Greater Use Of Qualitative Methods Research Articles

“We care about others”: discursive constructions of corruption vis-à-vis national/cultural identity in Indonesia’s business-government relations

PurposeThis paper aims to problematize existing conceptualization of corruption by presenting alternative perspectives on corruption in Indonesia through the lens of national/cultural identity, amidst claims of the pervasiveness of corruption in the country. In so doing, the paper also sheds light on the micro-processes of interactions between global and local discourses in postcolonial settings.Design/methodology/approachThe study applies discourse analysis, involving in-depth interviews with 40 informants from the business sector, government institutions and anti-corruption agencies.FindingsThe findings suggest that corruption helps government function, preserves livelihoods of the marginalized segments of societies and maintains social obligations/relations. These alternative meanings of corruption persist despite often seen as less legitimate due to effects of colonial powers.Research limitations/implicationsThe snowballing method of recruiting informants is one of the limitations of this paper, which may decrease the potential diversity and lead to the silencing of different stories (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2013). Researchers need to contextualize corruption and study its varied meanings to reveal its social, historical and political dimensions.Practical implicationsThis paper strongly suggests that we need to move beyond rationalist accounts to capture the varied meanings of corruption which may be useful to explain the limited results of existing anti-corruption efforts.Social implicationsThis study calls for a greater use of qualitative methods to study broad social change programs such as anti-corruption from the perspective of the insiders.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the discussion of agency at the interplay between the dominant and alternative discourses in postcolonial settings. Moreover, the alternative meanings of corruption embedded in constructions of national identity and care ethics discussed in this paper offer as a starting point for decolonizing (Westwood, 2006) anti-corruption theory and practice.

Pornography use and sexting amongst children and young people: a systematic overview of reviews

BackgroundYoung people’s use of pornography and participation in sexting are commonly viewed as harmful behaviours. This paper reports findings from a ‘review of reviews’, which aimed to systematically identify and synthesise the evidence on pornography and sexting amongst young people. Here, we focus specifically on the evidence relating to young people’s use of pornography; involvement in sexting; and their beliefs, attitudes, behaviours and wellbeing to better understand potential harms and benefits, and identify where future research is required.MethodsWe searched five health and social science databases; searches for grey literature were also performed. Review quality was assessed and findings synthesised narratively.ResultsEleven reviews of quantitative and/or qualitative studies were included. A relationship was identified between pornography use and more permissive sexual attitudes. An association between pornography use and stronger gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs was also reported, but not consistently. Similarly, inconsistent evidence of an association between pornography use and sexting and sexual behaviour was identified. Pornography use has been associated with various forms of sexual violence, aggression and harassment, but the relationship appears complex. Girls, in particular, may experience coercion and pressure to engage in sexting and suffer more negative consequences than boys if sexts become public. Positive aspects to sexting were reported, particularly in relation to young people’s personal relationships.ConclusionsWe identified evidence from reviews of varying quality that linked pornography use and sexting amongst young people to specific beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. However, evidence was often inconsistent and mostly derived from observational studies using a cross-sectional design, which precludes establishing any causal relationship. Other methodological limitations and evidence gaps were identified. More rigorous quantitative studies and greater use of qualitative methods are required.

Managing Nature-Related Financial Risks: A Precautionary Policy Approach for Central Banks and Financial Supervisors

This paper considers how financial authorities should react to environmental threats beyond climate change. These include biodiversity loss, water scarcity, ocean acidification, chemical pollution and — as starkly illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic — zoonotic disease transmission, among others. We first provide an overview of these nature-related financial risks (NRFR) and then show how the financial sector is both exposed to them and contributes to their development via its lending, and via the propagation and amplification of financial shocks. We argue that NRFR — being systemic, endogenous and subject to ‘radical uncertainty’ — cannot be sufficiently managed through ‘market- fixing’ approaches based on information disclosure and quantitative risk estimates. Instead, we propose that financial authorities utilise a ‘precautionary policy approach’, making greater use of qualitative methods of managing risk, to support a controlled regime shift towards more sustainable capital allocation. A starting point would be the identification and exclusion of clearly unsustainable activities (e.g. deforestation), the financing of which should be discouraged via micro- and macro-prudential policy tools. Monetary policy tools, such as asset purchase programmes and collateral operations, as well as central banks’ own funds, should exclude assets linked to such activities.

A Systematic Review of Discrete-Choice Experiments and Conjoint Analysis Studies in People with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disabling, inflammatory, and degenerative disease of the central nervous system that, in most cases, requires long-term disease-modifying treatment (DMT). The drugs used vary in efficacy and adverse effect profiles. Several studies have used attribute-based stated-preference methods, primarily to investigate patient preferences for initiating or escalating DMT. To conduct a systematic review of attribute-based stated-preference studies in people with MS to identify common methods employed and to assess study quality, with reference to the specific challenges of this disease area. We conducted a systematic search for studies related to attribute-based stated-preference and MS in multiple databases, including Cochrane and MEDLINE. Studies were included if they were published in a peer-reviewed journal, were on the topic of MS, and used a survey methodology that measured stated preferences for attributes of a whole. Analysis was conducted using narrative synthesis and summary statistics. Study quality was judged against the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) conjoint analysis checklist. We identified 16 relevant articles reporting 17 separate studies, all but one focusing on DMTs. Most studies were discrete-choice experiments. Study quality was generally high, but we recommend the following: (1) that consideration of sample sizes be improved, (2) that survey design choices be justified and documented, (3) that qualitative approaches for attribute and level selection be incorporated to better involve patients, and (4) that reporting of experimental practice be improved. The effects of DMTs on reproduction and the impact of how risk and uncertainty are presented were identified as neglected research topics. The ISPOR conjoint analysis checklist was found to be unsuitable for the assessment of study quality. Attribute-based stated preference is a useful method with which to examine the preferences of people with MS in their choice of DMT. However, further research embracing the methodological recommendations identified, particularly greater use of qualitative methods in attribute development, is needed.

Making critical sense of discriminatory practices in the Canadian workplace

Purpose – This paper aims to report on a preliminary study of how professionally qualified immigrants from Hong Kong to Canada make sense of their experiences, particularly workplace opportunities. Design/methodology/approach – The study is framed by a Critical Sensemaking approach, involving in-depth interviews with 12 informants from the Hong Kong Chinese community and discursive analysis (Foucault, 1979) of the local and formative contexts in which they are making sense of workplace opportunities. Findings – The findings suggest that a dominant discourse of “integration” strongly influences the way that professionally qualified immigrants come to accept the unchallenged assumptions that the government is providing help for them to “get in”; and that ethnic service organizations are offering positive guidance to the immigrants’ workplace goals and opportunities. Immigrants’ identity and self-worth are measured by whether they “get in” – integrate – into so-called mainstream society. The effect of this hidden discourse has been to marginalize some immigrants in relation to workplace opportunities. Research limitations/implications – The interplay of structural (i.e. formative contexts and organizational rules), socio-psychological (i.e. sensemaking properties) and discursive contexts (e.g. discourses of immigration) are difficult to detail over time. The interplay – although important – is difficult to document and trace over a relatively short period of time and may, more appropriately lend itself to more longitudinal research. Practical implications – This paper strongly suggests that we need to move beyond structural accounts to capture the voice and agency of immigrants. In particular, as we have tried to show, the sensemaking and sensemaking contexts in which immigrants find themselves provide important insights to the immigrant experience. Social implications – This paper suggests widespread policy implications, with a call for greater use of qualitative methods in the study of immigrant experience. It is suggested that policymakers need to move beyond uniform and structural approaches to immigration. How selected immigrants in context make sense of their experiences and how this can help to identify improved policies need to be understood. Originality/value – This paper is original in going beyond both structural and psychological accounts of immigration. Through the developing method of Critical Sensemaking, the study combines a focus on structure and social psychology and their interplay. Thus, providing insights not only to the broad discriminatory practices that so-called non-White immigrants face in Canada (and likely other industrial societies) but how these are made sense of. The study is also unique in attempting to fuse sensemaking and discourse analysis to show the interaction between individual sensemaking in the context of dominant discourses.

IMPROVING OUTCOMES IN STUDENT DESIGN COURSES THROUGH QUALITATIVE USER RESEARCH AND CONTEXTUAL IMMERSION

Shifting from the course-based mindset into the real-world context of the user is a challenge that students often face during design courses. This can result in designs and proposed solutions that do not fully meet the technical and business needs of the client. This paper proposes a greater use of qualitative methods, paired with a deep immersion in the user environment, and highlights the value in design education through a case study example. A focus on qualitative user-studies in the discovery phase of design helps to give students perspective on the unique characteristics of users and the design context. The Engineers in Scrubs Program, in collaboration with the Uganda Sustainable Trauma Orthopaedic Program (USTOP), at the University of British Columbia is highlighted as one such example.

Applied cognitive task analysis: Crafting the elicitation of expert cognition

Calls have long been made for a greater use of qualitative methods in management research, with a recent request that we craft our research “carefully and persuasively” (Cuncliffe, 2011)This paper introduces a qualitative approach that has potential to advance management research: Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA). Developed within the community of scholars associated with Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM), this set of semi-structured interview techniques have much to offer management researchers. As yet, the techniques are under utilised by management scholars, contrary to other applied social science disciplines in cognitive psychology, human factors and design related ergonomics where they are widely used. The paper aims at advancing our understanding of these pragmatic techniques which are theoretically framed by NDM, easy to use, and have high face validity with practitioners. An analytical review of the techniques and their historical roots is provided followed by an outline of the subsequent potential benefits for management research including: entrepreneurship; strategic leadership; innovation and creativity.

Editorial: The importance of place in older people's care: three papers developing the geographies of nursing work

The practice development section of this particular edition of International Journal of Older People Nursing focuses on the importance of place in older people nursing. The papers develop the argument that, rather than being a trivial or abstract phenomenon, place matters to nurses, their practices and importantly patients. Moreover, they demonstrate how place can be recognized, operationalized and hence, brought to the fore in gerontological nursing research. Notably, in doing this, the practice development section also brings together and progresses, two significant fields of research, ‘geographical gerontology’ (otherwise known as geographies of ageing) and an emerging ‘geographies of nursing’ in the consideration of the potential geographies located in nursing work. For over three decades, geographical gerontology has provided a range of valuable ‘contextual’ information to clinical and professionally focused gerontological research. Much, but not all, of this has been focused on the design of ageing environments, the interactions between older people and their environments, demographic trends and population movement. Consequently, even if readers do not recognize the specific disciplinary title, many will be familiar with these subjects. More recently however, changing perspectives, including the greater use of qualitative methods and a more frequent focus on more intimate spatial scales such as homes, institutions and inter-personal relationships, have meant that the interests of geographical gerontology and nursing research increasingly coincide (see Andrews & Phillips, 2005). The focus of the three papers presented here augments this particular disciplinary convergence by making some clear connections to professional practice debates. The result, it is hoped, is that the papers demonstrate the potential for geographical gerontology to provide critical and direct evidence for practice. Geographies of nursing, however, are a relatively recent body of work in the wider field of nursing research, the common feature of these studies being their central conceptual emphasis on space and/or place (see Andrews, 2006) and some re-readings and extensions of the meta-paradigm of nursing environment (see Andrews & Moon, 2005). Because this field of research is in its relative infancy, commentators have yet to debate the particular contributions of a geographical perspective in nursing research to specific specialties of nursing work. Moreover, neither have they addressed connections to the fundamental concepts that underpin professional caring practices. The papers in this section thus begin to address these issues with respect to gerontological nursing, coaxing the ‘spatial turn’ in nursing research to its next logical stage. Most importantly, of course, is the contribution of these disciplinary movements to gerontological nursing and research. It would be naive to think that these papers might revolutionalize research and practice in the care of older people. However, we would like to think that some of the suggested directions for research are followed up by researchers, if only that a focus on place might help them look at their existing problems and issues in a slightly different light, perhaps ‘tweaking’ their research foci and questions if a conceptual emphasis on place provides them with fresh insights. In this sense then, we hope that these papers provide some useful leads into the relevant geographical literatures, debates, concepts and theories. To make these disciplinary progressions and connections, we have assembled a truly multidisciplinary team. Janine Wiles, who works in a geography department, is one of a new generation of ‘critical’ geographical gerontologists/health geographers. Through a broad-based review, her paper defines and introduces place and its varied roles and meanings for older people. The next paper sharpens the focus on practice and specifically how place is located in the concepts and locales of gerontological nursing practice. In order to get to the heart of nursing practice concerns, a team approach was taken in the production of this more lengthy piece. The co-authors include two health geographers – Blake Poland and Gavin Andrews – based in nursing and public health departments respectively; two sociologists – Pascale Lehoux and Karen-Lee Miller – based in health administration and public health departments; two gerontological nurses – Dorothy Pringle and Katherine McGilton – based in nursing departments and David Holmes a nurse and critical sociologist also based in nursing. Having made these arguments, the final ‘visionary’ paper sets the wide-ranging research agenda for research on place and older peoples’ nursing care. It is written by Malcolm Cutchin, a health geographer and gerontologist, currently based in a department of occupational science. We hope that the ideas presented prove to be useful to readers and although they might appear to be novel or new, it is certainly worth remembering that ideas about places and their role in healing and health care can be traced to Nightingale and even earlier (Andrews, 2003; Gesler, 2003). In this sense then, the papers provide a contemporary spin on what might be considered to be a fundamental and core issue in nursing and health professional work.

Research Ethics in Criminology

This paper provides a brief but critical review of current thinking and debate about research ethics in criminology; it falls into two parts. The first part of the paper describes the sorts of ethical issues that tend to be flagged up in ‘textbook’ accounts of ethics in criminological research; some recent efforts to devise codes of ethics for researchers in criminology; and developments in what might be termed the ‘ethical policing’ of social research. The second part briefly sketches some deeper issues to do with the ethics of research with ‘deviant subjects’. It suggests, in particular, that the ethical issues faced by criminological researchers cannot be ‘read off’ from a medical model of research. This, however, is not due simply to the greater use of qualitative methods of research in criminology. Rather, it is due to the distinctive political and ethical terrain occupied by criminology, which is significantly different to that occupied by medical research.

Focusing on Sex: Using Focus Groups in Sex Research

Recent commentators have advocated the greater use of qualitative methods in sex research. Drawing on the growing body of sex-related focus group research (including the author's own research on sexual refusals), this article highlights some key benefits of the focus group method. In particular, the collective discussion and interaction between research participants enables the exploration of under-researched topics, insight into the language commonly used by respondents to describe sexual activities, and provides the conditions under which people feel comfortable discussing sexual experiences.

Exploring the use of qualitative methods in published health services and management research.

There is interest in promoting greater use of qualitative methods in health care research. However, little is known about the volume or characteristics of published studies that use qualitative methods. This article explores these issues through a systematic review of 3 years (1995-1997) of articles classified as research in nine core health services research and management journals. The findings show that only about one in seven published research articles used qualitative methods. Two of the nine journals reviewed contributed 45 percent of the total number of articles using qualitative methods. Four journals contributed a combined 2 percent of this total number. The primary purposes in using these methods are description and articulating stakeholder perspectives. There is no standard number of pages devoted by journals to these studies or evidence that they require more journal space on average than quantitative studies. Most of the studies reviewed presented little or no information on methodology. These findings clarify future areas of emphasis for both editors and researchers wishing to promote the use of qualitative methodology in published health care research.

The Need for Crossing the Method Boundaries in Economics Research

Feminist economists should make greater use of qualitative methods and enhance the complementarities between survey and qualitative methods. This will facilitate three outcomes of value for feminist economics: uncover and correct androcentric biases in survey-generated data/analyses; advance theory and empirical research on the processes that underlie economic outcomes; broaden the range of topics to include those on the margins of the discipline.

Employee benefit programs and attitudinal and behavioral outcomes: A preliminary model

Despite recent attention to employee benefits by organizations, practitioners, and even politicians, human resource scholars and Industrial/Organizational psychologists have devoted little energy to this topic. A preliminary model of employee benefits and their effect on various attitudinal and behavioral outcomes is described. Several measurement issues, such as the definition of benefits, are addressed, along with theoretical explanations for the various linkages in the model. Greater use of qualitative methods, as well as examination of moderators, such as employee age, is encouraged.

Towards a More Socially Responsive Psychology

The South African situation provides exceptional opportunities for socially relevant activities by psychologists. Research strategies that seem likely to advance psychology faster and more validly, are: better use of inductive inference, more short-run empiricism, greater use of qualitative methods, greater use of combined quantitative and qualitative methods, and approaching subjects as co-inquiring participants. The question is discussed whether present psychological knowledge warrants application, and ways in which psychologists can assist in application are mentioned. Lastly, some examples are given of the kind of application of which we need more in South Africa.