Collaborative Practice-based Research Research Articles

Design Thinking in Education: Adding Collaboration, Uncertainty, Phronesis and Fairydust to Curriculum Design

We exist in an age of supercomplexity with policy and strategies both impacting and restricting creative curriculum development and participatory classroom practices particularly in Higher Education (HE). As academic developers who have also taught undergraduate programmes we inhabit liminal space - both enacting and subject to policy - both professing and subverting practice. In this paper we outline how we have engaged in human centred curriculum design ourselves. Typically curriculum evaluation and development processes are presented to our staff-as-students as something far removed from design thinking (DT). Curriculum design emphasises thorough thinking, it is slow-paced, and continuously evaluated. DT requires trust and collaboration, open sharing of diverse and often contradicting ideas, rapid prototyping - a non-judgemental space that will help ideas develop and grow, playing with initiatives that might not work. DT encourages experimentation. We used a collaborative Practice-Based Research (PBR) approach to explore our processes to reveal how DT can be a valuable part of a more fast-paced, urgent, creative and human centred curriculum design.

The Swiss chiropractic practice-based research network: a population-based cross-sectional study to inform future musculoskeletal research

The Swiss chiropractic practice-based research network (PBRN) is a nationwide project developed in collaboration with patients, clinicians, and academic stakeholders to advance musculoskeletal epidemiologic research. The aim of this study was to describe the clinician population recruited and representativeness of this PBRN to inform future collaboration. A population-based cross-sectional study was performed. PBRN clinician characteristics were described and factors related to motivation (operationalised as VAS score ≥ 70) to participate in a subsequent patient cohort pilot study were assessed. Among 326 eligible chiropractors, 152 enrolled in the PBRN (47% participation). The PBRN was representative of the larger Swiss chiropractic population with regards to age, language, and geographic distribution. Of those enrolled, 39% were motivated to participate in a nested patient cohort pilot study. Motivation was associated with age 40 years or older versus 39 years or younger (OR 2.3, 95% CI 1.0–5.2), and with a moderate clinic size (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.1–5.7) or large clinic size (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.0–7.8) versus solo practice. The Swiss chiropractic PBRN has enrolled almost half of all Swiss chiropractors and has potential to facilitate collaborative practice-based research to improve musculoskeletal health care quality.Trial registration: Swiss chiropractic PBRN (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05046249); Swiss chiropractic cohort (Swiss ChiCo) pilot study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05116020).

Digital Creativity and the Regional Museum: Experimental Collaboration at the Convergence of Immersive Media and Exhibition Design

This paper presents the findings of the Within the Walls of York Gaol, an interdisciplinary and collaborative practice-based research project which was established to examine the intersection between emerging forms of immersive media, game design, and contemporary archaeological exhibition design. The project was a collaboration between researchers and practitioners at York Museums Trust, The University of York, and the University of Glasgow and used co-design methods to design and produce two immersive installations in the prison cells at York Castle Museum in collaboration with community groups. The project sought to re-think the role of the museum within regional creative economies and to argue for the importance of the regional museum as a hub for digital design and innovation. Through innovative forms of collaborative research practice the project was able to develop new understandings of the ways in which collaborative approaches to the design and development of interactive digital media can be used to build skilled communities of practice around regional museums. The project took a critical stance to the use of immersive media technologies and led to the development of innovative and highly distinctive digital immersive installations which emerged in response to the specific opportunities and design requirements of museums and their audiences. This paper will set out the findings of this project as well as identify new creative directions and new forms of collaborative design practice which can be adopted and adapted for use across the museum sector.

Encouraging counsellors to engage in collaborative practice-based research (PBR).

Increasing research productivity among practicing counsellors has long been an aim of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors as evidenced by several articles addressing the topic published in the New Zealand Journal of Counselling over the last 20 years. Similarly, in a profession increasingly pressured to be more accountable, it is no longer considered good enough for counsellors and counselling agencies merely to espouse the "art of counselling" perspective in justifying their practices. Instead, researching counselling, especially counselling impact, is vital to the wider acceptance of the profession. Such research depends, in large part, on encouraging more counsellors to participate in researching their own casework, either as individuals or as a member of a research team or group. This article references two examples of the second of those options (specifically, collaboration between a counsellor in private practice and outside researchers) to demonstrate that even rudimentary collaboration between counsellors and researchers can produce useful knowledge about the process and impact of counselling and can have positive effects on a counsellor's practice. Increased collaboration of this sort is one way to fulfil the need for counsellors and researchers to generate more practice-based research (PBR), especially outcome research (Sexton et al., 1997).

Improving Vaccination Coverage in Children and Adolescents: The Role of Professional Societies.

Improving Vaccination Coverage in Children and Adolescents: The Role of Professional Societies.

Advancing animal welfare and ethics in veterinary practice through a national pet wellbeing task force, practice-based champions and clinical audit

BackgroundVeterinary animal welfare advocacy can be undertaken at individual, community, national and international levels. The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), a veterinary charity with 48 Pet Hospitals UK-wide, created...

Bridging barriers to advance multisector approaches to improve food security, nutrition and population health in Nepal: transdisciplinary perspectives

BackgroundUnderstanding stakeholders’ perceptions is crucial to the development and implementation of any intervention. However, a structured approach to eliciting stakeholder insights into complex, multisector issues of food security, household environment and health is lacking in many low and middle-income countries. This qualitative, workshop-based participatory study explores stakeholders’ experiences of developing and implementing multisector interventions to provide transdisciplinary lessons for future developments in low and middle-income countries.MethodsParticipants were purposely selected based on their involvement in, or exposure to, the multisector intervention. Participants with interests in agriculture, nutrition, household air-quality, drinking water-quality and health from academic institutes, government and developmental organisations were brought together at a one-day workshop to participate in a series of discussions on issues relating to food security, nutrition, household environment and health in Nepal. All group discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed, and a thematic qualitative analysis performed to identify relevant themes.ResultsThe government’s ongoing Multisector Nutrition Plan, stakeholders’ willingness to work together, availability of local infrastructure for cross-institutional inputs and increasing global movement towards transdisciplinary approaches were identified by the 33 workshop participants, representing 23 organisations as key factors determining success of transdisciplinary work. Fragmentation, lack of research-based and practice-based evidence, limited transdisciplinary knowledge amongst sectoral stakeholders, short-term funding and lack of knowledge-sharing mechanisms were identified as barriers, often creating systematic problems for successful implementation. Stakeholders suggested methods to bring about success included: improved knowledge, both amongst policy-makers and implementers, of food security and its linkage with nutrition, household environments, health and hygiene; investment in collaborative practice-based research and evidence-based practice; and strengthened transdisciplinary collaboration between multi-stakeholders, such as researchers, implementers and beneficiaries, throughout the intervention development and implementation process.ConclusionsThis study suggests that multisector approach needs to adapt to take into account the experiences and views of the stakeholders concerned. The paper offers recommendations for successful development and implementation of future multisector interventions in Nepal that can be extrapolated to other low and middle-income countries, and lays foundations for future transdisciplinary working to support realisation of the recommendations.

Mapping Methods of the Millbank Atlas

The Millbank Atlas is part of an ongoing collaboration that manifests as live projects developed in response to local desire and needs. Staff and student researchers of Chelsea College of Arts (a constituent college of University of the Arts London) come together with residents and others of the Millbank neighbourhood in Westminster to bring the Atlas into being. As both process and outcome, the Atlas creates meaning through conceptualising Millbank as comprised of reciprocal relations among the College and surrounding businesses, residential blocks, civil society groups, transportation links and other amenities, infrastructure and further aspects of this built and natural environment. Central here is the lived experience of Millbankers - those who reside, work and study in this London locale. In what follows we revisit The Millbank Atlas to draw out a nascent aspect of our paper for VI Art of Research (AoR 2017). This begins with scoping our presentation for this conference, which was titled ‘The Millbank Atlas: Catalysing Practice-based Research in a Spirit of the Civic University' to refresh our interest in the agency of collaborative practice-based research. We review our claim that as a community of practice practice of community, the Atlas catalyses through chiasmus. With this established we turn to our immediate concern: the catalytic role that mapping plays as the core practice in The Millbank Atlas. Drawing on Denis Wood's sense of mapping as an alternative to mapmaking, we go on to propose the Atlas as an instance of counter-mapping. Aspects of the Atlas' production, exhibition, dissemination and other impact are discussed with reference to counter-mapping as an emerging field with political purchase. Evidence of this includes the vital work of the Argentinian collective, Iconolasistas and the Counter\Mapping campaigns out of Queen Mary University in the UK. The third part of this paper returns to the three core questions of AoR 2017. These we addressed at the conference with reference to the Atlas' catalytic potential to generate communities through collaborative, practice-based research. In what follows here we consider the questions from a fresh perspective: the agency of counter-mapping to produce new understanding that is not only communicable but also critically compelling. Drawing as both a literal act of inscription and as figurative language proves vital in this regard (e.g. mark making but also drawing metaphors, such as drawing together, drawing out). The paper concludes by insisting that the catalytic value of counter-mapping resides between the critical and creative process of making the maps and their outcomes as evidence-rich artefacts. Finally, we indicate a direction for future enquiry: probing the agency of counter-mapping as practice-based research that gains traction through the maps' discursive production as they are read and negotiated.

Learning to navigate and enriching the research process by engaging in a collaborative practice research capacity strategy

Engaging regulated health professionals in research is associated with greater service efficiencies and positive patient outcomes (reduced patient mortality and morbidity). This paper provides the results from a study undertaken to explore the perspectives and experiences of nurses and health disciplines participating in a collaborative practice based research (CPBR) capacity building educational program. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of nurses and other health disciplines in an interprofessional, collaborative research capacity building strategy. The interviews were analyzed using an inductive, thematic analysis process. Twelve members participating in the CPBR program who were female with 5 nurses, 3 occupational therapists, 2 social workers, 1 speech language pathologist and 1 research coordinator were recruited for the study. The following five themes emerged from the data: 1) learning to navigate the research landscape in a shared space; 2) providing an opportunity and support for interprofessional clinician driven research; 3) enriching the research process by engaging different professions to collaborate; 4) impacting current and future collaborative practice; and 5) keeping the momentum amidst experiencing challenges. Our study demonstrated the value of providing opportunity for nurses and health disciplines to engage in collaborative practice based research and undertake a project relevant to clinical practice that adds to the body of knowledge on the value of collaborative practice based research capacity building strategies and communities of practice.

Enhancing collaborative practice-based research in an academic health science center

Although there is a body of literature around discipline specific capacity building research, less is known empirically around collaborative practice-based research that involves different healthcare disciplines participating in research together in an interprofessional manner in Academic Health Science Centers (AHSCs). This paper provides an overview of results from the mixed methods study and the subsequent strategies one teaching hospital has implemented to enhance collaborative practice-based research. A mixed methods design with a cross-sectional survey design and focus groups/interviews with clinicians and administrators was used. Study participants reported the value of, their role, experience, and use of research in daily practice and recommendations to enhance collaborative practice-based research. Study findings elucidated the current state and strategies to enhance collaborative practice-based research at an AHSC. Engaging clinicians in collaborative practice-based research provides a strategic advantage and return on investment to achieve the tripartite mission.

30th Anniversary of Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS): An Invitation to Become Engaged.

* Abbreviations: EHR — : electronic health records PROS — : Pediatric Research in Office Settings Thirty years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in partnership with practicing pediatricians and leading academicians, founded Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS). In what was at the time a transformative insight, they understood that research in primary care practice settings, developed and conducted in collaboration between pediatricians in community practice and researchers, would lead to relevant and feasible studies that provide an evidence base to improve primary care practice. PROS was groundbreaking in declaring in its rules of governance that practitioners would determine which studies would be launched. Since then, PROS structure has effectively evolved to facilitate the translation of study findings into American Academy of Pediatrics practice guidelines and policies and the fulfillment of the network’s mission “to improve the health of children and enhance primary care practice by conducting and fostering national collaborative practice-based research.” PROS began with descriptive studies of unanswered questions in pediatrics (the first involving 102 practices) and progressed to randomized clinical trials testing practice-based interventions to improve care. The landmark Girls Puberty Study demonstrated that widely accepted norms for the onset of puberty required revision, prompting policy change.1 An observational study comparing alternate strategies to treat febrile infants in primary care practice showed that many could be managed conservatively, inspiring development of a new guideline.2 The first of many PROS randomized clinical trials, involving 124 practices, found that guidance offered by pediatric practitioners at primary care visits resulted in decreased media exposure for children and safer firearm storage.3 Overall, PROS studies have addressed such varied topics as newborn nursery discharge, child abuse, mental … Address correspondence to Alexander G. Fiks, MD, MSCE, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market St, Room 1546, Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail: fiks{at}email.chop.edu

Collaborative Design Research: Linking universities with government policy-makers

In an essay in The Endless City: The Urban Age Project (2007), Deyan Sudjic proposes that the problems of our cities can be understood and managed through collaboration between three groups: policymakers, builders and theorists. The Regional Urban Studies Laboratory (RUSL) led by the School of Architecture & Design at the University of Tasmania provides collaborative practice-based research that links the academy – as theorists - with the local government - the policymakers and city builders. RUSL works directly with local authorities to examine urban issues in small towns and cities, developing collaborative processes that examine the specific nature of design issues that are socially, culturally and/or situationally conditioned. Research through the medium of design provides a process of iterative thinking, and the crossover between the disciplines of architecture, planning, sociology and economics provide fertile ground for research investigations. Relationships between the academy and political institutions further enrich this potential.

Black Mountain and Beyond – Research Practices between Universities and Museums

In 2013, everything began with a few general questions. How can universities and museums benefit from each other? How can they complement one another? Where are their thresholds, and where are common grounds? What is their educational agenda? And finally, can they unite theoretical and curatorial endeavors into, well, what exactly? How could they actually bring theory and practice together? In other words, how could students, scholars, curators, and artists cooperate within one project? As a small team based at the Institute for Theater Studies at Freie Universität Berlin—namely Verena Kittel, Annette Jael Lehmann, and Anna-Lena Werner—we wanted to find answers for these questions, and started an in-depth conversation with a part of the curatorial team of Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, about opportunities to collaborate. The university is in need of practice, of social experiences with people, and of the expertise of preserving and exhibiting. In turn, the museum is in need of research, of alternatives to public programs, and of creating a fundamental analysis of art historical events, aesthetic questions, and philosophical contributions. On both sides there was not only a desire for supplementation, but also a frustration about the growing economization and instrumentalization of educational institutions. What we were looking for might sound idealistic, but we later figured that this attribute was exactly key to our aim: developing a collaborative practice-based research.

Pediatric Research in Office Settings at 25: A Quarter Century of Network Research Toward the Betterment of Children's Health

Twenty-five years ago, Robert Haggerty, MD, then newly elected as President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), made the formation of a national pediatric practice-based research network an integral part of his presidency. His reasons for promoting this idea were compelling. Family medicine already had begun recruiting and maintaining stable cohorts of practices to examine issues of importance in primary care. In pediatrics, however, primary care issues were being addressed largely by academic medical center investigators who did not have access to typical pediatric populations and who did their studies on samples drawn from the urban inner city environment. Inspired by the early work of a handful of family medicine networks, Dr Haggerty foresaw a stable network of pediatric practices to conduct research in “real world” settings, rather than in the academic settings where condition severity and comorbidity, as well as available technology and treatments, were atypical, limiting the generalizability of findings. 1 The envisioned end product was the generation of new, compelling, and generalizable research to improve the health of the nation’s children. From Dr Haggerty’s vision sprang Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS)—a network that began with a modest 100 practices, and 25 years later, includes over 700 practices, active in every state, as well as in the District of Columbia, 2 Canadian provinces, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Fig 1—PROS map). The mission of PROS is to improve the health of children by conducting collaborative practice-based research to enhance primary care practice. In the service of that mission, with core support from the AAP and the Health Resources and Services Administration Maternal and Child Health Bureau, PROS has conducted more than 30 national studies, changed policy and practice, and contributed to the betterment of children’s health. This article reviews the policy and practice changes realized, discusses key lessons learned along the way, and describes new horizons for the network, as it embarks on its next quarter century.

Physician-Led Outpatient Breastfeeding Medicine Clinics in the United States

Attrition of exclusive breastfeeding is highest during the first 3 months postpartum. Timely management of breastfeeding in the outpatient setting through innovative models of healthcare delivery may increase its duration and exclusivity. Our goal was to examine the structure and function of physician-led clinics in the United States that specialize in providing outpatient clinical support for breastfeeding-related issues ("breastfeeding medicine clinics"). We posted a survey on Listservs of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, and Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. The survey collected information on (1) clinic and physician demographics, (2) visit characteristics, (3) referral and reimbursement, (4) clinical activities, (5) continuing education resources, (6) teaching/education activities, and (7) advocacy activities, of physician-led outpatient breastfeeding medicine clinics. Lead physicians from 13 clinics responded to the survey. Their clinics provided clinical care for time-intensive breastfeeding problems. The clinics we described that were in existence longer than 2 years appeared to be economically sustainable. Most physicians who had provided specialized breastfeeding support for more than 5 years reported that their income was commensurate with others in their specialty. Most physicians who provided specialized breastfeeding medicine care additionally provided primary care services within the same clinical setting. Further research into fiscal and organizational aspects of establishing specialized physician-led breastfeeding clinics is needed. The potential of such clinics in contributing to collaborative practice-based research, as well as medical student and house staff education, needs to be explored.

Flexible media: producing character-based reconfigurable drama

From Spring 2002 to Summer 2003 the Flexible media project and prototype experiment ran at Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) and BTexact Technologies, Adastral Park UK. This pilot project aimed to explore and formulate new storyforms using reconfigurable digital media, and to develop new methods and best practice for producing and publishing them, focusing on digital video, both documentary and fiction. Original material was produced in student workshops at CUMIS (MPhil) and the Norwegian Film School, where the Flexible media toolkit was tested and developed to incorporate the needs of creative content production. This paper describes the project and experiment in some detail, identifying the restrictions within traditional media production processes, and the opportunities offered by a more flexible approach. It then presents a case study of the experimentation undertaken to develop new flexible media forms. The paper concludes that collaborative practice-based research is successfully providing creative professionals with new modes of expression and engagement with their audience.

Collaborative practice-based research in supporting the language development of primary level bilingual children: a case study

This article reports work within a pilot in-service teacher development programme, which aimed to introduce language support teachers to the potential of practice-based research. A teacher, a team coordinator and a teacher educator have collaborated to produce a reflective account, and an evaluation of both the teacher development programme and the research study. The case study illustrates the use of a particular model of exploratory practice (Allwright, 1993) and the authors suggest that the findings on language input and output offer a useful benchmark for further investigation. An evaluation of the project concludes by arguing for the importance of such collaborative work within the teacher educator's research workload