Fern examines aspects such as culture, social status, age,
ethnicity, gender and personality while for a chapter on the focus group moderator he
looks at the background, style and analysis associated with the interviewer. On the
surface this may have the appearance of having been dealt with by other authors.
However, what is refreshing is that most aspects are taken and dissected even further than
others have attempted. For instance, rather than talking generically about listening skills
or nonverbal behaviour, Fern breaks these down into nonreflective listening, reflective
listening, visual orientation, facial expression, body movements, gestures and
vocalisations, and discusses each in turn.
Having pulled apart the actual focus group act in such a way, the book then goes on to
look at methodological issues such as sampling, generalisability, the nonstandardised way
that questions are presented, the degree of independence of response, group influence
amongst participants, and whether focus groups can be a stand-alone technique.

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
Fern then moves on to promote an idea that there are different kinds of focus groups for
different purposes. He spends three chapters outlining how groups can, from his
perspective, be used for three tasks. These are: exploratory groups for creating,
collecting, identifying, discovering, explaining and generating thought feelings and
behaviours; experiential groups (for sharing common life experiences of the group) and
clinical groups (used particularly in marketing to uncover individuals motives,
predispositions, biases and prejudices). He also attempts within each of these three types
to distinguish between theory application (conducted for the purposes of theory
development and confirmation) and effects application (conducted for decision-making
purposes). For each possible combination (e.g. exploratory-theory application,
exploratory-effects application) the author outlines how setting, group composition,
recruitment, group size, number of interviews needed, moderator background and some
methodological aspects are likely to be affected.
This classification system may work for areas like marketing (Ferns own discipline) but
seems to be problematic as far as applied social sciences are concerned because work
associated with the latter is often carried out for decision-making. By Ferns definition,
all theory-type focus groups would be excluded from the applied social sciences and yet it
is quite common for such researchers to need new theory while simultaneously finding
out information that can be applied to particular, real-life problems.
Another problem with the text is that Fern claims at several points to have written this
text as a cross-disciplinary examination. While he may have indirectly and subtly drawn
on literature which has emanated from several disciplines, the majority of overt examples
come from his own area of marketing. Therefore, most readers will need to extrapolate
from what is presented here to their own settings and areas of expertise.
Another negative aspect of the book is that, while the actual act of organising and
running a focus group is dissected and examined throughout almost in microscopic detail,
several important aspects are either just paid lip-service or ignored completely. This
seems surprising for an advanced text. For instance (and as so frequently occurs in texts
on qualitative methods), there is no discussion at all on analysis of focus group data. In
fact the word analysis does not even appear in the index. Not surprisingly, there is also
no examination of how to present or report findings. Furthermore, there seems to be a
complete lack of discussion in connection with the ethical issues associated with carrying
out such groups and yet such matters are extremely important to current research practice.
Even so, some of Ferns goals are reached, He manages to present a more informed use of
the method; moves researchers away from thinking of focus groups as a generic
approach, to realising there may be specific types of focus groups for specific purposes;
and to offer new perspectives.
He also advocates some departures from traditional ways of dealing with focus groups,
such as groups without moderators, focus groups with informal moderators and groups
for validating theoretical notions. He even presents some thoughts about how to deal with
the method quantitatively!
References
Greenbaum, T. (1998). The handbook for focus group research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks,
California: Sage.
Grunig, L. A. (1990). Using focus groups in public relations. Public Relations Review, 16(2),
3649.
Hurworth, R. (1996). Focus groups: Some common questions asked in evaluations. Evaluation
News & Comment, 5(1), 4852.
Kitzinger, J. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: The importance of interaction between
research participants. Sociology of Health and Illness, 16, 103121.

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
Krueger, R. (1988). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. Newbury Park,
California: Sage.
McDonald, W. J. (1993). Focus group research dynamics and reporting. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 21(2), 161168.
Morgan, D. (1993). Successful focus groups: Advancing the state of the art. Newbury Park,
California: Sage.
Morgan, D. & Krueger, R. (1998). The focus group kit. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Stewart D. W. & Shamdasani, P. N. (1990). Focus groups: Theory and practice. Newbury Park,
California: Sage.
Vaughn, S. Schumm, J. S., & Sinagub J. (1996). Focus group interviews in education and
psychology. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Ward, V. M. et al. (1991). The comparability of focus group and survey results. Evaluation
Review, 15, 266283.
Rosalind E. Hurworth, Director, Centre for Program Evaluation, Faculty of Education
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

V o l u m e 2 N o . 2 / 2 0 0 2
N o t e s t o c o n t r i b u t o r s ( 1 p a g e ) 1 4 0
Notes to contributors
The Qualitative Research Journal is devoted to the communication of the theory and practice of
qualitative research in the human sciences. The present plan is to bring out two issues a year.
Contributions should be no longer than 60008000 words, excluding abstract and references. Send
all contributions in Microsoft Word format by email (not a disk) to d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au.
Double-space all manuscripts, including references, notes, abstracts, quotations, figures and
tables.
In order to assist refereeing, which is anonymous, the title, the author's name and affiliation, the
corresponding author's address, telephone number, email address and biographical material (which
will accompany your article upon publication and should not exceed 50 words for a single author
and 25 words in the case of multiple authors) should be typed on a separate sheet. For refereed
articles the title page should be followed by an abstract of not more than 250 words. Because of
the diversity of material submitted to the Journal, it is suggested that authors may supply the names
and addresses of one or more potential referees. Please send a head-and-shoulders photograph(s)
(colour or black and white) of the author(s) with the name of the author written on the back of the
photograph.
The Journal uses notes rather than footnotes. Australian, UK or USA spelling may be used. Other
than spelling, the Journal uses the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association,
5th edition, 2001.
Should double or single quotation marks be used? According to the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association, 5th edition, use double quotation marks to enclose quotations
in text that are less than 40 words. Use single quotation marks within double quotation marks to set
off material that in the original source was enclosed in double quotation marks. Do not use
quotation marks to enclose block quotations (any quotations of 40 or more words).
Below are examples of referencing:
Journal article, two authors, journal paginated by issue
Klimoski, R., & Palmer, S. (1993). The ADA and hiring process in organisations. Consulting
Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 4(2), 1036.
Book, third edition, Jr. in name
Mitchell, T., & Larson, J. R., Jr. (1987). People in organisations: An introduction toorganisational
behaviour (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Edited book
Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. N. (Eds.). (1991). Children of colour: Psychological interventions with
minority youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Article or chapter in an edited book, two editors
Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism in human memory. In H. L.
Roediger III & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory & consciousness (pp. 309330). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Report available from a government printing office, government institute as group author
National Institute of Mental Health. (1990). Clinical training in serious mental illness (DHHS
Publication No. ADM 901679). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Article in an Internet-only journal
Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimise health and well-being.
Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from
http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre003000a.html
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2003
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CALL FOR PAPERS
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH:
Creating Spaces for
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SUBTHEMES
Creating space for understanding
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Qualitative Research Books
SAGE Publications
London Thousand Oaks New Delhi
Readme First for a User's Guide
to Qualitative Methods
J anice M Morse & Lyn Richards
Offering a map to show readers how
some methodological choices lead more
directly than others to particular goals,
this book provides beginning
researchers with an overview of
techniques for making data and an
explanation of the ways different tools fit
different purposes and provide different
research experiences and outcomes.
The authors clearly explain why there
are many methods and show readers
how to locate their study within that
choice. Written as a pragmatic
companion, this text will help readers get confidently and
competently started on a research path that works for their
study. Distinctive Features:
Tutorials: Provide readers with the opportunity to practice
tasks with the data provided in the Appendices or with the
reader's own data. The tutorial can be performed in
conjunction with the data provided on the CD
Non Save version of Nvivo: Provides an opportunity to try
some of the tools available in modern software by using
QSR's Nvivo product with the data from two real projects,
Barbara Lloyd's "Body Images" study based on focus groups
and semi-structured interviews with school students , and
Paul Thompson's "100 Families" life history study.
Pbk 280pp 0761918914 $84 (SI)

Qualitative Researcher's Companion :
Classic & Contemporary Readings
Michael Huberman
This book seeks to introduce readers to
selections that provide a solid
intellectual grounding in the area of
qualitative research. Thoughtfully and
painstakingly culled from over a
thousand candidate articles, The
Qualitative Researcher's Companion
examines the theoretical
underpinnings, methodological
perspectives and empirical approaches
that are crucial to the understanding
and practice of qualitative inquiry.
Incisive, provocative, and drawn from
across the many disciplines that employ qualitative inquiry,
The Qualitative Researcher's Companion is a key addition to
the bookshelf of anyone involved in the research act.
Pbk pp 076191191X $83 (SI)
Qualitative Inquiry Reader
Denzin N & Lincoln Y
The Qualitative Inquiry Reader offers a
selection of landmark articles from the
popular SAGE journal Qualitative
Inquiry. These collected works
introduce the necessary critical
framework that will allow scholars and
students to interpret cutting-edge work
in the field of qualitative inquiry.
The Reader includes: examples from
across the behavioural and social
sciences; is divided into five accessible
sections: reflexive ethnography,
autoethnography, poetics, performance
narratives and assessing the text; reflects the ways in which
contemporary researchers have implemented the narrative
turn in their writing; and contains cutting-edge work by top
scholars in the field.
Pbk 320pp 0761924922 $95 (SI)

Qualitative Research and Evaluation
Methods 3ed
Patton M
The completely revised and updated edition of this
methodological classic continues to provide practical,
comprehensive and strategic guidance on qualitative design,
purposeful s ampling, interviewing, fieldwork, observation
methods, and qualitative analysis and interpretation while
integrating the extensive qualitative literature of the last
decade. It offers a wide range of examples showing the
varieties of qualitative inquiry applications and practices,
including extensive attention to mixed methods. The chapter
contrasting theoretical orientations provi des a critical
explication of 16 different perspectives that can inform
qualitative research and evaluation - the most
comprehensive review yet available. The chapter on
enhancing the quality and credibility of qualitative analysis
presents a new framework for differentiating five contrasting
and competing sets of standards for judging the quality and
utility of findings. The book examines and honors both the
science and art of qualitative inquiry. The qualities that made
previous editions of this widely used book so highly valued
by both seasoned professionals and students continue to
shine through in this revision, including Patton's extensive
experience, broad perspective, inclusive sensitivity, concrete
examples, pragmatic orientation, and fine writing.
Hbk 512pp 0761919716 $154 (SI)

Available from
June 2002
14 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED
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Content Analysis Guidebook
Neuendorf K
Content analysis is one of the most important yet complex
research methodologies in the s ocial sciences. The author
provides an accessible text for upper-level undergraduates
and graduate students, comprising step-by-step instructions
and practical advice.
Pbk 350pp 0761919783 $85 (SI)

Handbook of Research Design & Social
Measurement 6ed
Miller D & Salkind N
In addition to hundreds of new references features new to
this edition include: a comprehensive introduction to
qualitative methods including a review of existing computer
applications for collecting and analyzing data; the latest
information about the use of computers and online research
techniques, including the use of the Internet to locate actual
research instruments and journal articles; updated coverage
on new scales, internal and external validity, and new
analytic techniques with extensive references on each;
abstracts, citations and subject groupings by measurement
tool of the last five years of the American Sociological
Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, and the American
Journal of Sociology; extensive coverage of how to prepare
manuscripts for publication, including a list of all journals
covered by Sociological Abstracts along with the editorial
office address and URL for each entry; new coverage of
ethical issues; expansion of social indicators to include
international coverage; discussion of the importance of policy
research with presentation and discussion of specific models
as an adjunct to both applied and basic research techniques;
and the addition of an index to facilitate the reader's ability to
quickly locate a topic.
Pbk 808pp 0761920463 $164 (SI)

Systematic Self-Observation
Rodriguez N & Ryave A
Systematic self-observation (SSO) is a valuable research
method used by social scientists to gather information about
those social actions that are hidden, restricted or subjective.
The advantage of using self-observation over another
research method, such as intervi ewing, for these types of
actions is that the observer in SSO is the same as the
oberver. This is the only way one can successfully measure
thoughts, emotions and other criteria that are not always
openly displayed. The authors provide a practical
explanation and instruction to carrying out an SSO study.
They include case studies of four aspects of hidden or
elusive everyday social actions: lying, telling secrets,
withholding compliments and feeling envy.
Pbk 96pp 076192308X $37.95 (SI)

Theory-Based Data Analysis For Social
Sciences
Carol S Aneshensel
The advent of complex and powerful computer-generated
statistical models has greatly eroded the former prominence
of social theory in data analysis, replacing it with an
emphasis on statistical technique. To correct this trend, Carol
S. Aneshensel presents a method for bringing data analysis
and statistical technique into line with theory. She
approaches this task by first providing an overview that
explains the connection between data analysis, statistical
technique, and theory. This section includes a description of
the elaboration model for analyzing the empirical association
between two variables by adding a "third variable" to the
analysis.
Pbk 0pp 0761987363 $91 (SI)

Interpreting Quantitative Data
Byrne D
How do quantitative methods help
us to acquire knowledge of the real
world? What are the `do's' and
`don'ts' of effective quantitative
research?
This refreshing and accessible
book provides students with a
novel and useful resource for doing
quantitative research. It offers
students a guide on how to:
interpret the complex reality of the
social world; achieve effective
measurement; understand the use
of official statistics; use social surveys; understand
probability and quantitative reasoning; interpret
measurements; apply linear modelling; understand
simulation and neural nets, and integrate quantitative and
qualitative modelling in the research process.
Jargon-free and written with the needs of students in mind,
the book will be required reading for students interested in
using quantitative research methods.
Pbk 176pp 076196262X $61 (SP)

Qualitative Research in Social Work
Shaw I an F & Gould Nick G
Qualitative Research in Social Work edited by Ian Shaw and
Nick Gould, provides a state-of-the-art exposition and
analysis of qualitative inquiry in relation to social work.... The
book has an unusual degree of coherence for one with
several authors. The five chapters by the editors (parts one
and three) do an exceptional job of providing the necessary
background information and setting the context for the six
application chapters and of highlighting and discussing the
issues raised in those chapters. The editors are respected
scholars well-versed in the theory and practice of qualitative
research. Similarly, the contributing authors represent both
considerable experience i n this field and a diversity of
interests.
Pbk 240pp 0761961828 $64 (SP)

Persuasion : Theory and Research, 2nd
Edition
OKeefe, Daniel J .
If you're searching for a
comprehensive text in persuasion
theory and research, you can find no
better resource than Persuasion.
Written in an accessible style that
assumes no special technical
background in research methods, this
volume offers a comprehensive and
critical treatment of theory and
research in persuasion. This new
edition has the same clear,
straightforward presentation and the
same broad coverage as the first
edition, and has been thoroughly
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revised to reflect developments in persuasion studies.
Pbk 300pp 0761925392 $102 (SI)

Regression Basics
Leo Kahane
"This is a good manuscript. It fills an important place in the
statistical textbook world because it does not assume a great
deal of statistical knowledge and because it explains many
complicated statistical concepts in a very straightforward and
non-jargon-filled manner. A very refreshing and quite
enjoyable read.' Lynn Sorsoli, Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University.
Although many people have PCs with software capable of
performing regression techniques, only a few know how to
capitalize on the flexibility and wide application of regression
analysis. This book shows readers how to get the most from
regression by provi ding a friendly, non-technical introduction
to the subject. Accessible to anyone with only an introductory
statistics background, the book begins with the simplest, two-
variable linear model and gradually builds towards models of
more complexity, such as multivariate regression.
Pbk 202pp 0761924132 $77 (SI)

Interpretive Interactionism 2ed
Denzin N
The expanded and updated Second Edition includes:
information on how interpretive work can be used to further
the workings of a free, democratic s ociety; a new chapter on
interpretive criteria in the Seventh moment; a re-examination
of the key notion of thick description, i n light of the narrative
and performance turns in the social sciences; new material
on multisited ethnographies, the politics of place, the
ethnoscapes of group life; links made with recent qualitative
turns, from literary ethnography to feminist, cultural , critical
race, interpretive and Foucauldian studies; and new
coverage of narratives and sacred places and new writing
forms (layered texts, poetry, short stories).
Pbk 160pp 0761915141 $69 (SI)

Embedded Case Study Methods
Scholz R & Tietje O
In an embedded case study, the starting and end point is the
comprehension of the case as a whole in its real -world
context. However, in the course of analysis the case will be
faceted either by different perspectives of inquiry or by
several s ub-units. The book presents different
methodological approaches to organize this faceting
process. It uses the power of the system approach in order
to apply methods, which allow a scientific treatment of
complex cases in a way that will be also acknowledged by
the quantitative research community. The authors emphasize
that a qualitative analysis starting from the real-world level is
an indispensable part of case analysis. Thus the book
bridges the gap between quantitatve and qualitative
approaches to compl ex problems when using the case study
methodology.
Pbk 288pp 0761919465 $105 (SI)

Survey Research Methods 3ed
Fowler J r F
Popular with over 49,000 readers for giving those who want
to collect, analyze, or read about survey data a sound basis
for evaluating how each aspect of a survey can affect its
precision, accuracy, and credibility, this new Third Edition
presents the latest methodological knowledge on survey
research. New to this edition is coverage of: Improved
techniques for evaluating survey questions; The latest
options available to researchers in using the computer and
the internet for surveys; Recent methodological findings to
enhance survey research
With an emphasis on the importance of minimizing
nonsampling errors through superior question design, quality
interviewing, and high response rates, this book helps
readers understand the relationship of data collection to
figures and statistics based on the survey-and how much
confidence to place in the reported results based on this
relationship.
Pbk 180pp 0761921915 $72 (SI)

Small-Scale Research : Pragmatic Inquiry in
Social Science and the Caring Professions
Knight P
Timely, assured and written with the
needs of students uppermost, Small-
Scale Research is a direct,
comprehensive guide for students
doing theses, dissertations, papers
and projects. It systematically works
through the central methods of inquiry
and demonstrates the strengths and
weaknesses of different approaches.
The advice on when and how to use
small-scale methods is pragmatic,
recognizing that small-scale
researchers are usually short on time
and resources. Yet behind this
pragmatism is the principle that research is, above all, about
thinking. Whatever needs to be done in a research project
has to be for the purpose of providing research audiences
with the best possible answers, in the circumstances, to the
research questions. The book argues that it is not enough to
apply research methods. Sense-making and claims-making
are central to good research practice.
Pbk 240pp 0761968628 $69 (SP)

Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis
Wodak Ruth & Meyer Michael
This book is designed as an
introduction to Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA) and gives an
overview of the various theories and
methods associated with this
sociolinguistic approach. It also
introduces the reader to the leading
figures in CDA and the methods to
which they are most closely related.
The text aims to provide a
comprehensive description of the
individual methods, an
understanding of the theories to
which methods refer and a
comparative treatment of each of these methods so that
students may be able to determine which is the most
appropriate to select for their particular research question.
Given the balance between theory and application, plus the
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intended audience - no previous knowledge of CDA is
assumed - Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis should be
useful reading for both students and researchers in the fields
of linguistics, sociology, social psychology and the social
sciences in general.
Pbk 224pp 0761961542 $66 (SP)

Internet Research Handbook: A Practical
Guide for Students & Researchers in the
Social Sciences
O'Dochartaigh Niall
This much-needed textbook provides
clear but detailed advice in all of the
main areas of Internet research. For
those carrying out research on-line, a
number of very different sets of skills
from the conventional 'systematic way
of asking questions', is required.
Using the Internet for research
involves learning how to access the
correct sites and extract information in
the shortest possible time. It involves
maximising the possibilities of opened
up email contact with other
researchers around the world, and it involves learning about
the major databases which are devoted to the social
sciences and learning how to do the detective work
necessary to evaluate and to cite documents whose
authorship and origins are often unclear. It sets out, in clear
and simple terms, best practice in the use of the Internet as a
mainstream research resource and deals with the Internet as
a thread which runs through the entire research process,
from formulating a research question to publishing the results
of your research.
Pbk 224pp 0761964401 $66 (SP)

Introduction to Social Research :
Quantitative & Qualitative
Approaches
Punch K oz
The social science researcher today
needs to understand the logic of both the quantitative and
qualitative approaches to empirical research. This book
provides comprehensive coverage of both, set within a
pragmatic view of research. It is an ideal starting point for all
students and researchers in the social sciences, where you
can learn about: eveloping a model for empirical research;
the logic of quantitative research - design, data collection,
data analysis; the logic of qualitative research - design, data
collection, data analysis; mixing the methods, evaluation and
research writing
Pbk 336pp 0761958134 $61 (SP)

Doing Statistics With SPSS
Kerr A et al
Doing Statistics With SPSS is derived from the authors'
many years of experience teaching undergraduates data
handling using SPSS. It assumes no prior understanding
beyond that of basic mathematical operations and is
therefore suitable for anyone undertaking an introductory
statistics course as part of a science based undergraduate
programme. The text will: enable the reader to make
informed choices about what statistical tests to employ; what
assumptions are made in using a particular test; demonstrate
how to execute the analysis using SPSS; and guide the
reader in his//her interpretation of its output. Each chapter
ends with an exercise and provides detailed instructions on
how to run the analysis using SPSS release 10. Learning is
further guided by pointing the reader to particular aspects of
the SPSS output and by having the reader engage with
specified items of information from the SPSS results.
Pbk 224pp 0761973850 $66 (SP)

Handbook of Qualitative Research 2ed
Denzin N & Lincoln Y
Once again, editors Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln
have put together a volume that represents the state of the
art for the theory and practice of qualitative inquiry. Built on
the foundation of the landmark first edition, published in
1994, the second edition is both the bridge and the roadmap
to the territory that lies ahead for researchers across the
disciplines.
The Second Edition is a significant revision-in fact, it is
virtually a new work. It features six new chapter topics,
including, among others, autoethnography, critical race
theory, applied ethnography, queer theory, and testimonio.
Another fifteen chapters are written by new contributors. And
every chapter in the book has been thoroughly revised and
updated. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is
necessary to re-engage the promise of qualitative research
as a generative form of inquiry. The Second Edition of the
Handbook reveals how the discourses of qualitative research
can be used to imagine and create a free and democratic
society. Groundbreaking, thought-provoking, comprehensive
and featuring the contributions of a virtual Who's Who in the
human sciences, Handbook of Qualitative Research, Second
Edition is absolutely an essential text for the library of any
scholar interested in the art and science of research.
Hbk 1144pp 0761915125 $264 (SI)

Three Volume Set of the First Edition of
Handbook of Qualitative Research
Landscape of Qualitative Research : Theories & Issues
V1
Pbk 480pp 0761914331 $79 (SI)
Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry V2
Pbk 368pp 0761914358 $79 (SI)
Collecting & Interpreting Qualitative Materials Vol 3
Pbk 472pp 076191434X $74 (SI)

Handbook of Action Research : Participative
Inquiry & Practice
Reason P & Bradbury H
In the last two decades post-positivist
research has received a great deal of
attention in graduate and professional
education, reflecting contemporary
debates about how social science
ought to be practised and about the
role of the researcher in a postmodern
world. Central to this debate are the
methods and techniques that have
been developed in 'action' or
participative research, highlighting as
they do the key questions that
surround objectivity, reflexivity, ethics,
the nature of 'knowledge' and the shifting boundary between
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theory and practice. Hitherto there has been no publication
which draws together the different strands of action research,
demonstrates their diverse applications and shows their
interrelations. This major Handbook fills that gap. Far-
reaching in scale and scope, the volume informs readers
about the latest approaches, both quantitative and
qualitative, in social inquiry, and moves the field forward with
fresh insights and applications. Throughout, the contributing
authors grapple with questions of how to i ntegrate
knowledge with action, how to collaborate with co-
researchers in the field, and how to present the necessarily
'messy' components in a coherent fashion. The organization
of the volume reflects the many different issues and levels of
analysis represented.The Handbook is divided into four
sections, but there are important themes of thinking and
practice running throughout. Part 1, 'Groundings', reviews
the range of paradigms and metatheories, the perspectives,
values and epistemologies that inform the different practices
of action research. Part 2, 'Practices', includes chapters
representing the diverse approaches to action research and
the range of methodologies and practices which constitute
the family of action research approaches. The chapters i n
the third part, 'Exemplars', show how different researchers
have applied the various different groundings and practices
in their own work. The final section, 'Skills', addresses some
of the competencies that may be required for the initiation
and conduct of research.
Hbk 512pp 0761966455 $235 (SP)

NVivo Qualitative Project Book
Bazeley P & Richards L oz
This book invites readers to learn how
to use qualitative data analysis software
in the context of doing their research
project. The reader follows basic steps
for creating and conducting a real
project with real data, using the new-
generation software package, QSR
NVivo. The software tools are
introduced only as needed and
explained in the framework of what is
being asked. The reader is the
craftsperson, trialling processes of
getting started, tentative interpretation,
drawing links, shaping data, and seeking and establishing
explanations and theories. The NVivo Qualitative Project
Book allows the researcher to work through their own
project, or work with data provided from a real project.
Demonstration software is provided on the enclosed CD-
ROM.
Pbk 208pp 0761970002 $64 (SP)

Using NVivo in Qualitative
Research
Richards L
This is a book about using qualitative software,
for students, teachers, practitioners and participants in
qualitative research. It explores what can be done with the
latest qualitative research package, QSR NUDIST Vivo
(NVivo), described as the new generation of research
software. The book is designed to be used in learning about
what the software can do and the research strategies and
approaches it supports. Using clear language and examples
it explains each of the processes of data editing, exploration,
coding, linking and searching available with the software's
tools. The integration of these processes is explored, with
emphasis on the ways the researcher can build up a project,
and the ways webs of data are linked and understanding
developed and tested. Much more than a manual, the book
offers practi cal advice with each section, addressing a range
of research approaches and priorities. Includes
demonstration CD-ROM of QSR's NVivo software. The CD
carries six tutorials with detailed, step by step online
instructions, and the software's full interactive Help. It also
carries over 20 instructional movies demonstrating the
processes discussed in the book. Pbk 240pp
0761965254 $61 (SP)

Research Design in Social Research
de Vaus D
This book is intended to show social science students the
importance of attending to design issues when undertaking
social research. One of the main problems in doing practical
research is that design and structure are inappropriate for
the uses of research. They often do not support the
conclusions that are drawn from it. Several research
methods books focus on data collection strategy and
statistical analysis. While these issues are pertinent, this
book argues that the core of research methods is the
structure and design of the research. The book: Provides
students with a clear understanding of the importance of
research design and its place in the research process;
Describes the main types of research designs in social
research; Explains the logic and purposes of design to
enable students to evaluate particular research strategies;
Equips students with the design skills to operate in real
world research situations
Pbk 296pp 0761953477 $68 (SP)

Interpreting Qualitative Data 2ed
Silverman D
This a much expanded and updated
version of David Silverman's best-
selling introductory textbook for the
beginning qualitative researcher.
Features of the New Edition:- Takes
account of the flood of qualitative
work since the 1990s - All chapters
have been substantially rewritten
with the aim of greater clarity- A new
chapter on Visual Images and a
considerably expanded treatment of
discourse analysis are provided- The
number of student exercises has
been considerably increased and are now present at the end
of every chapter- An even greater degree of student
accessibility: Key Points and Recommended Readings
appear at the end of each chapter and technical terms are
highlighted and appear in a Glossary- A more inter-
disciplinary social science text which takes account of the
growing interest in qualitative research outside sociology and
anthropology from psychology to geography, information
systems, health promotion, management and many other
disciplines - 50% longer than the First Edition Interpreting
Qualitative Data - companion volume to Silverman's Doing
Qualitative Research (Sage, 2000), which is a guide to the
business of conducting a research project, together with its
accompanying volume of key readings Qualitative Research:
Theory Method & Practice, (Sage, 1997), which provides
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further more focused material that students need before
contemplating their own qualitative research study.
Pbk 344pp 0761968652 $65 (SP)
Reflexive Methodology : Interpretation &
Research
Alvesson M & Skoldberg K
Reflexivity is an essential part of the research process. It
provides the perspective necessary for successful
interpretation of field research and the development of
insightful conclusions. In their new overview of the problems
of reflexivity and interpretation Alvesson and Sk[um]oldberg
have provided an invaluable guide to this central aspect of
research methodology.The authors review and critically
discuss the major intellectual streams, and highlight their
problems and possibilities in empirical work - hermeneutics,
critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism,
discourse analysis, geneaology and feminism. Possible
implications of different kinds of empirical work are explored.
A large part of the book is devoted to the development and
exemplification of a reflexive methodology. This draws upon
insights of how culture, language, selective perception,
subjective forms of cognition, ideology all, in complicated
way, permeate scientific activity.The book makes explicit the
links between techniques used in empirical research and
different research traditions, making possible a theoretically-
informed approach to qualitative research. The text helps
researchers avoid the pitfall of naivete whilst pointing the
way to a more open-minded, creative interaction between
theoretical frameworks and empirical research.
Pbk 336pp 0803977077 $72 (SP)

Developing Effective Research Proposals
Punch K
A well-constructed research plan is
vital to the successful execution of
any research project. This book
shows how to design and prepare
research proposal and present it
effectively to a university review
committee, funding body, or
commercial client. The book is
organized around three central
themes: What are research
proposals; who reads them and
why?; what general guidelines and
strategies can help students
develop a proposal; and what might a finished proposal look
like? The book will be invaluable across all areas of social
science, both basic and applied, and for students
undertaking quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method
studies. Developing Effective Research Proposals can be
used as a workbook to Keith Punch's bestselling text An
Introduction to Social Research (Sage, 1998) or as an
independent guide.
Pbk 144pp 0761963561 $48.95 (SP)

Qualitative Research through Case Studies
Travers M
Although most undergraduates are able to collect qualitative
data without too much difficulty, they are often less
successful in turning this into an interesting, theoretically-
informed analysis.Qualitative Research through Cas e
Studies will help students improve the quality of their work
through introducing a wide range of traditions, including
interpretive approaches such as grounded theory,
dramaturgical analysis, ethnomethodology and conversation
analysis and political approaches such as critical discourse
analysis, feminism and postmodern ethnography.Each
chapter introduces the theoretical assumptions of the
tradition through discussing a number of case-studies:
classic or exemplary studies which illustrate how different
researchers have used qualitative methods in researching a
variety of topics. There are also practical hints on designing
undergraduate projects, exercises and a guide to further
reading.The book is intended for students in a wide range of
disciplines and should be particularly useful for complete
beginners who are interested in conducting qualitative
research as part of their degrees.
Pbk 208pp 0761968067 $65 (SP)

Introduction to Quantitative Research
Methods : an Investigative
Approach
Balnaves M et al
Introduction to Quantitative Research
Methods is a student-friendly
introduction to quantitative research
methods and basic statistics. It uses a
detective theme throughout the text and
in multimedia courseware to show how
quanti tative methods have been used
to solve real-life problems. The book
focuses on principles and techniques
that are appropriate to introductory
level courses in media, psychology and
sociology. Examples and illustrations
are drawn from historical and
contemporary research in the social sciences. The
multimedia courseware provides tutorial work on sampling,
basic statistics, and techniques for seeking information from
databases and other sources. The statistics modules can be
used as either part of a detective games or directly in
teaching and learning. Brief video lessons in SPSS, using
real datasets, are also a feature of the CD-ROM.
Pbk 272pp 0761968040 $64 (SP)

Doing a Literature Search : a
Comprehensive Guide for the Social
Sciences
Hart C
Doing a Literature Search provides a practical and
comprehensive guide to searching the literature on any topic
within the social sciences. This essential research tool will
enable the reader to search the literature effectively,
identifying useful books, articles, statistics and many other
sources of information.This accessible manual offers the
following features:- A quick reference guide to sources - print
and electronic abstracts, indexes, guides and gateways - for
the student, researcher and tutor- An aide to planning and
conducting a literature search that will include robust and
reliable referrals to other sources, organizations and texts- A
clear and concise introduction to doing either a quick review
or a comprehensive review of the literature- A guide to the
search tools for locating items- Advice on how to indentify
key items from the literature- An up-to-date list of key
reference materials both printed and electronic, especially
URLs and titles of guides to the literatureThis text will be an
invaluable research tool for postgraduates and researchers
across the social sciences.
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Pbk 194pp 0761968105 $53.95 (SP)

Qualitative Research Interviewing : Semi-
Structured Biographical & Narrative
Methods
Wengraf T
Qualitative Research Interviewing is unique in its conceptual
coherence and the level of practical detail that it offers to the
beginning social researcher.It provides a comprehensive
resource for those concerned with the practice of semi-
structured interviewing, the most commonly used interview
approach in social research, and in particular for depth,
biographic narrative interviewing, the interview methods of
choice in qualitative research. It covers the full range of
practices from the identification of topics through to
strategies for writing up research findings in diverse ways.
Pbk 424pp 0803975015 $72 (SP)

Handbook of Visual Analysis
Leeuwen T & J ewitt C nz
The Handbook of Visual Analysis is a rich methodological
resource for students, academics, researchers and
professionals interested in investigating the visual
representation of socially sig nificant issues.The Handbook:
Offers a wide-range of methods for visual analysis: content
analysis, historical analysis, structuralist analysis,
iconography, psychoanalysis, social semiotic analysis, film
analysis and ethnomethodology Shows how each method
can be applied for the purposes of specific research projects.
Exemplifies each approach through detailed analyses of a
variety of data, including, newspaper images, family photos,
drawings, art works and cartoons. Includes examples from
the authors' own research and professional practice.
Pbk 224pp 0761964770 $61 (SP)

Doing a Literature Review : Releasing the
Social Science Research Imagination
Hart C
Reviewing the literature for a research project can seem a
daunting, even overwhelming task. New researchers, in
particular, wonder: Where do I start? What do I do? How do I
do it?Doing a Literature Review can h elp. This accessible
text offers advice on how to:{ search out existing knowledge
on a topic;{ analyze arguments and ideas;{ map ideas,
arguments and perspectives;{ produce a literature review;
{ construct a case for investigating a topic.Doing a Literature
Review is a practical and comprehensive guide to
researching, preparing and writing a literature review, an
essential component of research projects.
Pbk 230pp 0761959750 $61 (SP)

Qualitative Marketing Research
Carson D et al
As the importa nce of marketing to business grows, and as
new concepts and applications of marketing emerge and
evolve, so too does the need fo r up-to-date market
intelligence. This book recognizes that the contribution which
qualitative research can make to market understanding and
insight is immense, and that statistical information flows are
never enough but need to be compounded by market
intelligence gained through qualitative methods. Qualitative
Marketing Research clearly explains the use and importance
of qualitative methods, clarifying the theories behind the
methodology and providing concrete examples and
exercises which illustrate i ts application to Management
Studies and Marketing.
Pbk 256pp 0761963669 $72 (SP)

Action Research : a Handbook for
Practitioners 2ed
Stringer E oz
Community-based action research
seeks to involve as active participants
those who have traditionally been called
subjects. This book provides a a simple but highly effective
model for approaching action research. The author describes
a simple and effective model for approaching action
research: Look - building a picture and gathering information;
Think - interpreting and explaining; Act - resolving issues and
problems.This revised edition contains summaries which
provide a p ractical checklist fo researchers, and an appendix
of electronic resources.
Pbk 240pp 0761917136 $64 (SI)

Doing Counselling Research
McLeod J
Written specifically for trainee and
practising counsellors who intend to
carry out research and for
counsellors who want to use
research findings in order to improve
their practice, this book is the first
practical, all -encompassing
introduction to the strategies
employed in counselling and
psychotherapy research.Taking an
interdisciplinary approach to
counselling, the book guides the
reader through the principles and the
practice of undertaking a successful
research project, describing how to locate, understand and
critique relevant literature and how to gain access to useful
research tools. John McLeod illustrates how to design and
implement an effective study plan and gives a detailed
account of the most useful research strategies, incorporating
careful consideration of ethical issues at all stages of the
research process.
Pbk 224pp 0803978049 $61 (SP)

Cultural Studies & Discourse Analysis
Barker C & Galasinski D
This novel and important book brings together insights from
cultural studies and critical discourse analysis to examine the
fruitful links between the two. Cultural Studies and Dis course
Analysis shows that critical discourse analysis is able to
provide the analytic context, skills and tools by which we can
study how language constructs, constitutes and shapes the
social world and demonstrates in detail how the
methodological approach of critical discourse analysis can
enhance cultural studies. In a richly argued discussion, the
authors show how marrying the methodology of critical
discourse analysis with cultural studies enlarges our
understanding of gender and ethnicity
Pbk 208pp 0761963847 $65 (SP)
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New & Recent From
Qualitative Research Methods Series...
Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of
Social Construction
Nelson Phillips and Cynthia Hardy
Discourse Analysis: Investigating
Processes of Social Construction is the first
book to provide a concise, straightforward
guide for students and researchers who are interested in
understanding and using discourse analysis. The authors
reflect on the practice of analyzing discourse and the
potential for revealing the processes of social construction
that constitute social and organizational life.
Pbk 96pp 0761923624 $41.95 (SI)

Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences
Stebbins R
Guided by the precept that to understand any phenomenon
well, it is necessary to start by looking at it in broad,
nonspecialized terms, Robert A Stebbins takes the reader
through the process of exploratory research in an easy-to-
read style providing the student or researcher with a
complete reference for carrying out this type of research.
Pbk 96pp 0761923993 $36.95 (SI)

Systematic Self-Observation
Rodriguez N & Ryave A
Systematic self-observation (SSO) is a valuable research
method used by social scientists to gather information about
those social actions that are hidden, restricted or subjective.
The authors provide a practical explanation and instruction to
carrying out an SSO study. They include case studies of four
aspects of hidden or elusive everyday social actions: lying,
telling secrets, withholding compliments and feeling envy.
Pbk 96pp 076192308X $36.95 (SI)

New & Recent From
Quantitive Applications in the Social
Sciences Series
Longitudinal Research, 2ed
Scott Menard
Written in nontechnical language, this
popular and practical volume has been
completely updated to bring readers the latest advice on
major issues involved in longitudinal research. It covers:
research design strategies; methods of data collection; and
how longitudinal and cross-sectional research compares in
terms of consistency and accuracy of results.
Pbk 96pp 0761922091 $35.95 (SI)

Logit & Probit
Borooah Vani K
Many problems in the social sciences are amenable to
analysis using the analytical tools of logit and probit models.
Within this genre an important class of models are those of
ordered and of multinomial models. This book explains what
ordered and multinomial models are and also shows how to
apply them to analyzing issues in the social sciences.
Pbk 96pp 0761922423 $41.95 (SI)

Spline Regression Models
Marsh L & Cormier D
Spline Regression Models shows the nuts -and-bolts of using
dummy variables to formulate and estimate various spline
regression models. Through the use of a number of
straightforward examples, the authors will show readers how
to work with both types of spline knot situations as well as
offering practical, down-to-earth information on estimating
splines
Pbk 70pp 0761924205 $37.95 (SI)
Available from
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A Q R E X E C U T I V E
Dr Ros Hurworth President
r.hurworth@edfac.unimelb.edu.au
Dr Suprya Singh President Elect
supryra.singh@rmit.edu.au
Dr Carmel Seibold Immediate Past President
Acting Treasurer
c.seibold@patrick.acu.edu.au
Ms Andrea Agirides Secretary
andreaa@optusnet.com.au
Dr Darrell N. Caulley Member
d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au
Dr Jan Browne Member
j.browne @deakin.edu.au
Ms Diane Goeman Member
goeman@bigpond.com.au
Ms Harsh Suri Webmaster/Member
h.suri@latrobe.edu.au
Editor
Darrel N. Caulley
Carmel Seibold
Copy editor
Helen Andersen, Style Matters
Proofreader
Karen Thompson Caulley
Cover and page design
Ingrid Ciotti, Studio 673 Pty Ltd
The Qualitative Research Journal is a
membership service of the Association
of Qualitative Research.
Copyright Association for
Qualitative Research, 2002
Disclaimer
The responsibility for all statements
made in Qualitative Research Journal
lies with the authors. The views
expressed in this magazine do not
necessarily reflect the views and
position of the Editor or AQR. AQR
does not endorse advertised products
or services.
RESEARCH
QUALITATIVE
journal
www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr
Back to contents
books reviewed
118 B O O K R E V I E W S
118 Venus on Wheels: Two Decades of Dialogue on Disability,
Biography and Being Female in America GEYLA FRANK
reviewed by Lou Farnworth
119 Postmodern and Poststructural Approaches to Nursing
Research JULIANNE CHEEK reviewed by Nina Bruni
122 Successful Writing for Qualitative Researchers PETER
WOODS reviewed by Darrel N. Caulley
124 Writing Up Qualitative Research HARRY F. WOLCOTT
reviewed by Darrel N. Caulley
126 Phenomenology: Qualitative Research Methods ed. ROBYN
BARNACLE reviewed by Jocene Vallack
130 Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry & Practice
eds. PETER REASON & HILARY BRADBURY reviewed by
Prof. Annette Street
132 Action Research: A Pathway to Action, Knowledge and Learning
NINA CHERRY reviewed by Prof. Annette Street
133 Speed Bumps: A Student-friendly Guide to Qualitative
Research LOIS WEIS & MICHELLE FINE reviewed by Darrel
N. Caulley
135 Readme First for a Users Guide to Qualitative Methods
JANICE M. MORSE & LYN RICHARDS reviewed by Dianne
Goeman
136 Qualitative Analysis: Practice and Innovation DOUGLAS EZZY
reviewed by Carmel Seibold
137 Advanced Focus Group Research EDWARD F. FERN
reviewed by Rosalind E. Hurworth
All content items are hyperlinked. Simply click on the
item of your choice to access the relevant pages.
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22 E D I T O R I A L
3110 A R T I C L E S
315 Sensing the other: the catch of the surrendering self
1627 But wait! Theres still more! Some unaccounted for aspects of qualitative evaluation and research
2846 Metaphors we live by: ways of imagining practice
4757 Self-introspection as a research method in exploring consumption behaviour at a special event
5879 Flexible roles and reflexive souls in qualitative action research
8097 Critiquing approaches to case study design for a constructivist inquiry
98110 Interpreting free-form aviation concept maps through the integration of semantically based thematic
analysis and quantitative corpus linguistics
111117 T E A C H I N G Q U A L I T A T I V E M E T H O D S
111117 The issue of assessment in qualitative methods teaching
118139 B O O K R E V I E W S
118118 Venus on Wheels: Two Decades of Dialogue on Disability, Biography and Being Female in America
119121 Postmodern and Poststructural Approaches to Nursing Research
122123 Successful Writing for Qualitative Researchers
124125 Writing Up Qualitative Research
126129 Phenomenology: Qualitative Research Methods
130131 Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry & Practice
132132 Action Research: A Pathway to Action, Knowledge and Learning
133134 Speed Bumps: A Student-friendly Guide to Qualitative Research
135135 Readme First for a Users Guide to Qualitative Methods
136136 Qualitative Analysis: Practice and Innovation
137139 Advanced Focus Group Research
140140 N o t e s t o C o n t r i b u t o r s
141141 A Q R C o n f e r e n c e 2 0 0 3 C a l l f o r P a p e r s
142149 S p e c i a l B o o k O f f e r f o r A Q R M e m b e r s
150150 A Q R E x e c u t i v e A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s
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