Jeffrey Longhofer, Jerry Floersch, and Janet Hoy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195398472
- eISBN:
- 9780199979325
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195398472.001.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Research and Evaluation
Qualitative methods have become increasingly popular among researchers in the professions: social work, nursing, education, business, computer science, and occupational therapy. And while many ...
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Qualitative methods have become increasingly popular among researchers in the professions: social work, nursing, education, business, computer science, and occupational therapy. And while many comprehensive textbooks (in sociology, anthropology and psychology) describe the standard techniques and philosophical assumptions, when the audience is broadened to include practitioners, it is often assumed that practitioners are the consumers of research, not the producers. This book uses qualitative methods to engage practitioners as knowledge producers. In particular, theory-to-practice gaps are described as indispensable conditions for conducting research that matters in worlds of practice. Practitioners are encouraged to lead research by conducting engaged scholarship, which promotes collaboration between practitioners and researchers to address practice-related problems in real world settings. Whereas reductionist methods assume that practice unfolds in closed systems, where variables can be manipulated and controlled or used to predict, the argument developed in this work, using critical realist philosophy, supports the idea that practice takes place in complex open systems. This, in turn, requires a specific practice-to-research vocabulary: brute and institutional facts, contingency and necessity, essentialism, and the phenomenological practice gap. Engaged scholarship and critical realist assumptions are applied to three case studies that combine research questions with data collection techniques and analytic strategies. Thematic, grounded theory, and narrative research techniques are illustrated, including original quick-start instructions for using ATLAS.ti computer software. Institutional ethnography is described, and a case study is used to illustrate the influence of policy implementation on clinical practice.Less
Qualitative methods have become increasingly popular among researchers in the professions: social work, nursing, education, business, computer science, and occupational therapy. And while many comprehensive textbooks (in sociology, anthropology and psychology) describe the standard techniques and philosophical assumptions, when the audience is broadened to include practitioners, it is often assumed that practitioners are the consumers of research, not the producers. This book uses qualitative methods to engage practitioners as knowledge producers. In particular, theory-to-practice gaps are described as indispensable conditions for conducting research that matters in worlds of practice. Practitioners are encouraged to lead research by conducting engaged scholarship, which promotes collaboration between practitioners and researchers to address practice-related problems in real world settings. Whereas reductionist methods assume that practice unfolds in closed systems, where variables can be manipulated and controlled or used to predict, the argument developed in this work, using critical realist philosophy, supports the idea that practice takes place in complex open systems. This, in turn, requires a specific practice-to-research vocabulary: brute and institutional facts, contingency and necessity, essentialism, and the phenomenological practice gap. Engaged scholarship and critical realist assumptions are applied to three case studies that combine research questions with data collection techniques and analytic strategies. Thematic, grounded theory, and narrative research techniques are illustrated, including original quick-start instructions for using ATLAS.ti computer software. Institutional ethnography is described, and a case study is used to illustrate the influence of policy implementation on clinical practice.
Jonathan Fox
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199208852
- eISBN:
- 9780191709005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208852.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
The concept of accountability politics is defined as the arena of conflict over whether and how those in power are held publicly responsible for their decisions. Explaining accountability requires ...
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The concept of accountability politics is defined as the arena of conflict over whether and how those in power are held publicly responsible for their decisions. Explaining accountability requires disentangling states from regimes. This chapter provides the political context for understanding the book's research strategy, which compares rural civil society-state relations across regions, branches, and levels of government, with a special interest in understanding how initiatives for change can scale up, down, and across between the local and regional and the national and transnational. The sub-national comparative method is pursued with institutional ethnography and quantitative indicators, both interpreted through a political economy focus on incentives.Less
The concept of accountability politics is defined as the arena of conflict over whether and how those in power are held publicly responsible for their decisions. Explaining accountability requires disentangling states from regimes. This chapter provides the political context for understanding the book's research strategy, which compares rural civil society-state relations across regions, branches, and levels of government, with a special interest in understanding how initiatives for change can scale up, down, and across between the local and regional and the national and transnational. The sub-national comparative method is pursued with institutional ethnography and quantitative indicators, both interpreted through a political economy focus on incentives.
Jeffrey Longhofer, Jerry Floersch, and Janet Hoy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195398472
- eISBN:
- 9780199979325
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195398472.003.0004
- Subject:
- Social Work, Research and Evaluation
Institutional ethnography (IE) is summarized as a qualitative research method that is well suited to explore phenomenological practice gaps (PPGs), such as the implementation of a social policy ...
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Institutional ethnography (IE) is summarized as a qualitative research method that is well suited to explore phenomenological practice gaps (PPGs), such as the implementation of a social policy within an open practice system. The chapter (1) demonstrates how to conduct IE, including appropriate research questions, aims, and strategies for data collection and analysis; and (2) provides a detailed example of an IE engaged scholarship investigation in which a specific mental health policy influenced the everyday clinical practice of case managers. IE further exemplifies critical realist assumptions and engaged scholarship. The implementation case study demonstrates how a standardized mental health outcome measure was compromised by system influences.Less
Institutional ethnography (IE) is summarized as a qualitative research method that is well suited to explore phenomenological practice gaps (PPGs), such as the implementation of a social policy within an open practice system. The chapter (1) demonstrates how to conduct IE, including appropriate research questions, aims, and strategies for data collection and analysis; and (2) provides a detailed example of an IE engaged scholarship investigation in which a specific mental health policy influenced the everyday clinical practice of case managers. IE further exemplifies critical realist assumptions and engaged scholarship. The implementation case study demonstrates how a standardized mental health outcome measure was compromised by system influences.
