From the most recent meeting abstracts to those in the archives...find out more details about our regular meetings here.
PAST MEETINGS
Upcoming meeting....
MQHRG’s Post-Qualitative Inquiry (PQI) Seminar Series with Emilie Dionne, PhD - Seminar #3.
November 13, 2019 (3-5pm): Seminar #3 @ 2001 McGill College, Room 547
This seminar will explore what happens to health research “objects” when they intersect with Post-Qualitative Inquiry. Specifically:
How is qualitative health research data made? What are the main “methods” that participate to the making of worlds, of data?
How can or do these methods participate in “ontologies-making processes”, i.e. a world-in-the-making, as described by Karen Barad (2007)?
Particpants will be asked to reflect on:
What participates in the making of their data, the nonhuman?
What “is” the data (i.e. as human and nonhuman entanglements); and
What are the “agencies of observation”, beyond the sole putative “human”, that analyze and interpret the data?
Other workshopped questions will include:
How to do qualitative health research that is ethically sound and pragmatic in light of the contribution of post-qualitative inquiry, specifically poststructuralist theory and the feminist new materialism of Karen Barad?
The role of technologies in “making, unmaking, or not-making” health? And data? (e.g., nVIVO platforms; recording devices; virtual interviewing; digital observation and ethnography)
What are the methods “that count or not” in qualitative health research, for data material-discursive construction (i.e. data collection and analysis), and what new ones could emerge in light of PQI insights? (e.g., beyond interviewing; other modes of articulation than the voices, e.g. dementia studies)
With the specific aims of various projects, the contribution of PQI to qualitative health research can become clearer. Hence, participants are strongly invited to share with the group their project as a workshopping platform. Depending on the number of participants, and number of projects, we will aim to spend about 10 to 15 minutes per project, with the expectation to have about 4 to 5 different projects.
Sept 26, 2019 (3-5pm): Seminar #2: PQI under the scope: How helpful is it/can it be to Qualitative Health Research? (@ 2001 McGill College, Room 547
In preparation for the 2nd seminar, you are invited to familiarize yourselves with the following texts for this session (see below). For those of you who missed the session 1, find also below the list of readings that accompanied session 1 and note that Emilie will do a brief recap (5-8 minutes) on what was seen in session 1.
In session 2, participants are invited to take time to write down thoughts and preliminary questions that PQI readings spark for them, specifically in thinking about how PQI can be used for your own research or in Qualitative Health Research more largely. The main objective of this session will be to explore concretely the operationalization of PQI in qualitative health research for PQI remains marginally used in health research. Finally, the session will present 2-3x concrete PQI cases of research design and results.
All are welcome to join our online PQI Health Research Google Group. Please email Emilie to be added to the group (emilie.dionne [at] mail.mcgill.ca). Once joined, briefly introduce yourself (a couple of lines) and perhaps tell us more about your project, QR methods you use or are familiar with, and self-rate your knowledge of PQI. People are also invited to post, share and interact on the Google Group as they do the readings; don’t hesitate to use the group as a place to write down your questions so people can start engaging with them.
Reading list for seminar 2
Nordstrom, S. N. (2015). Not so innocent anymore: Making recording devices matter in qualitative interviews. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(4), 388-401.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1077800414563804
Mazzei, L. A. (2013). A voice without organs: Interviewing in posthumanist research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 732-740. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518398.2013.788761
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 28(3), PP.811-818 (you can of course read the whole article) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/345321
OPTIONAL Kenney, M. (2015). Counting, accounting, and accountability: Helen Verran’s relational empiricism. Social Studies of Science, 45(5), 749-771. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312715607413
Upcoming meeting....
MQHRG’s Post-Qualitative Inquiry (PQI) Seminar Series with Emilie Dionne, PhD
Post-Qualitative Inquiry (PQI) is an emerging field in Qualitative Research informed by poststructuralist theories. Critical of taken-for-granted assumptions regarding ontology, epistemology, ethics, and politics (what Elizabeth A. St. Pierre, has coined “conventional liberal-humanist qualitative research”), PQI invites qualitative researchers to (re)ignite a foundational critical standpoint to channel the innovative approaches of ‘new materialisms’ and ‘new empiricisms.’ Inspiration from these approaches can yield important ethical considerations for the design of qualitative inquiry and the production of ‘good’ knowledge.
Specifically, PQI argues that new materialisms and new empiricisms reveal blind-spots within qualitative research. Qualitative inquiry has become overly procedural (i.e., analysis reduced to coding techniques and frameworks). Theory is increasingly pushed aside. Data is often taken at face-value, as if ‘out there,’ ‘raw,’ and awaiting collection and interpretation. Interpretation itself is often framed within (post-)positivist standards of data validation measures and quality. PQI urges qualitative research to engage critically the ontological and epistemological assumptions of post-positivist standpoints.
PQI suggests that context must be returned (re-situated [Haraway 1991]) in qualitative methodologies; methodologies and methods have evolved in response to specific needs, at specific times, places, and scholarship. Methods and methodology were designed, created PQI reckons, and should not be taken as “transcendental Truths”, or immutable designs. Desirous to review our ethical mission, PQI challenges qualitative researchers to “go back” to theory, i.e., to thinking and imagining with theory. PQI thus challenges qualitative research to think anew, i.e., to renew our imaginative capacities, to cultivate new imaginary practices, notably by inviting the uncertainty, unknown, and vulnerability that emerges from doing research in light of the new ontological, epistemological and ethical insights.
This seminar series will be organized in 2 seminars (to begin). The first seminar (May 7, 2019, 3-5pm) will provide an overview of PQI, introduce its principal proponents, and examine some of the hard questions tackled by this complex field, including proposals for research design. A didactic lecture will be followed by an exchange with participants. Participants are encouraged to read two texts in preparation for this seminar (see below).
Note: we aim to create an online forum as a complement to the series, to provide participants with an ongoing space to exchange, ask questions, share thoughts, resources, and ideas. Forum discussion posts may be used to inform the seminars.
Reading list for seminar 1
Lather, Patti, and Elizabeth A. St. Pierre. "Post-qualitative research." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26.6 (2013): 629-633. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518398.2013.788752
St. Pierre, Elizabeth A. "Practices for the ‘New’ in the New Empiricisms, the New Materialisms, and Post Qualitative Inquiry." Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Research. Routledge, 2016. 75-96.\
Reading list for seminar 2
Nordstrom, S. N. (2015). Not so innocent anymore: Making recording devices matter in qualitative interviews. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(4), 388-401.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1077800414563804
Mazzei, L. A. (2013). A voice without organs: Interviewing in posthumanist research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 732-740. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518398.2013.788761
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 28(3), PP.811-818 (you can of course read the whole article) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/345321
OPTIONAL Kenney, M. (2015). Counting, accounting, and accountability: Helen Verran’s relational empiricism. Social Studies of Science, 45(5), 749-771. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312715607413
“A fireside chat with Dr. Patricia Benner” Wednesday March 13th 2019 from 3 to 5pm.
Dear friends and colleagues,
We are very excited to invite you to an afternoon with Dr. Patricia Benner, on Wednesday March 13th from 3 to 5pm. Dr. Benner is a prominent nursing theorist, academic and author. She is especially well known for her book, Interpretive Phenomenology, which advances a research methodology from existential and interpretive philosophy. She is professor emerita at the University of California, San Francisco UCSF School of Nursing.
Please RSVP (matthew.young4 [at] mcgill.ca) by Monday March 11th as we have restricted seating capacity (only 40 seats, so it will be ‘first replied, first served’! The location will be Room 102 in the Faculty of Dentistry (2001 McGill College Avenue).
We look forward to seeing you there!
April 5, 2018. 3 - 5pm, rm 547, 2001 McGill College Avenue
Presenters: Ana Keller, Graduate Research trainee at McGill University and Ph.D. candidate at the University of São Paulo-Brazil.
Title: The moral experiences of families with technology-assisted children or adolescents at home
Background:Significant advances in health policy, knowledge, and technology in Brazil have made possible the survival of children that previously would not have lived. These are Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN). CSHCN may have different health-related ‘impairments’ that can involve the continuing use of technology such as oxygen support, nutritional support, medications, gastrostomy, and tracheostomy, among others. The care of these children was previously provided at hospitals. Nowadays, they are at home which impacts families in different ways, such as financial, social, emotional and sleeping patterns. Research question: What are the moral experiences of families with technology-assisted children and adolescents who are being cared for at home? Method: A qualitative study was conducted. Data collection was conducted in a city in the state of São Paulo in Brazil from October 2016 until October 2017. Participants included seven families of technology-assisted children and adolescent. A total of 29 participants were recruited, including technology-assisted children and adolescents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Interviews and participant-observation were used for data collection. Genograms and ecomaps were used both as an icebreaker and as a tool to understand family composition, relationships, and social support. Drawings were used with children and adolescents as an icebreaker. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Children and adolescents in this study are assisted by the following technologies: gastrostomy, Bi-level positive airway pressure (BIPAP), insulin and tracheostomy. At the present, data analysis is being conducted using Patricia Benner’s interpretative phenomenology framework.
Feedback sought:
1) At this point, I am conducting data analysis, but the coding process has been slower than what I imagined. Taking into account my deadlines, is there any advice on how to code well and faster?
2) How to integrate the field notes in the analysis process?
3) In face of what has been presented, what would be the implications for clinical practice?
AND
Raissa Passos dos Santos, PhD student, Ingram School of Nursing
Advancing ethical care for children with medical complexity in Brazil: A global health qualitative proposal
Background: Child mortality rates associated with life-threatening conditions have decreased immensely around the world. Brazil has reduced the child mortality rate more than 70%, serving as an example for other low and middle-income countries. The increased use of medical technologies in neonatology is one of the reasons associated with this improvement. As a consequence, even though neonatal morbidity remains a problem, the use of medical technologies can help to preserve children’s lives globally - including Brazil. This population of surviving children is internationally defined as Children with Medical Complexity. These children are a new reality for pediatric health services, with increasing system-wide demands for complex healthcare services. This reality creates significant ethical concerns, which involves a web of interactions among children, families, and clinicians from interdisciplinary fields, complex health procedures and decisions, and resource allocation. Objective: to examine the moral experiences of children with medical complexity and how the relational social, historical, and political contexts in which these experiences are lived shape these moral experiences. Methodology: The specific methodology of this study will be a hermeneutic ethnography using a participatory approach. The main methodological strategy will be participant observation with children and families over the period of six months in a Brazilian setting. Interviews with key informants and document analyses will be conducted. Decisions about times and places for participant observation, potential key informants, and documents to be analyzed will be made in partnership with participants in the study. An interpretive framework will be used for data analysis. Anticipated outcomes: Expected outcomes of this study include a better understanding of the social barriers to health care of the population of children with medical complexity in Brazil. Significance: By using a participatory research approach, this study will create an opportunity to advance contextualized knowledge about the needs and concerns of children with medical complexity and their families, as well as identify priorities for health care. Importantly, given that children with medical complexity are notably a disadvantaged group, whose voices have been discounted in relation to matters that affect them, this study will promote the recognition of their experiences and views on what they consider most significant for them. This will help improve the care that is provided and optimize health outcomes for this population.
All feedback is welcome, but I would be really happy to hear about strategies to engage children in a participatory research approach.
March 13th, 2018, 3 - 5pm, rm 547, 2001 McGill College Avenue
Presenter: Gail Teachman, postdoctoral student, CRCF/Dentistry
Dis/Articulating conceptions of ‘voice’ in qualitative inquiry
Abstract:
How do normative understandings of ‘voice’ mediate research results and impact? Can researchers ‘give voice’ to participants? Research that involves eliciting and analyzing participant accounts is often reliant on idealized conceptions of voice as the singular possession of an autonomous individual. This framing grants authority to some accounts while raising concerns about the authenticity of others. It also has the effect of privileging ‘voices’ produced through putatively ‘normal’ speech. In this presentation, I discuss these issues in the context of a study about inclusion with young people who have little or no speech. In order to elicit and foreground the youths' perspectives, it was necessary to disarticulate, or disrupt, the logics underpinning conceptions of voice in qualitative inquiry. Drawing examples from the research and subsequent application in other areas, I demonstrate the value added through the critical dialogical methodology that resulted from this theorizing. In conclusion, I suggest the implications of this work for interview-based research generally, highlighting the dialogical relation that is all our communication.
February 5, 2018, 3 - 5pm, rm 547
Presenter: Nickoo Merati, Family Medicine
TITLE: Cree youth health and health engagement - a qualitative descriptive study
BACKGROUND: In 2014, the Cree Board of Health and Social Services for James Bay (CBHSSJB) supported the Iiyuu Ahtaawin Miyupimaatisiiun Planning (IAMP) initiative to stimulate local prioritization and plans for Miyupimaatisiiun (health and wellbeing) change across the region. While many healthcare challenges defined through IAMP are specific to youth (under 25 years of age), engagement of youths’ perspectives in the IAMP health planning evaluation to date has been limited.
OBJECTIVES: To (1) review the evidence of Indigenous youth voices and engagement in health planning across Canada, and (2) understand how Cree youth perceive youth health, health priorities and their engagement in health planning.
METHODOLOGY: As part of a CBHSSJB-McGill partnership to evaluate IAMP, we use a qualitative descriptive study design with a community-based participatory research approach. Following a review of the literature, ten Cree youth participated in two focus groups; eight key informant interviews will be conducted with Cree youth community leaders. Thematic (qualitative descriptive) analysis will be conducted.
ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The researchers expect that the youth perspectives offer important insights that will help create new and adapt existing material to assist local and regional leadership in priority setting. This project will help reduce the knowledge gap on Indigenous youth voices in health and healthcare in Canada, and offer insights related to engaging young Indigenous people in health planning.
1. How do you balance a qualitative literature synthesis with your data collection?
2. What are your thoughts on creating a general ‘framework' inductively from an LR, and using it to analyze your primary data collected?
3. What are some of the ways you motivate yourself to actually write the manuscript?
Hiba Zafran: The Trajectory of Occupational Therapy in Lebanon: Voices of Pioneers and Experts
Abstract
Occupational Therapy is a western rehabilitation discipline that has a relatively recent formal history in Lebanon. There are local challenges in establishing the role of occupational therapists, critically reflecting on the uptake of western theories and models into education and practice, and formulating a vision for the profession. In the context of the establishment of the Institut d’ergothérapie (IET) at Université Saint Joseph, this study aims to trace the local emergence and history of occupational therapy in Lebanon, as well as connect and collaborate with experts and pioneers in the field, in order to articulate its potential future. A focused ethnography study design is proposed, including participant observation field notes, interviews with key informants and historical documents and texts. Data will undergo narrative analysis and synthesis, with reflective dialogue and feedback from stakeholders. This study will have implications for the content and focus of the IET curriculum, and the collaborative endeavors with the clinical community and stakeholders who will be given a voice through this study. Finally, this study may contribute to furthering the notion of culturally relevant occupational therapy philosophy and practice.
Questions:
1) Multiple positionality and my access to the "field" and individuals traded for their "access" to the university
2) Inter-university politics and how to gain access to key informants
3) Disen/tangling the research questions from/with patient care (and back to my role)
4) Any analytic reflections / epiphanies and/or relevant readings / similar studies to suggest
Workshop for graduate/postdoc trainees
Workshop for graduate/postdoc trainees, to be held on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, 3-5 pm (Faculty of Dentistry, #102-2001 McGill College Avenue).
Here’s how it works: Up to 3 participants can have ~30 minutes to discuss project ideas, plans, and/or methodological challenges in their ongoing research. The goal is to get focused feedback from the group, so the presentations should be no more than 10 minutes (maximum of 5 PowerPoint slides per person); this will ensure the bulk of the time can be focused on brainstorming & feedback.
Presenters: Ninoska Enriquez, PhD Student Division of Oral Health and Society, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University
Background: There is strong evidence that dental disorders such as caries, periodontal diseases and edentulism are considerably more prevalent in underprivileged populations than in affluent ones. Beyond individual biological predispositions, this health gradient appears to be related to the social and economic environment in which people live, which has been labeled ‘social determinants of health’. Sensitizing future dentists to social determinants of health has become an important issue in Canadian dental schools. In fact, the Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry (ACFD) recently produced a dental educational framework expressing the importance of incorporating these social determinants in the clinical practice. However, most of the schools in North America have been with the same curriculum. Recently, social determinants of health have been incorporated in the program. However, these have been taught as a notion of elements to know but not to take action. As a result, dental students and dentists do not know how address them. Thus, further research efforts are therefore necessary to develop strategies in dental education to train future dentists who are able to address those determinants of health.
Aim: My ultimate goal is to design a model of undergraduate dental education that integrates social dimensions of health into biomedical programs.
Methodology
Stage 1: Literature Review: I will conduct a mixed studies systematic review with the aim to summarize current evidence about educational innovations in health education that have integrated social determinants of health in their curricula.
Stage 2: Empirical study Research design: I will adopt a Sequential-Consensual Qualitative Design (SCQD), a methodology proposed by Groleau et al (2009). SCQD is a participatory action research strategy in which a number of qualitative methods for collecting data are used to produce new knowledge “with adequate external validity to influence clinicians and public health programming.”
Methods for collecting and analyzing data: Phase I, called “the cultural voice”, is carried out by conducting focus groups with the initial objective to identify key socio-cultural themes. I plan to conduct focus groups with local dental education stakeholders, namely dental patients, faculty members, university managers, and students, my intention is to identify key elements in the construction of the model of education. Phase II is entitled “accessing to an intimate voice”. The goal is to explore deeply the topic under study. Phase III, labelled by Groleau et al. (2009) “Accessing to a political voice”, I intend to organize a colloquium to present and further discuss the emerging educational framework.
Needs feed back on experiences and perceptions using this methodology.
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Entisar Abdulkader, PhD student, Faculty of Dentistry
Dental implants have been widely accepted as a feasible option for replacement of missing natural dentition, especially for the elderly. The number of elderly people is rapidly increasing throughout the world resulting in an increase of age-related diseases such as tooth loss. In Canada too, tooth loss is at approximately 35%. Prosthetic rehabilitation with dental implants, especially for the edentulous lower jaw, helps to restore oral tissues health, function, esthetic and phonetic capacity, thereby improving patient's quality of life. Therefore, completely edentulous mandible should minimally be restored with two implant-supported overdentures.
Although, quantitative researchers have shown positive results for implant prosthetic rehabilitation as an alternative option to conventional methods to treat edentulous mandible, the patient’s experience of this treatment modality has not been researched.
Our objective in this study is to explore patients’ experiences with implant prosthetic rehabilitation by adopting an interpretive phenomenology research design. Specifically, we intend to understand in-depth their lived experiences of two-implant supported overdenture to restore edentulous lower jaw.
We are using this approach to help us to explicitly understand patients’ experiences of implant-supported overdentures.
Participants for this study will be recruited from McGill University Dental Clinics in Montreal, Quebec. Methods of data collection will incorporate engagement of in-depth semi-structured interviews, which will be audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and interpretively analyzed.
I would like to get feedback on my methodology in general, and specifically on data collection and analysis!
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Hagit Sinai-Glazer, PhD candidate, School of Social Work, McGill University
The helping relationship is a fundamental building block in social work practice, hence an important concept to be explored, unpacked and better understood. My research serves this purpose by illuminating the social organization of the helping relationship between social workers and clients. More specifically, my doctoral research explores the everyday experiences of the helping relationship between social workers and their clients who are mothers as they are shaped by the social organization of a social services department in order to better understand the mechanisms that shape the helping relationship. Thus, my research question asks: How does the social organization of a Social Services Department coordinates the everyday experiences of the helping relationship between social workers and their clients who are mothers? Adding another layer to the comprehensive understanding of the helping relationship will enhance practitioners’ and policy-makers’ ability to deliver services that will meet the complexity and nurture the helping relationship between social workers and their core clientele of women who are mothers.
Using Institutional Ethnography as the main methodology, I collected data at a social services department in Israel during Fall 2016. I conducted 14 interviews with social workers, 20 interviews with clients who are mothers, and engaged in numerous hours of observations and participant observations. Additionally, I collected documents pertaining to regional and national policies and regulations that govern the helping relationship in social work.
I seek to document the political, social, organizational and institutional factors that shape the helping relationship. I started coding and analyzing and I am overwhelmed with my data. It is ‘rich’ and thick for the most part and I am lost. I know that getting lost is often part of the process but in trying to move forward I am looking to brainstorm with the group ethical, critical, and efficient processes for coding and analyzing qualitative data.
Workshop on Qualitative Evidence Synthesis
Presenter: Megan Wainwright (http://www.cerqual.org/)
2- 5 pm, October 30, 2017. Rm 102, 2001 McGill College Avenue
Homework: Please have a look at: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001895
Tuesday June 6, 2017, 3-5pm in the Faculty of Dentistry, Room #547 @ 2001 McGill College Avenue
Gina Glidden, MSW, PhD(c), School of Social Work
Title: Help-Seeking: A constructivist grounded-theory study of mothers and fathers of children with neurodisabilities
Abstract: Seeking help is an ongoing process for mothers and fathers of children with neurodisabilities (ND), yet little research has explored help-seeking as it applies specifically to these mothers and fathers, both as individuals and as co-parents. My study aims to generate a theoretical understanding about help-seeking that stems from the experiences and voices of both mothers and fathers, highlighting not only the process of help-seeking but also the introspective nature of decision-making around help-seeking: how mothers and fathers determine who will seek, for what type of help, and under what circumstances. To date I have conducted 8 in-depth, semi-structured, individual interviews with 4 parenting dyads, each consisting of mothers and fathers. These are invoking rich discussions about family context, types of help sought, personal/structural characteristics of help-seeking, partner help-seeking, and help-seeking over time. Using Dedoose, I have engaged in line-by-line coding and have moved to more focused coding for 4 of 8 interviews. It is from this coding that I have begun to develop the initial conceptual map that I will share with you.
Feedback sought: I will complete the same coding procedure with the remaining 4 interviews I have not yet coded and I would like to engage the group in a discussion about moving from focused coding to theoretical coding so I am prepared for my next interview with parents.
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Presenter: Jennifer Nutton, MSW, PhD(c), School of Social Work
Title: For Kahnawa’kehró:non: Combining Indigenous research methodologies and participatory action research to explore the meaning of culturally appropriate practice in a Mohawk First Nation
This study uses Indigenous methodologies and principles of participatory action research to explore how service providers understand the meaning of culturally appropriate child welfare practice. Three questions guide this research: (1) How is culturally appropriate child welfare practice understood by KSCS service providers involved in child welfare? (2) How are cultural practices integrated into child welfare services at KSCS? (3) What are the barriers and facilitators of implementing the Community Approach Model? During the research process, I shifted from descriptive phenomenological data analysis to thematic analysis. This shift will be discussed as well a presentation of emerging themes on the definitions of culturally appropriate practice as well as the barriers and facilitators for service providers to be able to practice in a culturally appropriate way.
Feedback sought:
1. I have shifted methods of data analysis so I would like critical feedback on my use of thematic analysis.
2. I would also like any feedback on the use of PAR in this study.
3. If possible, any feedback on how well I am integrating Indigenous research methodologies and PAR.
Liam Curran. INDI Ph.D.(c), Psychology Department, Concordia University & CRCF, McGill University
April 25th, 3 - 5pm. (Faculty of Dentistry, #547-2001 McGill College Avenue)
Title: “Yes, We Need to be in There from the Get-Go” -A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study of Social Work Response in Case Interventions to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Child Welfare Settings
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) are present across all countries and cultures where alcohol is used/misused, with prevalence rates of FASDs predicted to rise in the coming years (Petrenko, Alto, 2016). Although many countries have and continue to advance public health messages of prevention (PHAC, 2014, 2016) there is still a weakness in prevention strategies. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is said to be a “serious social and health problem” within child welfare services in both North America and the rest of the world (Fuchs, Burnside, Marchenski, & Mudry, 2010). Managing this cohort of vulnerable children with or suspected of having an FASD, and who present to child welfare services (CWS) requires recognition, support and specific tailored service provisions (Badry & Chote, 2015; Catterick and Curran, 2014, Chasnoff, Wells & King, 2015). Children living with FASD whether diagnosed or undiagnosed are at high risk of secondary life-long disabilities due to a fetal brain injury suffered while in utero from prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) (Dobson et al., 2016, Popova et al., 2016). To support children and families living with FASDs engaging with the child welfare services, researchers, policy officers and practitioners must work collaboratively to disseminate and implement evidence-based interventions and supports for this vulnerable cohort.
Therefore, the purpose of the current research project is to understand how child welfare social workers respond to and conceptualize cases of FASDs within their practice duties. Adopting a constructivist grounded theory (ConGT) methodology, the study will seek to hear directly from social workers, senior social work supervisors and social work service managers on intervening, managing and supporting children and families when FASDs present in their casework. This is a pre-data collection presentation.
Feedback. On method, data collection challenges, and anything attendees feel could help improve the project goals.
Monday, March 20, 2017, 3-5pm (Faculty of Dentistry, #547-2001 McGill College Avenue)
Workshop for graduate/postdoc trainees. Up to 3 participants can have ~30 minutes to discuss project ideas, plans, and/or methodological challenges in their ongoing research. The goal is to get focused feedback from the group, so the presentations should be no more than 10 minutes (maximum of 5 PowerPoint slides per person); this will ensure the bulk of the time can be focused on brainstorming & feedback.
Presenters:
Gerald Jordan, PhD Candidate Psychiatry McGill University. Prevention and Early Intervention Program for Psychoses--Douglas Institute, Montreal. “Receiving the gifts of psychosis”: a mixed methods study on the positive changes experienced following a first episode of psychosis
Amina Abomriga, Masters Student, Division of Oral Health and Society, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University. 'Understanding oral care experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum: a parent's perspective.'
Raissa Passos dos Santos, PhD Student at Ingram School of Nursing - McGill University; Graduate Student Trainee, VOICE (Views on Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics) - McGill University; Member of the Research Group Healthcare of Persons, Families and Society (PEFAS) - UFSM - Brazil. Moral experiences of families with a child with medical complexity.
IPA Workgroup Year in Review
Presenters: Co-chairs of the IPA Workgroup Aline Bogossian, MSW, PhD(c) and Denise Brend, MSW, PhD(c), School of Social Work
https://www.mcgill.ca/mqhrg/about-us/mqhrg-special-interest-groups/ipa-workgroup
December 12, 3.30-5 pm.
Location: Rm 547, Faculty of Dentistry, 2001 McGill College Avenue
September 28, 3-5pm. rm 110 Wilson Hall, 3506 University Street
Presenter: Gina Glidden, MsW, Phd (c)
Title: Help-Seeking: A constructivist grounded-theory study of mothers and fathers of children with neurodisabilities
Abstract: Seeking help for their child and for themselves, from within both informal (family, friends) and formal (organizations) networks is an ongoing process that mothers and fathers of children with neurodisabilities (ND) frequently engage in, yet little research has explored help-seeking as it applies specifically to these mothers and fathers and very little is known about what the process of seeking help entails for them as individuals as well as for them as co-parents. In addition, current literature about parents of children with ND is largely based on samples of mothers, therefore what is accepted as knowledge about parents, is more accurately knowledge about mothers, void of the voice of fathers. While mothers and fathers may sometimes share similar experiences related to being parents of their child, the manner in which they co-parent differs, highlighting the need for each of their voices to be heard.
Neurodisabilities can be understood as brain-based diagnoses such as cerebral palsy, autism, learning disabilities, epilepsy,or any diagnosis that impacts the way a child functions (walks, talks, learns, thinks, and socializes). As commonalities exist in the functional capacities of children, regardless of the characteristics of their specific diagnosis, the use of a non-categorical approach will allow my research to develop a theory that emerges from the data collected from mothers and fathers of children with diverse diagnoses, analyzed together, in order to gain insight about help-seeking based on common experiences rather than diagnosis-specific experiences.
Inquiries about help-seeking are not novel, yet what is missing from the current state of knowledge is how it applies specifically to mothers and fathers of children with ND. In my doctoral research, I hope to bridge this gap in knowledge by developing a theoretical understanding about help-seeking that stems from the experiences and voices of both mothers and fathers of children with ND and that will highlight not only the process of help-seeking but also the introspective nature of decision-making around help-seeking: how mothers and fathers determine who will seek, for what type of help, and under what circumstances (when).
This study is important on many levels: 1) for mothers and fathers, it can help clarify the roles each undertakes within their co-parenting relationship, why this is such, and in what ways these roles can be maintained or modified; 2) for family members and other sources of help within informal networks it may help clarify and help distinguish similarities and differences between what types of help mothers and fathers consider the most helpful; 3) for clinicians who offer support to parents of children with ND, an understanding of the experience and process of help-seeking as expressed by mothers and fathers could better inform the assessment of needs, and the subsequent provision of help based on what each considers to be most effective and meaningful to them as individuals and as a co-parenting dyad; and 4) for organizational policy, considerations regarding service-delivery procedures could be made by accounting for what mothers and fathers report as best-practices.
I am proposing a Constructivist Grounded Theory study aimed at developing a theoretical understanding of help-seeking as it relates to mothers and fathers who co-parent their child with ND. This study will explore the mechanisms, behaviours, relationships, and engagements that mothers and fathers undertake through their process of seeking help, and will inquire about how help is sought by mothers vs. fathers, how help-seeking roles are established within mother/father dyads, and how mothers and fathers navigate through and within help-seeking sources.
Research Question: How do mothers and fathers who co-parent their child with ND seek help for their child and for themselves from within their informal and formal networks?
Feedback Requested from the MQHRG: My research proposal has been accepted by my committee and I submitted my application to the McGill Research Ethics Board on August 26, 2016, and I am awaiting their feedback. What I would be grateful to receive from you is help synthesizing my interview guide, as it is much too long. I know I will need to shorten it and let it breathe so it can tell me its story, yet I am afraid that if I remove questions that I think are vital to the study, I will miss out on information. Time permitting, I would also appreciate any feedback on your general impression of the study and perhaps where you think I may run into problems.
June 2, 2016, 3-5pm. Graduate Student Presentations
Wendy Patrick Room (Room 118) at Wilson Hall, School of Social Work, 3506 University Street.
Katherine Milette, PhD Candidate, Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University. Title: Understanding the self-management challenges of people with scleroderma (SSc) and the impact of social networks on their ability to manage the disease
Scleroderma (SSc) is a rare and chronic autoimmune rheumatic disease that affects the connective tissues of the body (Mayes, 2008). The presentation of the disease is heterogeneous and the primary focus of treatment is the ongoing management of symptoms using pharmacological treatments (Mayes, 2008; Kowal-Bielecka et al, 2009). Researchers in the field of SSc have called for the need to provide non-pharmacological treatment options, as well, to help improve SSc patient care, including self-management programs, social support, coping techniques, body image acceptance, management of energy and fatigue, and occupational therapy for the hands (Almeida et al, 2015; Kwakkenbos et al, 2015; Malcarne et al, 2013; Thombs et al, 2010). Self-management and social support programs have also been proposed by international and national health organizations in order to improve chronic disease care more generally (Davis, Schoembaum & Audet, 2005; Department of Health, 2005; Health Council of Canada, 2008; National Health Priority Action Council, 2006; World Health Organization, 2002).
The goal of chronic disease self-management programs is to increase patient self-efficacy and problem-solving skills using a combination of education and supportive interventions (Health Council of Canada, 2012), and SSc patient-identified needs are important for informing the development of a tailored SSc self-management program (Craig et al, 2008; Popay & Williams, 1998). Although there is some qualitative research investigating SSc patient perspectives on daily life challenges and needs (Suarez-Almazor et al, 2007; Joachim & Acorn, 2003; Cinar, 2012; Oksel, 2014; Sandqvist et al, 2005), and disease self-management/self-care specifically (Mendelson et al, 2007; Ellefson, 2010), only one study has looked at patient care priorities using a bio-psycho-social approach and perspectives from multiple SSc community stakeholders (Stamm et al, 2011).
Therefore, the purpose of the current research project is to better understand both the challenges related to self-management that people with SSc face and the role of social networks regarding patients’ ability to manage SSc in daily life. To achieve our purpose, we conducted focus group interviews including patients across different geographic regions (i.e. Canada and the United-States) and healthcare professionals who treat SSc patients.
Questions for the group:
The present study has been framed as a qualitative study that used a social constructivists lens. At this preliminary stage:
1. Is the framework clearly set? Does it make sense to frame the study as it was framed?
2. Was sampling and data collection clearly explained? Is it sufficient?
3. Any thoughts related to the ongoing thematic analysis?
Social Work on the Front-lines: exploring experiences and meanings of workplace social support
Denise Michelle Brend, BA, MSW, PhD(c)
School of Social Work,
McGill University
A random sample of social workers in the U.S. were shown to suffer PTSD at a rate of 15% (Bride, 2007). Human service workers exposed to traumatic material through practice in the Intimate Partner Violence field have been found to have rates of PTSD between 21% (Choi, 2011b) and 47% (Slattery & Goodman, 2009). These prevalence rates are in contrast to the projected lifetime risk of PTSD in the U.S. of 8.7% (Kessler, Chiu, Demler, & Walters, 2005). In the empirical literature studying the impact of working with trauma in social work, workplace social support has been shown to be protective against traumatization for some workers (Boscarino, Figley, & Adams, 2004; Choi, 2011a; Ting, Jacobson, & Sanders, 2008). Upon careful examination of this scholarship, a clearly defined understanding of workplace social support amongst social workers dealing with the direct effects of exposure to traumatic material is lacking. My doctoral research asks how social workers, who are routinely exposed to trauma, specifically those working in the field of IPV, experience workplace social support. I hope to further understandings of workplace social support grounded in first-hand accounts with the aim of expanding or reformulating the construct and improving policy and practice.
Drill #4 MQHRG Epistemological Boot Camp Ending the mission: Knowledge mobilization and making use of qualitative research
Date: Thursday, April 14, 2016, 3‐5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
Victoria Burns, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) Special Guest Franco Carnevale, PhD, Professor, Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University.
Required Readings: Botorff, J (2015). Knowledge translation: Where are the qualitative health researchers? Qualitative Health Research, 25(11), 1461‐1462.
Graham, ID, Logan, J, Harrison, MB, Straus, SE, Tetroe, J, Caswell, W, & Robinson, N. (2006). Lost in knowledge translation: Time for a map? Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 26(1), 13‐24.
Greenhalgh, T, & Wieringa, S (2011). Is it time to drop the ‘knowledge translation’ metaphor? A critical literature review. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 104(12), 501‐509.
Kontos, PC, & Poland, BD (2009). Mapping new theoretical and methodological terrain for knowledge translation: Contributions from critical realism and the arts. Implementation Science, 4(1), 1‐10.
Workshop for graduate/postdoc trainees:
Three participants have ~30 minutes to present project ideas, plans, and/or methodological challenges in their ongoing research. The goal is to get focused feedback from the group, so the presentations will be be no more than 10 minutes (maximum of 5 PowerPoint slides per person); this will ensure the bulk of the time is focused on brainstorming & feedback.
Wednesday March 9, 2016, 3-5pm @ 2001 McGill College Ave, Room 547.
Mark Keboa, PhD(c), Faculty of Dentistry
Understanding oral health and dental care pathways of refugees and asylum seekers in Montreal
Background:About 25.000 refugees and asylum seekers (humanitarian migrants) arrive Canada each year; Overall goal: To contribute in improving the oral health of humanitarian migrants. Research objectives:To explore the understandings of oral health, as well as experiences and pathways to oral healthcare of adult humanitarian migrants in Montreal
Questions:Is the methodology appropriate to address the research question and objectives? How can I improve upon the data analysis and presentation of results?
Jiameng Xu, PhD student, Rehabilitation Sciences and student in the MD-PhD joint program, McGill University
PhD supervisor: Dr. Melissa Park, OT/L, PhD in the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University
How do persons diagnosed with mental illness and their family members envision and create together potential futures worth striving for? An outline of a dissertation study.
The personal recovery model is an emerging movement in mental health care that emphasizes patient autonomy, self-determination, and participation in meaningful occupations and relationships, so that people affected by mental illness may “live a satisfying, hopeful, and contributing life even with the limitations caused by illness.” Personal recovery differs from clinical recovery, whose primary goal is remission from symptoms. A challenge that healthcare providers face in the implementation of personal recovery-oriented care is a lack of knowledge regarding how persons living with mental illness strive for their own well-being in the context of their lives, as individuals concerned with projects and commitments, involved in a network of relationships, situated in a particular environment, and holding membership to particular cultures and communities. In this brief presentation, I will present a preliminary plan for a dissertation study focussing on the experiences of persons diagnosed with mental illness and their family members in the process of seeking personal recovery, where family members are the individuals significant to or chosen by the person. One central question is: How do persons diagnosed with mental illness and their family members work together to imagine and create a future that they desire? I will propose an ethnographic study design combined with a narrative-phenomenological framework; outline the proposed participants, sites of study, and methods of data collection; and raise methodological challenges of conducting the study (e.g., how to understand and represent the multiple perspectives of individuals affected by a shared experience?). As the study is currently conceived, the primary objective is to describe the practices that persons diagnosed with mental illness and their family members use to cultivate hope; secondary, exploratory objectives are to understand what is the experience of using mental health services as a family unit, and what is the experience of personal recovery of families self-identified as belonging to a minority culture.
Questions: How to understand and represent the multiple perspectives of individuals affected by a shared experience?
What potential ethical issues may arise in working with families?
The result of the proposed research plan will probably be a few in-depth case studies. How may I work with the limitations of having a small number of participants or families in my study?
What areas do you consider to be weak? To be strong?
Maryam Gholamrezaei, PhD(c), Counselling Psychology
A Mixed Methods Study of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury among Ethnic/Racial Minority University Students
Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is one of the concerning psychological problems that is very common among university students, with lifetime prevalence rates ranging from 11.68% to 17% (Heath et al., 2008; Serras et al., 2010; Whitlock et al., 2006, 2011). Ethnic/racial minority university students have remained understudied in NSSI literature in spite of some evidence suggesting that some ethnic/racial minorities, such as Native Americans, African American adolescents, and multicultural university students, are at a higher risk of NSSI compared to ethnic majority populations (Cwik et al., 2011; Kuentzel et al., 2012; Latzman et al., 2012; Yates, Tracy, & Luthar, 2008). The proposed research will strive to address the mentioned gap in the NSSI research literature by using a two-phase sequential mixed methods study. The quantitative component of the study will examine NSSI characteristics, mental health service use, and the history of psychological diagnoses among ethnic minority university students. The qualitative component will explore how ethnic minority students make sense of their NSSI, considering their experiences of being an ethnic minority, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).
Epistemological Bootcamp Drill #3:Sample size, saturation, and participant selection: Locating your justifications within your paradigm.
Victoria Burns, Postdoctoral Fellow, Urbanisation, Culture & Society Research Centre, Insitut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS)
Special Panel:
David K. Wright, PhD (University of Ottawa) and Shawn-Renee Hordyk, PhD (McGill University)
Required Readings
Baker SE, & Edwards R. (2012) How many qualitative interviews is enough? Expert voices and early career reflections on sampling and cases in qualitative research. http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/4/how_many_interviews.pdf
Sandelowski M. (1995) Sample size in qualitative research. Research in Nursing & Health, 18, 179-183.
Mason M. (2010) Sample size and saturation in PhD studies using qualitative interviews. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 11(3).
An open letter to The BMJ editors on qualitative research. Published 10 February 2016) BMJ 2016;352:i563
http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i563.full?ijkey=c1RmesunyZazzfY&keytype=ref
Response from the Editors: Qualitative research and The BMJ. BMJ 2016;352:i641 doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i641
Please come prepared to discuss how and why you have written about sampling in your own work. Which authors/standards did you use, and why?
Time: Thursday, February 18 2016, 3‐5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
Search Strategies for Qualitative Literature
Jill Boruff, Associate Librarian McGill University
Time: January 21, 3-5 pm
Location:Rm 547, 2001 McGill College Avenue
qualitative_searching_handout.pdf
Epistemological Bootcamp Drill #2: Is your research ‘rigorous’? Interpreting and articulating rigor within your paradigm.
Victoria Burns, Postdoctoral Fellow, Urbanisation, Culture & Society Research Centre, Insitut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS)
Required Readings:
Morse, JM (2015) Critical analysis of strategies for determining rigor in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Health Research, 25(9), 1212‐1222.
Davies, D, & Dodd, J (2002) Qualitative research and the question of rigor. Qualitative Health Research, 12(2), 279‐289.
Sandelowski, M (1993) Rigor or rigor mortis: The problem of rigor in qualitative research revisited.
Suggested Reading:Schwandt, TA (1996) Farewell to criteriology. Qualitative Inquiry, 2(1), 58‐72.
Homework Please come prepared to discuss how and why you have used the concept of rigor in your own work (or why you have not). Which authors/standards did you use, and why?
Time: Thursday, December 10 2015, 3‐5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
How the internet is (and is not) transforming health and care
Professor Sue Ziebland, professor of medical sociology and director of the health experiences research group at Oxford University's Department of Primary Health Care.
Sue Ziebland is Professor of Medical Sociology and director of the Health Experiences Research Group (HERG), based in the Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences. She is also a senior research fellow at Green Templeton College and an NIHR Senior Investigator. www.phc.ox.ac.uk/team/researchers-n-z/sue-ziebland. Sue has worked as a researcher in the academic, NHS and voluntary sectors and has published over 150 papers and chapters in social science and health publications. She has led the research for Health Talk since the projects started in 2000.
In the early 2000s only particularly engaged, expert and activated patients sought health information online. The internet has now become an almost unremarked, routine part of people’s experience (eg ‘of course we all looked it up straight away’) transforming how people make sense of and respond to symptoms, decide whether to consult, make treatment choices, cope with their illness and connect to others. As communications technologies are increasingly used in everyday life, there has been an expectation (supported by policymakers) that this should extend to the consultation itself. Patients and the public have tended to be enthusiastic when they are offered e-mail or video consultations, which can be convenient and efficient, especially for people who are frail or disabled But there are also fears that patients might use email ‘inappropriately’ and be more demanding with implications for time management, confidentiality, safety and medico –legal issues. In this talk I will attempt to distinguish the rational from the proxy concerns and consider how loss of the ‘face to face’ consultation may disrupt the ceremonial order of the consultation and the work of the health professional.
Thursday October 22nd, 2015 3:00-5:00 pm
2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
Epistemological Bootcamp Drill #1: Surveying the Paradigmatic Battlefield: Articulating and Nourishing your Paradigm
Victoria Burns, Postdoctoral Fellow, Urbanisation, Culture & Society Research Centre, Insitut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) AND Daniel A. Nagel, RN, Assistant Professor, St. Frances Xavier University
Required Readings:
Staller, KM (2013). Epistemological boot camp: The politics of science and what every qualitative researcher needs to know to survive in the academy. Qualitative Social Work 12:395‐413.
Nagel, D. A., Burns, V. F., Tilley, C., & Aubin, D. (2015). When novice researchers adopt constructivist grounded theory: Navigating less travelled paradigmatic and methodological paths in PhD dissertation work. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 10, 365-383. Retrieved from http://ijds.org/Volume10/IJDSv10p365-383Nagel1901.pdf
Lincoln YS, Guba EG. (2000) Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In: Denzin NK, Lincoln YS, eds. Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2000:163‐188.
Time: Wednesday September 23 2015, 3‐5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
Mining the Knowledge to Action Gap in Dentistry: Applying Interpretive Phenomenology Towards Understanding Barriers to Humanizing Care
Martine Lévesque, PhD Candidate, Université de Montréal School of Public Health
Abstract: In a context of persisting and significant social inequities in oral health, dental education is challenged to develop in students and practitioners an awareness of, sensitivity and capacity to respond to social determinants of health and their impact on patients. Yet, the literature in dental education reveals the near absence of knowledge translation tools, approaches or theoretical foundations for achieving this. In response to this void, Québec based dental educators, researchers, professional regulatory bodies and community organizations partnered, between 2006-2012, towards the production of original and arts-based educational tools on poverty and social determinants of oral health. These innovative tools were integrated into a continuing education course (CE) founded on principles of adult transformative learning (Mezirow 1991; Cranton 1994).
Nested within the above participatory narrative and developmental framework, this single qualitative case study examines how 15 members of a Montreal based private dental clinic perceive, experience and respond to their participation in the (CE) course. Over the course of seven months, as researcher-trainer, I gained entry into the clinic, implemented the CE activities and conducted the research. Interwoven with CE activities, data collection included digitally recorded group discussions, multiple individual semi-structured interviews, clinic administrative documents, and « observer as participant » field notes. Interpretative-phenomenology oriented analysis yields an in-depth understanding of participants’ responses to and perspectives about the course and their learning, within the context of their clinic and the oral healthcare system more generally. This presentation will focus on perceived obstacles and objections to making practice changes discussed during the training, as well as some of the educational and policy-level implications that ensue.
Feedback sought: Though this research is in an advanced stage (results in press), feedback on the strengths and limitations of my case study will help strengthen the discussion section of my thesis. I am particularly interested in your feedback on my application and description of rigor strategies and my framing of study limitations.
Date: Wednesday May 20, 2015, 3-5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, Room 547
Doctoral project discussion: Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to uncover the meaning of involvement for fathers of children with neurodisabilities
Aline Bogossian, PhD Candidate, School of Social Work, McGill University
Research on fathering and father involvement has expanded in scope in the past several decades resulting in a rich body of literature on the affective, cognitive and behavioral dimensions of father involvement. Amidst this burgeoning body of work, research on the dimensions of father involvement in the context of parenting a child with a disability is still in its infancy. Studies designed to examine father involvement among this population have the behavioral and cognitive aspects of involvement as their focus. Very few studies have been designed to examine the affective dimension of father involvement and what involvement means to these fathers.
An illustration of work in progress and the preliminary analysis of seven in-depth interviews with fathers of children with neurodisabilities using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (Smith et al., 2009) will be presented.
Evaluation and feedback is sought from MQHRG members on how closely this work meets quality/acceptability of preliminary analysis using Smith (2011) quality assessment guidelines. These guidelines include:
• Adherence to theoretical principles of IPA (phenomenological, hermeneutic, and ideographic)
• Sufficient transparency of analytic method
• Coherent, plausible and interesting analysis
• Demonstration of density of evidence for each theme
Presented: April 23, 2015, 3:00-5:00pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, Room 547
Experiences of oral tumor patients living with or without implant-supported prosthetic rehabilitation AND Developing a socially-attuned hermeneutic methodology: A request for peer input
1. Akanksha Srivastava, DDS, PhD student, Oral Health and Society, Faculty of Dentistry
Experiences of oral tumor patients living with or without implant-supported prosthetic rehabilitation
* Dr. Srivastava invites the audience to comment on this project's research proposal.
2. Franco Carnevale, RN, PhD. Professor, Ingram School of Nursing.
Developing a socially-attuned hermeneutic methodology: A request for peer input.
*This talk is meant to advance the work that the Phenomenology Special Interest Group did last year.
Presented: Tuesday March 24, 2015, 3-5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, Room 547
Conducting qualitative research with young people: Methodological Challenges
Session Abstract: Conducting research with children presents a number of significant challenges. Many methods that are commonly used with adults are ineffective with children. Particular ethical concerns are raised when the research participants are children. These problems can result in an under-development of childhood research and systematic limitation in the advancement of knowledge on matters that affect children. The aim of this session is to critically review methodological challenges involved in conducting research with children and discuss specific solutions for overcoming these challenges. Four childhood researchers will describe their experiences and strategies to overcome these challenges, followed by group discussion.
Presentations:
- General overview (FA Carnevale)
- Conducting phenomenological research with children (FA Carnevale)
- Maintaining motivation: the role of place and relationship in qualitative research with children (SR Hordyk)
Contextual influences on interviews with children (N Makansi) - Participatory research and children: challenges and solutions (M Montreuil)
- General Discussion (Audience – Bring your own experiences, questions and solutions!)
Presenters:
Franco A. Carnevale, RN, PhD
Professor, Nurse, Psychologist, Clinical Ethicist
McGill University/Montreal Children's Hospital/Le Phare, Enfants et Familles
Principle Investigator, VOICE (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics), McGill University
Shawn Renee Hordyk, MSW, PhD
Postdoctoral fellow, Indigenous Health Research, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University
Nora Makansi, DDS, PhD
Postdoctoral fellow, VOICE (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics), McGill University
Marjorie Montreuil, RN, MSc(A)
Doctoral student, Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University
Graduate student trainee, VOICE (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics), McGill University
Clinical Nurse Specialist, Douglas Mental Health University Institute
Presented: Wednesday February 24, 2015, 3-5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 102
Who's afraid of Peer Review? Learning to Love the Challenge
Sandra Peláez, Mary Ellen Macdonald, Crystal Noronha
This workshop has three objectives:
- Deconstructing the process of peer reviewing
- Understanding reviewers' responsibilities
- Maximising personal and professional responsibilities related to the reviewing process
Peer Review WorkshopLocation: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
Striving for a sense of place: Exploring newly homeless older adults’ experiences of displacement into homelessness in Montreal, Quebec
Victoria Burns, PhD(c) Joint PhD McGill/Université de Montreal Program in Social Work/Social Policy
While it has been widely acknowledged that attachments and meanings of place must be considered in relation to an older person’s ability to age in place successfully, experiences of becoming displaced into homelessness for the first time in later life has, as yet, received scant attention. This oversight represents an important scholarly gap, considering newly homeless older adults (NHOAs) (i.e., adults who are becoming homeless for the first time at age 50 years and older) represent one of the fastest growing populations in Montreal shelters. Thus, drawing on the geographic concepts of home, place, and displacement, and 11-in-depth interviews with NHOAs, this constructivist grounded theory study redresses this gap by exploring how NHOAS’ experience displacement into homelessness in the City of Montreal.
Over the course of their lives, participants oscillated back and forth between feeling in and out of place. Differing from existing research that dichotomizes the homeless from the housed, and suggests that displacement is unequivocally a negative experience, this study un-dichotomizes the home-homeless continuum, and argues that displacement into homelessness is a dynamic, dual process of feeling both in and out of place. Importantly, the combination of personal histories (i.e, gender, class, stage of life cycle), policies, and practices affect tendencies towards feeling in and out of place. Participants’ ideal sense of place was closely tied to the meaning of home, conceptualized here across three main dimensions: 1) home as a place of control; 2) home as a place of care 3) home as a place of privacy. Although participants experienced threats to feeling in place to varying degrees while housed across all three dimensions (e.g. childhood abuse, family breakdown, health problems, domestic violence, substandard housing) two different types of displacees were revealed: 1) Constant oscillators, i.e., participants who over the course of their lives, never felt in place as a result of various factors (e.g., life-long poverty, health problems and abuse) and 2) Acute oscillators, i.e., participants who experienced a severe and rapid lost sense of place in later life, principally as a result of family breakdown and health problems. While homeless, participants’ sense of place was further threatened to varying degrees as a result of reduced privacy, fearing violence from other shelter residents, being forced to move shelter to shelter, and being ‘treated like a number’. Paradoxically, aspects of homelessness also fostered a sense of place (e.g., having access to food, shelter, and care from service providers). However, over time, homelessness led participants to oscillate further away from feeling in place as their sense of control, care and privacy was increasingly undermined, thereby highlighting the need for rapid interventions for NHOAs in order to prevent entrenchment into chronic homelessness.
By considering NHOAs’ experiences of displacement into homelessness, this thesis makes a significant contribution to the placed-based literatures, particularly in the fields of urban sociology, social geography, and environmental gerontology. By providing an improved understanding of the unique trajectories, contexts, and needs of NHOAs, this study adds substantive knowledge to research on older homeless adults, which has focused largely on the chronic homeless population. This study also brings attention to the need for further place-based studies targeting marginalized, ‘out of place’ populations, including NHOAs.
Feedback requested:
- Is the conceptual model clear? Convincing? Suggestions for clarity and general improvement?
- Does the theory have sufficient fit, work and grab ??
Presented: Thursday December 11, 2014, 3-5pm
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
"Locating ontological moments of becoming for immigrant youth experiencing psychosis - an (attempted) analytic framework for clinical reasoning"
Hiba Zafran, MSc, PhD(candiate) Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Physical & Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University
This is a methodological case study used to illustrate an analytic framework for both research and clinical reasoning. Feedback and diagloue are sought by the presenter. She offers this quote and abstract as a way to introduce the focus of her presentation.
“This is one of my happy memories when I was in China. When I was 4 or 5 years old, I used to live in the countryside. And in… front of the house of my grandpa there is a big lake, and in the lake there is lotus everywhere. I love lotus. And… often my cousins and I will go on the boat to… pick up lotus… And also the lotus is very, very… pretty. We often took off the lotus to make it in our meals. It tastes very good. And also we pick up lotus root. Lotus root is edible. So we eat the lotus root. We pick up the lotus. And we’re also dancing and… singing on the boat.”
When trying to understand the meaning of immigrant experience that has swerved into mental illness it is all too easy to intellectualize and categorize the words of patients. Drawing from philosophical hermeneutics and radical empiricism to articulate an ontology of the in-between reveals what is beyond the symbolism of the memory of food, or a need for nurturance in a foreign land for one young woman. The organic world of offered and shared food is what makes her who she is. In a narrative where childhood landscapes and present relationships are undifferentiated from her sense of self, she is grounded and made by, she finds home, in a plate.
Presented: Wednesday November 5, 2014
Location: 2001 McGill College Ave, room 547
Workshop: Research Plans and Methodological Challenges
Presenters Mark Tambe Keboa (PhD student), Shawn-Renee Hordyk (PhD), Sandra Peláez (PhD)
Feedback sought: Will be asking for feedback on project description, rationale and methodology
Presented: Tuesday September 30, 2014, 3-5pm
Location: Wilson Hall, room 223 (3506 University Ave.)
Project Discussion: Preliminary findings from a constructivist Grounded Theory study of the experiences of hope among parents of children with neurodevelopmental diagnoses
Sacha Bailey, PhD Candidate, School of Social Work, McGill University
Traditionally, scholarship in the field of parenting children with disabilities has highlighted the extent of burden or stress parents experience when caring for their child. More recently, there has been a shift toward considering inherently positive constructs associated with parenting – for example, individual and family resilience, meaning making, and hope. The concept of “hope” has been receiving increasing attention as a potential resilience factor that may: protect against distress, facilitate coping, and increase family adaptation. What is not apparent in the literature, however, is what parents of children with neurodevelopmental diagnoses (NDD) mean when they describe hope (or a lack thereof). Likewise, little is known about the role and meaning of hope and what difference hope makes when parenting a child with disabilities. This study seeks to explore the experiences of hope among mothers and fathers of children with NDD. A constructivist grounded theory (cGT) approach is being utilized using semi-structured interviews. Six interviews have been conducted to date, coded and analyzed using methods consistent with a cGT approach. Preliminary findings will be shared with the group.
Audience members will be invited to provide feedback on: implementation of the methodological approach (consistency with cGT approach), interview guide (ideas for questions to get at gaps in conceptual understanding), coding (how to deal with a large amount of initial codes, moving back and forth between initial, focused, and axial coding, what to code vs. not code).
Presented: May 15, 2014, 3-5pm
Location: 3550 University Ave, main conference room
Advancing the meaning of work for people experiencing unemployment due to chronic work disability following a musculoskeletal injury
During this meeting, Sara Saunders will rehearse her dissertation defense (see abstract below). Audience members are invited to provide feedback on the clarity of the presentation, and whether there were aspects that are missing from the presentation. Most specifically, Sara seeks feedback on whether the methodology and methods sections are clear.
The life-world is where our daily lives are spent and is often only reflected upon when a disruption is experienced. A musculoskeletal (MSK) injury is one such event that can dramatically alter a person’s life-world. For most, the injury is temporary and they are able to get back to work and resume their former lives. Others, however, experience greater disruption in their lives, remain unable to work and eventually lose their jobs. The purpose of this study was to explore whether work remains meaningful following a MSK injury resulting in chronic pain, prolonged work disability and job loss. Despite research showing that people with disabilities want to work, that work continues to be meaningful, and that work can promote health, many injured workers continue to struggle with returning to work (RTW). A gap in the literature exists for those with chronic pain due to MSK injury, and it is unknown whether people continue to find work meaningful when they are away from the workforce for long enough to lose their jobs. This study used a descriptive and interpretive phenomenological methodology to access the lived experience of work disability. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews were conducted with nine participants exploring the meaning of work throughout their work histories and following their injury. The findings show that despite the significant disruption to the participants’ life-worlds, not only did the meaning of work remain stable, but it provided motivation for the participants to continue their efforts to RTW despite pain and system barriers. However, neither the meaning nor the effort exerted by these participants was found to have been identified or optimized within the work disability system. Additionally, this study suggests that if the RTW efforts of the long-term work disabled are not fully acknowledged or supported by the system stakeholders, this population will remain unemployed and their strengths as competent, experienced workers will continue to be wasted.
Presented: April 10, 2014, 3-5 pm
Location: 3550 University Ave, main conference room
Advancing interdisciplinary research in childhood ethics: An ethnographic examination of best interests and moral agency
Dr. Carnevale will present a research proposal for an ethnography of childhood ethics that incorporates multiple methods, including quantitative approaches. Audience members will be invited to provide critical feedback on the research design.
Presented: Thursday March 13, 2014, 3-5pm
Location: 3550 University Ave., main conference room
Year End Review: The MQHRG Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Special Interest Group (SIG)
During 2013, MQHRG member, Franco Carnevale, led this one-year SIG: the group engaged in an advanced critical examination of various qualitative methodologies in the Phenomenology & Hermeneutic intellectual tradition, while also formulating criteria for assessing these methodologies and highlighting needed developments in the future. The group’s work was truly comprehensive and thorough! Franco will report on the SIG’s work and ask MQHRG members how Phenomenology & Hermeneutic methodological expertise and research should be developed within MQHRG in the future.
For MQHRG members who are novices in this domain, PLEASE review this introductory article so that you can engage in the conversation!
Dowling, M (2007) From Husserl to van Mannen. A review of different phenomenological approaches. International Journal of Nursing Studies 44: 131-142.
Presented: Thursday January 30, 2014 3-5pm.
Location: 3550 University Ave., main conference room
On Reflexivity
Sacha Bailey, Aline Bogossian, Carolina Pineda
In 2002, McGillian scholar Philip C. Salzman explored the topic of reflexivity in a prominent disciplinary journal, American Anthropologist. Salzman begins with the observation that "no idea has been so wholeheartedly, unanimously, and uncritically adopted in contemporary anthropology as 'reflexivity'" and he initiates a "process of reconsideration" (2002:805) in this regard. Following a review of three of its uses in ethnography —1) as a distinguishing feature of post-modern works, 2) as a guarantee for “better research,” 3) as a tool for the reader’s assessment of the text—he wonders if reflexivity can live up to its claims. In our discussion, we will react to Salzman's text as qualitative health researchers who are inclined to think that reflexivity can be useful beyond its rhetorical ends. Our discussion will be supported by sociologist Andrea Doucet's reflection on reflexivity in "From her side of the gossamer wall(s)": Reflexivity and Relational Knowing (2008).
Homework:
Salzman, Philip Carl. On Reflexivity. American Anthropologist 104(3):805-11.
Doucet, Andrea. “From Her Side of the Gossamer Wall(s)”: Reflexivity and Relational Knowing. Qualitative Sociology 31(1):73-87.
Presented: Thursday December 12, 2013, 3-5pm
Location: 3550 University Ave., main conference room
Exploring experiences of displacement among recently homeless older adults in Montreal Quebec: A grounded theory study
Victoria Burns, MSW, PhD Candidate, McGill University School of Social Work
This is a presentation of a doctoral research proposal.
There is a general consensus within gerontological scholarship that the immediate environment becomes increasingly important in old age as people’s mobility and social networks tend to become more restricted in space (Twigger-Ross, & Uzzell, 1996). The gerontological literature on place attachment has suggested that secure attachment to place is central to aging well – but has focused largely on older adults residing in stable, familiar living environments. To date, there is little empirical research acknowledging the rising number of adults aging in familiar environments who are involuntarily displaced into homelessness for the first time in later life. Therefore, drawing on the sensitizing concepts of place, place attachment, and displacement, through in-depth interviews, this constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) study redresses this gap by exploring experiences of displacement among recently homeless older adults (i.e., adults who become homeless for the first time at age 50 years and over).
Questions: Is it necessary to sample men and women? Would adding a more explicit observation component be helpful in answering my research question? Grounded theory methodology is relatively new to me so I hope to receive feedback regarding all aspects of my methodology (i.e., including strategies to enhance rigour; is there something specific to grounded theory that is missing to ensure a good fit between method and the research questions?) I would also appreciate specific feedback to improve my interview guide (are the concepts I am driven by evidenced in the interview guide?)
Presented: Thursday October 24, 2013, 3-5pm
Location: 3550 University Ave., main conference room
Final Spring Meeting 2012
The goal of this meeting was to workshop the current projects of several MQHRG members—Christina Clausen, Noemi Dahan, Sandra Pelaez.
1. Asthma self-Management. The patient's perspective
Presenter: Sandra Pelaez, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in Educational and Counselling Psychology
2. The Nurse-Physician Management Dyad: The Process of Working Together to Address Clinical Management Issues in a Hospital Setting
Presenter: Christina Clausen, PhD student in Nursing, Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University
Focus: Examining the use of participant observation in a grounded theory study exploring senior manager relations in a hospital setting
3. "Going to the mall": Adolescents' perspectives on environmental barriers and facilitators
Presenter: Noemi Dahan-Oliell, OT, MSc, PhD student, McGill University and Montreal Children's Hospital
Presented: Wednesday June 12th, 2013, 3:00-5:00pm
Location: 3550 University Avenue, main floor conference room
The Nurse-physician management dyad: A grounded theory of how nurse and physician managers in a formalized dyad work together as they address clinical management issues
Christina Clausen, N., PhD Student Nursing Adminstration, Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University
This is a presentation of a doctoral research proposal.
Presented: Thursday May 2nd, 2013, 3:00-5:00 pm
Location: Lady Meredith House, Centre for Medical Education
Going from QR to KT: Developing knowledge translation initiatives based on qualitative research findings
Aliki Thomas, OT, PhD (Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the OT Program, School of P&OT); Christophe Bedos, DDS, PhD (Associate Professor, Faculty of Dentistry); Melissa Park, PhD, (Assistant Professor, School of P&OT); Matthew Hunt, PT, PhD (Assistant Professor, School of P&OT)
Enhancing the likelihood that research findings have an impact in the ‘real’ world is an important concern for many qualitative health researchers. Achieving this goal is often very challenging. Knowledge translation (KT) is defined by CIHR as “a dynamic and iterative process that includes synthesis, dissemination, exchange and ethically sound application of knowledge to improve the health of Canadians, provide more effective health services and products and strengthen the health care system” (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/29418.html). In this MQHRG session we will examine the science of KT, hear specific examples of KT strategies employed by qualitative researchers (including successes and challenges), and have extended discussion among participants.
Date/Time: Wednesday April 17th, 2013, 2:30-4:30pm
Location: 3550 University Avenue, main floor conference room
Homework: Graham et al, Lost in Knoweldge Translation: Time for a Map? The Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, Vol. 26 No. 1, 2006.
Access, identity and engagement in ethnography: Journey through the emergency department
Dr. Peter Nugus, Assistant Professor, Centre for Medical Education and Department of Family Medicine, McGill University
This seminar charts the journey of a study examining the character and significance of inter-departmental work in the emergency department (ED). A full year of ethnographic observations (including a structured suite of formal observations), and semi-structured and field interviews were conducted among emergency and in-patient nurses and doctors in Sydney, Australia. The study showed: the tight integration of “clinical-organizational work” in maintaining patient flow through the ED; and the embedding of perspectives of the “whole” versus the “fragmented” body in admission negotiations between emergency and in-patient clinicians. Subsequent research opportunities exist in discharge planning and care coordination for older people. This seminar focuses particularly on: the journey into the field sites; the identity and positioning of the researcher; and the influence of relationships and ethical considerations on research process and findings. The broader aims of the seminar are to: build collaboration; gain suggestions for future research; generate discussion and for the presenter to gain advice on concepts to reflect on the fieldwork and methodological journey.
Presented: Wednesday March 13, 2013
Location: Lady Meredith House, Centre for Medical Education
Graduate Student Research Workshop
Fahad Siddiqui, MSc Dental Sciences, Oral Health & Society Division, Faculty of Dentistry —How do people with hearing problems access dental care services in Montreal?
Azadeh Haqiqi, MSc Dental Sciences, Oral Health & Society Division, Faculty of Dentistry —Why do parents seek care for their child's nontraumatic dental problem in EDs?
Hadi Karsoho, Doctoral Student, Departments of Sociology and Social Studies of Medicine, Faculty of Arts —
Fay Strohschein, Doctoral Student, Ingram School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine —Coming to Decisions about Treatment: Processes among Older Men & Women with Colorectal Cancer
Presented: Thursday January 17, 2013
Location: Lady Meredith House, Centre for Medical Education
Knowing the Person in a Virtual Environment: A Grounded Theory Study of Telehealth in Nursing Practice
Daniel A. Nagel, RN(BC), BScN, MSN, Doctoral Student Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University
The use of telehealth technology in delivery of nursing care is rapidly increasing in Canada, and evermore nurses are providing care to persons with complex health challenges in a virtual environment. Little empirical knowledge development has been done to support the development of nursing competencies and practice in telehealth, specifically in understanding the process of how nurses come to know the person in the provision of holistic care in a virtual environment. Knowing the person has traditionally been “associated with physical presence and close proximity in the nurse-client relationship” (Nagel, Penner & Pomerleau, 2012) , and identified as an important element in the decision-making, care planning and patient safety in nursing care. Understanding the process of knowing the person in the context of a virtual environment is, therefore, essential to the education and preparation of nurses to provide care using telehealth technology. This research study, based on the constructivist grounded theory approach described by Charmaz (2010) , will advance understanding of the process of knowing the person in a virtual environment, and serve to inform future research and support nurses in providing holistic care through telehealth technology.
Location: Lady Meredith House, Centre for Medical Education