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The synthesis and use of qualitative evidence for informing policy
making and professional practice has been the subject of recent
critical attention. In the context of concerns over research quality,
attention has increasingly turned towards a more critical appreciation
of the opportunities and problematics of utilising qualitative
research. This seminar draws together policy makers, practitioners
and academics, and provides an opportunity to consider the ways
in which qualitative research is positioned within calls for evidenced-based
policy and practice.
Aims of the seminar:
To encourage a productive dialogue across disciplinary boundaries
and build bridges between policy makers, practitioners and academic
research community.
Questions for the day:
- Value: What is the value of qualitative research
for policy and practice?
- Evidence: What claims or arguments can be
grounded in qualitative research
- Innovation: How does methodological innovation
find its way into policy and practice driven research? What
are the barriers and what are the opportunities?
- Policy and Practice: The words policy and
practice are often used together, although the requirements
for and expectations of qualitative research in spheres of policy
and practice may be different. What are the differences and
what are the similarities?
MORNING SESSION
Qualitative research in the context of evidence-based
policy and practice.
Welcome and introduction - Professor
Gareth Williams, Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff
University
Speakers:
- Professor
Jennie Popay Professor of Sociology and Public Health, Institute
for health research, Lancaster University. Policy relevant
qualitative research: 'It has a beginning, a middle but the
end is whenever!'
- Chris Carmona, Research Analyst, NICE
Centre for Public Health Excellence. When
quality meets quantity: the role of qualitative data in framing
policy.
Click here to download Chris' presentation
(do not cite without authors' permission)
Discussants:
AFTERNOON SESSION.
Potential of innovative qualitative research to inform
policy and practice: Case Studies
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Synthesising and appraising qualitative
research evidence for systematic reviews ( Mary
Dixon-Woods, Department of Health Sciences: University
of Leicester)
Systematic review has developed as a specific methodology
for searching for, appraising, and synthesising findings of
primary studies, and has rapidly become a cornerstone of the
evidence-based practice and policy movement. Qualitative research
has traditionally been excluded from systematic reviews, and
much effort is now being invested in resolving the daunting
methodological and epistemological challenges associated with
trying to move towards more inclusive forms of review. In
this seminar I describe the experiences of very diverse multidisciplinary
group funded under the ESRC Methods Programme, in attempting
to incorporate qualitative research in a systematic review
of support for breastfeeding. I show how every stage of the
review process, from asking the review question, through to
searching for and sampling the evidence, appraising the evidence,
and producing a synthesis, provoked profound questions about
whether a review that includes qualitative research can remain
consistent with the frame offered by current systematic review
methodology. I conclude that more debate and dialogue between
the different communities that wish to develop review methodology
is needed.
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Using longitudinal methods in qualitative
research: implications for policy and practice ( Jane
Lewis, Director of Qualitative research Unit, NatCen)
Longitudinal methods have an established history in quantitative
research and in ethnographic studies, but they have also been
used increasingly in recent years in applied qualitative research.
This paper will look at what they have to offer in evaluations
and other applied studies, and how they can inform our understanding
of policy and practice. The practical issues involved in designing
and conducting longitudinal qualitative studies will be explored.
The paper will also discuss the complexities that are encountered
in identifying and analysing change, or its absence, in qualitative
datasets, and making sense of longitudinal qualitative data.
Click here to download Jane's presentation
(do not cite without authors' permission)
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Qualitative methods as an approach
to policy development and evaluation - using qualitative comparative
analysis in comparative policy research. ( David
Byrne, School of Applied Social Sciences: University of
Durham)
The presentation will review and demonstrate the potential
of different forms of qualitative comparative analysis as
a way of exploring complex causation in social programmes.
It will argue that outcomes in the social world are generally
the product of the interaction of multiple factors and that
there is generally more than one combination of multiple factors
which can generate the same outcome. Charles Ragin has argued
for figurational techniques which enable the establishment
of mutliple causal configurations on the basis of systematic
comparison across small to medium size data sets. This approach
is particularly suitable in contexts where we have access
to information about all the relevant cases, a common condition
in policy related research. The presentation will show how
we can use the products of qualitative research in association
with pre-existing quantitative data to set up QCA and suggest
that NVIVO with the potential for specifying attributes for
case nodes is particularly useful in such data preparation.
Click here to download David's
presentation (do not cite without authors' permission)
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