The 11th Advances in Qualitative Methods Conference October 7–8,2010,Vancouver,Canada: Advances in Qualitative Methods

Oral Presentations

Exploring Organizational Identity Through Conducting Comparative Phenomenological Case Studies

Ozan Aglargoz

Anadolu University

Gunes Zeytinoglu

Anadolu University

Yildiz Uzuner

Anadolu University

Senem Besler

Anadolu University

The purpose of this presentation is to share, discuss, and receive feedback about an ongoing research project on the concept of organizational identity. Organizational identity is defined as the characteristics which are claimed to be central, enduring and distinctive about an organization. Organizational identity is a cognitive scheme that is composed in the minds of the organizational members. The cognitive notion of the organizational identity makes researchers conduct their research initiatives based on perceptions. To understand and make sense of organizational members' perceptions, it is essential for the researcher to grasp the full meaning created, negotiated and shared within the organization, so case study design based on phenomenology is found to be suitable for this research project. It is also expected that a “two-case” holistic, comparative case study design will put some of the identity dimensions forward and hence compose an organizational identity model, which may support other researchers in their future endeavors. Case studies are being conducted in the two faculties, namely Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences (FEAS) and the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (FEA), of a large public university located in Turkey. These two convenient and information-laden faculties are selected to reach the maximum possible variation among cases. The sources of empirical material, the issue of trustworthiness, and the researcher's idiosyncratic role will be discussed, and preliminary findings will be shared with the audience.

The CanFASD Northwest Research Network Action Team on Women's Health: A Hub for Qualitative Research Empowering Women

Dorothy Badry

University of Calgary

Nancy Poole

BC Centre of Excellence for Women's Health

The CanFASD Northwest Research Network has a Network Action Team (NAT) on Women's Determinants of Health that began in 2006 under the leadership of Nancy Poole, Executive Director of the BC Centre of Excellence for Women's Health, and Dr. Amy Salmon, Managing Director, Canada Northwest FASD Research Network. The NAT has developed into a virtual community of primarily qualitative researchers and has become a catalyst for a focused research agenda concerned with the multiple complexities of alcohol use, pregnancy, poverty, and social concerns for women, children, and families. This presentation will review how a virtual community that meets monthly online and face-to-face twice per year and has become itself, a form of participatory action research. Awareness of the influence of researchers upon each other and overall, developing the research agenda and projects has become an evolving process. Individually and collaboratively, members of the research network have received multiple research grants, created networks across Western and Northern Canada, published extensively (peer reviewed articles and books), presented research nationally and internationally, and worked together on translating knowledge gathered in research which appreciates the complexity of frontline practice. This presentation will offer an overview of the qualitative research projects of the NAT, and share how this virtual community has worked across provincial and territorial boundaries to develop a cooperative and collaborative research agenda related to the intricate issues related to alcohol/substance use and pregnancy.

Stimulating Theoretical Engagement Through Focusing on Stimulus Material for Focus Groups

Rosaline Barbour

The University of Dundee

Stimulus material is frequently employed in focus group research, either as a warm-up exercise or to facilitate “brainstorming.” However, it is argued that more thoughtful use can help to focus discussion onto areas of particular relevance for the researcher. The version of grounded theory most commonly invoked by focus group researchers in describing their endeavors emphasizes thematic coding based on identification of participants' language and concepts. However, this approach tends to overlook the potential for active exploration and interrogation of existing theoretical frameworks. Recently several researchers (Angus et al., 2007; Callaghan, 2005; Munday, 2006) have highlighted the potential of focus groups to access collective identity and to illuminate the processes involved in creating and re-creating habitus (as theorized by Bourdieu). This paper will explore how to capitalize on further untapped potential of focus groups – and stimulus material in particular – to further such aims. Building on Alain Touraine's epistemology of reception, I will argue that our focus group participants can be encourage to “problematize” and thereby theorize – provided that we catch their “sociological imagination” through imaginative use of stimulus material. There is considerable scope to be a little smarter than we have been to date in terms of drawing on a wide range of materials afforded by, for example, TV soaps, the advertising industry, comedy routines, and films. Judicious use of carefully selected materials can pay enormous theoretical dividends.

Using Diaries to Explore the Rise of Social Activism Amongst British Men and Women With Dementia

Ruth Bartlett

University of Bradford

Diary keeping as a method allows for a slower paced, reflexive style of research. It gives the participant time to think about what they want to express and how they want to express it. Diaries are used in disability and health research as they can accommodate participants with different cognitive and verbal skills. This paper examines the process and value of using diaries to collect data from people who have dementia. Discussion is based on U.K. study investigating the experiences and motives of men and women (with dementia) who actively campaign for better services and treatment. Sixteen British people with dementia were recruited to the study and asked to keep a photo, audio or written diary – whichever suited them best – for up to one month. Pre- and postdiary interviews were conducted with each participant, and deeper ethnographic knowledge was gained through participant observations at key events including conferences and meetings. Data were analyzed manually through a combination of content and narrative analysis techniques. This is the first study to use diaries with people with dementia and to combine methods of data collection and analysis in this way. In this paper the focus is on the ways in which participants constructed their diaries, and the kind of data made available through these. Conclusions are drawn about the benefits and drawbacks of using diaries with people with dementia.

Communication and the Casualization of Nursing: An Interpretive Ethnography

Mary Batch

Queensland University of Technoloy

Literature tells us that the nursing profession is becoming increasingly casualized, with around 50% of the Australian nursing workforce being employed either part time or on a casual basis. However, it is not understood what impact nursing casualization is having on organizational communication and health care provision. Literature suggests that communication is a vital component of organizational effectiveness and communication needs of employees must be met to ensure positive organisational outcomes. Existing work models, though, appear to be designed to favor the full-time worker, and there is evidence of marginalization of casual and part-time workers by their full-time colleagues and managers. This project has endeavored to identify, describe, and understand the effects of casualization on communication within a division of a large metropolitan acute health care facility. It has explored the relationship between casualization and the communication culture via an interpretive ethnographic approach. Methods used include participant and nonparticipant observations and field note records of full-time, part-time, and casual nurses within four units, for two hour periods at a time. Audio taped and transcribed semistructured interviews and focus groups have also been used to maximize data and facilitate understanding. Ethnographic analysis has been undertaken to develop concepts and themes, and the findings will be the subject of the presentation.

Including Marginalized Voices in Qualitative Research: Examples From Research With Adults With Intellectual Disabilities

Jennifer Baumbusch

University of British Columbia

Alison Phinney

University of British Columbia

Sarah Baumbusch

University of British Columbia

Voice, or creating inclusive spaces for participants who have previously been silenced in the research process, has been identified as an element of rigor in qualitative research. Some groups, however, continue to be largely excluded from research about their own experiences: adults with intellectual disabilities are one of these groups. Much of the research conducted about this group has involved quantitative database studies and surveys, or qualitative studies involving family members and service providers. Yet few studies about intellectual disabilities have actually privileged the voices of this group and made them central to the research process. In our presentation, we will describe the process of conducting a descriptive, exploratory study that involved in-depth interviews with 11 adults with intellectual disabilities. The purpose of the study was to explore aging and health care needs among this group. We will describe facilitators and barriers that we encountered throughout the research process, including: negotiating access to the study participants within the larger community living sector; obtaining ethics approval; transcription of interviews; and engagement of members of this group in the research process from developing the interview guide to generating recommendations from the study. Our experiences demonstrate that although researchers need to grapple with issues that arise in conducting research with a marginalized group, these issues are not insurmountable. Moreover, the research reflects first-person experience rather than a representation of another's experience by a third party.

What Ethnography Contributes to Studies of Governmentality

Michelle Brady

University of Alberta

Studies in governmentalities, inspired by Michel Foucault's later works, now form a significant body of work within contemporary sociology and political science. The vast majority of studies within this literature are based upon the discursive analysis of plans to govern as elaborated within written texts including published academic works, government reports, program manuals, and popular books and magazines. This methodological focus is clearly established in foundational texts by researchers such as Nikolas Rose, and Mitchel Dean. Rose (1999) explicitly distinguishes studies of governmentalities from sociologies of what actually happened. Studies of governmentality seek to understand the dreams, and aspirations to govern rather than messy actualities. Despite this focus in early works, in recent years a number of researchers (including John Clarke, Tania Li, and Randy Lippert) have argued that ethnographic studies of what actually happened can be fruitfully combined with studies of political rationalities. This paper draws on a study of welfare reforms and single mothers in Australia to illustrate what ethnography can contribute to studies in governmentality.

Engaged, Inspired and Critical: Utilizing New Technologies in Learning About Culture

Angela Brayham

University of Waterloo

Kimberly Lyons

University of Waterloo

What is culture? How can you do justice to a topic that is so broad, so complex, and so multidimensional in a one-term survey course? My goal was to take the students on a journey of discovery, to help them grapple with issues of culture, and to challenge them to experience new and diverse cultural opportunities. I hoped to encourage them to think critically, reflexively, and creatively. To accomplish this, I could not use a standard textbook and a series of quizzes and exams; instead, I also needed to think about creative ways to cover course content and to inspire and engage my students. Personal blogs and student selected YouTube screenings were utilized to provide platforms for reflexive and critical thinking and engaged classroom discussion and debate. Inspired by the quality and enthusiasm of the personal student blogs, I created my own blog to reflect on my experience of using blogs, YouTube screenings and creative research projects in a classroom context. Using my blog as a form of autoethnographic inquiry, I was able to further experiment with the use of blogging as a form of critical and reflexive writing, to further examine how blogs can be used as a research tool, and to determine the value of using nontraditional learning techniques and incorporating new technologies as a means of inspiring engaged critical thinkers.

The Impact and Effect of Perceived Age Discrimination on Male Australian Workers and Job Seekers

Colin Brown

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University

This paper relates the methodology of my autoethnographic work-in-progress doctoral thesis on Australian workplace male age-discrimination. The narrative discusses and compares my story of workplace discrimination and prejudice with five other professional male interview respondents. Using speech in the first person and searching for and promoting the victim's own voice, considerable impact is added to the dramatic unfolding of this real-life narrative. The underlying subtle and insidious nature of age discrimination may also, in this instance, expose and highlight the idiosyncratic Australian Tall Poppy Syndrome. This paper argues that we have the right to proximity and intrusion, not only in the name of research but in the mindset of the victims, who all unwaveringly expressed a wish to share their stories. The methodology then focuses on the origins of ethnography from early anthropology and sociology through to the modern mix of confusion, which underlies the different naming of many new ethnographic renditions which only pose to blur the clear line-of-sight of “true” ethnography. My methodology attempts to clear up this confusion by claiming ethnography can have an assortment of names depicted through many different connections and interpretations. My autoethnography, for example, is also a critical ethnography, a reflective ethnography, an analytical ethnography and an evaluative ethnography (and possibly more). I prefer to claim it is cathartic ethnography as the sharing of his own story, in his own words, offers the discriminated victim the opportunity to free himself from the pain of his experience.

Binaries in an Educational Counterspace: A Continual Conversation

Hilary Brown

Brock University

While I was using writing as a method of inquiry (Richardson, 200) and autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000) to write a collection of narratives during my self-study research, binaries in my teaching and learning practice began to emerge, such as social reconstructionism versus essentialism, experiential learning versus direct instruction, and holistic versus traditional teaching methods. This unveiling motivated me to find a way to reconcile the binaries that existed in my teaching life. I surrendered myself to a process that used writing as a place of possibility. For me, one interesting finding was not that I was able to unequivocally reconcile the binaries that existed but instead open a continual conversation in a Thirdspace (Soja, 1996). This space allowed me to erect a scaffold from which to puzzle educational dilemmas that, in turn, gave me the opportunity to redefine, recreate, and rebuild my assumptions around my teaching and learning practice. In this counterspace, I can enter into conversation as a different kind of consciousness, namely a peripheral one that experiences such a space as an infinite inwardness. Perhaps others exposed to this process will be able to utilize this approach, uncover the tensions that exist, and begin to redefine, recreate, and rebuild their practice whatever that may be. This paper examines my narrative method and invites conversation.

Continuous Real-Time Observation of People at Work as a Method of Documenting Organizational Process and Culture

Paula Carder

Portland State University

The purpose of this study was to learn how employees of dementia care facilities make decisions to administer medications taken on an as-needed basis for acute symptom management (e.g., pain, stomach distress). Because acute symptoms can occur at any time of the day or night, the research plan included continuous real-time observation (or shadowing) of medication aides, the employees responsible for medication administration, over 120 hours in each of three settings. Specifically, we shadowed medication aides on each of three work shifts for five consecutive days in three different dementia care facilities. Additional data were collected through follow-up individual interviews with medication aides and through document review. This paper describes what we learned about the use of continuous realtime observation of individuals at work. Specific topics include how to pay attention to everything (e.g., culture) and yet stay focused on the primary research topic, how to record data, how to prepare field notes for coding and analysis, how to respect participant privacy and research ethics, the value of real-time observation as a qualitative research method, and the pros and cons of collecting qualitative data during 8-hour work shifts. The value of conducting qualitative interviews to supplement the observational data is also explained. This paper will be of interest to people who teach qualitative methods and those who conduct organizational research, especially in health care settings.

Ethical Spaces: Considering Methodological Implications of Conducting Research in Home Health Settings

Marie Cochrane

Trinity Western University

Dorolen Wolfs

Trinity Western University

Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham

Trinity Western University

In this presentation, we examine methodological implications that derive from the very setting of the research encounter. Qualitative health research is typically conducted in community settings, including in participants' homes, as researchers pursue in-depth understandings of phenomena of interest as they occur in naturalistic settings. The significance of these naturalistic settings, or “place”, for how we enact the role of researcher has come into focus in a study we are currently conducting in home health settings. The purpose of the project is to examine the negotiation of religious, spiritual, and cultural plurality in the provision of health care services in the home, and the social, gendered, economic, and political contexts that shape these dynamics. We have been struck by how different the role of the researcher and negotiating access can be in home settings, compared to a preceding phase conducted in hospital settings. Shifting the site has alerted us to how underexamined the spatial location of data collection has been, and how place shapes the generation of data, including the construction of researcher and participant identities. Entering unfamiliar private spaces (the homes of recipients of home health services) has prompted us to question how we engage in “ethical spaces” with research participants. We explore how we engage in authentic human to human dialogue, while fully attuned to the social spatial dimension.

Challenges and Opportunities in Designing, Implementing, and Assessing Arts-Based Methods of Research

Susan M. Cox

University of British Columbia

Darquise Lafreniere

University of British Columbia

Arts-based methods of research offer an alternative approach to understanding and representing knowledge. They may be especially effective in knowledge translation as they open scholarly work to a larger community and provide a stimulus to dialogue. There is, however, limited empirical research on the complex methodological and ethical issues arising in the creation, implementation and assessment of arts-based research. As an adjunct to a larger study exploring the experiences of being a participant in health research, we designed a pilot project utilizing drama, poetry, song, and visual arts as a novel means of disseminating study results. Here we identify and describe some of the significant challenges and opportunities that we faced in conducting the project. We also show an extract from the DVD created during one of the performances and describe audience responses to the work. We conclude our presentation by opening the floor to dialogue on questions such as: “What are the unique ethical and methodological issues arising in arts-based research?” and “How are researchers in arts-based research responding to the challenges they are facing?”.

Toward a Validity Framework for Complex Program Aims

Christopher DeLuca

University of South Florida

The central purpose of this research is to construct a qualitative methodological framework for validating one complex aim of a teacher education program to promote inclusivity as a fundamental pedagogical principle. Validating complex program aims has traditionally been based on student assessment of specific and narrow learning objectives. Research suggests that this practice limits the accuracy and validity of complex program aims and may result in misrepresentation of student competency. This limitation is in part due to the use of measurement approaches that operate on a validity of correspondence that is linear, singular, and value-free. Accordingly, through this research, I construct a framework for validating complex program aims by drawing on interpretive validity theory and a hermeneutic methodology. Specifically, I use an argument-based approach to validation to connect, analyse, and evaluate multiple interpretations towards a program's overarching aims. Methodologically, I use a series of hermeneutic practices to collect validity evidence for the construction of a multiple perspective validity argument. I contend that this framework results in a complex articulation of the quality of program coherence between program users' interpretations of complex aims and their practices. In this study, I apply this validation framework within the context of one Canadian pre-service teacher education program. Ultimately, this research points toward a reframing of educational validity as an interpretive mode of inquiry that acknowledges the complexities and subjectivities embedded within educational settings.

“After the First Two Interviews, I Took Half a Tranquilizer to Go to Sleep. I Had Too Many Things on My Mind”: Ethical Issues in Narrative Research

Silke Dennhardt

The University of Western Ontario

When telling their story, research participants engage in a meaning-making activity that provides rich and relevant information about their everyday experiences. Yet, despite the increasing interest and use of narrative approaches across many disciplines, little is written about how narrative researchers deal with specific ethical issues arising in narrative research. Telling one's story is frequently stated as an empowering process for participant's,yet, it can also be a very disempowering one, leaving participants with negative experiences. The objective of this presentation is to raise awareness about narrative-specific ethical issues and suggest possible implications to further narrative research. Reflecting on the author's experiences in conducting a narrative study with three older women in later life widowhood, as well as drawing on literature about ethics in narrative research, this presentation will discuss ethical issues which are specific to narrative studies. Such issues are, for example, the question who has control over the representation and interpretation of the research participant's narrative, what emotional impact does the researcher's interpretation has on the participant, if the participants (and researcher) can really be aware at the outset what the participants are consenting to or how anonymity can be managed in the representation of these highly individualized accounts. The author shares her experiences in implementing strategies in the study design that have been suggested for narrative inquiry (e.g. Smythe & Murray, 2000), such as using process consent, sensitizing participants to the issue of multiple narrative meaning, and engaging in collaborative discussion of the written story.

The Untold Story of Doing Narrative Analysis

Silke Dennhardt

The University of Western Ontario

Many narrative researchers emphasize the power of previously untold stories, yet their own stories of doing narrative analysis remain to be rather untold, hidden, and maybe even silenced. Such silence may be related to the specific challenges of using a narrative methodology. Experiencing tensions and difficulties in analyzing narrative data and composing a narrative research text is a particular feature of narrative research (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Such tensions are, for example, to find a style that conveys the overall structure of the narrative and that goes beyond analyzing and presenting only disconnected chunks of a participant's story. This presentation aims to stimulate discussion about the analysis process in narrative research and how it can be furthered. Reflecting on the author's own experiences in conducting a narrative study on three older women's occupational identity, challenges of developing an approach to narrative analysis that attempts to maintain the women's stories as a whole, will be discussed. The analysis approach developed was informed by reading various authors' accounts of conducting narrative analysis and through interaction with the data throughout the process of the study. In finding a custom-made way to approach analysis, some techniques were tried and abandoned, while others, such as writing up the women's stories, were discovered to be valuable tools. The presentation will highlight on writing as form of analysis in narrative research. The final analysis and interpretive process will be presented in terms of two main stages – writing up the story and examining the told story – which parallel notions of narrative analysis and analysis of narratives.

Building a Grounded Theory: A Sustainable Sampling Approach

Judy Boychuk Duchscher

University of Calgary

Grounded theory (GT) has seen a tremendous “shift” in its foundations over the past several decades. From its Glaserian beginnings, GT has thrived with the methodological challenges of Strauss and Corbin and the most recent influences of Charmaz's constructivist epistemology. Currently, GT is a widely, though some might say “interpretively applied,” method of research. This paper presents GT as a strongly emergent-focused method of theory generation that can be modified for use with studies limited by time or period sensitive data-collection requirements. The author will share her experience with an ongoing program of research in which she has utilized both qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies to make available a grounded theory of transition for newly graduated nurses. This theory builds on evolving themes and core variables that have emerged over a 12-year research period of study. With a research question that makes traditional approaches to saturation of theoretical concepts unfeasible, the author offers a creative, but methodologically sustainable alternative to building theory from re-entrant data over an extended period of time.

Using a Mixed-Method Design to Develop a Long-Term Care Planning Intervention for Rural African Americans

Yvonne Eaves

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

This paper presents an intervention protocol developed from qualitative research. As such, a mixed method study used ethnographic data to develop a contextually and culturally relevant tailored long-term care planning (LTCP) intervention to assist rural African American families in planning for, coping with, and adapting to caregiving transitions that result from episodic or emergent health events. The intervention is designed to provide families with information about episodic and emergent health events that may trigger changes in their caregiving situations, and to provide families with specific strategies for decision-making and LTC planning. The LTCP intervention consists of a stepped approach to planning care for an older adult relative based on the person's health status and the amount and level of caregiving required, and offers examples of conditions and situations when a different type or level of care is needed. The LTCP intervention consists of four weekly sessions delivered in a home setting to the care recipient and the primary, secondary, and tertiary caregivers of one family. The intervention includes: (a) information about health care and community resources in participants' local towns and counties, (b) instructions to caregivers on strategies for navigating the health care system, (c) conflict resolution, and (d) training that focuses on family decision-making in regard to LTC placement, and legal and financial issues. The use of qualitative research for intervention design and testing inherently produces culturally appropriate and relevant interventions that are grounded in the data of the group under study.

Ethics, Methods, and Researching Sensitive Topics With Vulnerable Groups

Katharine Ford

The University of Liverpool

Accepting Lincoln and Canella's comment on ethics “that the practice of research involves relationships, knowledge creation and exclusion and usually the construction of privilege,” and drawing on my recently conducted research into women's alcohol consumption during pregnancy, I explore the situated and ongoing interplay between ethics and research methodology. The designation of pregnant women as members of a “vulnerable group” combined with alcohol and drinking as a “sensitive” topic resulted in my making some difficult and, at times, compromised decisions about who I could (should) talk to, how (and how not), and where (not) and when. Reflecting on, and engaging with, this process made me critically examine the ways in which we use terms such as vulnerable and sensitive, as they are often uncritically applied across populations and used to label groups of people (women), when in fact such terms are highly subjective, personal, and situated. Ethical justifications for such terms are that they exist to “protect” particular people, but from what and by whom? Do these safeguards act to maintain the privacy and confidentiality and therefore maintain the integrity of the study, or do these useful mechanisms effectively silence, label, and perhaps further marginalize people without giving them the freedom to consent (or not) to participate in a study? I go on to explore the extent that the framing of ethical issues determines not just who is involved in research, but what they say, and therefore what can be said about a particular topic.

Working in Borderland Spaces: Performing a Dual Analysis in a Narrative Inquiry

Kim Foster

The University of Sydney

In this presentation, the author as bricoleur explores the tensions, contradictions, and delights of working in the borderland spaces between narrative inquiry and postmodernism. Through her inquiry into the experiences of adult children with parents with serious mental illness, she presents a unique approach to field text analysis. Having included her own experience through autoethnography, she then used Lather's (1997) “double science” to combine a realist (phenomenological) approach to analysis with a deconstructive (postmodern narrative) approach. Using the thematic analysis approach of van Manen (1990), four phenomenological themes were initially uncovered from the field text. In the second analytical phase, the counter story of participants' experiences was thickened through postmodern narrative interpretations of their stories. The author shows how she navigated the spaces and boundaries between these divergent methodologies and methods and the intertextuality that may be found between them, and demonstrates how multiple analytic methods can strengthen qualitative interpretation.

Using Community Engagement to Facilitate Sexual and Reproductive Help-Seeking Research Among Adolescents in Grenada: Does One Size Fit All?

Tonia Frame

University of Leeds

Few qualitative studies have focused on adolescent populations in small island developing country contexts. Some researchers approach developing countries and regions using a homogeneous gaze, or transfer western theories and practices indiscriminately. In the Caribbean Region, sexual and reproductive health research often focuses on the larger islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, while smaller islands are overlooked. Furthermore, research in Latin America is frequently generalized to the Caribbean. A critical review of research in small island contexts and their treatment in the published and gray literature highlighted design and ethical concerns. This presentation focuses on my PhD research. Focus groups (N=12) and in-depth interviews (N=12) are used to examine how subgroups of urban and rural adolescents (ages 16–19) in the small Caribbean island of Grenada perceive the socio-cultural and programmatic contexts affect their help-seeking behavior for sexual and reproductive health concerns. This research is unique in that it is both community- and institution-based, utilizing interactive strategies in focus groups (storytelling & word game) and in-depth interviews (card sorting and mapping) to help adolescents talk about sensitive issues. This presentation will discuss research design issues within a community partnership model as a response to issues raised in the literature review. The challenges and benefits of utilizing different community engagement strategies within rural and urban communities are discussed. The findings emphasize the importance of contextualizing qualitative research and making design decisions that challenge taken-for-granted research definitions and traditions, and highlight the value of working within existing community structures where possible.

The Arts and the Meaning of Home Care: Behind Closed Doors

Kimberly Fraser

University of Alberta

The insider perspective of home care is not explicit or well understood by outsiders, including policymakers and practitioners in other health care sectors. This knowledge has not been easily uncovered or effectively disseminated to date. The arts are, and always have been, one of the most powerful means for expression and communication. Although used primarily for therapeutic purposes in health care, the arts are increasingly being integrated in health care research both for knowledge production and knowledge translation purposes. I will present the results of a study that used the arts to uncover the meaning of home care from the insider perspective and used the arts to disseminate that knowledge to policy-makers, practitioners outside of home care. An exploratory descriptive design was used including the tenets of interpretive, participatory methods and artistic research methods. Phase 1 uncovered the meaning of home care. Phase 2 disseminated the knowledge uncovered in Phase 1. Phase 2 is in the implementation stage and will be presented as a series of art shows directed at policy-makers, practitioners in other health sectors, and the general public. Research questions are tailored to each audience and examples are: Did viewing the art show increase your knowledge about home care? Did viewing the art show prompt you to seek more information on home care such as research articles or policy documents? Will you use this knowledge in your future practice (examples may be policy development or decision-making, discussing home care with potential home care clients, or policy advocacy).

Using a Mixed Methodology to Investigate the Appropriateness of the HAT-QoL Instrument in an African Context

Minrie Greeff

Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research

The relationship between quality of life and ARV has been studied, but not taking all aspects of people's personal experiences into consideration and mainly using quantitative scales with a Western perspective. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of HIV and AIDS. There is a paucity of research done from a qualitative perspective. The aims of the study were to (a) qualitatively explore and describe the experiences of PLHA's quality of life since being on ARV, (b) quantitatively test the quality of life of PLHA, and (c) compare the findings from both these investigations to evaluate the appropriateness of the HAT-QoL within the African context. This presentation focuses on the methodology used. A mixed method triangulation design was used combining the findings of the quantitative measurements of the HAT-QoL instrument and the qualitative findings from in-depth interviews with PLHA's experiences of quality of life since being on ARV. The study was conducted in three African countries (South Africa, Malawi, and Botswana). Permission and ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained in each of the three countries. A purposive voluntary sample was used. PLHA were mainly recruited through community-based HIV and AIDS organizations and health clinics. The analysis of interviews is being done by means of open coding and the quantitative data by means of the SPSS program (in process). Recommendations will focus on changing the HAT-QoL instrument should the findings show that the African context is not reflected.

“Big Stories, Middle Stories, Small Stories”: Analytical Strategies to Examine Women's Experiences of Physical Activity and Aging

Meridith Griffin

University of Exeter

Cassie Phoenix

University of Exeter

Narratives are embodied, lived, and central to the process of meaning-making. They do not lie in the waiting for telling, but are an active part of everyday interaction (Phoenix & Sparkes, 2009). Telling stories about ourselves to others is one way in which our identity may be accomplished or performed, and is intricately connected to the social contexts within which it occurs (Holstein & Gubrium, 2004). Narrative analysis, therefore, requires attention to stories told in both structured research settings as well as within everyday talk and interaction. Drawing on data generated during an ethnography of a women's-only running group in the United Kingdom, I use the concepts of “big stories,” “middle stories,” and “small stories” as an analytical framework to demonstrate the dynamic nature of identity and narrativity in context (Bamberg, 2006; Bell, 2009; Freeman, 2006; Georgakopoulou, 2006). Alongside examples, I will discuss the analytical possibilities of taking a relational approach to narrative analysis. Following Freeman (2006) and Bell (2009), I suggest that different analytical levels complement one another and that, when used in combination, can represent a promising integrative direction for narrative inquiry. In the context of my research, such an approach goes some way toward untangling the threads of meaning expressed by women with respect to their participation in physical activity across the life course, their perceptions and experiences of embodied ageing, and their current identification with the identity/role of “runner.”

Issues of Longitudinal Data Collection in a Lived Experience Study

Lisa Hee

Queensland University of Technology

This presentation will explore the issues facing the implementation of a longitudinal approach in a Heidegger based study. Researchers in the areas of psychology and sociology argue the benefits of the longitudinal approach in collecting data, particularly in the areas of health, illness, and social efficacy. Heidegger's philosophy as the underpinning of a phenomenological study to determine the lived experience of an older person appears to align the purpose and methodology. A longitudinal approach may offer deeper and richer description of the experiences of the participants. Some of the challenges to this method of data collection lie in the potential biases as a relationship between the researcher and participant develop as the researcher walks with the participant as the participant describes their journey over a period of time. The introduction to the conversation is utilised to assist the participant in describing their experience, or life world, without leading them or indicating any preconceived ideas into their perceptions of what is “required” from them. A follow-up interview has the potential to create immediate bias if the researcher (or participant) opens with reflection of the previous interview. Any suggestions including prompting, suggestions of words/responses may shift the focus from the participants' contexts of meaning and experience to the interviewers. Issues that this paper will address will include the issue of researcher and participant bias as well as what happens when the partner of an older aged participant passes away during the period of time planned for data collection.

Development of International Perspectives Among Nursing Students in Japan

Machiko Higuchi

National College of Nursing

The core curriculum of nursing education has been revised to strengthen international perspectives among nursing students in Japan. One of the missions of the National College of Nursing is to educate students to become nurses who can contribute to international cooperations of developing countries within their specialty. The study of international nursing is allocated as a compulsory subject. The purpose of this qualitative study was to elucidate the range of experience in graduated registered nurses and to assess the effectiveness of the study of international nursing and practice in developing countries. Three sessions of focus group discussion and in-depth interviews, performed with a semistructured interview guide, were conducted with 18 registered nurses who graduated from the National College of Nursing. Data were analyzed using qualitative methodology within an interpretative paradigm. Four major components were established: importance of communication skills, rebuilding interrelationships among group members, differences in health service and nursing education between Japan and host countries, and cultural differences in daily life between Japan and host countries. The study found that international practice in developing countries remarkably broadened the nurses' international perspectives and raised their self-confidence in caring for foreign patients. The study suggested that more time be allocated to studying nursing services offered in Japan before going to host countries and that their experience be shared through discussions and presentations to university staff after completing the international practicum. Graduates were willing to supervise international practicum of their juniors because in doing so, their own motivation levels are increased and they are able to promote stronger international perspectives.

Youth Voices on Tobacco: Working with the K'álemì Dene School in the Northwest Territories, Canada

Cindy Jardine

University of Alberta

Smoking is one of the biggest health problems in many First Nations communities today. Of particular concern is the high rate of smoking in youth. This research program was initiated to better understand how youth view smoking in their communities. It was done in partnership with the K'álemì Dene School in N'Dilo, and involved training older students to conduct the research with the younger students. Training sessions covered the research process, research ethics, and specific skills needed to conduct the research (such as interviewing skills, interpretation skills, and data presentation skills). The student researchers designed a series of questions about smoking that were used as the basis for initial interviews. Using photovoice, students were asked to take pictures of smoking in their community and then to discuss their pictures with the student researchers in a semistructured format they had helped prepare. The student researchers also participated in the decisions on the interpretation and presentation of the results. The final research product was a collaboratively developed booklet entitled “Youth Voices on Tobacco,” which was distributed to all members of the school and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation communities of N'Dilo and Dettah. This booklet provided compelling commentary on tobacco use as seen through the eyes of children and adolescents. Working with students had many advantages, including obtaining more candid research results, developing community research capacity, and instilling student interest in the research process.

Bibliotheraphy for Low Self-Confident Adults English Learners

Sanghee Jeong

Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea

This qualitative study investigates how adult learners increase their English achievement score in a creative writing lesson through developing self confidence and how bibliotherapy helps reset and lower their anxiety on English learning and performance. Bibliotherapy in this study could help the adult university learners in Korea have self-confidence in the process of web-based learning through an extensive English reading program, remedial reading course. On the process of expected developmental stages in the study, the adult learners could escape from the trauma of having lack of English ability. The negative images on their poor English performance could change into positive images on English learning after having positive experiences and having a chance to realize their well-developed previous knowledge and experience about English. The particular focus of the study construction is on the contribution of learners' motivation and then engagement. Under the remedial context as well as instructional contexts, this study presents how to foster reading engagement and motivation for beginning adult learners in EFL context through web-based teaching and learning. Ultimately, the learners may have low anxiety and positive attitude toward English learning, leading to continuing English learning. Through the analysis of learners' journal and comments on the bulletin board with contexts, this study clarifies the processes and implications of English learning. In addition, declarative method is invited to present the developmental stage of the learner's achievement and attitude toward their own English performance. Therefore, the following research questions are answered in a qualitative research: (a) How does bibliotherapy help lower their anxiety on performing English? and (b) Can children's picture books enhance adult learners' self confidence on English ability?

From Audiovisual in the Field to Audiovisual as the Field

Kaela Jubas

University of Calgary

Audiovisual methods and tools are increasingly used by qualitative researchers who study social life. Some ethnographers ask participants to to represent aspects of their cultural milieu. Other researchers analyze visual materials in terms of what they say about a cultural group. Although I acknowledge that cultural products reflect real-life experience, I explore the television series Grey's Anatomy for its actual construction of a sociocultural setting. I am particularly interested in its portrayals of work-related learning among characters who are preparing to become surgeons, and the interplay between worker identity, broader social identities, and ethical stance. I assert that the show resonates with viewers because, in some way and on some level, it reflects their experiences, concerns, and aspirations, and helps them understand their lives. This resonance is predominantly emotional rather than intellectual. In my analysis, characters are akin to participants. Their stories, which feature what Clandinen, Murray, and Orr refer to as “temporality, sociality and place,” become the basis of a narrative analysis. Characters are also members of a cultural group, and attentive, intensive viewing of the show recalls an ethnographic approach. Characters' speech, dress, and mannerisms, and how they relate to one another in space, provide semiotic and discursive clues about the cultural values and social structures that imbue both real-life and fictional realms. Ultimately, this analysis illustrates an innovative, multimethodology strategy of bricolage, in the sense advanced by Joe Kincheloe, and illuminates the complexities of cultural products and processes, and their social and pedagogical importance.

The Relationship Between Self-Care and Knowledge During Chronic Disease: A Systematic Review of Heart Failure Studies

Mehri Karimi-Dehkordi

University of Alberta

Alexander M. Clark

University of Alberta

We conducted a systematic review to explore the relationship between knowledge and self-care from the perspectives of patients with heart failure, their family caregivers, and health care professionals. A systematic search was done to identify qualitative studies (published > 1995) which aim to examine the relationship between self-care and knowledge, published via Medline, CINAHL, Psyc-INFO, Embase, Pub Med, Dissertation, and Theses databases. Both authors independently extracted data of included studies. Using the metasynthesis approach of Noblit and Hare, constant comparison was conducted by comparing all findings with one another until all similarities and differences were explained. Thirty three of 80 papers were selected for the metasynthesis. Patients generally struggled to perform self-care effectively. Misconceptions, confusion, and uncertainty were common in relation to knowledge of heart failure. Patients had better theoretical knowledge around the importance of exercise and low-sodium diet but lacked skill for performing self-care in practice. The relationship between knowledge and self-care was found to be divergent. In patients with poor self-care, lack of knowledge was common, whereas patients who demonstrated expertise in self-care tended to have a good knowledge but there were many exceptions to this in the studies that were not adequately explained. Research that explores knowledge or how patients use their knowledge in practice remains limited in its ability to explain the inconsistent relationship between knowledge and self care during heart failure. Specific qualitative studies are needed to examine how elements of self care are influenced by knowledge and other possible mediating factors.

Doing Cross-Case Analysis: Online and Off

Samia Khan

University of British Columbia

Vanesa Mirzaee

University of British Columbia

Robert VanWynsberghe

University of British Columbia

Cross-case analysis is an analytic approach that facilitates the comparison of case studies. Engaging in cross-case analysis can provoke the researcher's imagination, prompt new questions, produce alternatives, generate models, refine and develop concepts, and build or test theory. Given such promise for enhancing case study research, there has been momentum in methods scholarship to describe how to conduct cross-case analysis. The presenters will survey several approaches to cross-case analysis, including case and variable-oriented approaches, most-different and before-after design; clustering and processing tracing. Ways to portray cross-case analysis for publication will also be elucidated, including the narrative vignette and the matrix. In the latter half of the presentation, the freely available online database Foresee will be demonstrated for the first time to show how approaches to cross-case analysis can also be performed “online”. The presenters will finally theorize how properties of social media can extend cross-case analysis. These properties include the capacity to archive case studies in a central location by numerous case study researchers, cluster large sets of cases in different combinations using Boolean search terms, code cases and define relationships among cases using tags, work with multiple researchers across distances to elucidate relationships among a set of cases using multi-way dialogue, and coauthor and disseminate explanations as to why one case is different or the same as others using shared word processing environments.

Interviewing Using Participant-Generated Photography: Giving Image and Voice to Vulnerable Populations

Sharon Knight

East Carolina University

Lena Carawan

East Carolina University

As Harper (2002) has suggested, the use of photographs during interviews can lead to “deep and interesting talk.” We assert that the use of participant-generated photographs during photoelicitation interviews can be empowering to participants, especially to those who are members of disenfranchised, marginalized, and vulnerable populations. Engagement in photoelicitation interviews using participant-generated images affords participants situational control. Participants identify and capture images important to them, engage in reflection during the image making process, can use the power of image coupled with voice in interpreting and communicating meaning during interviews, or, for those with expressive or other difficulties, can augment meaningful communication with the images they have taken. Moreover, the use of participant-generated photographs during photoelicitation interviews potentially affords participants an enhanced sense of collaboration in the research and may contribute to their readiness to engage in the interview. We will use findings from several research studies with vulnerable populations to illustrate the power of participant-generated photographs during qualitative interviews and will address ethical, participant preparation, and process issues associated with the inclusion of participant-generated photography in qualitative research.

Thinking out Loud in a Constructivist Research Context: Conceptual Considerations and Research Examples

Mirka Koro-Ljungberg

University of Florida

Elliot Douglas

University of Florida

David Therriault

University of Florida

Zaria Malcolm

University of Florida

Postpositivist forms of the think-aloud (TA) method are often carried out in very controlled settings, and TA is generally used as a stand-alone method. In this paper, we discuss how TA methods can stimulate constructivist ways of knowing within a qualitative research framework. Unlike more postpositivist approaches, we elaborate on the ways in which constructivist TA can enable situated and participant generated knowledge. We draw on examples from our research focusing on specific problem-solving strategies undergraduate engineering students use when dealing with the ambiguity of open-ended problems. In our study, students were asked to speak aloud what they were thinking while attempting to solve problems. After the think-aloud protocol, our research team watched the taped TA sessions, conducted initial analysis of tapes, and identified critical decision points that prompted interview questions for the follow-up interviews. The purpose of the follow-up interviews was to further clarify the participants' TA responses and collect additional data about the critical decision making points. Lastly, the main aspects of the constructivist approach, such as a focus on the participants' perceptions, beliefs and experiences guided our TA application. We viewed individuals as active agents gaining knowledge about social context through their reflections and experiences with the environment. Finally, we acknowledged that within a constructivist study meaning is derived from individuals' actions, and their modeled and constructed explanations, which impacted the ways in which we carried out our constructivist application of the TA method.

Methodological Shifts in Longitudinal Qualitative Research Designs

Mirka Koro-Ljungberg

University of Florida

Regina Bussing

University of Florida

This conceptual paper explores methodological shifts in the qualitative core of a mixed methods longitudinal research study and illustrates ways in which researchers can establish methodological continuity while at the same time staying open to methodological modifications. Longitudinal qualitative research demands unique resources. It requires special ethical and confidentiality considerations due to prolonged engagement with participants. Additionally, the vast amounts of data collected over time present unique challenges to field access, data management, and analysis. This paper discusses the ‘methodological core’ of our study and describes methodological modifications, changes, and ruptures that happened during our research process. Changing circumstances in the field, experiences gained during the research process, and preliminary analysis findings initiated modifications and ruptures that complicated our study design. Simultaneously these processes refined study purposes and analytical intentions. The investigation of change over time, time in context, and time and texture also play a significant role in our reflections. We argue that careful analysis and accounting of methodological continuity, modification and ruptures can strengthen the trustworthiness of longitudinal studies, an important goal considering the methodological complexity often associated with longitudinal qualitative research.

The Use of Software in Qualitative Research

Guenther Krueger

BC Children's Hospital

Although every aspect of the qualitative research process has been extensively examined, described, and theorized, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the influence of software and the ways in which aspects of design, data collection, analysis, and dissemination are now altered. It has been suggested that there is little room for debate on what is perceived as simply a faster and easier way to do what has always been done. However, this may not be the case. As with other seemingly innocuous and straightforward aspects of the research process such as interviewing and transcribing, there is always more happening beneath the surface. Taking things for granted may be appropriate but may also lead to traps and gaps. Researchers, thoughtful and reflexive in so many other ways, should also incorporate thinking about the role of a computerized approach as part of the overall process of research. As software rapidly becomes ubiquitous it may be time to pause and examine what machines can do better than humans and vice versa. It is perhaps ironic that the best examination of some of these issues has arisen from software developers themselves. In this presentation I propose to unravel and unpack some of the advantages and potential pitfalls based on my own experience using and teaching NVivo. Although no one would dispute the obvious advantages that computer-assisted programs now offer, this rapidly evolving domain requires more discussion and debate by qualitative researchers themselves.

Blogging About Data: Using Blogs to Facilitate Group Coding and Verification in Grounded Theory

Alexandra A. Lauterbach

University of Florida

Brian Trutschel

University of Florida

This presentation will demonstrate the three-stage analysis procedure used in developing grounded theory in a professional development project, Literacy Learning Cohort (LLC). First, researchers decided on open codes for small units of meaning in the data and then collapsed codes into larger, more abstract categories. Second, axial codes were created by reassembling data and by making connections between categories. Third, selective codes were developed that identified broader concepts. Through the use of the process established by Strauss and Corbin (1998) a grounded theory was developed by identifying a core category which represented a predominant core theme and categories related it. Peer debriefing was used to establish credibility and trustworthiness of data. Where having more than one researcher involved with coding enhances the outcome, it is also quite cumbersome to maintain communication between researchers coding data. Conversations produce thoughtful, poignant insights, but often critical detail is lost in discussion. In the LLC project, a blog was created to code data from interviews and focus groups, and to facilitate conversations between researchers. Throughout analysis, researchers engaged in peer debriefing as an emerging theoretical framework was developed. Blogging played an important role in each step of analysis. The presentation will demonstrate how blogging may be used in data analysis and in developing and refining grounded theory. Additionally, benefits and pitfalls of using a blog will be shared. The presenter will be available for conversation and consultation for attendees interested in discussing the topic further.

Using Photography in Research: When Is a Picture Not Just a Picture?

Alexandra A. Lauterbach

University of Florida

Laura Waltrip

University of Florida

Katie Tricarico

University of Florida

Photography in research takes many forms. Photographs can be used as interviewing tools to facilitate group discussion or stir memories in participants and aid in beginning discussion. They can also illustrate ideas or be data in and of themselves. When used in these contexts, photographs can enhance and complement other research methodologies such as ethnography, focus groups, and individual interviews. They change the power dynamics of interviews and are often used to empower marginalized populations. We conducted a study of students with diagnosed learning disabilities and the experiences of their freshman year in college. We will present a portrait of one student's experience, demonstrating the strengths and limitations of this methodology. Presenters will discuss various benefits and difficulties of utilizing photography in research studies and will provide examples of both. Stock photos will be used to demonstrate different aspects of using photographs that researchers should recognize as potentially impacting on their study. The session will end with time for questions and feedback from audience members about how to incorporate this data collection method into new ways to challenge our methodological boundaries.

In the Eye of the Storm: A Linguistic Transformation of the Parallel Experience for Victims of Katrina and the Nurses Who Cared for Them

Sarah Steen Lauterbach

Valdosta State University

The presentation presents findings from a phenomenological study of nurses' lived experience of caring for victim survivors of Hurricane Katrina. A retrospective review and analysis of interview data was completed a couple of years after the original analysis was completed. This analysis used van Manen's and Munhall's methodology to describe nurses' experience through the linguistic transformation of findings into narratives and stories that depict nurses' experience. The analysis revealed that nurses' experience was parallel to the experience of hurricane victim survivors. Nurses experienced needs for self-care and support as they provided care for victims. This finding was made more explicit in the retrospective review and analysis of interview data. Further, this finding has implications for disaster care planning. The presentation will focus on solutions to nurses' need for self and supportive care while volunteering for disaster care relief. Implications for nurses' and disaster volunteers' needs for supportive care will be discussed within the context of reflective practice literature. Images, photographs, and interview transcripts, plus stories and narratives constructed from data will be used throughout the presentation to provide an up close and personal experience of nurses' need for care themselves while caring for others. Further, the use of retrospective review of human research findings and longitudinal perspectives will be proposed as having potential benefits in the applications of findings to disaster care health practice.

Researching the Lived Experience of Mothers of Children With Autism Qualitatively

Pranee Liamputtong

La Trobe University

Jessica Gill

La Trobe University

In this paper, we describe the methodology, methods, and underlying philosophy for our research which explores the experiences of mothers who have a child with autism. Our study aims to give voice to these women by providing them with the opportunity to do so by means of methods specifically tailored to their circumstances. We argue that to achieve our aim, a qualitative research approach, which includes a combination of in-depth interviews and a solicited diary method, is ideally suited for the purposes. It is our contention that it is important for researchers to provide accurate information to the community about mothers who have children with autism, thereby fostering a greater understanding and empathy in society for those involved with or affected by the disability. To this end, it is our intention to present this paper to stimulate discussion about our approach, which has at its roots phenomenology and feminist theory, and to provide a model for future research.

Dance of the Seven Veils: Translational Research in the Context of Research Partnerships

Irena Madjar

The University of Auckland

Elizabeth McKinley

The University of Auckland

In this paper we identify and discuss the key challenges we have encountered in the process of conducting educational research in partnership with organizations and individuals who are not only participants (subjects), but also active partners in the research process, as well as the most immediate users of the research findings. The challenges of such collaboration are both methodological and ethical, and require careful navigation as the process invariably twists and turns and the interests of the researchers and their research partners do not always converge. The observations come from our work over the past three years with secondary schools and tertiary educational institutions as part of the Starpath Project for Tertiary Participation and Success.

Ethical Challenges in Qualitative Health Research: Positioning the Self as Nurse Researcher

Patricia McClunie-Trust

Waikato Institute of Technology

This paper presents some of the ethical challenges I have experienced in researching with registered nurse participants who, like me, had cared for a dying family member in palliative care. The research was inspired by my curiosity about what it was like for other nurses living within their family and community as a nurse and how they managed the complexities caring for a dying family member brought to their lives. Interviewing other nurses made me realize how much I shared the participants' culture as a nurse with similar language, relationships, and experiences. Although shared identities and experiences offer qualitative nurse researchers particular skills and insights, as the research progressed, I realized that I was having trouble asking the ‘hard to ask’ questions in the research interviews. The ethics-oriented practice of self-care, developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, offers ideas about how nurses might create themselves as thoughtful and self-critical qualitative researchers. Foucault's notion of care of the self is an important reflexive strategy because it gives precedence to thinking critically about how the self as nurse researcher engages with participants and research data. Making the self and one's actions the object of critique creates sensitivity to how we think, where knowledge is understood as an effect of past experiences and the frames of reference used to interpret them. This self conscious scrutiny generates deeper understanding about how possibilities for different ways of conducting the research might have been foreclosed by our own thoughts and actions.

Enhancing the Participation of Individuals with Severe Physical and Communication Impairment in Qualitative Health Research

Laura Moll

University of Toronto

Researchers often miss the experiences of individuals with knowledge about a topic being studied because they need more time than allotted to be interviewed, have difficulty providing written consent, or responding to questions in oral/written form. The purpose of this presentation is to describe strategies used to enhance the participation of individuals with moderate to severe communication and physical impairments in a qualitative study on growing up & growing older with a lifelong physical impairment. A qualitative methodology was utilized consisting of narrative inquiry informed by the life course perspective. The life course perspective is a dynamic approach that encompasses multiple theories, including sociology, human development, and aging highlighting how social, historical, and cultural contexts shape peoples lives. Narratives are storied ways of knowing and communicating people use to organize events in their lives and make sense of their experiences. Nine community-dwelling individuals (3 men; 6 women), aged 26 to 70, with mild to severe cerebral palsy were recruited using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling. Multiple (3–4) in-depth interviews were completed with each participant to coconstruct their life stories. The data analysis was iterative. NVivo 8 was used to organize the data supporting a systematic caparison of emerging themes, categories, and the central plot that weaves the participants' experiences together. Four participants had difficulty because of their impairments. The interviewer playing an active role as a scribe; providing supplementary questions in advance of an interview; using multiple formats for collecting data, paraphrasing, and summarizing their responses was beneficial.

Research Ethics Committees: Are They Ready for Autoethnography?

Lee Murray

University of Saskatchewan

My dissertation research was an inquiry into secrets of mothering and an exploration and analysis of my life situations, practices, beliefs, values, and feelings. It was an inquiry into secrets and difficult knowledge and how reluctant we are to talk about difficult topics. As a result, my journey through the ethics approval process was challenging and rewarding. The research ethics committee had three main concerns: (a) free and informed consent and the assumption of power within the family unit, (b) support for the participants, and (c) confidentiality. This paper will discuss the negotiation of these main concerns and will include excerpts from my autoethnographic story of the ethics journey. Autoethnography requires a new way of looking at research and our intentions for research. Research ethics boards are often uncomfortable with the methodology of autoethnography and reluctant to look at and facilitate a new and different way to address anonymity and free and informed consent. Autoethnography asks us to examine knowledge from a subjective position and it asks us to accept human experience as knowing.

Autoethnography is often about difficult knowledge that may be difficult to hear. I realize autoethnography may make us uncomfortable but comfort seldom promotes change or movement. Do research ethics committees have a role in facilitating new methods of research?

Supervision in Nursing Education: Discourse Analysis of Triad Talks—Three Approaches

Guri Brit Nielsen

Akershus University College

Katie Eriksson

Åbo Akademi University

Dahly Matilainen

Åbo Akademi University

The study is about discourses in clinical supervision in nursing education. Clinical supervision is a core activity in the educational process aiming at the unification of theory and practice. The research questions are: What discourses are uncovered in clinical supervision? How do the participants interact and position each other? Why is the clinical world constructed in certain ways? The research paradigm is qualitative. The conception of caring is humanistic, the conception of learning is social constructivist and the methodological approach is discourse analysis. Discourse refers to the meaning of language in the social construction of reality. The participants are students, clinical preceptors and college teachers selected from different levels and clinical contexts in the bachelor program. The data material encompasses supervisiory talks, interviews, narratives and documents. In this paper the methodology will be in focus. Three triad talks will be analysed based on three different discursive approaches, namely conversation analysis, discourse prychology and critical discourse analysis. The findings indicate that (a) the representations of the clinical world are multiple, (b) two main discourses are framing the talks, one about caring and one about learning, (c) the reasoning about the clinical world is dual, theoretical and practical, (d) a hierarchy of voices is uncovered and (e) a theory-practice gap is revealed locationg theory in a dominat position. The findings will be discussed questioning the fruitfulness of combining different discursive approaches. A tentative answer will be given to the why-question of the multiple representations of the clinical world.

Abductive Research Strategy (ARS) and the Generation of Grounded Concepts: Two Empirical Examples

Beng Kok Ong

Universiti Sains Malaysia

Abductive research strategy (ARS) is one distinctive type of qualitative research developed by Blaikie (1993, 2000, 2007, 2010) which refers to the process of constructing theories or typologies that are grounded in everyday activities and in the language and meanings of social actors. This research strategy is associated with interpretivism and is used to generate social scientific accounts from social actors' accounts. Blaikie developed this research strategy by drawing heavily from the work of Schutz (1963a, 1963b, 1976), Weber (1964), Winch (1958), Douglas (1971), Rex (1974) and Giddens (1976, 1979). Using two empirical examples, one from Malaysia and the other from Australia, this paper demonstrates how this type of qualitative research is employed to generate grounded concepts.

“You Know How Men/Women Are”: The Complexities of Gender Comparison in Cardiovascular Rehabilitation

Cheryl Pritlove

York University

Jan Angus

University of Toronto

Lisa Seto

University of Toronto

Craig Dale

University of Toronto

Marnie Kramer-Kile

University of Toronto/Mount Royal University

Alexander M. Clark

University of Alberta

Beth Abramson

Saint Michael's Hospital

Jennifer Lapum

Ryerson University

Susan Marzolini

Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Jennifer Price

Women's College Hospital

Paul Oh

Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Recent approaches to gender theory challenge unitary definitions of gender identity, positing a multiplicity of femininities and masculinities. Recently, some authors have pointed out that investigations of men's and women's experiences of cardiovascular disease are often implicitly based on binary assumptions about gender. This paper works from a sociological framework of gender to discuss analysis of experiences with cardiovascular rehabilitation (CR). We uncovered differences in experience (both between and among men and women) that shaped patterns of participation. Our research took a realist approach to the analysis of interview data from 16 women and 16 men recruited from three CR programs in Toronto, Canada. Adopting key Bourdieusian concepts of capital, field, and habitus, and informed by McNay's feminist writings, we sought to expand on current investigations of gender in CR. This paper begins from participants' frequent typifications of the opposite gender, often embedded in statements such as “you know how men/women are.” We also discuss reflexively our own struggles to develop comparative statements about men's and women's experiences. Participants' access to and possession of capital, as well as their varied positions in and across social fields seemed to impact upon the way women and men experienced or expressed their gender identity, identities that were not always aligned with binary definitions of feminine and masculine performance. In the context of illness, it seems that gender identity and gender relations within specific social fields may interact with flows of capital to facilitate or constrain participation in CR.

Toward the Learning by Developing Action Model by Applying Phenomenography as a Qualitative Research Method

Katariina Raij

Laurea University of Applied Sciences

In the development of the learning by developing action model, based on a pragmatic learning theory, phenomenography was applied as a qualitative research method. The stages of learning by developing were identified by examining the conceptions of senior lecturers who were conducting research and development projects (n = 6+25), and, as the process went on, their changing conceptions regarding the processes of implementation of research and development (R&D) projects. Further materials came from the evaluations of two development projects, which involved lecturers (N = 4), students (N = 8) and expert professionals from the world of work (N = 6). Phenomenography is not interested in the being of a phenomenon, but in the conceptions that people hold of it. It was originally developed for studies on learning and it emphasises the learner's experience, understanding, conceptualization, and analysis of learning assignments in a specific context. The perspectives of “what” and “how,” used in relation to a specific cultural context, explain the construction of different conceptions. The LbD action model centres around an authentic, working life-related research and development project, which requires research-oriented and developmental collaboration between senior lecturers, students, workplace experts, and clients as end users. An R&D project forms a learning environment, where progress is made through the identified stages (n=10) and the outcomes are learning in an individual (identified as new ways of action), which leads to professional growth, and in a community, and the production of new knowledge. The new knowledge becomes evident as new products, services, processes, and operating models, and as a renewed work culture.

Design Ethnography: Discovering Technology Design Opportunities Through Exploratory Research

Emma Rose

University of Washington

Design ethnography is an exploratory qualitative research method that helps researchers understand the cultural, social, and context of everyday life for the purpose of generating design ideas. It is similar to traditional ethnography in that it aims to understand the cultural milieu of a particular setting. It differs from traditional ethnography in that the results of the research are used to generate ideas for and designs of technology. As part of a longitudinal research study on technology adopted, our research team conducted a design ethnography in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. We wanted to gain a deeper understanding of why the mobile phone was the ubiquitous choice of technology devices in this context and how this understanding could help influence the creation and design of mobile phone applications. Our research yielded a variety of findings about the importance of social networks to overcome challenges of daily life and the importance of reciprocity. In addition, we learned that the mobile phone played a central role in people's lives and acted to extend both strong and week social ties and in turn increase social capital. As a result of this research, we identified two design opportunities for mobile phones in this context. In this presentation, we will reflect on the method of design ethnography and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. In addition, we will share challenges and reflections of cross-cultural and cross-discipline research we encounter as social scientists working within the field of engineering.

Applying Phenomenological Methods in Analysis of Social Networking Media

Susan Speraw

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Suzanne Boswell

University of Tennessee — Knoxville

Maureen Baksh-Griffin

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Following the earthquake that shook Haiti in January 2010, social media networks provided an unprecedented amount of information. Cries for help guided relief operations, families learned the fate of loved ones, history was chronicled. Communication via blogs, text messaging, listservs, Facebook, or Twitter postings is not new, even in disaster. However, when used following events like the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, social media messages answered purely quantifiable questions such as: how many people are injured and what resources are needed. Communications scholars have recognized for years, however, that content of blogs and text messages can reveal the emotional lives of their authors and be used to engage in debate. Yet messages have never been qualitatively analyzed to examine first-person accounts of the human ordeal of surviving disaster. Text that forms the content of social media affords rare opportunities to capture the immediacy of experiences like disaster, share their power, and gain insight into the nature of immersion in unfolding calamity. Phenomenology typically employs face-to-face interviews, transcript analysis, and identification of themes and meaning units embedded in participants¡¦ narratives; data is often retrospective. Today, because of the advent of social networking, researchers are given a new, powerful tool for capturing authentic human experience in the moment when it takes place. Character limits placed on user-generated messages force authors to focus on the absolute core experience. This paper presents techniques and processes for analyzing Twitter postings or blogs, using phenomenological methods. Examples from recent research will be offered as a basis for discussion.

Techniques in Interviewing Children and the Developmentally Disabled

Susan Speraw

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Children and the developmentally disabled present challenges and complex ethical mandates to researchers planning investigations of their experience. Among these are requirements to assure human protections, including issues of assent and parental consent. Other requirements unique to this group may include unpredictable behaviors; physical, emotional, or intellectual limitations; or motor problems that can impact speech and performance. These factors often serve to dissuade researchers from including vulnerable groups in their work; in many ways, designing research with independent adults is easier. Yet, children and the disabled are the foremost experts on their own existence. No parent or guardian can describe a child's inner life with authority because no caregiver can see the world entirely through another's eyes. Children and the developmentally disabled have voices that need to be heard. This paper will focus on practical techniques for interviewing children, including the “yo-yo” approach to discussing difficult topics; working within a developmentally appropriate frame; guidance on building rapport with children and caregivers; strategies for keeping participants engaged in the interview, and tips on recognizing when the child is done. Ethical dilemmas and potential solutions will be discussed. Cases from research with children and the disabled will be used as illustrative of approaches, pitfalls, and successes. Children and the disabled have stories about life they want to tell. Knowing their perspectives can serve to improve understanding of their needs, and lead scholars toward improved health and educational strategies. Techniques described will be useful to researchers seeking to work with this vulnerable group.

Challenges of Attunement: Accounting for Both Experiences and Transformative Intersubjective Processes?

Tom Strong

University of Calgary

Hillary Sharpe

University of Calgary

Ines Sametband

University of Calgary

Relational attunement — between people and between humans and animals through their ongoing efforts to reconcile their differences — serves as our guiding construct, in two distinct studies. Our interest is with how people participate in and are transformed by relational circumstances where differences arise and are worked out. This interest brought us to an intersection of methods focused on subjective experience (hermeneutic phenomenology) and those focused on intersubjective processes (discourse analysis). We report on participant experiences in equine facilitated therapy, and discursive processes of cross-cultural misunderstandings between clients and therapists in consultations. The intersubjective activities and experiences that transpired in these contexts of relational attunement offered both data collection and analytical challenges. We introduce the construct of “relational attunement” and our methodological challenges in collecting and analysing data to better understand this construct in two research contexts. We share preliminary findings from a hermeneutic phenomenology study of equine facilitated therapy where the focus was on the transformative, embodied, experiences of women diagnosed with eating disorders. Our interest was on the process of horse-rider attunement and what changes accompany this process for the women involved. Our second discursively oriented study examined the relational dilemma of cross-cultural misunderstanding in therapeutic dialogue, and how such misunderstandings were overcome. We share the conceptual, data collection, and analytic challenges encountered in accounting for processes of relational attunement. We present our findings and these challenges to stimulate further discussion on the intersection of qualitative methods that aim to shed light on relational processes.

Writing Stories in the Shade: Ethical Dances in the Dappled Play of Qualitative Inquiry

Dalene Swanson

University of Alberta & University of British Columbia

As a way to describe my deployment of narrative-based qualitative research, I have applied descriptors such as “critical narrative engagement” and “reflexive rhizomatic narrative” to offer distinction from more positivist modes of qualitative research and create resonance with what is now mainstream innovative research. But stories in themselves do not obviate the ethical difficulties often experienced with positivist research approaches whose “authorization” and “legitimacy” invest in stances of objectivity and neutrality. This is particularly pertinent within communities where there are strong power differentials and nuanced cultural, socioeconomic, and political differences. Overtures of reflexivity are also not sufficient in themselves to engage with the many multiple ethical dilemmas of researching in community. Uneven subject positions, predisposed attitudes, political stances, or privileged gazes often haunt our “good intentions” and ethical choices, masking our research commitments with shaded/shady voices, and shading our efforts with “colored” vestiges of other preceding or preauthored discourses at play. In writing research in “impoverished” communities in my homeland of postapartheid South Africa, I became aware, at critical ethical junctures that I refer to as “moments of articulation”, of how my body became the site of struggle of competing ideological and ethical forces at play. How, then, do we write ethical stories under the shade of community engagement giving purpose to the complexities and dappled light of narratives of inquiry, but bearing witness with integrity to that which is left in the shade?

Drama, Metaphor, and Meaning: A Layered Analysis of a Bird-watcher's Narrative

Jackie Taylor

University of Salford

Accounts of research using narrative methods can provide insufficient rationale and detail of the analysis (Riessman & Quinney, 2005), making the relationship between data, method, and findings unclear. Thorne (2009, p. 1185) encouraged researchers to articulate this relationship “thoughtfully and intelligently” to help build a “rigorous methodological platform” for narrative research. This paper attempts to address this critique with an illustration from a study of the meanings that people attach to their leisure activities. I will describe the layered approach to analysis that I used to understand narratives told by 17 leisure enthusiasts. The writings of Riessman, Mishler, Polkinghorne, Labov and Waletzky, Gee, Agar and Hobbs, and Goffman were influential in the development of the approach used, enabling narratives to be examined for sociolinguistic, interactive, and dramatic features. The analysis will be illustrated using one short narrative, told by a birdwatcher. The analysis gave attention to narrative structure, content and evaluative devices, as well as coherence, dramaturgic features and the interaction between narrator and interviewer. All of these factors are inextricably linked, playing their part in exposing the layers of narrative meaning. A systematic approach is described, which, although still reliant on subjective interpretation, makes transparent the rationale and detail for the analytic process which was undertaken, exposing it to critical scrutiny. This layered method is shown to be of value in narrative analysis where meaning is of interest, and where the socially situated construction of the narrative deserves attention.

“Eavesdropping” on Student Discussions: The Use of Peer-Led Focus Groups to Investigate Student Perspectives on Collaborative Learning

Alison Thomas

Douglas College

Faculty engaging in research on teaching and learning face obvious ethical challenges arising from their position of authority vis-à-vis students when it comes to matters such as obtaining informed consent (Hutchings, 2002). However, an additional epistemological challenge, sometimes at risk of being overlooked, presents itself in the form of reactivity issues: When students are interviewed by faculty, what they tell us is liable to reflect what they believe it is appropriate to say about their learning. The postmodern crisis of representation and legitimation (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998) has made us acutely aware of issues such as these and calls into question social realist assumptions about the “transparency” of interview data (Frith & Kitzinger,1998). Attention has turned to the research interview as a social interaction, in which the power differential between researcher and researched must become a crucial aspect of the analysis (Lincoln & Denzin, 2000). The use of focus groups has been identified as one way of mitigating this power imbalance (Morgan, 2004)and of promoting rapport, especially when the moderator shares the same background as participants (Madriz, 1998). For those conducting qualitative research on student learning, it therefore makes sense to consider employing students as moderators of focus groups involving their peers. In this paper I report on a recent study of student engagement in which we adopted this approach and discuss its benefits, as well as considering some of the ethical and interpretive challenges we encountered.

Managing Complexity: Transition From the Ground Up

Susan Townsend

University of Calgary

This paper will describe how actor-network theory has been used to inform or sensitize a research methodology for application in complex health care sites. My area of interest is health transitions. In this presentation I am primarily interested how this sociological theory can challenge preconceptions embedded in our current understandings of health transitions, health careers, or health pathways and in so doing can open up alternatives in research methodology and analytic argument. I will use the research example of transition into continuing care to consider how an intensive research focus on the meanings of transition by care recipients or care providers has provided abundant data yet remains evasive as to how transition is enacted, or even performed in nursing home routines and interactions. Constructionism, as taken up in actor-network theory considers the self as precarious, and identity as elusive, transitional, and negotiated within networks of actors and practices. It follows that taking up the enactment of complex social events such as transition then requires descriptive accounts that, although sensitive to meaning and perspectival accounts, also simultaneously engage the way diverse meanings and practices arise and are negotiated in local interactions across time. Research methodologies that capture the movement of actors in the accomplishment of social assemblies and practices are rooted in ethnography. This presentation considers the ways conversation analysis and other forms of microanalysis might be combined with ethnographies to provide further insights into meaning and practice making as residents and care systems together accomplish transition into care.

The Challenge of Analyzing Large Volumes of Data

Merrill Turpin

The University of Queensland

Analyzing large volumes of narrative data can be challenging. An additional challenge occurs when participants discuss complex topics, seeking to convey rich connections between ideas. This paper discusses the challenge of analysing in-depth data collected about the teaching and learning of occupational therapy clinical reasoning in the practice area of paediatrics. Data were collected from 27 occupational therapy professional practice educators and 33 occupational therapy students. Almost 1,000 pages of data were generated through transcriptions of audio-recorded individual and interviews and teaching sessions. We commenced data analysis by reading through the data set to gain a “sense” of what it contained. We generated a list of potential coding categories but found that the number of categories was large, and our initial attempts to code data using these categories seemed to reduce the manageability of the data rather than assist in making sense of it. We then tried a different strategy to make the analysis process more manageable. We went through each transcript, carefully and systematically making dot points that aimed to reflect the point/s the participant was making. In this process we were very careful to remain as “true” to the data as possible and to include detailed indexing marks that would allow us to go back to the original data at any time. These dot points then became the data used to generate inductively coding categories. This paper explores the legitimacy of this process of reducing the data to make them more manageable for exploring them for thematic content.

Interdisciplinary Empathy: Application of a Cultural Empathy Model to Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries and Research Traditions

K. Jessica Van Vliet

University of Alberta

In working on interdisciplinary teams, qualitative researchers are involved in a cross-cultural situation that brings together multiple disciplines and research traditions, each with its own set of identities, values, assumptions, beliefs, languages, and methods. The success of interdisciplinary research depends in no small part on the ability of team members to bridge cultural differences in ways that promote shared understanding and communication. In this presentation, I apply an adaptation of Ridley and Dingle's (1996) cultural empathy model, originally developed in the context of cross-cultural counseling, to the context of working across disciplines and research traditions. Interdisciplinary empathy can be conceptualized as the ability of researchers to understand the perspectives and worldviews of stakeholders from other disciplines and research backgrounds, where this understanding is informed by the researcher's interpretive and self-reflective processes. Interdisciplinary empathy also involves the ability to communicate this understanding in ways that convey genuine caring, sensitivity, and respect. In my discussion of interdisciplinary empathy, I will draw upon my own experience and perspectives as a counseling psychologist conducting qualitative research on an interdisciplinary health research team.

Cross-Cultural Research Issues in a School-University-Community Collaborative Study

Lynne Wiltse

University of Alberta

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the potential of third space theory to improve literacy learning for marginalized youth and to transform relations in research collaboration between teachers, academics and community members. The study examined ways to merge out-of-school literacy resources with school literacy practices for Aboriginal students in a band-controlled reserve school in a small Canadian city. Within a broad ethnographic case study design, the research utilized students-as-researchers as a way to negotiate the politics of researching “Other people's children” (Delpit, 1995). Data were collected from three interrelated components of the project:

1. Aboriginal students examined the cultural and linguistic practices that are part of their homes and communities through involvement in Historica Fair projects.

2. In the form of a case study assignment, teacher candidates from the researcher's Language and Literacy course were paired with these Aboriginal students in a mentorship role, assisting them with their projects while learning about minority students' language and literacy practices.

3. Concurrently, the teachers of the students and the university researcher participated in a collaborative study group to explore pertinent sociocultural literature and to plan for language/literacy instruction drawing on study data collected from the teacher candidates.

This presentation will focus on issues in cross-cultural research that arose over the course of a study that involved teacher candidates working with Aboriginal students, as well as a teacher-researcher study group which included 3 Aboriginal teachers, 3 non-Aboriginal teachers, and a non-Aboriginal researcher. Issues to be addressed include ethical concerns, challenges in data collection, and questions of dissemination.

“Leaping with the Deer”: An Ethnographic Researcher's Experience in the Hurdle Field

I-Ting Yeh

Taipei Physical Education College

Hsin-Hung Yeh

National Taiwan Normal University

Shi-Ran Dai

Taipei Physical Education College

Hsi-Po Lin

Taipei Physical Education College

This ethnographic study mainly adopted 3-month participant observation and in-depth interviewing to collect data. The research targets were the hurdle athletes studying at an urban college in Taiwan. Through thick description of their training experience, I intended to explore how they had viewed their training process and the interactions among us. The major field texts contained observation notes, interviewing transcriptions, and the researcher's journal. Besides, the collection of other relevant documents and records served as supplementary texts in order to triangulate the research data. An etic view was used to analyze research data and describe the informants' life experience in training. In doing so, first, I encoded my diaries and the transcripts of interviews by thematic analysis. Second, I supplemented the previous analysis by discussing among the peer examination in order to decide coding units. Here I referred to Dewey's “experience is an interactive continuum” and divided the context into primary and secondary topics. The former focused on my research experience, including previous interviews with athletes and descriptions of their group life, i.e. my interactions and, most important, my reflections with their world, the latter centered on their training life. They were (a) reminiscence, (b) seize the day and just do it, and (c) “Not just a dream:” informants' expectations. This study was not only a research, but also an unforgettable lived story to be continued. It showed the honor of the athletes lay not only in the metals but also in the precious and unique training experience. The dissimilarity between the informants and me, such as self-identity and value system, prompted me to reevaluate the experience already built on the investigation, including some controversial issues, i.e. the dilemmas encountered in the investigation and the unreasonable training schedule from the coaches.

Using Qualitative Research to Improve Infection Control Practices and Policy and Patient Safety in Vancouver Region

Daniyal Zuberi

University of British Columbia

Reducing health care associated infections and improving patient safety in Vancouver requires more than simply indentifying best practices or effective reforms. The research literature already includes many examples of successful initiatives. The real challenge is mobilizing the public pressure and political will within the regions health authorities to implement these kinds of changes and overcome barriers to reform. This paper presents the preliminary findings of an innovative research study that utilizes semistructured digitally recorded interviews with both international experts and local stakeholders to identify innovative reforms to policies and practices to reduce health care-associated infections in the Vancouver region as well as concrete recommendations for overcoming barriers and implementing reforms. By drawing on the insights of international experts and the local stakeholders, the research aims to mobilize support for and implement policy reforms. The detailed anecdotes by study participants generated by the research increase the likelihood that the findings will generate the public pressure and political will to support the implementation of reforms. Innovative dissemination approaches include regular “think tank” meetings to discuss the research data and findings to bring together members of the research team with experts and engaged consultants as well as the use of policy reports based on the findings to be distributed to all study participants as well as other key stakeholders in each of the Vancouver Lower Mainland health authorities. By engaging these experts and stakeholders as participants in the study, the research aims to improve infection control and patient safety in the Vancouver region.

Symposia

Body and Emotional Awareness in Qualitative Health Research

The phenomenon of body and emotional awareness will be explored in a symposium from a rehabilitational perspective. The three abstracts submitted are part of our qualitative research development, and we want to deepen and develop our depth in qualitative understanding as well as the depth of the research topic with the help of discussion with experienced colleagues from different fields. We aim to receive suggestions concerning how to use mixed methods to promote increased understanding of this research topic.

Embodied Identity: A Deeper Understanding of Body Awareness

Gunvor Gard

Lund University

Amanda Lundvik Gyllensten

Lund University

Aims were to explore and generate an understanding of the meaning of body awareness through the explanations of the experience of body awareness given by professionals and patients in psychiatric rehabilitation. The grounded theory method was selected to generate a theoretical understanding of logically linked concepts that also accommodates for the variation in the data, to explain body awareness. The grounded theory approach included the use of the constant comparative method, memo writing aimed at constructing conceptual analyses, theoretical sampling to refine the researchers emerging theoretical notions, and integration of the final theoretical framework. In total 44 informants participated in the study. The data analysis process involved data collecting, open coding, writing memos, identifying a core category, selective coding in terms of the core category, sorting memos, and writing up the theoretical understanding. There were 24 interview transcripts from group interviews and individual interviews, data from previous interviews, memos, and research literature. The analysis was based on the constructed understanding of body awareness according to the informants' explanations. During open coding the texts were broken down into discrete parts, labeled, and compared for variations, similarities, and differences. The codes found were then grouped into categories. In axial coding, the focus of the analysis was to understand what gave rise to explanations of body awareness and to understand the interactional processes in different situations and their consequences. The core category was conceptualized and the central phenomenon Embodied identity, which was abstract enough to encompass all that, had been described in data.

Emotional Awareness in Physiotherapy Practice in Mental Health

Gunvor Gard

Lund University

Amanda Lundvik Gyllensten

Lund University

The aim of this paper is to study the role of emotions in interaction between patient and physiotherapist in psychiatric physiotherapy. The methodology used was qualitative case studies with cross-case analysis.

The initial framework of this study was founded on clinical experiences from the field of psychiatric physiotherapy and the results from a study on interaction (see above). To be nominated to the study as an informant, physiotherapists nominated colleagues considered to be “experts in interaction”. Data collection was first performed by multiple sorting of how 10 one-hour sessions of body awareness therapy helped the patients to come more into contact with the emotional self, contributing to an understanding of emotional awareness. Then an exemplar of a critical incident of a clinical experience with patients was collected. Also a key-informant interview was used to elicit data. Manifest content analysis was performed.

Increased Awareness Through Reflection About the Patient: Physiotherapist Interaction

Gunvor Gard

Lund University

Amanda Lundvik Gyllensten

Lund University

The aim of this study is to identify factors important for interaction between patients and physiotherapists in primary health care. The research design used in this study was a qualitative multiple case study with cross-case analysis. In this study empirical information was collected during interviews, with three different data collecting techniques. The data collection began with a multiple sorting. Each informant was asked to create a list of important factors or events contributing to expertise in interaction with patients. These factors were then cut into different cards, one event on each card and the informant then sorted the cards into three different piles, the most important events, the somewhat important events and the least important events. The interview focused on the PT describing the sorted event and what each event meant to him/her. Next, the data collecting technique “exemplar” was used. An exemplar is a first-person account of a critical incident. Each PT was asked to describe a situation where she had learned something important about the interaction. The third data collection technique was an interview guide, where each PT answered semistructured interview questions. The interview was semistructured. One cross-case analysis was done to answer the research question. The analysis was performed on the total interview material across the data from the multiple-sorting, the exemplar and the interview. The content analysis was done in the following steps: The interviews were read cross-case to get an understanding of the whole. Meaning units that were answers to the research question were identified, categorized, and put together into themes.

Enacting and Teaching the Philosophical Hermeneutic Interview

Interviewing is a technique used in many forms of research and practice. It is a primary form of data collection in qualitative research, spanning the contiuum from survey and evaluation research to grounded theory to various manifestations of phenomenological inquiry. Distinctions among various methods can be ambiguous, but differentation is important even though there are common characteristics across interpretive genres. This symposium will address the philosophical hermeneutic interview in particular, highlighting its philosophical foundations, defining characteristics, and ethical implications. A demonstration, analysis, and interpretive commentary are intended to show the usefulness and the challenges of this distinctive approach to qualitative interviewing. It is expected that this discussion will arouse interest in analyzing interview techniques across qualitative methodologies.

The Philosophical Hermeneutic Interview: Philosophical Foundations

Erla Champe-Gibson

Washington State University

The application of philosophical hermeneutics to research may be most apparent in the process of the interview. This presentation explores the philosophical foundations of Heideggerian hermeneutics as it informs philosophical hermeneutic research. Temporality, language, and being are crucial elements in communicating the meaning of an experience. The philosophical hermeneutic interview employs artful and skilled dialogue to elicit the unique stories of individuals. Intricate nuances of the story are revealed as the researcher listens to the participant reflect on and speak about a particular experience of their past. As the interview evolves, questions and answers merge into a dialogue that becomes so fluid it is difficult to distinguish between speakers. Dialogue is a journey of listening to what is said, to what is not said, and to thinking about what was said. It is not just arriving at a destination of factual responses to predetermined questions. It is a journey of revelation seeking understanding and meaning through another's experience. Fidelity to the philosophical underpinnings of the hermeneutic interview creates a foundational support in the rigor of the philosophical hermeneutic research process.

The Philosophical Hermeneutic Interview: Defining Characteristics

Susan Fleming

Washington State University

Roxanne Vandermause

Washington State University

The interview is an essential source of gathering data for qualitative research that is grounded in the philosophical hermeneutic tradition. The interview purpose is to uncover what it means to be as it shows up or reveals itself through story. An important goal of the philosophical hermeneutic approach to research is to understand meaning and to make sense of a particular experience. The manner in which the interview process is conducted is vital in generating data that reveals essential experience. Questions that are engaged and focused on the participant's experience are key in the enactment of the hermeneutic interview. How a question is posed is an important part of the process. Developing skills of hermeneutic interviewing can begin by identifying defining characteristics. This presentation will demonstrate and analyze a philosophical hermeneutic interview in a naturalistic setting. Characteristics such as the following will be explored: (a) setting the tone of the research, (b) using incomplete sentences, (c) looking for assent, and (b) returning the participant to the story. As these skills are implemented in this demonstration, we will show how meaning can be interpreted through a trustworthy interview process and how such skills may be taught to students of interpretive research.

The Philosophical Hermeneutic Interview: Data or Intervention?

Roxanne Vandermause

Washington State University

Billie Severtsen

Washington State University

Interviewing in the philosophical hermeneutic tradition is an intimate and personal experience. In keeping with the philosophical foundations, the interview is enacted as a fluid conversation, coconstructed and guided both by the interviewer and the research participant. The primary purpose of the interview is to understand the phenomenon as experienced by both researcher and participant with greater clarity. This conversational style is evocative and calls the participant to depths of memory and experience that may result in new or previously unacknowledged awareness. Often the interview is viewed by the participant as positive. It may be an opportunity for expression, a chance to further understanding about an important issue, or a means to think more deeply about a significant event in a participant's life. Participants often make statements about how an interview has changed their awareness or has been therapeutic. Yet there are potential unidentifiable risks that may be overlooked. This presentation examines the ethical challenges, overt and potential, that have surfaced in the course of a study of a sensitive nature, involving mothers recovering from methamphetamine addiction. Our observations, responses, and interpretations will be described and analyzed, including the process of obtaining IRB approval, the experience of interviewing, and our self critiquing conversations. As we highlight the ethical questions we encountered, we will offer recommendations for thinking about, planning for and implementing interviewing techniques in interpretive studies.

Poster Presentations

Concrete to Abstract: Visualizing Paradigms in Qualitative Research Through Visual Arts

Arzu Arikan

Anadolu University

Since the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, the word “paradigm” has led to many discussions among scholars from different disciplines. In general terms, paradigm means a conceptual framework, a cognitive map, a lens, or a frame of reference, employed while making sense of the world. In this sense, research informed by positivism, interpretivist paradigm, critical paradigm, and deconstructivist paradigm embrace different epistemological, ontological, methodological assumptions. However, the boundaries between these paradigms are not very clear-cut in practice of qualitative research. In this paper, differences and similarities between four paradigms are delineated through the use of visual arts images. To visualize paradigms in qualitative research, various images from different genres in photography and painting are discussed, including those of Fritz Kaeser, Brassai, Robert Frank, and Salvador Dali. The purpose is to underline the fact that scientific and artistic means of experiencing and representing the reality are similar in their essence.

Dancing With Innovation: A Case Study on the Organizing Process for an Acrobatics Sports Team in Taiwan

Ying-Hsin Chang

Taipei Physical Education College

Lai Cheng-Hsiu

Taipei Physical Education College

Yeh I-Ting

Taipei Physical Education College

This case study explored the organizing process of a sports team in Taiwan. The sports team consisted of performers of rope skipping, diabolo, and shuttle cock kicking. Because this sports team belonged to a department at an urban college in Taiwan, it was closely related to the college policy of student recruitment. There were 6 research participants in the study, including coaches and captains. Through 3-month face-to-face interviewing, observing, document collecting, and journal taking, the researchers built up research data. After collecting data, narrative analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, and open coding were used to analyze the data. We found that the organizing process of the team was showed in the relationship between its innate quality and its reactions to the environment, especially its efforts in seeking innovation. Besides, we named seven phases for its development: “Sand,” “Adaptation,” “Fault,” “Second Round,” “Transformation,” “Innovation,” and “Merging.” Each of the phases unrolled various styles and features of the team. Finally, there were meanings proposed by the participants.

Experiencing Sounds in Sports: A Phenomenological Perspective

Chen Shu-Chao

Taipei physical Education Collegs

This study aimed to explore the essential characteristics that the participants' experiences of sounds in sports. At first, researcher adopted the reduction and describing methods of phenomenology, applications of phenomenology, and the possibilities for obtaining an essential structure of the experiences. Second, the researcher clarified the participants' experiences in sounds related to sports. In the study, there were 20 participants who were elite athletes at Taipei Physical Education College in Taipei, Taiwan. The research data consisted of interview transcriptions and intuition that were analyzed by using the reduction and description methods of phenomenology. The results showed the following essential characteristics of the participants' experiences of sounds in sports: (a) The primary perceptions of the participants' experience of sounds in sports were related to imagination, symbolism, mimicry, association, reminiscence, and judgment in the subjects. (b) The sounds in sports were the participants' objects of perceptions. The sounds should be heard by the subjects. The relationship between the subjects and objects was ambiguous. The subjects produced sounds and heard the sounds that belonged to the subjects. (c) The emotion perceptions of the participants' experience of sounds in sports were unified with the participants' specific imaginations. (d) The participants related sounds to things through imagination. Via producing sounds, they perceived experiences and retrieved memories. The sounds, like symbols presenting or implying some notions, worked as an instrument to convey the reality in depth of the participants' minds during the process of exercise.

“Memory Box”: Narrating an Angel Who Loved Performing Arts

Yi-fang Chen

Department of Dance

Li-chuan Kao

Graduate Institute of Sports Pedagogy

This study used narrative inquiry to explore a junior high student, “Angel's” (pseudonym) experience in the class of performing arts, which was taught by the first author. Through the “memory box” method of interviewing, she and the authors reconstructed the learning experiences in the class including what and how she learned in the class several years ago and what and how the impacts showing up in her present life. The course on performing arts is in Taiwan's Nine-Year Curriculum “Arts and Humanities” field. It integrated music, performance, and arts. Besides advancing students' creativity and imagination, the purpose of the course also provides students with the history of arts and hopefully enhances positive value in students' future life. “Memory box” means that Angel was asked to put as many as possible materials concerning her memory related to the class. Then she narrated the material stories to the authors. Through this study, we found that one of the key elements of “Angel's” present life was her learning in the performing arts class. In the tears and sweat along with the class, she became courageous, happy, and persistent. She had learned how to share, gratitude, and to treasure what she had owned. We believe as teachers that to create all the possibilities for students to grow up is very important. The study also made some suggestions related to school administration, educational policy, and future studies.

Oriental Perceptions and Daily Managements Among Family Caregivers Toward Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) in Taiwan

Wen-Yun Cheng

National Cheng Kung University

The prevalence of dementia is increasing. However, little research has been published into how caregivers undertake such explorations in their day-to-day caregiving task. Twenty-seven caregivers, ranging in age from 28 to 82, with a mean of 53.2 years, and predominantly female, were interviewed, with grounded theory method used to develop categorical themes that reflected the oriental perception and daily managements among family caregivers toward behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) in Taiwan. An in-depth literature search was also undertaken. Memory loss was the very first warning sign to awaken the notification of caregivers. Most caregivers realized the diagnosis but did not comprehend the irreversibility of illness, which made them embrace improper hope for some recovery. Besides, caregivers' daily managements were analyzed further: balance for mutual togetherness, utilize reliable alliance, and apply aid equipment. Alongside the image of person-centered philosophy from caregiving processes, individualized, humanized, and creative formats were found that deserved more studies in depth. Chinese caregivers' person-centered philosophy was perceived as a protective factor against risks and positive indicator for quality care.

Understanding the Manitoba Medical Licensure Program for International Medical Graduates (MLPIMG): Exploring Accreditation Gap, Barriers, and Multiple Mentoring

Sukhoe Choe

University of Minnesota

Bosu Seo

University of Manitoba

The access of international medical graduates (IMGs) to the Canadian physician workforce has been a central issue in both health and immigration policy. Recognition of the foreign credentials of immigrants to Canada has been particularly controversial in the case of physicians. Although many contend that IMGs face artificially constructed barriers created by the profession, others emphasize the concern with the quality of their training. MLPIMG is a one-year program designed to enhance the training of IMGs and then provide a provisional license for work in an underserviced rural/remote community. It admits around 20 IMGs each year. However, there is limited information of how IMGs appraise the program and what extent they experience barriers to enter it and provide practice after graduation. Mentoring has been widely used in many organizations and acknowledged as a valuable tool for retaining employees and promoting career success. In Canada's dynamic and diverse health care environment, having a variety of different types of mentoring relationships that comprised both intraorganization and extraorganization networks, multiple mentoring, is perhaps indispensable to IMGs. We propose to conduct semistructured interviews of recent IMGs to understand what and how they encounter during and after MLPIMG and how multiple mentoring help them to assimilate in the profession. Interviews will be digitally recorded and transcribed in verbatim. NVivo 8 will be used for an analysis. We are recruiting physicians who have participated in MLPIMG since 2007, with the support from CME in the University of Manitoba. Preliminary results will be presented at the conference.

Community-Based Approach for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Alberta Working Women

P. K. (Tish) Doyle-Baker

University of Calgary

Kathryn Murray

University of Calgary

Angie Karlos

University of Calgary

A community-based primary prevention program designed for women in Alberta was implemented in the workplace. The program goal was to empower working women to make lifestyle and behavior modifications that would help reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The study employed a two group (X-intervention and O-standard of care) randomized crossover design with a 12-week lunch time intervention; i.e., each participant received both treatments in either of the sequences X, O or O, X. Participants received risk factor screening at three time-points between July 2009 and January 2010. Following the end phase, an outcome evaluation on the efficacy of the program occurred. Participants (N = 47, mean percent body fat of 39.8, range 25–52.7,) were given the opportunity to complete the LEARN questionnaire which included both Likert scale and written responses. Evaluation questions enquired how the participant felt about the impact of the program, program delivery, course content, the facilitator, and overall general feelings of the completed program. Participants written comments converged into 12 themes. Examples: “I really enjoyed this program. It helped me understand how little steps will help you with big results,” “I wish I have more time to do everything properly,” “Love the pedometer – I even have my husband helping me to try and accomplish 10,000 steps.” We believe the written responses significantly enhanced the overall study outcome and subsequently will contribute to future program success. Therefore, the evaluation process remains an essential component of any community-based program aimed at the primary prevention of CVD in the workplace.

Development of Intercultural Skills and Competence in Teacher Education Through Erasmus Program: Perspectives of Turkish Preservice Teachers

Ali Ersoy

Anadolu University

This exploratory study employs qualitative research approach to understand intercultural experiences of pre-service teachers from various teacher education programs. Participants of the study were pre-service teachers from mathematics, early childhood, and elementary education programs who have been abroad through Erasmus student exchange program. To collect data, the researcher conducted a focus group discussion with the participants of the study. Focus group discussion was used as a means of capturing rich data and valuable knowledge would not be possible to grasp otherwise. This method was purposefully adapted to benefit the social interplay that takes place between all of the participants. The focus group included six participants and took three hours of discussion. The participants have been in Holland, Denmark, and Poland through Erasmus student exchange program between 2008 and 2009. Constant comparative method was used to analyze the data. Findings of the study will be presented with concrete examples from the focus group interview. In addition to that, the researcher will discuss how pre-service teachers' experiences in a different culture influence their professional development as well individual development.

The Nature of Intrapartum Care in U.S. Hospitals: What Can We Learn From Grand Multiparous Women?

Susan Fleming

Washington State University

The high-technology environment found in virtually all obstetrical hospital suites in North America creates new challenges for the intrapartum nurse. Research suggests that this has dehumanized the birthing experience and decreased or de-emphasized the provision of supportive nursing care. This poster describes a study to explore the influence of technology on the birth experiences of grand multiparous women (5 or more births in hospital settings), which can address the evolving changes of the birth environment. Results of a preliminary study of the experiences of grand multiparous women led to this study in progress, intended to generate a comprehensive interpretation of grand multiparous birth experiences. A philosophical hermeneutic approach is a well-defined scholarly tradition that strives to identify, interpret and generate meaning of experience. Hermeneutic traditions provide an indispensable influence for the study of childbirth, since so much of childbirth is related to the “experience”. The purpose is to illuminate common yet often overlooked nursing practices and to generate meaning and understanding. Ten to 12 transcribed, verbatim interviews with grand multiparous women are being analyzed using philosophical hermeneutic data analysis. Early findings in the context of extant research are presented. This research can influence the education of intrapartum nurses with high value effective care practices and suggest potential testable interventions for future research.

“Person-Centered Research” Versus “Research on Person-Centered Care”: Rethinking Research Practices in Dementia-Care Environments

Krista Frazee

Simon Fraser University

The term “person-centered research” is often used to describe efforts to further our understanding of the theory and practice of person-centered care. The concepts, however, are not synonymous. In the context of specialized dementia care, person-centered care is achieved through an often arduous process of culture change. The transformation from traditional medical models to more holistic models of care requires significant investment from advocates who believe that close social relationships, support for autonomy, and respect for residents as equal members of society are just as important as good quality physical care. In such settings, researchers are accepted and welcomed into the community—which includes residents, staff, and family members—with an expectation that the central tenets of person-centered care are understood and will be honored throughout the research process. However, the principles of person-centered philosophy are not always considered in research design, planning, or practices. This presentation describes some of the unanticipated experiences and personal reflections of a junior researcher following independent case studies examining the relationships between activity spaces, activity programming, and residents' quality of life in two dementia special-care environments. Although both care settings were purposefully selected based on their emphasis on person-centered care, the methodological strategies chosen for the studies were not always consistent with the “real life” atmosphere or goals of the care environments in which the studies took place. Lessons learned will help differentiate “person-centered research practices” from “research on person-centered care”, and will explore culture change in relation to future research in dementia care settings.

Using Naturalistic Inquiry Methods to Understand Immigrant Students' Perception of the Social Studies Curriculum in Midwestern School Settings in the United States

Elvan Gunel

Anadolu University

In this study naturalistic paradigm was utilized to explore the experiences of the immigrant Muslim girls in social studies classrooms and to examine how the girls interpreted the social studies curriculum as well as the instructional decisions the teachers made in relation to the background and experiences of the Muslim girls in Midwestern schools settings in United States. The naturalistic paradigm was useful for this study because it allowed the researcher to see the complexities and realities of the girls in their natural environment. The researcher also combined naturalistic inquiry with critical race theory and feminist theory as a means of understanding the phenomena exclusively. In this study two qualitative methods was implemented to learn about experiences of Muslim girls in social studies classrooms: observations and interviews. Observations included four different social studies classrooms, focusing on the teachers' instructional decisions in relation to the Muslim girls in their classrooms. The researcher also asked the students and the teachers to take part in three 20-minute interviews to obtain further information about the questions of the study such as how the girls interpreted the knowledge they constructed in those four U.S. History classrooms. Inductive data analysis was employed to create emergent patterns and to see if the patterns were consistent and trustworthy. Constant comparative data analysis method was also used to analyze the data of the study.

Rigorous Thematic Analysis: Investigating Data Meaning with Mixed Methods

Stephen Hancock

University of North Carolina Charlotte

In the broader debate of what constitutes “good” research, qualitative methodologies have traditionally been seen as second rate to quantitative approaches. Although much has been written about the method wars, prevailing thought have aired on the side of mixed methods. Citing that good research clarifies ambiguities and opens new lines for future inquiry, progressive researchers support epistemologies and methodologies that are couched in mixed method paradigms. In the vein of mixed methods, I have proposed a type of thematic analysis that employs traditional qualitative methodologies while infusing quantitative approaches. Infusing, in this case, refers to the inseparable and interdependent relationship formed by qualitative and quantitative methodologies. That is to say that it is true mixed methods where the conclusions depend on the cyclical use of both approaches to analyzing data. There are a plethora of research articles that expound on the virtues and vices of thematic analysis. This work is not an attempt to add to that literature. Rather, it is focused on the actual “doing” of thematic analysis. The methodological approach integrates qualitative coding and quantitative frequency counts to develop data-driven themes. A detailed exemplar of the data coding and thematic development are presented in the analytical process. The process demonstrate open and relational coding, the development and testing of code families and/or super codes, the quantifying of codes to create/support strong themes, coding and thematic rationales, the use of intrarater and interrater reliability, and the numerical ranking of themes. The process also includes stages for single and multiple researchers.

Understanding Home Dialysis Service Usage: A Systematic Review Using Meta-ethnography and Rational Choice Theory

Lori Harwood

University of Alberta/ London Health Sciences Centre

Alexander M. Clark

University of Alberta

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing globally, and the treatment is costly. Home dialysis has economic and quality of life benefits, yet usage remain low. An important means to increase home-based dialysis services is to better understand why patients do/do not select it as their preferred option. This systematic review examined dialysis modality decision making for individuals with CKD using meta-ethnography. This poster presentation will present the findings of the review in the context of rational choice theory. After a systematic search, 15 studies met the inclusion criteria (containing data from: 404 patients with varying stages of CKD). Across all the studies reviewed, decisions about dialysis contained elements of rational choice theory as decision making was in response to the nature and context of the patient's life. Dominant themes across decisions were (a) The illusion of choice, as patients perceived they were not given a choice of modality however, for those who were given a choice this decision was of great significance-a matter of life or death; (b) minimization of the intrusiveness of dialysis on quality of life, autonomy, values and sense of self; and (c) decision making was not done in isolation; knowledge and support were essential. These findings emphasize the need for health policy and programs to support planned and timely discussions about modalities in which home-based dialysis is presented as a viable option.

Immigrant and Aboriginal Women's Experiences of Maternity Care Services in Canada: A Narrative Synthesis

Gina Higginbottom

University of Alberta

Myfanwy Morgan

King's College London

Christine Kenney

University of Alberta

Jayantha Dassanayake

University of Alberta

Paulette Tremblay

National Aboriginal Health Organization

Yvonne Chiu

Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op

Ellen Gabriel

Quebec Native Womens Inc

Joan Forgeron

Royal Alexandra Hospital

Canada currently experiences large-scale immigration and increasing ethnocultural diversity. Both immigrant and Aboriginal women may be regarded as vulnerable populations, as difficulties can exist with access to and navigation of health services and more specifically maternity care services. Challenges to overcome may include poor access to culturally appropriate care, ineffective cross-language/communication, and discriminatory practices. A recent quantitative survey of maternity care services failed to provide representative data from immigrant and Aboriginal women. Our multidisciplinary and multicultural team asks “What are the experiences of immigrant and Aboriginal women of maternity care services in Canada?” Particular focus will be placed on accessibility of service and acceptability of care and support, both as perceived and experienced by immigrant and Aboriginal women, as well as birth and postnatal outcomes. A previous scoping review illustrated the heterogeneous nature of the methodological approaches, which mitigates use of a meta-ethnographical approach. A narrative synthesis was thus chosen, utilizing Popay's approach, which relies primarily on the use of words/text to summarize and explain findings, and focuses on four fundamental precepts, including

• (a)

  developing a theory of why and for whom (mapping evidence, appraising study quality),

• (b)

  developing a preliminary synthesis of findings (textual description, tabulation, grouping/clustering),

• (c)

  exploring relationships in the data (thematic analysis, ideas webbing, concept mapping), and

• (d)

  assessing the robustness of the synthesis (weight of evidence, critical reflection). We will address gaps in knowledge synthesis and translation and generate new interpretations of research findings to shape improvements to maternity services provision.

How to Organize Teachers' Learning Activities in a Web2.0 Community Based on Teachers' Awareness

Wenxia Kang

Beijing Normal University

This study focuses on the organizational strategies of teachers' learning activities in Web2.0 learning community. The form of the strategies is based on participant teachers' awareness in the learning process, including social awareness, task awareness, concept awareness, and workspace awareness. The whole study is based on the teachers' learning community “Sociallearnlab”, which is a nonprofit and nongovernment online community based on Web2.0 networks, sponsored by Doctor Xiuli Zhuang of Beijing Normal University, built in 2007 and it aims in improving China's education and helping teachers solve problems. After each task, the participants will do a questionnaire about the organization and some high-rated participants will take an interview about their awareness of the task design and the organization and their suggestions on how the organizers can improve the case. After that, the organizers will improve the organizational methods according to participants' feedback. After three trials of improvement, the relatively effective organizational strategies will be obtained. The research questions are:

1. What is participant teachers' awareness of learning in Web2.0 networks?

2. What problems do they meet in the web2.0 learning community?

3. How to organize teachers' learning activities effectively according to their awareness?

The Experience of a Female Street Sex Worker

Laura Klubben

University of British Columbia

Using a phenomenological methodology and a participatory approach, I will explore the experience of being a female street sex worker in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The field of counseling psychology could largely benefit from this study because we currently know little about the experience of being a female sex worker (FSW) and having this knowledge would largely enhance counselors' abilities to develop appropriate therapeutic approaches so that they could work with this population more effectively. A major problem to consider when researching an underserved population like FSWs is how to research such a group in a way that benefits the participants in addition to the researcher. Thus, I intend to “hire” 5 to 6 FSWs aged 19 and above to be both my research assistants and my participants. As my participants they will tell or write about their experience of being a FSW, and as my research assistants they will collaborate with me to determine the common themes or the essence of being a FSW. In the end I plan to not only publish a version of this study in a more literary form so that those FSW who are literate could read the narrative, but, also, since many FSWs are illiterate, I would like to audio record my publication and distribute the recordings to agencies that work with FSWs. I believe that FSWs could benefit from hearing others' stories by possibly being able to understand more about their lives while perhaps seeing connections between their thoughts and experiences and those of others.

Therapeutic Side Effects of Interviews Dealing With Silenced Issues

Hanne Konradsen

Gentofte University Hospital

Participation in research projects which include qualitative interviews as part of data collection can often be a positive experience for the participants, as it is an opportunity to tell ones story and express one's feelings. It has, however, been argued that potential dangers include the risk that the participant might confuse the interview with a therapeutic encounter and that the growing intimacy between researcher and participant might link the participant emotionally to the interviewer. In a longitudinal study of facial disfigurement, participants surprisingly expressed benefits from their participation which went beyond the scope of what could be expected. Since participation was beneficial to the participants this can both teach us that a nursing intervention is needed to help patients adjust to disfigurement, and indicate the possible clinical effective components of such an intervention learned from the research interview. Unintended, something was offered that helped the patients. It was found that the mere action of obtaining informed consent could trigger reflection by the participants, and that this reflection could continue during the repeated interviews. A close relationship is necessary to obtain access to personal information, whereby the researcher becomes a familiar person, and the level of intimacy between the researcher and participant is increased. The effect was related to the longitudinal design of the study and the interactions between the researcher and the patient, the relationship between the researcher and the patient that emerged during the research, and the communication about an otherwise silenced issue.

Living Within an Emancipatory Curriculum: An Ethnomethodological Inquiry

Maureen Makepeace-Dore

University of British Columbia Okanagan

Historically, nursing education has been delivered using models focused on training rather than educating students to critically know, be and do. One particular nursing curriculum termed “emancipatory”, is meant to liberate students and faculty from the authoritarian restraints of empiricist/behaviorist models. The curriculum is based on the philosophical tenets of critical and feminist-informed pedagogy. Students interact within a climate of empowerment and emancipation, supporting empowered learning, thereby facilitating clients to make informed choices for their own health care. Critique and praxis (reflection-inaction) are the processes used to grapple with underlying assumptions which can perpetuate traditional practices leading to injustice and the hegemony that helps maintain the dominant dogmas in society. The proposed inquiry will explore how nurse educators live within this emancipatory curriculum. Ethnomethodology informed by a critical feminist lens will be used to clarify their experiences. How do nurse educators socially construct their everyday knowledge as commonsense understandings to help them make sense of their realities? Accessing the meanings tied to contexts in which nurse educators teach can be explicated by understanding their actions. Working with the meanings nurse educators construct, resist, or dismiss about their worlds will facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the experiences. Tensions, contradictions, and ideological influences implicated in the enactment of critical pedagogical approaches may be illuminated during the process. The researcher as insider participant and the participants teach in a partnership of schools offering this curriculum. Feminist theory and epistemology will inform the research method from an ethical and collaborative perspective.

Analyzing Interview Data From Multiple Interview Types: Focus Group/Individual/Couple

Deborah Messecar

Oregon Health & Science University

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe veterans' and families' perceptions of their experience with family reintegration and the challenges reintegration presents among Guard members deployed since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Methods: Participants included both National Guard members and/or family members of guardsmen deployed since 2001. Data from focus group, couple, and individual interviews were used to address the aims of the study. All interviews were conducted face-to-face and lasted on average 90 minutes per session. Data have been collected from a total of 45 participants, 26 Guard members and 19 family members. NVivo 8 was used to analyze the interview data. Charmaz's (2006) approach to coding data was used to organize and categorize the findings. Results: Preliminary findings suggest that there are several skills that members develop while deployed, that then interfere with their ability to resume family life when they return home. These skills included seeking safety, getting things done in a hurry, expecting unilateral decision making, ensuring predictability in the environment, and stuffing emotions in order to get the job done. The objectives in this presentation are to describe the challenges the researcher faced in trying to analyze data from different interview types to describe how families face reintegration. Several strategies for organizing and analyzing data using NVivo 8 will be presented in the poster.

The Ethics Approval Process: Inclusion or Exclusion of People With Developmental Disabilities

Lee Murray

University of Saskatchewan

I used autoethnography as methodology to explore and disturb the normative discourse of mothering. My four children were characters in my story. The ethics approval was difficult and challenging and the fact that my youngest son, Jordan, is Down's syndrome complicated the process. If we restrict research involving people with cognitive challenges, one of the most vulnerable populations will be denied the possible benefits of research. The Tri-Council Policy Statement indicates that strict application of the principles of free and informed consent would deny incompetent individuals many of the benefits of research participation, either directly or indirectly. In a sense, such beneficence-based reasoning and practices intentionally exclude certain groups from research. In attempting to avoid the moral problem of exploiting vulnerable research subjects, such practices may incur the moral problem that individuals in need of the benefits of research may be denied them (p. 5.1). According to distributive justice, individuals and groups should neither bear unfair burdens of participating in research nor be unfairly excluded from the potential benefits of inclusion. This paper will address the specific ethical issues related to research participants with a developmental disability and advocate for a balance between the vulnerability that arises from their disability and the injustice that would arise from their exclusion from the benefits of research. The paper will also include excerpts from my autoethnographic story about negotiating this issue with the ethics approval committee.

The Meanings of Constructing One's Life-Story: An Attempt at Collaboratively Analyzing the Process of an Autoethnographic Project

Masahiro Nochi

The University of Tokyo

This research explores the meanings of constructing one's life-story through collaboratively analyzing the process of an autoethnographic project. The person who launched the project was a woman in her 20s whose sister had sustained intellectual and physical disabilities from a cerebral palsy. As a graduate student of clinical psychology she wanted to review her life through this project, considering the relationship with her sister. The researcher played a role of the listener of her accounts and helped her clarify their meanings in the eight sessions, which amounted to almost 12 hours in total. In the sessions, she talked not only about her life-story but also about her reflective comments on the sessions. Most sessions were recorded with an IC recorder or a video camera, and the data were transcribed and analyzed in collaboration with the researcher and the narrator. The analysis sessions were also recorded for further examination of the interaction between the narrator and the listener. The findings are that (a) when she apparently succeeded in finding a theme for her self-narratives, an alternative theme was often emerged; (b) her bodily change, such as shedding tears, may have played a role in her getting aware of an alternative theme; and (c) the narrator's narratives and bodily expressions became objects to the narrator herself in the presence of the listener, and seemed to drive her to make an alternative narrative.

Proximity and Professionalism in Child Welfare Work

Carolyn Oliver

University of British Columbia

How do child welfare social workers navigate the complex issue of proximity and professional distance in their relationships with clients? How does the approach they take to the client relationship affect their sense of effectiveness and engagement with the work? Child welfare clients say they want relationships with their social workers to be characterized by closeness, authenticity and empathy. This is the model increasingly promoted in the child welfare literature, as strength-based approaches resituate the caring relationship as central to effective practice. Indeed, the empathic connection is posited as a route not only to effective intervention but also to professional resilience. However, the dominant child welfare discourse of managerialism privileges functional efficiency over compassionate relationships. Professional distance is seen as a protective strategy in a field where empathy can be a pathway to personal depletion. In high-stress child welfare environments cognitive shortcuts like pattern recognition and global relational models may have greater influence than professional messages on the kinds of relationships workers have the desire and capacity to pursue. I propose to use grounded theory within a critical realist framework to understand the content, sources, and consequences of the beliefs child welfare workers hold about relationships with clients. In doing so, I take a new approach to a pressing practice issue, seeking to challenge counterproductive discourses and to offer frontline workers theory to illuminate their own pathways to professional resilience.

Challenges Faced by Counselors in Supporting Postsecondary Students Who Experience Mental Health Difficulties: Results of a Qualitative Inquiry

Janki Shankar

University of Calgary

Ernest Khalema

University of Calgary

Rossalyn Zulla

University of Alberta

Gavin Lam

University of Calgary

Although increasing numbers of students who experience mental illness related disabilities are enrolling in post secondary education, research shows that course completion rates of these students is lower than all other disability groups. A review of literature shows that despite an increased awareness about mental illness among educators and administrators, postsecondary institutions are struggling with how best to meet the needs of these students (Collins & Mowbray, 2005). Most studies that have attempted to examine the support needs of these students have focused on internal factors such as the illness and related symptoms and the accommodations they will need. There is little research on external systemic factors such as the constraints faced by counselors in their attempts to support these students. This study employed a qualitative approach to examine the perspectives of counselors about the challenges they face in meeting the needs of these students. Specifically the study set out to explore the following questions (a) What are the kinds of supports these students need? (b) To what extent are counselors able to meet the support needs of these students? and (c) What challenges do counselors face in meeting the needs of these students. Ten counselors from colleges across Alberta were interviewed in depth over the telephone. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Findings suggest that counselors' capacity to support these students through their study is dependent on the availability of a host of other factors not related to the student's illness or disability.

Video Self-Confrontation as a Qualitative Psychotherapy Process Research Method

Krista Socholotiuk

University of British Columbia

Kristen Foulkes

University of British Columbia

Carla Haber

University of British Columbia

Laura Klubben

University of British Columbia

Celine Lee

University of British Columbia

Sheila Marshall

University of British Columbia

Filomena Parada

University of British Columbia

Carey Penner

University of British Columbia

Richard Young

University of British Columbia

One of the ongoing challenges of psychotherapy process research is to access the client's and therapist's internal processes, that is, their thoughts and feelings, that regulate the therapy process. The self-confrontation interview is a qualitative data gathering procedure that, when associated with the action-project method, enables a deep understanding of a client's and counselor's internal experiences, along with a rare aperture into the therapeutic process as it unfolds. In this procedure, data is gathered by playing back a video of the action (e.g., portions of the session) with both the counselor and the client individually. A researcher guides the individual to reflect on the thoughts and feelings experienced during the segments of the session being viewed. The self-confrontation interview has similarities with interpersonal process recall, in that both provide access to participant's internal experiences as close to the moment of interaction as possible. The self-confrontation is distinct, however, in that (a) it also focuses on participants' motivational structures, (b) social-meaning data is also gathered by referring to the meaning of the observed action, and (c) it is conceptually based as a research method rather than a therapy training method. This method has been used with 37 counseling sessions for 12 young adult clients in a counseling research study. In this presentation we identify and illustrate its benefits as a psychotherapy process research method, such as allowing researchers to understand how the therapy process functions as a joint goal-directed process that is regulated by the internal processes of therapist and client.

Being With and Being Without Children, a Complex Narrative: The Mothering Experience—Methamphetamine Users in Therapeutic Drug Court

Roxanne Vandermause

Washington State University

Billie Severtsen

Washington State University

John Roll

Washington State University

Sandra Altshuler

Spokane County Superior Court

Rachel Baker

North East Washington Treatment Alternatives

A team of phenomenological researchers examined mothering experiences of substance-abusing women who had successfully completed a therapeutic drug court intervention. Specific study aims were to generate an interpretation of the meaning of mothering for these clients, to identify facilitators and barriers to successful parenting and to determine interventions that support recovery. The study was nested in a larger collaborative research effort examining the efficacy of therapeutic drug courts in the community. Five therapeutic drug court graduates with minor children and 3 counselors working with this population were interviewed using the classic hermeneutic methodology of transcribed audio recorded 1:1 interviews followed by multilayered interpretive analysis. The question initiating the interviews was: Please tell me about your experience as a therapeutic drug court graduate and a mother. Is there a story or situation that stands out for you about that? Preliminary emerged patterns and themes revolved around the mothers' painful stories of falling into addiction, the lengthy process of developing a new story of change incorporating mothering practices, and implications for future scholarship. Children are always an integral part of all the stories, whether or not they live with their mothers. Reformatting a new “clean and sober” story requires a paradigm shift in the thinking of the study participants. The therapeutic drug court provides the structure and resources for initiating this shift. These meaning filled experiences of mothering need to be taught in academic and healthcare settings to increase deeper understandings of the complexity of this phenomenon.

Narrative Inquiry: The Identity of a Blind Lesbian

Ching-Ju Wang

National Hai-san Industrial Vocational High School

Chwen-Jen Lin

Taipei Physical Education College

Li-chuan Kao

Taipei Physical Education College

“Narrative inquiry is a way of thinking of experience.” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The purpose of this study was to explore the process of the blind lesbian identity by narrative inquiry. The research participant, Doraemon (pseudonym), was born as blind. We collected data mainly by in-depth interviews, documents, and records, like letters, blogs and so on. Analysis methods were based on Labov's orientation of structure. We assigned numbers to each sentence, which was divided into an abstract, orientation, and complicate action as different functions. There were four themes emerged in the data: the exploration, the ups and downs with the partner, the dilemma, and love. We composed each theme into three parts in which they connected her lives of experience with the conversion of the identity of a blind lesbian including the situation resulting in changing and accompanying the joy and sadness. In addition to personal background, Doraemon's blog, Time Machine, was used to show the sequence of her identification. The results showed that the process of identification was not smooth but being blind leading to lack of information which affected the development of the process of identification. In addition the participant's family opposition or frustrations might change the process. Finally, we offered advice to blind lesbians, their families, and organizations of education.

Chinese Graduate Students' Experience of Sino-Foreign Faculty Collaborative Teaching

Peili Wang

Institute of Higher Education

Yujing Xiang

Institute of Higher Education

Based on a case study about a graduate course jointly delivered by faculty members from a Chinese university and an overseas university, the paper explored teaching effectiveness of the course through interviews with students, class observation, and document analysis of the teachers and students' e-mails. We come to the following conclusions: This international collaborative course is a successful teaching practice; it creates a real North American classroom teaching environment, enhances students' abilities of reviewing literature and writing proposals. The two teachers' hard work, the teaching content and methods are highly appreciated by most students. What need to be improved is students' English proficiency, learning styles, and attitudes.

Author Index

Abramson, Beth, 455

Aglargoz, Ozan, 434

Altshuler, Sandra, 479

Angus, Jan, 455

Arikan, Arzu, 466

Badry, Dorothy, 434

Baker, Rachel, 479

Baksh-Griffin, Maureen, 457

Barbour, Rosaline, 435

Bartlett, Ruth, 435

Baumbusch, Jennifer, 436

Baumbusch, Sarah, 436

Besler, Senem, 434

Boswell, Suzanne, 457

Brady, Michelle, 437

Brayham, Angela, 437

Brown, Colin, 437

Brown, Hilary, 438

Bussing, Regina, 449

Carawan, Lena, 448

Carder, Paula.

Champe-Gibson, Erla.

Chang, Ying-Hsin, 466

Chen Shu-Chao, 467

Chen Yi-fang, 467

Cheng Wen-Yun.

Chiu, Yvonne, 472

Choe, Sukhoe, 468

Clark, Alexander M., 447, 455, 472

Cochrane, Marie, 439

Cox, Susan M., 439

Dai, Shi-Ran, 462

Dale, Craig, 455

Dassanayake, Jayantha, 472

DeLuca, Christopher, 440

Dennhardt, Silke, 440

Douglas, Elliot, 449

Doyle-Baker, P. K. (Tish), 469

Duchscher, Judy Boychuk, 441

Eaves, Yvonne, 441

Eriksson, Katie, 454

Ersoy, Ali, 469

Fleming, Susan, 465, 470

Ford, Katharine, 442

Forgeron, Joan, 472

Foster, Kim, 442

Foulkes, Kristen, 478

Frame, Tonia, 443

Fraser, Kim, 443

Frazee, Krista, 470

Gabriel, Ellen, 472

Gard, Gunvor, 463, 464

Gill, Jessica, 452

Greeff, Minrie, 444

Griffin, Meridith, 444

Gunel, Elvan, 471

Gyllensten, Amanda Lundvik, 463, 464

Haber, Carla, 478

Hancock, Stephen, 471

Harwood, Lori, 472

Hee, Lisa, 445

Higginbottom, Gina, 472

Higuchi, Machiko, 445

Jardine, Cindy, 446

Jeong, Sanghee, 446

Jubas, Kaela, 447

Kang, Wenxia, 473

Kao Li-chuan, 467, 479

Karimi-Dehkordi, Mehri, 447

Karlos, Angie, 469

Kenney, Christine, 472

Khalema, Ernest, 477

Khan, Samia, 448

Klubben, Laura, 473, 478

Knight, Sharon, 448

Konradsen, Hanne, 474

Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka, 449

Kramer-Kile, Marnie, 455

Krueger, Guenther, 450

Lafreniere, Darquise, 439

Lai Cheng-Hsiu, 466

Lam, Gavin, 477

Lapum, Jennifer, 455

Lauterbach, Alexandra A., 450, 451

Lauterbach, Sarah Steen, 451

Lee, Celine, 478

Liamputtong, Pranee, 452

Lin Chwen-Jen, 479

Lin, Hsi-Po, 462

Lyons, Kimberly, 437

Madjar, Irena, 452

Makepeace-Dore, Maureen, 474

Malcolm, Zaria, 449

Marshall, Sheila, 478

Marzolini, Susan, 455

Matilainen, Dahly, 454

McClunie-Trust, Patricia, 452

McKinley, Elizabeth, 452

Messecar, Deborah, 475

Mirzaee, Vanesa, 448

Moll, Laura, 453

Morgan, Myfanwy, 472

Murray, Kathryn, 469

Murray, Lee, 453, 475

Nielsen, Guri Brit, 454

Nochi, Masahiro, 476

Oh, Paul, 455

Oliver, Carolyn, 476

Ong, Beng Kok, 454

Parada, Filomena, 478

Penner, Carey, 478

Phinney, Alison, 436

Phoenix, Cassie, 444

Poole, Nancy, 434

Price, Jennifer, 455

Pritlove, Cheryl, 455

Raij, Katariina, 456

Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl, 439

Roll, John, 479

Rose, Emma, 456

Sametband, Ines, 458

Seo, Bosu, 468

Seto, Lisa, 455

Severtsen, Billie, 465, 479

Shankar, Janki, 477

Sharpe, Hillary, 458

Socholotiuk, Krista, 478

Speraw, Susan, 457

Strong, Tom, 458

Swanson, Dalene, 458

Taylor, Jackie, 459

Therriault, David, 449

Thomas, Alison, 459

Townsend, Susan, 460

Tremblay, Paulette, 472

Tricarico, Katie, 451

Trutschel, Brian, 450

Turpin, Merrill, 460

Uzuner, Yildiz, 434

Van Vliet, K. Jessica, 461

Vandermause, Roxanne, 465, 479

VanWynsberghe, Robert, 448

Waltrip, Laura, 451

Wang Ching-Ju, 479

Wang, Peili, 480

Wiltse, Lynne, 461

Wolfs, Dorolen, 439

Xiang, Yujing, 480

Yeh I-Ting, 466

Yeh, Hsin-Hung, 462

Yeh, I-Ting, 462

Young, Richard, 478

Zeytinoglu, Gunes, 434

Zuberi, Daniyal, 462

Zulla, Rossalyn, 477