scholarly journals Clarifying researchers’ subjectivity in qualitative addiction research

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-87
Author(s):  
Michael Egerer ◽  
Matilda Hellman

Aims: In addiction research, non-constructionist traditions often question the validity and reliability of qualitative efforts. This study presents techniques that are helpful for qualitative researchers in dissecting and clarifying their subjective interpretations.Methods: We discuss three courses of action for inspecting researchers’ interpretations when analyzing focus-group interviews: (i) adapted summative content analysis, (ii) quantification of researchers’ expectations; and (iii) speaker positions. While these are well-known methodological techniques in their own rights, we demonstrate how they can be used to complement one another.Results: Quantifications are easy and expeditious verification techniques, but they demand additional investigation of speaker positions. A combination of these techniques can strengthen validity and reliability without compromising the nature of constructionist and inductive inquiries.Conclusions: The three techniques offer valuable support for the communication of qualitative work in addiction research. They allow researchers to assess and understand their own initial impressions during data collection and raw analysis. In addition, they also serve in making researchers’ subjectivity more transparent. All of this can be achieved without abandoning subjectivity, but rather making sense of it.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Po. Abas Sunarya ◽  
George Iwan Marantika ◽  
Adam Faturahman

Writing can mean lowering or describing graphic symbols that describe a languageunderstood by someone. For a researcher, management of research preparation is a veryimportant step because this step greatly determines the success or failure of all researchactivities. Before a person starts with research activities, he must make a written plan commonlyreferred to as the management of research data collection. In the process of collecting researchdata, of course we can do the management of questionnaires as well as the preparation ofinterview guidelines to disseminate and obtain accurate information. With the arrangement ofplanning and conducting interviews: the ethics of conducting interviews, the advantages anddisadvantages of interviews, the formulation of interview questions, the schedule of interviews,group and focus group interviews, interviews using recording devices, and interview bias.making a questionnaire must be designed with very good management by giving to theinformation needed, in accordance with the problem and all that does not cause problems at thestage of analysis and interpretation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Kangasniemi ◽  
Alessandro Stievano ◽  
Anna-Maija Pietilä

The purpose of this study, which is part of a wider study of professional ethics, was to describe nurses’ perceptions of their rights in Italy. The data were collected by open-ended focus group interviews and analyzed with inductive content analysis. Based on the analysis, three main themes were identified. The first theme “Unfamiliarity with rights” described nurses’ perception that their rights mirrored historical roots, educational content, and nurses’ and patients’ position in the society. The second theme, “Rights reflected in legislation” highlighted that working and professional Italian legislation played a strong role. The third theme, “Managerial barriers for nurses’ rights” underlined the nurses’ perceptions that nursing management had the responsibility to create the conditions where nurses’ rights could flourish. This study intends to contribute to the debate on this underexplored topic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026565902199553
Author(s):  
Camilla Nilsson ◽  
Jill Nyberg ◽  
Sofia Strömbergsson

The aims of this study were to identify children’s reactions towards speech sound disorders (SSD) in other children and whether these reactions can be related to specific speech characteristics. Six audio samples, each containing minute-long resumes of short animated film by five children with SSDs and one child with typical speech (TS), aged 5–9 years, were played back to 17 10–11-year-olds, during four focus group interviews. The transcribed interviews underwent a qualitative content analysis. The analysis resulted in five identified main themes of listener reactions, concerning the experiences as a listener, the perspective of the speaker, as well as observations of speech characteristics. Reactions of empathy were expressed towards a perceived misalignment between speaker age and speech production proficiency. Awareness of peer reactions are clinically useful, for the understanding and acknowledgement of everyday contextual factors of children with SSDs, during planning and motivation of speech intervention. The children’s self-selected terminology may serve future quantitative investigations to further determine the boundaries of acceptability towards SSDs as well as towards non-standard sociolects or language varieties.


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lytje

This study explores how Danish students experience returning to school following parental bereavement. Eighteen focus group interviews with 39 participants aged 9 to 17 years were conducted. All participants had experienced the loss of a primary caregiver. Data collection was divided into two phases. In Phase I, 22 participants from four grief groups were interviewed 4 times over the course of a year. During Phase II, confirmatory focus groups were undertaken with the 17 participants. This article explores findings related to the four themes of initial school response, long-term support, challenges within the class, and academic challenges. The study found that (a) students struggle to reconnect with classmates following the return to school and often feel alone, (b) schools fail to have guidelines in place for what they are allowed to do if becoming sad the class, and (c) schools seem to forget their loss as time passes.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veikko Pelto-Piri ◽  
Lars Kjellin ◽  
Ulrika Hylén ◽  
Emanuele Valenti ◽  
Stefan Priebe

Abstract Objectives The objective of the study was to investigate how mental health professionals describe and reflect upon different forms of informal coercion. Results In a deductive qualitative content analysis of focus group interviews, several examples of persuasion, interpersonal leverage, inducements, and threats were found. Persuasion was sometimes described as being more like a negotiation. Some participants worried about that the use of interpersonal leverage and inducements risked to pass into blackmail in some situations. In a following inductive analysis, three more categories of informal coercion was found: cheating, using a disciplinary style and referring to rules and routines. Participants also described situations of coercion from other stakeholders: relatives and other authorities than psychiatry. The results indicate that informal coercion includes forms that are not obviously arranged in a hierarchy, and that its use is complex with a variety of pathways between different forms before treatment is accepted by the patient or compulsion is imposed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 431
Author(s):  
Eylem Gencer

Pre-competition warm-up has mostly been examined physically in the literature, focusing on its effect on performance and protection from injuries. However, there is a lack of studies regarding the psychological influences of warm-up. Therefore, in this study it was aimed to explore the psychological reflections of pre-competition warm-up in terms of motivational process and outcomes. The research was designed in qualitative research, and phenomenology was employed. Participants were 10 international wrestlers whose age differentiated between 20 and 25 years. They have a sports career ranging from 8 to 12 years. The data were collected via focus group interviews and analyzed via content analysis. Results showed that wrestlers need pre-competition warm-up as they perceive it improves their performance and protects them from injuries. However, perception of the opponent as stronger or weaker, guides whether the warm-up is needed or not. In addition, pre-competition warm-up motivates wrestlers through stimulating, goal-directing (e.g., adaptation, concentration, awareness), and encouraging them to the competition. In conclusion, pre-competition warm-up not only physically prepares athletes for the competition, but also prepares them psychologically with its motivating influences.


Author(s):  
Dave Gelders ◽  
Hans Peeraer ◽  
Jelle Goossens

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the content, format and evaluation of printed public communication from police officers and governments regarding home burglary prevention in Belgium.Design/methodology/approachThe content and format in this paper is analyzed through content analysis of 104 printed communication pieces in the Belgian province of Flemish‐Brabant in 2005. The evaluation is analyzed through five focus group interviews among professionals and common citizens.FindingsThe paper finds that police zones significantly differ in terms of communication efforts. The media mix is not diverse with poor collaboration between police officers and government information officers, while intermediaries (i.e. architects) are rarely used, culminating in poor targeted communication.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows that only printed communication is analyzed and more large‐scale empirical research is desired.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that a richer media mix, more targeted communication, more national communication support and additional dialogue between and training of police officers and communication with professionals are advisable.Originality/valueThis paper combines two empirical studies and methods (content analysis and focus group interviews), resulting in a series of recommendations for further inquiry and future action.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (26) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesus Gonzalez

It has been observed that most American TV media has taken on a format that seems to concern itself primarily with White, middle to high-income family situations. Even though the United States of America has a Latino population that reaches 17% (approximately 55 million Latinos—with Mexican Americans making up 63% of that number) and growing (Krogstad 2016), we still see a tremendous lack of Latino characters in American television. This leaves millions of Americans with no substantial representations that they can relate to, or form an identity off of. Instead, Latinos are forced into believing they are not important enough to merit TV roles and perhaps not really be American at all. This research was a content analysis of 79 scripted shows that aired through 2011-2015 to determine how often Latinos came out and how they were portrayed. Results showed that they appeared an average of six minutes on screen and they were generally depicted as criminals. Additionally, four focus group interviews were conducted, and participants also responded that shows tend to stereotype minorities while they showed White characters as authority figures. Both content analysis and focus group interviews found that Latinos lack strong representation in American television.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (9) ◽  
pp. 1188-1191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Guillemin ◽  
Camille Ricatte ◽  
Annica Barcenilla-Wong ◽  
Amandine Schoumacker ◽  
Marita Cross ◽  
...  

Flare in knee and hip osteoarthritis (OA) is more than just an exacerbation of pain. Unstructured, semistructured, and focus group interviews followed by Delphi surveys with patients and health professionals (HP) generated candidate domains of an OA flare. Content analysis of interviews with 29 patients and 16 HP extracted 180 statements, which were grouped into 9 clusters. Delphi consensus with 50 patients (Australia, Canada, and France) and 116 HP (17 countries on 4 continents) identified 5 flare domains: pain, swelling, stiffness, psychological aspects, and effect of symptoms. Elements for a preliminary definition of an OA flare are proposed. Registered at clinicaltrials.govNCT02892058.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Dehghani

Background:Ethics development is one of the most important aspects of professional practice in health sciences students. Understanding factors affecting ethics development can enhance clinical and professional performance in students.Objective:This study was conducted to explore students’ perceptions about factors affecting professional ethics development.Research design:This study is a conventional content analysis. Data were collected through 20 semi-structured interviews and two focus group interviews (12 students) during 2017–2018. Data were analyzed concurrently with data gathering, using the conventional content analysis approach of Graneheim and Lundman.Participants and research context:In total, 8 students of nursing, 5 medical students, 4 students of anesthesia and 3 operating room students in individual interviews, and 12 students in two focus group interviews from one university in the south of Iran were selected through purposive sampling.Ethical considerations:The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of one university in the south of Iran.Findings:The findings revealed two themes: personal and background factors. Personal factors consisted of the two categories of individual motivation and tendencies and interpersonal interactions. Background factors consisted of the two categories of role and function of teachers and environmental agents.Discussion and conclusions:According to the findings, both background and individual factors affect development of professional ethics in students. Understanding these factors along with reinforcement of educational planning in this field can improve healthcare services.


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