Category / Sociology & Social Policy

Positionality in qualitative research

At the online editorial board meeting today [Saturday 29th June] of the Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology I had the pleasure of seeing Bournemouth University’s latest paper ‘The Importance of Positionality for Qualitative Researchers‘ ahead of publication [1].  The lead author of this paper is Hannah Gurr and this methodology paper is part of her M.Res. research project in Social Work.  Hannah is supervised by Dr. Louise Oliver, Dr. Orlanda Harvey and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS).

Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology is a Gold Open Access journal so when it appears online it will be free to read for anybody across the globe.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Reference:

  1. Gurr, H., Oliver, L., Harvey, O., Subedi, M.van Teijlingen, E. (2024) The Importance of Positionality for Qualitative Researchers, Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology 18 (1): 48-54.

FHSS academics’ paper cited 1,000 times

This morning ResearchGate alerted us that our paper published two decades ago ‘The Importance of Pilot Studies’ has now been cited one thousand times [1].  This methods paper in the Nursing Standard is very often used by authors quoting a  paper in their research methods section when they have done pilot or feasibility study for a larger-scale study. This paper is also our second top cited paper with 1,982 citations on Google Scholar and, interestingly enough, on SCOPUS it is not listed at all.

Pilot studies are a crucial element of a good study design. Conducting a pilot study does not guarantee success in the main study, but it does increase the likelihood of success. Pilot studies fulfill a range of important functions and can provide valuable insights for other researchers. There is a need for more discussion among researchers of both the process and outcomes of pilot studies. 

This paper is one of several methods paper focusing on pilot studies we have published over the past 22 years [2-7].

 

Professors Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2002) ‘The importance of pilot studies’ Nursing Standard 16(40): 33-36. Web: nursing-standard.co.uk/archives/vol16-40/pdfs/vol16w40p3336.pdf
  2. van Teijlingen E, Rennie, AM., Hundley, V, Graham, W. (2001) The importance of conducting & reporting pilot studies: example of Scottish Births Survey, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 34: 289-95.
  3. Simkhada, P, Bhatta, P., van Teijlingen E (2006) Importance of piloting questionnaire on sexual health research (Letter), Wilderness & Environmental Medical Journal, 17(4): 295-96. wemjournal.org/wmsonline/?request=get-document&issn=1080-6032&volume=017&issue=04&page=0295#Ref
  4. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2001) The importance of pilot studies, Social Research Update Issue 35, (Editor N. Gilbert), Guildford: University of Surrey.  Web:  http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU35.html
  5. Hundley, V., van Teijlingen E. (2002) The role of pilot studies in midwifery research RCM Midwives Journal 5(11): 372-74.
  6. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2005) Pilot studies in family planning & reproductive health care, Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 31(3): 219-21.
  7. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2003) Pilot study, In: Encyclopaedia of Social Science Research Methods, Vol. 2, Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. & Liao, T. (eds.), Orego, Sage: 823-24.

 

Paper with 160,000 reads

Occasionally we have the pleasure to announce that one of our papers has been read 300 times or 2,000 times or has been cited 40 times.  However, some papers are in a different category.  Today ResearchGate informed us  that our 2002 paper ‘The Importance of Pilot Studies’ [1] has been read 160,000 times.  This paper was written over two decades ago and submitted to the Nursing Standard when we were both still at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

 

Profs. Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)

 

Reference:

  1. van Teijlingen, E, Hundley, V (2002) The Importance of Pilot Studies, Nursing Standard, 16(40):33-6

Fifteen years at BU

Fifteen years ago I started as a professor in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences.  I have had three different job titles without moving jobs, starting in 2009 with ‘Professor of Maternal & Perinatal Health Research’, which, after a few years, changed to ‘Professor of Reproductive Health Research,’ and again then a few years later dropping the ‘Research’ to my current title of ‘Professor of Reproductive Health’.  During these 15 years there have been major changes especially in terms of research in our Faculty.  There has been a growth in quantity as well as quality as reflected in our REF scores in 2014 and 2021!  We also have a much higher proportion of staff with a PhD then when I started.  Currently, I am the Research Culture Champion for our Faculty, tasked with a small team to strengthen our research culture and profile even further.

At a personal level, I have supervised 17 PhD students to completion at BU in the past 15 years, plus an additional nine students registered elsewhere.  The latter were mainly PhD students from the University of Aberdeen whom I continued to supervise.  Interestingly, two of these Aberdeen PhD students ended up working for BU.  I counted 42 PhD viva as external examiner in this period as well as five as internal BU examiner.  Some of my experiences at BU were captured last year when I was interviewed by the editors of a sociology journal based in Nepal. [1]

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)

 

References:

  1. Subedi, M., & Khattri, M. B. (2023). Interview with Professor Edwin van Teijlingen. Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology17(01), 79–88. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v17i01.61149

Congratulation on new interdisciplinary publication

Congratulation to Dr. Orlanda Harvey (Social Work), Dr. Terri Cole (Psychology) and Dr. Jane Healy (Criminology) who in collaboration with Jade Levell, a colleague at the University of Bristol, had their article ‘Explorations of attitudes towards accessibility and accessing domestic violence and abuse (DVA) perpetrator support programmes by victim-survivors and perpetrators across five European countries’ accepted by the journal Abuse: An International Impact Journal [1].  This paper reports on an international mixed-methods study exploring victim-survivors and perpetrators’ attitudes towards perpetrator support programmes. The study includes a questionnaire survey of victim-survivors and interviews with male perpetrators conducted in five European countries.

Results showed that of the 93 victim-survivors of domestic violence and abuse, half stated they would have stayed in their relationship with perpetrators if the abuse had stopped, and a similar number reported that they believed their relationships would have been different had there been help for the perpetrator. Analysis of perpetrator interviews showed that they faced barriers to obtaining support, such as being labelled a ‘perpetrator’ which, had they been addressed, may have enhanced their engagement with services. Whilst acknowledging the need for safeguarding and justice, this paper demonstrates the importance of reflecting both victim-survivor and perpetrator needs in order for perpetrators to fully engage with support services. Moreover, it highlighted the need to address the underlying societal issues related to hegemonic masculinity, which can lead to the abuse of women being normalised and the vulnerability of men being stigmatised, through education for young people around healthy relationships.

 

Congratulations

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Reference:

Harvey H.,  Cole T., Levell, J., Healy J. (2024) ‘Explorations of attitudes towards accessibility and accessing domestic violence and abuse (DVA) perpetrator support programmes by victim-survivors and perpetrators across five European countries’Abuse: An International Impact Journal 5(1): 26-45    https://doi.org/10.37576/abuse.2024.055

Editorial accepted by Frontiers in Public Health

As part of the special issue in Frontiers in Public Health on ‘Evidence-based approaches in Aging and Public Health’ the guest editors included 15 academic papers.  These 15 contributions to the Special Issue were introduced in placed in perspective in our editorial ‘Editorial: Evidence-based approaches in Aging and Public Health[1] which was accepted for publication two days ago.   The guest editors included two Visiting Faculty to FHSS: Prof. Padam Simkhada and Dr. Brijesh Sathian.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)

Reference:

  1. Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Kabir, R., Al Hamad, H. (2024) Editorial: Evidence-based approaches in Aging and Public Health, Frontier in Public Health 12 2024 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1391432

It’s only a name…

Yesterday my co-author Dr. Orlanda Harvey received an email from a sociology journal informing her that “The below co-author name is not matching with the separate title page provided and in the submission. If Van is the middle name please update the name in the author’s account.  Name in separate title page appears as Prof Edwin van Teijlingen….Name in site appears as vanTeijlingen, EdwinPlease address the above issue before resubmitting the manuscript.”

If you have an odd name in English you will have to get used to this kind of misunderstanding.  This is the second time this is happening when submitting a paper this month!   Interestingly with a different variant of my name.  A migration and health journal  argued to me co-author that my name on ORCID was ‘Edwin van Teijlingen’ but on Scopus ‘van Teijlingen, Edwin Roland’.  the journal then asked that we change it.

To add more example on the inflexibility of online systems, my greatest surprise a few years ago was that I could not add my Dutch family name ‘van Teijlingen’ with a small ‘v’ on the online booking web pages of the Dutch airline KLM.

What’s In A Name? A name is but a name, and to quote Shakespeare: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.