Category / Communities, Cultures and Conflicts

I like a good spreadsheet!

I’m Sharon Docherty and I have just joined the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) team as a Research Fellow in Quantitative Methods. My background is in Biology with a particular interest in Physiology and I’ve been involved in clinical research for the past 12 years. I also have lots of experience working with large datasets (too many years to think about) and love trying to figure out the best way of presenting results.

My main area of research interest is looking at the effects of clinical conditions (neck pain, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes) on people’s perception of vertical. How we perceive upright is dependent on our brain’s ability to integrate visual, vestibular (inner ear) and proprioceptive (positioning of joints) information. When the information from one of these systems is faulty, the brain has to overcome this by relying on signals from the other sources. This could lead to problems such as an increased risk of falling.

Some of you may already know me as I have taught across various programmes (Anatomy and Physiology, Research Methodology) within Health and Social Sciences. I’m also one of the co-founders and organisers of Bournemouth Café Scientifique, a public engagement forum for discussing scientific ideas.

So what will I be doing? As a member of the BUCRU team I am here to help you with any health related research you may be doing/thinking about doing. In particular, I can help with the design of quantitative studies as well as what to do with the collected data. I am also here to support you with developing grant proposals. You can find me on the 5th floor of Royal London House or email me sdocherty@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Mental health & maternity care in Nepal: THET-funded training

international, open access

group work NawalparasiIMG_6649

A few days I posted a short report of our first session as part of the THET-funded project ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’, see this previous post here.  Yesterday we completed the final third day training of the first session of this BU-led project.  Over three days we had 70 ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) in attendance, which we think is (nearly) all such staff based in all birthing centres in the district (=province).  The three days were the same, i.e. each session was repeated twice so each day one third of the ANMs could attend, and two-third could be at work in the birthing centre ensuring women could deliver safely.

logo THETAs part of this project we send UK volunteers (health and/or education) experts to Nepal to offer high quality training in areas where it is most needed.  Further detail on this BU-led THET project can be found in our scientific paper Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal  published in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology available through Open Access.  Mental illness is still very much a taboo topic in Nepal as it has often a serious stigma attached to it.  Moreover, the relatively short training of ANMs is often fairly basic and the national curriculum does not cover mental health issues in any detail.  This joint project between Bournemouth University, Liverpool John Mooores University, Tribhuvan University and the local charity Green Tata Nepal addresses issues about mental health in general and in pregnant women and new mothers in particular.  Tribhuvan University is the oldest university in Nepal and one of the ten largest universities in the world (based on student numbers).  The project is multi-disciplinary involving midwives, (mental health) nurses, and doctors as well as global health researchers, educationalists and sociologists.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

Mixed methods: not without its downside?

REF Subjects

Prof Edwin van Teijlingen

Conducting mixed-methods research has become very popular over the past decade especially in the health research field.1-4 This development ties in with the growth in inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research. Many grant applications, PhD project and the resulting papers especially in the health field apply a mixed-methods approach, where in the past a single approach would have dominated.   This interest in combining methods seems to be the case even in the more traditional quantitative field of clinical effectiveness and randomised controlled trials. Whilst I find this development encouraging as a mixed-methods social scientist, it also makes me wonder whether the applicants putting forward a mixed-methods project have thought about the disadvantages or at least the opportunity costs of using such approach.

A mixed-methods approach is ‘simply’ combining two or more research methods to address a research question, i.e. what the label suggests. It is often perceived as the combining of qualitative with quantitative methods, but it can technically also be a mix of quantitative methods or a combination of qualitative methods. The advantage of a mixed-methods approach is that the different methods in the mix address different aspects of the research question and that combining these methods offers a synergetic effect. So what are the possible limitations of or barriers to mixed-methods research?

First, using a mixed-methods approach means you need an understanding of two different philosophies and how to bring the findings of these two different methods together.4-6   One requires expertise in two different research approaches, either as individual or in the team as well as someone who can do the combining of the findings. For the latter you really need someone in the team who understand the pragmatic approach commonly used in mixed-methods approaches. Otherwise there is a great risk that the original mixed-methods study will be analysed and reported as two or more separate papers each based on data from one of the methods applied in the mixed-methods study.

Secondly, you can spend your money only once, hence there are opportunity costs. Thus if the maximum grant is £200,000 or £300,000 you can’t spend the full amount on the designing a large-scale quantitative study/survey, as you need to spend a proportion of your money and your attention and time on your qualitative study.

Thirdly, and related the above, both quantitative and qualitative methods have ‘rules’ about sampling and sample-size.5 Just because you have two methods this does not mean you can necessarily do a study with a smaller sample. The sample size calculations will still say you need at least xxx participants. Similarly, although perhaps not so rigidly you need a certain number of interviews or focus groups to do you qualitative study appropriately.

Fourthly, a common mistake seems to be to add a bit of qualitative research to a larger quantitative study, perhaps a bit tokenistic.7 Often it is so obvious in a grant application that the qualitative research is an add-on, an afterthought perhaps from a reviewer in the previous failed grant application.

Finally, not all mixed-methods studies are the same, in fact each mixed-methods study is more or less unique in the way in the way it mixes and matched individual research methods.3 So although mixed-methods may be the best way to address a particular research question, your particular proposed mixed of quantitative and qualitative research might not be the most appropriate to answer the overall research question.8

As with all research methods and research proposals my recommendation is if in doubt go and find an expert for advice.6 If necessary get an expert on your team of researchers to strengthen your application.

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1.  Barbour, R.S. (1999) The case of combining qualitative and quantitative approaches in health services research. Journal of Health Services Research Policy, 4(1): 39-43.
  2. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Wasti, S.P., Sathian, B. (2014) Mixed-methods approaches in health research in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 415-416.
  3. Plano Clark, V.L., Anderson, N., Wertz, J.A., Zhou, Y., Schumacher, K., Miaskowski, C. (2015) Conceptualizing Longitudinal Mixed Methods Designs: A Methodological Review of Health Sciences Research, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 9: 297-319.
  4. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. Pitchforth, E. (2014) Advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 417-422. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/12018/9768
  5. Bryman, A. (1988) Quality and Quantity in Social Research, London: Routledge
  6. Bazeley, P. (2003) Teaching mixed methods. Qualitative Research Journal, 4: 117-126.
  7. Maxwell, J.A. (2016) Expanding the History and Range of Mixed Methods Research, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 10: 12-27.
  8. Brannen, J. (2005) Mixing methods: The entry of qualitative & quantitative approaches into the research process. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8(3): 173-85.

 

HSS Writing Week 4th-8th January – How can Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit support you?

writing

bucru identity

The Faculty of Health and Social Sciences is holding a Writing Week between 4th-8th January 2016 aimed at supporting staff to find time in their busy academic diaries to prioritise writing grant applications and papers for publication.

The Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit offers methodological and statistical collaboration for all healthcare researchers in the area. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across Bournemouth University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It incorporates the Dorset office of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service who offer free methodological support to researchers who are developing research ideas in the field of health and social care.

BUCRU will be supporting Writing Week in HSS by holding two drop-in sessions on Tuesday 5th January and Thursday 7th January 12-2pm in R508 Royal London House. We would also like to extend the invitation across the other Faculties for anyone who feels we may be able to support them. For those unable to attend the drop-in sessions, we would be delighted to arrange an alternative appointment.

Please see further information here, contact our adminstrator Louise Ward on 01202 961939 / bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk or visit our website. We look forward to seeing you!

FMC Research Seminar: Adapting to dominant news narratives: tax ‘fairness’ as a Trojan horse for anti-austerity politics: Wednesday, 9 December, 3-4pm, Room W240

FMC Cross-Departmental Seminar Series 2015-16

Time: Wednesday, 9th December, 3-4 pm

Venue: The Screening Room W240, Weymouth House, Talbot Campus. 

Adapting to dominant news narratives: tax ‘fairness’ as a Trojan horse for anti-austerity politics

Over the past five years the issue of tax avoidance has broken through into mainstream news media and public debate, after many years in which the campaigning efforts of NGOs, trade unions and a few investigative journalists were met largely with indifference.  Protest group UK Uncut have been widely credited with increasing public engagement in the issue.  News routines are less reliant on official and elite sources than in the past, and protesters less universally delegitimised in dominant news discourse, but the political claims of social movements still tend to be neglected or reduced to vague or naive opposition.  UK Uncut were conscious of the common pitfalls and attempted to fit their own framing of the issue into existing news frames.  In presenting a practical alternative to cuts, they hoped to substantiate an argument against the broadly accepted ‘necessity’ of public spending cuts, smuggling an oppositional claim inside a familiar narrative.

Their framing of the issue in terms of compromised political interests and ‘fairness to taxpayers’ fitted with dominant news narratives and was widely adopted by other sources, including the Public Accounts Committee, and by journalists, but generally in terms of individual and organisational wrongdoing and self-interest rather as a systemic critique.  This did little to challenge or disrupt the overarching dominant narrative of fiscal crisis, necessary cuts, and even of fair tax as low tax.  However, the playful performativity of the protests themselves – although part of an activist repertoire, risking distancing themselves from the mainstream – were successful in achieving some limited press coverage of the cuts that they claimed could be prevented by corporations paying their ‘fair share’, but those arguments were not picked up by other voices.

This paper analyses the extent to which this ‘adaptation’ approach to news framing (Rucht 2013) or intervention in dominant narratives (Hirschkop 1998) was successful in advancing political claims and objectives, and whether this case supports the contention that strategically performative and rhetorical interventions in the public sphere can compensate for marginality and lack of discursive power.

Jen Birks is an Assistant Professor in the department of Culture, Film and Media at the University of Nottingham, where she teaches political communication and public cultures.  She is the author of News and Civil Society (Ashgate 2014).

All are welcome!!

About the series

This new seminar series showcases current research across different disciplines and approaches within the Faculty of Media and Communication at BU. The research seminars include invited speakers in the fields of journalism, politics, narrative studies, media, communication and marketing studies.  The aim is to celebrate the diversity of research across departments in the faculty and also generate dialogue and discussion between those areas of research.

 

Contributions include speakers on behalf of 

The Centre for Politics and Media Research

The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community

Narrative Research Group

Journalism Research Group

Advances in Media Management Research Group

Emerging Consumer Cultures Research Group

Public Relations Research Group

Bull run – archive research and lectures in Pamplona

international, Research assessment

Pamplona in the Spanish province of Navarra is renowned for the annual Running of the Bulls, popularised by Ernest Hemingway, and as being on the path of the Camino de Santiago. It is also home to the Universidad de Navarra whose Faculty of Communication has two strong links to BU.

Associate Professor John Oliver of the Faculty of Media & Communication (FMC) is one of the leaders of the European Media Management Association (EMMA) which is very active in Pamplona and includes the university’s President. Professor Tom Watson of FMC collaborates with public relations historian Dr Natalia Rodriguez-Salcedo, a regular participant in the International History of Public Relations Conference held each year at BU.

From November 23-27, Professor Watson visited the Pamplona university and spent time in its excellent archive researching the development of public relations education policies by European professional bodies from the 1950s to 1980.

“Dr Rodriguez-Salcedo has catalogued the records of pioneer Spanish practitioner, Joaquin Maestre Mora, who was very active in the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) from the 1960s to 1980s,” he said. ‘This links with BU’s own IPRA archive. My Spanish colleague investigated IPRA archive in 2014 and identified gaps in our files that could be filled from the Maestre archive.”

The investigations of both archives have led to journal articles and conference presentations by the two researchers, with another paper to come in 2016. “As archives are digitised, access to this basic material of communication history research will become easier but there is still nothing like leafing through paper files and finding the unexpected,” said Professor Watson.

While at the Universidad de Navarra, he gave guest lectures to UG and PG students on management of corporate communication, crisis management and the measurement and evaluation of public relations. Professor Watson also discussed current developments in research assessment with staff in the Faculty of Communication.

Professor Tom Watson addressing the CorpComClub at Universidad de Navarra

Professor Tom Watson addressing the CorpComClub at Universidad de Navarra

HSS Writing Week 4th-8th January – How can Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit support you?

Publishing, writing

bucru identity

The Faculty of Health and Social Sciences is holding a Writing Week between 4th-8th January 2016 aimed at supporting staff to find time in their busy academic diaries to prioritise writing grant applications and papers for publication.

The Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit offers methodological and statistical collaboration for all healthcare researchers in the area. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across Bournemouth University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It incorporates the Dorset office of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service who offer free methodological support to researchers who are developing research ideas in the field of health and social care.

BUCRU will be supporting Writing Week in HSS by holding two drop-in sessions on Tuesday 5th January and Thursday 7th January 12-2pm in R508 Royal London House. We would also like to extend the invitation across the other Faculties for anyone who feels we may be able to support them. For those unable to attend the drop-in sessions, we would be delighted to arrange an alternative appointment.

Please see further information here, contact our adminstrator Louise Ward on 01202 961939 / bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk or visit our website. We look forward to seeing you!

Connecting histories of welfare

Fusion

Profs Jonathan Parker and Sara Ashencaen Crabtree undertook their annual field trip to Sherborne Abbey and St Johns’ Almshouse (Yes! The apostrophe’s in the right place, it refers to two Johns.) on Monday. The trip is held for Sociology & Social Policy students studying the histories of social welfare.

This year was particularly valuable as the students are producing group narratives concerning a range of characters and scenarios from history involving research into policy, legislation and practices to contextualise their stories. Seeing at least six hundred years of active community welfare and care through the almshouses, and tracing back Sherborne’s history to the time of Alfred the Great – who initiated a precursor to the poor laws for his people – the students were able to see the lived experiences and histories written about in their own research. This was brought sharply into the present day when it was revealed that the Sherborne foodbank programme serving a population of little over 10,000 people is delivering in excess of 1,000 food parcels each year! Students gained great insight into the connecting strands of welfare at formal and informal, state and charitable/third sector levels.

Sherborne