Sally Thorne, RN, PhD, FCAHS Sally Thorne, RN, PhD, FCAHS Professor and Director UBC School of Nursing Vancouver, BC Sally Thorne, RN, PhD, FCAHS Sally Thorne, RN, PhD, FCAHS Professor and Director UBC School of Nursing Vancouver, BC Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing University of Toronto Sept 27, 2010 Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing University of Toronto Sept 27, 2010 Methodological Conventions in Transition: Shifting the Balance between Theorizing and Application
Location Discipline Discipline Training Training Conceptual Orientation Conceptual Orientation
Nursing
Methodological Affinities PhenomenologyPhilosophy/Psychology EthnographyAnthropology Grounded Theory Sociology
Confronting Resistance Health science community Health science community Social scientist colleagues Social scientist colleagues Grant reviewers/Journal editors Grant reviewers/Journal editors Paradigm thinking Paradigm thinking
Methodolatry “slavish attachment and devotion to method” “a preoccupation with selecting and defending methods to the exclusion of the actual substance of the story being told.” Janesick, V. J. (1994). The dance of qualitative research design: Metaphor, methodolatry, and meaning. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 209–219). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rule-Alignment
The Entrée: Tabula Rasa “Nothing is known…”
Researcher Role Abdication “The data speak for themselves….”
The Convenient Exit “Saturation was achieved…”
The Primacy of Abstraction “ The overarching metaphor….”
Narrative Imperative “My study participants speak their truth…” “My study participants speak their truth…”
The Meaning of Meaning “My journey…..”
Truth Claim Grandiosities Lachrymal validity Adulatory credibility Adulatory credibility
Theory in Qualitative Health Research
Epistemological Differences Social Science Health Science
What Theory Privileges and What it Obscures
The Fallout of Borrowed Theoretical Tradition Losing the disciplinary grip Losing the disciplinary grip Manipulating language signifiers Manipulating language signifiers Discrediting the field with fuzziness and irrelevance Discrediting the field with fuzziness and irrelevance
A Necessary but Not Sufficient Schism?
Emancipation of Qualitative Health Research
Applied Qualitative Methodology The Next Generation
Venturing Beyond Description and Theorizing
Using Research to Bring a Clinical Angle of Vision into the Evidence- Based Context Limits of conventional scienceLimits of conventional science Experiential phenomena not amenable to measurementExperiential phenomena not amenable to measurement Patterns in experiencePatterns in experience Commonalities and variationsCommonalities and variations Critical reflection on contextCritical reflection on context
Applied Qualitative Research as a Corrective to Big Science
Illuminator
Variance Interpreter
Challenger
Humanizer