Abstract
This ‘A Qualitative Space’ article takes a critical look at Dorothy Smith’s approach to inquiry known as institutional ethnography and its potentiality in contemporary health professions education research. We delve into institutional ethnography’s philosophical underpinnings, setting out the ontological shift that the researcher needs to make within this critical feminist approach. We use examples of research into frontline healthcare, into the health work of patients and into education to allow the reader to consider what an institutional ethnography research project might offer. We lay out our vision for potential growth for institutional ethnography research within the health professions education field and explain why we see this as the opportune moment to adopt institutional ethnography to meet some of the challenges facing health professions education in a way that offers informed change.
Highlights
Having embraced, adopted and adapted from many longestablished research disciplines including sociology, psychology and education, health professions education (HPE) research has become a research field in its own right
We wrote this article in light of our desire to elucidate institutional ethnography as a theory/methodology of discovery that has much to offer HPE and to encourage its use
We argued that institutional ethnography is well-suited to empirically examine a variety of topics of interest to HPE researchers, ranging from what HPE looks like in practice based on a diversity of standpoints (e. g. students, teachers, etc.) to the ever-changing institutional environment of HPE and how such changes areorganizing the work of those on the frontlines of HPE
Summary
Having embraced, adopted and adapted from many longestablished research disciplines including sociology, psychology and education, health professions education (HPE) research has become a research field in its own right. Use of institutional ethnography has prospered in clinical healthcare research, in nursing, as well as in social work and education, bringing about useful insights and tangible change for frontline workers [1, 2].
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