Abductive Analysis Research Articles

Military Commitment and Identity as Implicit Religion: A Key to Understanding the Loss of Profundity in the Transition from Military to Civilian Life

This article is based on a rare longitudinal interview study on the transition from military to civilian life in which participants shared their experiences over the course of ten years. The challenges of transition included disconnection from a collective life that had previously offered service members identity, community, camaraderie and purpose – experiences that can be understood as the partial loss of something profound. An abductive analysis was conducted which centred on the integrating foci of commitment and the creation of a military identity derived from implicit religion. When viewed through this lens, the significance or strength of implicit religion and belief, in the context of military commitment, can be described as paramount and sacred – worthy of dying for. The findings offer a novel understanding of the profound experiences related to military communal life, purpose, and identity during active service (that is, the conceptualization as implicit religion) as well as the loss of these implicit religious elements during the transition out of military life, and how the participants have thought about and dealt with this loss in various ways.

Effects on personal and cultural wellbeing of attending free community outreach concerts given by a professional orchestra

Despite hundreds of investigations into the benefits of arts engagement for health and wellbeing, much of what we know comes from research in clinical settings, and little is understood about the positive effects of attending live musical performances. As many professional orchestras have begun re-examining their purpose and mission statements, they also seek ways to measure their impact beyond ticket sales and donations in hopes of highlighting positive effects on concertgoers and their community. The purpose of this study was to explore the impacts of a free community outreach concert series provided by a professional orchestra on individual and community wellbeing in a large city in the United States. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews, paired interviews, and a focus group with 18 participants between the ages of 18 and 77 years. Abductive analysis allowed us to consider emerging themes and pre-existing theories of wellbeing concurrently. The results showed three primary areas of impact on concert attendees’ wellbeing: emotional, social, and cultural. Concert attendance fostered positive emotional states and reduced negative emotions, led to personal feelings of connection with the orchestra and across the community, and contributed to personal- and local-cultural wellbeing. In addition to reinforcing much of the prior scholarship on the effects on wellbeing of arts participation, particularly in the emotional and social domains, the results highlight new possible connections between community outreach programs and increased cultural wellbeing.

Algorithmic Paranoia: Gig Workers' Affective Experience of Abusive Algorithmic Management

ABSTRACTAmidst the rapid rise of gig economy platforms, gig workers increasingly report feelings of mistrust, anxiety, and profound fear under opaque and abusive algorithmic management. This article introduces the concept of ‘algorithmic paranoia’ to capture the negative affective experiences stemming from workers' perceptions of algorithmic management as non‐transparent, arbitrary, and retaliatory. Drawing on the concept of organisational paranoia from sociology and organisation studies, we theorise how workers' adverse experiences breed mistrust and suspicion toward both human and nonhuman actors on the platform. This culminates in intense feelings of persecution and anticipations of harm, which workers strive to cope with through hypervigilance and self‐protective actions aimed at pre‐empting anticipated threats. Our study contributes to existing literature by emphasising the role of affect in workers' responses to algorithmic management, highlighting the self‐reinforcing dynamics among perceptions of abusive management, negative affective experiences, and preventive, self‐preserving actions. We base our findings on an abductive analysis of data from 53 in‐depth interviews with creative freelancers on gig economy platforms and conversations from an online community forum.

Latino adolescents' experiences of residential risks on social media and mental health implications.

Despite alarms raised that adolescents' social media use can aggravate the harmful impact of residential risks (e.g. local violence) to their mental health, the mechanisms are poorly understood. To better understand potential mechanisms, we interviewed Latino adolescents living in a hypersegregated U.S. city, for whom social media may aggravate existing inequalities in residential risks to their mental health. Through an abductive analysis, we identified two processes suggesting how social media can amplify the deleterious impact of residential risks to their mental health. We refer to the first as additive, whereby social media heightens awareness of residential risks. The second is extension, whereby social media lengthens one's risk awareness, speeds up potential for risk awareness and multiplies who may become aware. We found evidence suggestive of parallel processes yielding diminution, whereby social media can minimise the deleterious effects of residential risks via adding and extending exposure to mental health resources, like collective efficacy. Further, the potential for extension (to both risks and resources) appears limited because social media practices (e.g. reposting, seeking viral attention) can foster indifference. Findings suggest the need to consider how adolescents activate resources via social media to avoid overstating its negative impact on mental health.

What do older women want from a physical activity program? Stakeholder consultation to optimise design and recruitment for the Active Women over 50 trial

BackgroundEffective recruitment and retention of participants are prerequisites for high quality physical activity intervention programs and evaluation trials, but this is underreported in the literature making it difficult to identify the most promising strategies. Incorporating stakeholder feedback in the design of program components and recruitment materials can optimise recruitment reach and the engagement of participants throughout programs and trials.MethodsThe Active Women over 50 randomised controlled trial is testing a program designed to support women aged 50 + to be more physically active. To optimise program design and recruitment flyers, we conducted one focus group and 17 interviews with diverse purposively sampled women aged 50 + living in New South Wales, Australia. Women were asked to review recruitment flyers and the four proposed program components: (1) health coaching, (2) dedicated website with resources, (3) private Facebook group and (4) motivational email and SMS messages. Data analysis incorporated framework methods, deductive analysis using the Adapted Mobile App Rating Scale for evaluating websites and abductive analysis to critique the underlying program theory.ResultsFive themes were identified in relation to recruitment: I want to see (women like) myself, Keep it real, Readability is for everyone, Why should I do it? and Find us where we live. The four program components were strongly supported as a package, but were valued differently for their relative importance. Results were used to refine the health coaching scheduling; website appearance and content; promotion and moderation of the Facebook group; and the structure, appearance and content of messages. Not all suggestions were actionable due to technological and time constraints, and the desire to keep program costs low enough for delivery at scale during the study and beyond. The program theory was expanded to encompass two emergent concepts.ConclusionsThis consultation resulted in substantial refinements to recruitment flyers and strategies, and all four program components. We anticipate that these refinements will increase the reach and appeal of the trial and optimise future scale-up. Consultation feedback, while specific to this program, may have wider transferability for recruitment and the design of programs with similar components targeting women aged 50+.

Game Lab Innovations in Education: Insights from a Board Game Design Project

From the perspective of educators, game development has great potential as a teaching method, as it promotes group collaboration, project-based learning and the development of content tailored to a given target group. This paper is based on a study that was carried out through an international project, implementing an educational game development concept called Game Lab into an educational context. The study explored professional development topics such as game-based learning, game development, and game testing, along with the Game Lab method focusing on group dynamics, progression, and creativity. It employed an abductive analysis of written responses from twelve teachers who participated in the Let’s Play project, which involved a Game Lab component. The teachers, ranging in age from their thirties to their sixties, represented all levels of education from preschool to upper secondary school. They responded to a survey with open-ended questions and reflection notes, providing insights into their experiences with game development methods as pedagogical tools. Their responses were analyzed to identify key themes and patterns. Findings suggest that this approach has broadened participants' perspectives on utilizing diverse games and game development techniques in education, aligning with prior research on production pedagogy. It underscores the importance of integrating in-game content with real-world contexts as a modern teaching method. Participants also highlighted that effective game-based learning supports a constructivist approach to teaching over behaviorism. The participants emphasized their increased insight and understanding of game development and game systems and how the combined effect of educational game design and the Game Lab method (working in teams) resulted in a more valuable learning outcome than they would have experienced alone. They also reported an improved understanding on how working with the development of a board game made them dig much deeper into the topic at hand. In addition, they found that this increased their motivation for learning, knowing that this was going to be a product that was to be tested and played by others (pupils and teachers). Furthermore, the participants highlighted the role of group dynamics in fostering teamwork and consensus during the collaborative game development process.

Parent–Child Mealtime Conversations Stimulated with Decorated Tableware

AbstractThis explorative qualitative study investigated how families engage in mealtime conversations supported with decorated plates that were specially designed to promote family conversations. Our aim was to examine the main thematic and discursive patterns that naturally occurred in these conversations. Six Norwegian families of pre-school children aged 3–6 years were provided with five decorated plates and asked to audio-record their conversations during a meal. Transcripts of the audio-recordings were analysed with manifest content-related analysis, followed by an abductive analysis and a mapping of the main discourse types and interactional patterns. We demonstrate that the conversations displayed great thematic heterogeneity and represented a continuum of extended and non-extended talk, ranging from basic labelling and vocabulary recall to narration, explanation and argumentation. Variable engagement levels among the participants were also noted. We argue that decorated tableware can serve as a valuable tool for studying linguistic input and the nature of adult–child conversations during mealtimes at home and beyond.

How do medical students' expectations shape their experiences of well-being programmes?

Medical schools have a duty of care to support their students' health and well-being. Student support studies have tended to focus on outcomes in respect of effectiveness and satisfaction. In contrast, little is known about how student expectations of support may shape their experiences and engagement with support mechanisms, as well as the relationships students have with those offering support (including the institution itself). To address this gap in knowledge, we explore how medical students' expectations of student support systems shape, and are shaped by, institutional rules and processes. We employed a qualitative case study approach using an institutional ethnography informed methodology. Our context was a medical school that provides a well-advertised, formal institutional support system where students are assigned a personal tutor. Data collection included interviews with medical students (n = 13) plus document analysis (public facing artefacts and internal policies/guidelines related to the support system). We applied the lens of psychological contract theory to guide abductive analysis of interview and text data. Students expected a strong support system to be provided by the medical school and the personal tutors. However, their experiences did not always align with their expectations. Some felt excluded by the system while others regarded the relationship with their personal tutor as more transactional than relational. Where their expectations were unmet, students responded by reducing their engagement with the formal support system and creating their own peer-support network that supplemented existing formal support. Student expectations matter in shaping their experiences of support systems. Where expectations are unmet, students may disengage and/or find alternatives. This may be easier for some students compared with others. More understanding of the relationship between expectations and engagement with support can inform the development of institutional support structures that meet the needs of all students across time.

Heedful proactivity: How individual tactical considerations contribute to pre‐screening of innovative ideas in the hierarchy

Purposefully fostering creativity and innovation through stimulating proactivity requires grappling with an apparent trade‐off. On the one hand, organization members need some autonomy to initiate change. On the other hand, managers might want to steer initiatives and retain control over outcomes. The current paper advances recent work on how proactivity is enacted as a compromise between autonomy and control by studying the process through which bottom‐up ideas are shared in highly hierarchical organizations. Based on an abductive analysis of data from informants in 42 organizations, we develop the concept of pre‐screening, which denotes collective action patterns geared towards qualifying individuals' innovative ideas before they are made subject to formal decision making. We explain how proactive individuals' tactical considerations—informed by their holistic prospective thinking, risk hedging, temporal splitting, and a both/and approach to proactivity and hierarchy—influence the actions through which ideas are shared and who are approached first (e.g., supervisors vs. peers). We also exemplify how action patterns accomplishing idea sharing and pre‐screening are entangled with more mundane workplace routines. Overall, the paper sheds new light on ideas' journeys in the context of hierarchy and opens up multiple avenues for future research.

The interrelationship between women’s help-seeking experiences for vaginismus and their sense of self: a qualitative study and abductive analysis

ABSTRACT Objective There is a lack of research on women’s holistic experiences of vaginismus, also called sexual pain-penetration disorder, from their perspective. To address this gap, an abductive qualitative study aimed to examine women’s help-seeking experiences for vaginismus, and its impact on their sense of self. Methods This study was informed by a feminist approach to the theory of self focused on participants’ negotiation of dis/empowerment when help-seeking for vaginismus. Twenty-one participants aged 19–37 years (mean 27.6 years) and diagnosed with vaginismus in Australia participated in semi-structured interviews, which were thematically analysed. Results Three themes were developed: Interconnected constructions of womanhood and help-seeking, Elicit agency to move forward, Resilience to surmount challenges with subthemes. Participant’s overall help-seeking experiences, within and outside the healthcare system, shaped their sense of self in ways that drove their approach/es to future help-seeking behaviours. Conclusions Positive help-seeking experiences for vaginismus strengthened participants’ sense of self to persevere with treatment even when it was difficult. Conversely, negative help-seeking experiences led to participants’ weakened sense of self which was often caused by a gap between their ideal and perceived self. This led to negative feelings and responses of demotivation or halting subsequent help-seeking. Recommendations are provided to improve health professional practice to support women help-seeking for vaginismus, and to help close the gap between their ideal and perceived selves. Such insight can help to empower women’s sense of self and motivate them to persevere with help-seeking to experience improvement for their vaginismus and quality of life.

2218 Experience of family caregivers for older patients with delirium: a qualitative study

Abstract Background Delirium is associated with psychological and cognitive complications that have impacts beyond the patients. Although family members and carers can play a significant role in the management and recognition of delirium, there is limited research on the experience of family caregivers in the context of delirium. This study aims to explore the needs and experiences of family caregivers for a person with delirium and offer suggestions to support them. Method A qualitative interview study with family caregivers of persons with delirium. Data were analysed using an abductive analysis approach. Results Fourteen family caregivers were interviewed. Carers explained their feeling of responsibility to support their loved ones with delirium, however, they perceived their caregiving role negatively because of increasing demands and the lack of sufficient support. Carers attributed their emotional exhaustion and distress to the onset of delirium, change in the personality of the person with delirium, confusion and progression of delirium. Additionally, carers indicated the negative impact of caregiving on the quality of the relationship between them and person with delirium. This highlights the need to enhance the support provided to carers to mitigate the emotional and relationship impact of caregiving on the carer. We identified the needs of carers for people with delirium including: education on delirium, reassurance, information on care pathways and support from formal carers to take breaks. Conclusions Viable solutions to assist family caregivers include more support for the carer in formulating care plans for people with delirium, the development of support groups for family caregivers of people with delirium, and a case worker. These solutions may help to decrease re-hospitalisation and admission to care homes. Future research should focus on approaches to better support carers of people with delirium, and to shift the care plan from person-centred into person and family-centred approach.

Systems Forces Leading to Feeding Tube Placement in Patients with Advanced Dementia: A Qualitative Exploration of Clinical Momentum.

Background: Older adults with serious illness near the end-of-life often receive invasive treatments. We developed a conceptual model called clinical momentum that describes system-level forces producing a trajectory of care that is difficult to modify and contributes to overtreatment. We sought to evaluate the empirical fit of our model by examining an event with clear guidelines against intervention: permanent feeding tube placement in patients with advanced dementia. Methods: We screened three hospitals and identified patients 65 years and older with advanced dementia who received a permanent feeding tube. We interviewed 34 family members and clinicians. We coded transcripts and characterized factors that arose during the course of care and their relationships to feeding tube placement. We used abductive analysis to compare the data with theory and identify areas of discordance and alignment. Results: We found that the course of care started with a temporary tube to correct an acute problem. As problems were identified, multiple clinicians were consulted to address a specific problem without collective discussion of the patient's health trajectory. Eventually, clinicians had to address the temporary tube, which was framed to families as a decision to place a permanent feeding tube or withdraw treatment. Conclusion: Elements of the model-including recognition-primed decision-making, "fix-it," and sunk costs-contributed to placement of a feeding tube, which set in motion a path toward intervention long before a goals-of-care conversation occurs. Clinical momentum expands our understanding of overtreatment at the end-of-life and may reveal opportunities to reduce other nonbeneficial interventions.

Abductive analysis in qualitative research

Abductive analysis in qualitative research

Media framing in Wirecard’s fraud scandal: Facts, failures, and spying fraudster fantasies

The aim of this paper is to investigate how fraud scandals are portrayed by the media. While accounting research predominantly explored the role of the media in fraud scandals in terms of their ‘watchdog’ function, how fraud scandals are portrayed by the media has been under-explored in the accounting literature. Drawing on Entman’s and Goffman’s seminal works on frames and framing, we examine the revelatory case of the Wirecard 2020 fraud scandal. Through an abductive analysis of 795 newspaper articles, we identify six frames that differ in selection and salience and that prevail in media coverage to varying degrees. Across these frames, our findings show that not only the selection of certain fraud aspects through bounding and contextualization becomes key, but also how selected aspects are made salient to readers by means of articulation through rhetoric and stylistic devices. Media frames that endure over time utilize rhetoric that is emotional, sensational, and judgmental to evoke feelings of outrage, shock, and fascination which are selectively connected to fraud victims, top managers as perpetrators, and the malpractice of auditing institutions. Our findings shed light on how the media can direct attention through specific frames with which they may steer and shape public opinion about the responsibilities of selected corporate and institutional stakeholders as well as related calls for reforms. Our research contributes to a social construction view of fraud scandals and draws further attention to the media’s ambiguous role as social-control agent.

Identifying and Exploring the Cognitive Nature of Threshold Concepts in Pharmacology to Improve Medical Students’ Learning

Phenomenon: Pharmacology is a fundamental healthcare discipline, but it can be difficult and counterintuitive for learners to learn. Navigation toward understanding pharmacology can be troublesome, but once the threshold to comprehension is crossed, learners can experience a transformative shift in their ways of thinking and practicing. We conducted an in-depth examination of threshold concepts within pharmacology, aiming to identify and prioritize their learning to improve the medical curriculum and enhance medical treatment and patient safety. Approach: We carried out a consensus generation process using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) to identify potential threshold concepts in pharmacology. Participant groups of pharmacology experts and medical students considered, identified, reviewed, and ranked potential pharmacology threshold concepts within their own group. Then, using a logical, step-by-step approach, we combined the final ranked data from these multiple NGT sessions. We further analyzed these data using an abductive analysis approach; data were coded, categorized, reorganized, and conceptually mapped after critical evaluation. Conceptual themes were established corresponding to different phases of cognitive schema development. Findings: Six comprehensive conceptual themes were identified: Drug Mechanism of Action; Pharmacotherapeutics; Pharmacokinetics; Drug Receptor Interactions; Drug Terminology and Nomenclature; and Signaling Pathways. These concepts align with many of the key attributes of threshold concepts (e.g., troublesome, integrative and transformative). The cognitive schematic themes generated were (i) acquisition-troublesome; (ii) acquisition-transformative; (iii) automation-troublesome; (iv) automation-transformative. Insights: Transformative learning involves different stages of cognitive schema evolution, including acquisition, elaboration, and automation, and is influenced by both the inherent challenges of the concepts and limitations of human cognition. The high interactivity of these troublesome concepts challenge schema acquisition and automation. Troublesome concepts underpinning procedures or skills, while not easily explained by cognitive rules, can lead to slow, awkward, error-prone performance, creating additional barriers for practice. Integrating concepts into a coherent structure leads to the irreversible assimilation of knowledge and the transferability of both knowledge and skills, influencing learners’ epistemological transitions and ontological transformations at theoretical and professional levels. Further work on designing instructional models around assisting and automating schemas around identified troublesome knowledge, while addressing the impact of cognitive load, has the potential to promote transformational learning.

How Ignoring the Fundamental Causes of Maternal Morbidity/Mortality Impedes Progress Toward a Reproductive Justice Model of Contraceptive Counseling

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently published guidance promoting a reproductive justice model of contraceptive counseling that prioritizes patient preferences rather than centering effectiveness (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2022c). However, practitioners may be hesitant to follow these new guidelines if they do not understand how maternal morbidity and mortality are rooted in fundamental causes like racism. If practitioners believe that pregnancy is innately dangerous, they may prioritize effectiveness in the name of patient safety. Taking a reproductive justice perspective, we assess how contraceptive counseling guidance portrays maternal morbidity/mortality by qualitatively examining 25 authoritative gynecology publications. Our abductive analysis shows that these documents describe maternal morbidity/mortality as rooted in biology and position highly effective contraception as the antidote. Ignoring fundamental causes of maternal morbidity/mortality impedes progress toward patient-centered contraceptive counseling and shifts the burden of addressing maternal morbidity/mortality away from public policy and toward individual contraceptive use.

Problematizing Dominant Assumptions about Unpaid Support through Exploring Case Study Profiles of Older Home Care Clients

Despite efforts to acknowledge diversity among unpaid caregivers, Canadian research, advocacy, practice, and policy tend to be based in and to reproduce dominant social and institutional expectations and assumptions about who provides unpaid support and why, and what this support looks like. The objective of thtudinal, qualitative research study. In that study, qualitative case study interviews were conducted with twelve home care clients, their identified family or friend caregiver, home care aide, case coordinator, and agency supervisor (129 interviews in total). Case study profiles compiled over time generated deeper information about the availability and capacity of informal sources of support for these clients, which prompted abductive analysis in relation to dominant assumptions typically made about caregivers in research, policy, and practice. Specifically, only one case (participant) had a caregiver whose profile closely matched dominant conceptualizations. In the remaining eleven cases, we found situations wherein: (a) caregivers grappled with physical or mental health challenges limiting their participation in care (sometimes meaning the client is themselves a caregiver, or the caregiver is also receiving home care services); (b) caregivers facing burnout sought to delimit their participation in care; (c) caregivers’ participation was limited by older adults’ reluctance to accept their help; (d) caregivers were largely unavailable, unreliable, or peripheral; or (e) client’s unpaid support networks were diffuse without a clearly central or identifiable “caregiver.” Findings are used to nuance and problematize widely held assumptions about caregivers, particularly their availability and capacity. Discussion highlights the need for research, policy, and programs related to unpaid caregiving to better reflect the lived realities of this support for older adults and often overlooked sources of diversity in caregiver circumstances and roles.

“Lightbulb Moments”: The (Re)Conceptualization of Coach Development in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Systems thinking is used extensively in organizational research as a framework to understand individual and organizational learning, adaptation, and change. However, systems thinking has had limited application in sport coaching research. In this study, we draw on a systems thinking framework to investigate Sport New Zealand’s recently conceptualized and implemented coach development program known as Coach Developer Aotearoa. To do so, we employ an interpretive phenomenological analysis to analyze the semistructured interview data gathered from the original six-member, Coach Developer Aotearoa design team. Our initial deductive analysis revealed that the participants acquired a more sophisticated understanding of coach development as they interrogated their own personal, collective, and societal assumptions. Specifically, concepts of learner-centeredness, active learning, and reflection, and a greater emphasis on cultural sensitivities replaced traditional behaviorist perspectives of coaching development. In our discussion, informed by our further abductive analysis, we describe the challenges faced by Sport New Zealand when looking to promote their new vision across the New Zealand sport landscape. In doing so, we offer emergent understanding and raise awareness about the possibilities that an alternative definition of critical reflection could offer when seeking systemic change on such a large scale.

Medical schools as cisgendered organizations

Organizations and their practices contribute to the marginalization of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) populations by rewarding gender normativity and punishing gender transgression. The present study draws on data gleaned from four focus groups completed in 2023 with a total of 19 participants to explore TGD U.S. medical students’ perceptions of TGD content inclusion in their medical school curricula. Using abductive analysis, I argue that curricular oversights which omit socio-political contexts regarding TGD health and healthcare, as well as continued pathologization of TGD communities and people, contribute to a hostile learning environment for TGD medical students and residents. I conceptualize medical schools as cisgendered organizations where inequities devaluing TGD people and experiences are embedded in the organizational structure, including curriculum development and implementation. I provide recommendations for medical schools and stakeholders to align their formal, informal, and hidden curricula through practical means (e.g., incorporating TGD standardized patients throughout) and structural means (e.g. hiring and supporting TGD faculty across disciplines to assist with curriculum development and training), and argue for governing bodies to push back against legislative restriction and criminalization of TGD medical care.

Deprived of Adoptive Parenthood: Recognizing Prospective Adoptive Mothers’ Pre-Adoption Loss

This study examined the pre-adoption loss experienced by prospective adoptive mothers following an undesired termination of an intercountry adoption process before the child was placed in the adoptive home. The qualitative data comprised six narrative interviews with women with experience of pre-adoption loss. Based on an abductive analysis of the six cases, a typology of pre-adoption loss is proposed. The differences across the three types presented, are related to the reason for termination of the process, the expectedness and graduality of the loss, the sense of control and outcome in terms of parenthood. Further the dominant emotions and the social responses to the loss are examined. In practice, professionals need to recognize pre-adoption losses and offer appropriate counseling and support.