14/12/2010 by lizit.

I am currently reading Clandinin and Connelly’s book ‘Narrative Inquiry’. A section on the place of theory has caught my eye. I think I can see its relevance to me, but just testing it out.

The scenario Clandinin and Connelly use to introduce the topic, is a book review, where one of the authors worked with another reviewer on the task of writing a review. Clandinin suggested approaching the review from the perspective of stories of school life and linking these to themes from the book to examine how the ideas within the book might be relevant in practice. Her colleague’s approach was to establish an interpretive frame and to examine the book’s ideas in the light of this framework. This inevitably led to tension.

Clandinin and Connelly then discuss more generally the tension over the place of theory in narrative inquiry, using literature review as an example. Traditionally, doctoral theses contain a literature review chapter near the beginning of the work. This chapter is used “to structure the inquiry, identify gaps in the literature, outline principal theoretical lines of thought, and generate potential research possibilities.” In other words, the literature review provides a structure and framework for refining the research question, designing the study and analysing and interpreting the data. Clandinin and Connelly suggest that rather than privileging existing literature in this way, an alternative approach is to “weave the literature throughout the dissertation from beginning to end in an attempt to create a seamless link between the theory and the practice embodied in the enquiry.”

Reflecting on this, I am reminded of some of the discussions taking place under the #phdchat hashtag on Twitter. These discussions have drawn together a number of research students from different disciplines and institutions on different continents. While much of the discussion has been of a very practical nature, there is also discussion around methodologies, managing and analysing data, etc. One such question has been whether or not literature is data. My instinctive response to this is in the affirmative. Reading Clandinin and Connelly is making me think this through a bit - and making me look at my own approach.

Over the past two and a half years, I have read far more academic literature than at any other time in my life. What I have read has varied from some quite dense theoretical tomes to case studies and descriptive pieces. However, my research area is one that I have a familiarity with through my own experiences over several years involvement in the domain. In deciding my general research focus, I am as much, or more influenced, by what I know experientially as by what I can learn from literature, but the literature has raised questions and issues that I would not have been aware of from a purely experiential position.

Having started with a fairly general research focus, exploring the learning journeys of those responsible for supporting and caring for children and young people with a diagnosis of Aspergers or HFA, I am finding there is a theme emerging from interviews, which is also present in the literature, namely that of a metaphor of fight or struggle. From some perspectives, this struggle can be seen as part of the learning journey, and from others, learning in its various guises, can be seen as one of the roots of struggle. So rather than taking a particular framework or theoretical model from the literature and applying it to the context - and this would be a legitimate option - I am identifying an emerging issue and identifying a number of related themes from the narratives. These themes are leading me to return to the literature to examine them in more depth. Although what I am doing is emerging from the narrative, the theoretical concepts are providing a framework to attach those themes to and to explore them further, thus weaving together experience and theory.

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18/11/2010 by lizit.

For some months, one of my concerns has been what to do with my interview data. I have read lots of material on qualitative data analysis and many different articles, and even books, which have used qualitative approaches of one sort or another.  Some of what I read resonated, but a great deal didn’t and I think I am only now beginning to understand where my personal sticking point is.

Some months back, I found the section on analysis in Merrill and West (2009) helpful. They pointed to a holistic approach and identified the danger in the use of computer-based analysis of fragmenting data. The tension between letting participants’ voices be heard and the abstraction necessary for theory building was clearly stated. Although they include a clear outline of their own approaches to analysis - and the two writers differ - I found what they were saying difficult to relate to relate to my own work. Perhaps there was a sense that I had to develop a coding structure and learn to use the available computer packages, or perhaps because I am ‘a techie’ there was a sense of there being another program here to play with - and I am never one to be defeated by technology.

Over the past few months I have attended training courses on using a much recommended computer package. I have installed it on my computer and worked through some of my interview data using it. I can understand the program. I can appreciate it is a very powerful program with lots of potentially interesting and possibly useful features. But I’ve found I am just not happy using it. The whole approach seemed to be moving me further away from the people who have shared their stories with me and from the real life impact having a child with Aspergers.

A few days ago, I came across an article which resonated with me. Savin-Baden (2004) discusses the problem of situating ourselves in relation to our data. She suggests that it can be easier to distance ourselves from the data through complex coding systems rather than engaging with the messiness inherent in people’s lived-in lives and goes on to say that using a computer package can “result in deconstruction rather than reconstruction of the data”. This was ringing bells for me.

In the course of her article, Savin-Baden mentioned that she encouraged her students to write a short biography of each participant following an interview. This could later be turned into an interpretative biographical account which could be shared with participants. One of the things I have been doing is writing summaries of each interview with a few biographical details of each participant. Was there perhaps a clue to a possible solution to my impasse in what I was reading?

Over the past couple of days, I have worked through one of my interviews. First, I read the summary and visualised the person and the setting in which we had met. I then listened to the interview while looking at the transcript on the screen. During this process, I was able to make some minor corrections to the transcript, but more importantly, I became aware of  key phrases in the narrative and was able to highlight these. I was developing a sense of this person’s expressed feelings and concerns and understanding why she had done some of the things she had done out of a real concern for her son. She had come to life again rather than being reduced to coded fragments. With that sense of the person who was speaking, I then returned to the transcript and copied (by hand in a notebook) the words which I had highlighted, grouping them under broad headings. Finally, I returned to my original summary and reworked that by writing a series of short sections each focusing on a theme which had emerged from the interview. The resultant document is a mixture of description, summary, the participant’s expressed opinions, my observations and some personal reflection of my own.

Although the document is very rough round the edges at the moment, I can see the possibility of working with it further, linking some of the ideas emerging in it to theoretical perspectives. I can also see that taking a similar approach to other interviews will give me a collection of documents which I can use not only to identify commonalities and differences, but to do so in the context of the life and experience of the storytellers. I can also see that this kind of document is more likely to lead to further dialogue with participants than the transcripts I have been sending them. As a reconstruction which includes some interpretation, it provides scope for participants to correct and offer new insights in ways a transcript, as raw data, does not.

I’ve still got to see how this will all work out in practice and I’ve still got to see what my supervisors make of this approach, but I feel much more OK in myself about this approach at the moment.

It would be interesting to hear how others have approached data analysis in contexts where the person as well as the content is important.

Merrill, B., & West, L. (2009). Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
Savin-Baden, M. (2004). Achieving Reflexivity: Moving Researchers from Analysis to Interpretation in Collaborative Inquiry. Journal of Social Work Practice, 18(3), 365-378.

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13/08/2010 by lizit.

A few weeks back I wrote about “The narrative turn” and the different perspectives there have been, and continue to be, on narrative research. Since then I have been giving some consideration to the “paradigm wars” - basically the contentious argument between quantitative and qualitative methods - and seeing some parallels between the two. Some of the arguments made against that form of narrative research which focuses on stories and life histories are remarkably similar to those posited against qualitative methods more generally. Similarly, those who rail against these methods appear to be looking for ways of making their qualitative work more structured and science-like so as to better match the values attributed to positivism and quantitative methods. I’m enjoying reading various articles and observing the fisticuffs taking place.

However, by reading these articles, I realise increasingly that I need to identify where I position myself - and why.

Some time ago I read Howard Becker’s classic paper “Whose side are we on?” and was somewhat cheered to find a case being made for recognising that no research is truly value-free - though the values espoused may vary. More recently, I have been looking at some of Arthur Frank’s writing and I’m finding “The Standpoint of Storyteller” helpful. In this article, apart from addressing Atkinson’s criticisms, Frank distinguishes stories from narratives, considers his standpoint and what brought him to that position, and makes some useful comments on the difference between his standpoint and that of the more traditional medical sociologist.

Importantly, Frank reminds us that people do not tell narratives - they tell stories. Story telling is about relationships - stories are not spoken into a vacuum, but require listeners - and listeners respond to the story as they hear it and relate to the story teller. He goes on to speak of the recuperative value of story telling - telling the story can help a story teller to place a distance between themselves and the event or condition the story focuses on (I guess this moves into the area of construction and objectifying reality…). Stories are more than data - too much focus on narrative and analysis can lose the relational context of the story telling. The researcher who is privileged to hear stories is also ethically and intellectually obliged to recognise and enter into relationship with the story and the storyteller.

In identifying his standpoint, Frank turns to his own story and his life and academic experiences. He arrives at a place which is about change - his position is not about describing the experiences of people who are sick but about making changes so that sickness can be experienced differently (I hope I am summarising him correctly there!). He says “To take a standpoint means to privilege certain aspects of what your biography shares with others.” There is nothing value-free here!

Frank goes on to differentiate the “ill person” and the “patient” - a “patient” is an “ill person” but an “ill person” is not a “patient” much of the time. Frank’s focus is on the “ill person” rather than the “patient”. Whereas Atkinson is a medical sociologist who views the doctor patient relationship, Frank focuses on the person. For Atkinson, the transaction between doctor and patient is important, but for Frank it is largely irrelevant. Similarly, outcomes are different - Atkinson is asking what can be learned to benefit the medical encounter and Frank is asking how the world looks from the perspective of an ill person.

This is relevant to me as I look at the participants in the autistic domain. How do I view the parents and children? Who am I speaking to? Am I relating stories or giving people a voice? What are the values underpinning my research and where do I stand?

Becker, H. S. (1967). Whose Side Are We On? Social Problems, 14(3), 239-247.
Frank, A. W. (2000). The Standpoint of Storyteller. Qualitative Health Research, 10(3), 354-365.

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04/07/2010 by lizit.

One of the things I have been puzzling over during the last month has been the apparent need for those involved in the use of biographical methods to defend their methodology in a way I have not observed with other authors. A couple of examples are pages 7-8 of Denzin and Lincoln’s “Handbook of Qualitative Research” with sections on Resistance to Qualitative Studies and Qualitative versus Quantitative Research and Chapter 10 in Merrill and West (2009) Is Biographical Research Valid and Ethical.

Both Merrill and West and Chamberlayne (2000) give a clear account of the historic development of the use of biography in sociological methodology over the past century or so. There is clear evidence of the use of narrative in the form of documents from the earliest days of sociological methods. Biographical methods first started to become significant during the inter-war period with the development of the Chicago School of Sociology and the publication of Thomas and Znaniecki’s “The Polish Peasant” and Shaw’s “The Jack the Roller”. People’s stories continue to be important in many texts published in the 1950s and early 1960’s, including Willmott and Young’s work on life in the East End of London and the subsequent move to suburbia, Townsend’s study of the family life of old people, Hoggart’s “The Uses of Literacy” and Jackson and Marsden’s semi- autobiographical account of education and the working classes. By the time I became an undergraduate in 1969, these texts tended to be considered light reading and the emphasis was on a more theoretical and scientific approach, perhaps in order to ensure the academic respectability of disciplines which were beginning to become popular with students, especially in the so-called ‘new universities’. The texts I was aware of as a student was work by Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Comte.

The late 70s and early 80s saw a new emergence of story telling with two distinct roots. One was the growth of the oral history movement. From my recollections, this had two elements. One seemed to relate to the growth in race awareness, especially following the racial disturbances in a number of major cities in the early 1980’s and the felt need to capture the stories of black people to provide younger black people with their own history distinct from that of the white population. The other, related element, was an attempt to develop connections between young and old with school students recording the stories of their elders. In time, the therapeutic benefits of story telling amongst older people were to become apparent. The other root was the burgeoning women’s movement and the development of a feminist sociology which aimed to give voice and substance to the women as well as men.

By the 1990’s, not only was story telling becoming a recognised and accepted part of the sociological cannon, but it was beginning to be challenged. Atkinson, writing in 1997, suggested that personal stories and narratives were being privileged inappropriately, and critiqued other writers, namely Arthur Frank, Elliot Mishler and Arthur Kleinman for their approaches to the use of personal narratives. These authors, together with Arthur Bochner, have challenged Atkinson’s views, leading to what Thomas, writing in 2010, refers to as an ongoing debate.

Thomas usefully summarises Atkinson’s argument and that of his critics, before expressing her own standpoint which recognises both the objective and subjective nature of sociological research, especially in a field such as her own which focuses on cancer patients. She usefully distinguishes the objective medical account from the patient experience and suggests that both have an authenticity and validity. As usefully, Thomas’s article is followed by responses by Atkinson, Bochner and Frank. Perhaps the most important message for me is the recognition that each of the authors is an acknowledged expert and each has a distinct position on the use of personal narrative in sociological research. It is not that one is right and the others wrong, but that all have a contribution to make in our better understanding of how people live in society. In this context, the advice of Merrill and West to experiment with different approaches and methodologies and to find one which fits makes perfectly good sense. It is not a case of trying to emulate a particular practitioner or adopt a specific methodology, but of identifying an approach which makes methodological and actual sense in a given context.

Atkinson, P. (1997). Narrative turn or blind alley? Qualitative Health Research, 7(3), 325-344.
Chamberlayne, P., Bornat, J., & Wengraf, T. (Eds.). (2000). The turn to biographical methods in social science. London: Routledge.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of Qualitative Research (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hoggart, R. (1957). The Uses of Literacy. London: Chatto & Windus.
Jackson, B., & Marsden, D. (1986). Education and the working class: Taylor & Francis.
Merrill, B., & West, L. (2009). Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
Thomas, C. (2010). Negotiating the contested terrain of narrative methods in illness contexts. Sociology of Health & Illness, 32(4), 647-660.
Townsend, P. (1957). The family life of old people: An inquiry in East London: Routledge.
Willmott, P., & Young, M. (1960). Family and Class in a London Suburb. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Young, M., & Willmott, P. (1986). Family and kinship in East London. London: Taylor and Francis.

Posted in stories, biography, methodology, narratives | Print | 1 Comment »

03/06/2010 by lizit.

I’m reading Merrill and West’s book on using biographical methods and working through the first set of transcriptions. Perhaps inevitably, there is a lot of stuff going on in my head.

Perhaps one of the key learning points is seeing just how much my own perspective colours how I understand others. I was working on one of the transcriptions yesterday and can see very much the psychodynamics of the interaction and why I found it so difficult. At the same time, I can see how in other interactions, transference was working differently with me feeling far more positive about the exchange.

I am interested by the section on analysis - and the different ways in which Merrill and West approach the task. West’s use of the gestalt - a holistic approach - resonates with me, but I can also see how looking at the parts can be useful, as long as this does not become mechanistic when key ideas and insights can be lost within a category rather than the significance being recognised.

Perhaps because I am reading other people’s stories, I am also returning to my own. Although this stems as well from my attempts at diagramming the autistic spectrum domain, I found myself remembering the nightmare scenario of the only respite that could be offered to a troubled young man was a police cell - and having mental health workers in my house telling me I had no option but to ring the police as they had no appropriate provision (and they were from the tier 4 regional mental health services!). There is something totally wrong about a child acquiring a criminal record - a formal warning - for behaviour within the home stemming directly from a neurological condition.

But that points to the complexity of the domain. It may well be that it is possible to envision the people working as a community of practice, but the people come from different organisations and each organisation has its own procedures, systems and structures and each is involved in making available or rationing scare resources. A person might well see the relevance of making a particular provision, but that person also has a role within a system and…. Maybe it is easier and safer for those employed to care for and support people on the spectrum not to know too much about systems and organisations other than their own. Maybe too, this is when I have to look again at the work of Harry Daniels and Anne Edwards…

Merrill, B., & West, L. (2009). Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
Edwards, A., Daniels, H., Gallagher, T., Leadbetter, J., & Warmington, P. (2009). Improving Inter-professional Collaborations: Multi-agency working for children’s wellbeing. London: Routledge.
Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Engeström, Y., Gallagher, T., & Ludvigsen, S. R. (2010). Activity Theory in Practice: Promoting learning across boundaries and agencies. London: Routledge.

Posted in biography, systems, community of practice, Aspergers/HFA, narratives, reflections | Print | 1 Comment »

08/02/2010 by lizit.

Wynne’s (1988) study on people with MS raises some interesting thoughts for me. As I understand it, the study was essentially about how people with MS understood their diagnosis, the process leading up to the diagnosis, and the possibility of science being able to provide ‘a cure’ at some time in the future.

Although some parallels can be drawn between MS and autism in terms of how far it is/was understood what the causatory factors are/were and the varying symptoms which are not common to all ’sufferers’ in the same ways, I am less interested in this than in the methodology and some of the observations.

Firstly, methodology.  The study was based on 12 interviews with people who had diagnosis of MS (in two cases, this was still in the process of being confirmed).  The interviews themselves were unstructured, and the researcher describes them as more of a conversation. Her aim was “to explore what having MS meant to individuals and to allow them to tell their stories in their own ways rather than in terms assumed relevant beforehand by the researcher.” Wynne acknowledges that it was inevitable that the researcher approached each interview, not as a blank canvas, but with an awareness of what had been said in the course of previous interviews and that this meant that in the ‘conversation’ some of these extraneous factors were introduced.  From my perspective, it also suggests that the interview itself became a reflective learning experience for both the participant and the researcher. One of the aspects I have been discussing with my supervisor is how many participants I need to recruit and it is useful to find a study where the number of participants is given.

The chapter is in a book about reflexivity and the importance of reflecting on what we write, how data is used, etc. One of Wynne’s observations concerns the use of quotations from interview data. She observes that the meaning of such quotations can easily be distorted by removing them from their original context. For example, in talking about why people approached their GP, she quotes examples of people seeking an explanation for their symptoms, but she chooses not to use a quotation about somebody looking for a repeat prescription for medication they had found helpful in relieving symptoms.

There are some interesting ideas about the relative expertise of the doctor and the patient, especially in relation to diagnosis. Although many of the participants initially received different diagnoses, and were sometimes treated initially for different ailments, this was regarded as acceptable by patients on the basis that the doctor at that time was not aware of all the information necessary for a correct diagnosis. On the other hand, when the patients began to wonder whether they actually had MS, perhaps as the result of seeing a TV programme or meeting somebody already diagnosed and recognising the similarity of their symptoms with those being portrayed or described, they were hesitant to raise this possibility with medical professionals, sometimes only mentioning their thoughts retrospectively or some considerable time after first suspecting the condition. From the text, it would appear this was not due to the seriousness of a diagnosis of MS, as the same patients were also wondering whether they might be suffering from other, more serious illnesses or conditions. There was a firm belief held by patients that diagnosis had to be confirmed by an expert, a consultant who had greater medical knowledge and expertise than the GP who had been initially consulted. In terms of autism, I recall many times being asked by different professionals who had diagnosed my son - the diagnosis by the NHS consultant in consultation with an NHS clinical psychologist carried far more weight than an earlier diagnosis by a consultant in private practice.

One of my foci is how far the expertise of ‘experts’ and ‘others’ is similar. Wynne notes that “The axiomatic distinction between expertise and non-expertise enabled the maintenance of faith in a medical science disembodied as it were from both practitioners and its subjects. Their scepticism was confined to their own abilities to be expert, either about themselves or about what science could do.” It will be interesting to see whether 20 years on in a different domain there is the same confidence in the medical profession and other experts.

Wynne, A. (1988). Accounting for accounts of the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. In S. Woolgar (Ed.), Knowledge and Reflexivity (pp. 101-122). London: Sage.

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08/12/2009 by lizit.

Over the last couple of weeks or so, my thoughts about my DPhil research have taken some quite dramatic and unexpected turns but in a way which is making me feel rather excited and very grounded.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a planned meeting with my supervisor and a consultant from Social Sciences. The plan had been to look at methodology and data gathering for the studies I was planning of informal learning in Second Life. But in the time between arranging the meeting and it taking place, my thinking about informal learning had moved considerably as recorded in earlier blogs! We ended up talking about where I currently was, and recognising that I was talking about a very broad area, but one which could be examined in a narrow domain.  The advice accompanying that was that such a domain should ideally be one which I knew well.

It was one of those transforming moments when suddenly things which had not been coming together suddenly made sense. With no difficulty at all, Second Life and other virtual worlds were no longer part of the picture. Instead the very obvious domain which I know best was staring me in the face - people caring for children with an ASD. The whole range of learning styles is covered with the possibility of looking at learning journeys and the mix of learning types involved in a learning journey. Not only that, but I have access to so many potential study subjects - the parent support group I run, online groups, contact with schools and medical specialists…. Not only that but my supervisor has links and an interest in the area… The only question is why did it take so long to see the obvious!

So many of the themes that have been important through my professional life come together with this focus. My anger at the failure to recognise the skills and knowledge of people without appropriate qualifications. Questions about empowerment and change management, who are the experts. Ownership and change agency.  The creation of underclasses where people are stigmatised and disempowered …. Empowerment.

In the fortnight since that meeting, I have begun to think about what my research might involve, I have met another DPhil student who is looking at issues around stigmatisation, a colleague has given me links to references on expert patients, I am being given contacts with senior paediatricians, I have been given a contact with the person leading a major course on ASDs in Birmingham and had a useful formative discussion and the possibility of access to students on the course, I have met somebody working on the problems associated with labelling, I have come across the idea of using critical incident vignettes as a way of examining learning experiences, I have been encouraged to look again at Wenger’s work around boundaries …  I could go on and on, it seems so much has happened and come together in such a short time.

I’m very aware that I have a lot of work to do, not least scoping my studies, but I am feeling absurdly excited by the thought of doing work in an area I both understand and have a long term commitment to. I also know that I would not be where I am now if I had not spent the hours reading around lots of stuff and beginning to appreciate some of the complexity of things which on the surface seemed so simple and straightforward.

Posted in methodology, ASD, narratives, informal learning, community, research ideas, change agents | Print | 1 Comment »

16/09/2009 by lizit.

Just come across a wiki forming the basis of Karyn Romeis’s masters dissertation on the impact of the use of social media on her professional practice as a corporate learning professional. Interesting when only yesterday I was suggesting that hidden behind the work I am doing for my DPhil is a personal case study.

I haven’t read the dissertation in depth as yet - but can see that it is a document I will want to go back to as there are ideas there that I want to explore further.  One is the connectivism concept which I have encountered before, but do not really have a grasp of, but which may offer some way of linking ideas about informal learning. The other that has struck me at first reading, is the use of narrative and stories as a data source. In my description of what I want to do, I have found myself talking about stories, and it looks as though I need to find out more about narratives in thinking about my methodology.

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