Friday 26 June 2009

Ethics Approval for my research !!!

Since my last blog I have received ethics approval for my research - Yipeeee!
Putting together the paperwork was a very interesting process, ensuring that the methodology was clear and ethical issues had been discussed and addressed.
It was a great feeling to receive the letter from the committee stating it was approved but also meant I needed to start the next phase - data collection.

For me and I am sure many researchers this is the bit that feels 'real'. Getting to nub of the research and the views of the participants BUT a couple of things to do first:

Advertise for my sample population on social network sites.

Send out information sheets to ensure all particpants are fully aware of the research and the process.

And then wait ..........

I sent the invitations out last week and today in two batches and thankfully I already have six people interested in being involved. Information sheets have been sent to those who have shown an interest in participating with a deadline of three weeks for reply. By the end of July I should have a clear view of who will be my participants.

In the meantime I have a pilot interview planned for early July which will allow for full testing of both the SQUIN and the follow up.

I have a further deadline for september for my transfer report so working hard on that now too.

Nicky

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Doesn't time fly?? My annual review!

Its a while since I added a blog entry and I am not sure where the time is going. It is almost a year now since I enrolled for my PhD and the time has just flown by.

I have been preparing material for my ethics committee application and have put together a research proposal and completed the participant information sheet in draft for comment by my supervisory team. I also discussed my application with a colleague who has experience of the workings of the ethics committee who gave me some great tips for my application.

I am also becoming more familiar with the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method and getting a feel for just how this will work within my research. I am using the method to structure my interviews and adapting the model for the analysis phase. I feel confident that this will meet my aims and avoid the complexities of the analysis tool that are not necessarily required for this study. Tom Wengraph has produced not only a text book that is complemented by his 'manual and guide' to using the method but also offers those researchers who are self taught in the method the opportunity to send him initial practice interview transcripts for review.

My intention is to have my annual review meeting tomorrow and then prepare the draft copies of the information for the Ethics Committee and email this to my supervisors for comment.

I also met earlier in the week with an interesting colleague who presented a workshop on data protection. I had a brief conversation with him but am going to discuss further the potential for secure online interviews using the University system. He has also offered me the opportunity to set up a test interview with him to try out the secure saving of conversations.

Signing off
Nicky

Monday 9 February 2009

final week of leave

This is my final week now of research leave and probably a useful time to pinpoint some of the highlights and low points.

Looking back over the past 5 weeks I have achieved a huge amount that under no circumstances could I have achieved working full time and trying to fit this amount in to my week. I have read and read and read! Particularly around the methodology want to use and around the philosophical underpinnings. I am clearly a phenomenologist for the purposes of this study and have been drawn to using the work of Tom Wengraph in utilising the Biographic Narrative Method. I have explored the world of social software, identified routes for gathering my sample and the ethical implications of this. I have networked with people around the UK and world wide to discuss the nature of qualitative research and social networking as connectors.

I set up a separate email address for contact regarding the study and will also use this to communicate with the participants once identified.

I have met with four learning disability nurses to discuss the study and its aims and anticipated outcomes, enjoying their contribution and enthusiasm

I have worked through a range of ideas, discussions and debates around methodology, philosophy and subject matter and it is becoming more and more important to me to hear the voices of learning disability nurses.

Today I have put together a timeline for completion of my PhD and started to prepare the participant information sheet I am also working on the forms necessary for the ethics committee.

The low points are much harder to identify as I have enjoyed this time so much. I suppose the snow over the last week or so has made it harder to take breaks in what I am doing and get out of the house and that has led to a 'numb bum' on several occasions. I also find the lack of clear routine both good and bad - good in that I am working when my brain is at its best and not necessarily late at night etc. I have to stop myself feeling guilty though if I go and do something else between the hours of 9-5 Monday to Friday. I remind myself of the early mornings and the Saturdays and evenings and it is just sinking in - just in time for me to go back to the 9-5 routine.
So I suppose my thoughts are around how do I maintain this level of motivation in the face of returning to work and going back to fitting this in around my working day. Well I am working on that one. I haven't won the lottery in the past 5 weeks so can't be the full time student I would like but need to think through some techniques to help me to keep on track for the next 4-5 years!!!

Nicky

Saturday 31 January 2009

A long week!

Its Saturday at the end of what has felt like a very long week. I spent some time house and dog sitting this week. No internet access so time again for lots of reading with brief spurts of dog walking activity. I have mainly focused my reading around the various articles I had picked up online the week before and the theses sent to me by a couple of people via the online networks I joined.Some very interesting reading that has taken my thoughts in a number of directions. This afternoon I am having some time to try and organise the last week into some kind of meaningful and logical notes.

I feel much more confident now about being able to justify the use of social networks to generate my sample. The literature is also available to support this approach. Reading Jody Mellor's (University of York 2007) thesis around Muslim and Non Muslim women in university gave me confidence in this also as she used social networking to generate a proportion of her sample too.

So another week in and I feel that I have a plan (albeit a sketchy plan but at least its there in my head).

I have approximately 16 people interested in participating in the interviews most of which have identified themselves through online networks or via snowballing of their contacts.

I am clear that I want to use a narrative approach based on Wengraphs work with a two stage lightly structured interview and a follow up third stage using online contact.

I have framed a question to elicit the narrative and have begun to identify the ethical considerations to prepare me for Faculty ethics approval.

Onwards to next week where my goal is to try and write some of this up into a logical and meaningful piece. I also want to keep my focus around the methodology as I attempt to prepare the necessary paperwork for ethics approval.

Nicky

Tuesday 20 January 2009

The wonderful world of the web!

Yesterday was a long but productive day. I initially undertook a search around social networking and social software, which includes email, instant messenger services, blogs and wiki's, group discussion systems and group diaries such as live journal. This search lead me to a number of interesting debates around the fear of technology and the internet that existed in the early 1990's to the current situation where as society becomes more technical the internet becomes more social ( The Work Foundation 2003) I decided to post a question on three internet discussion groups/forums. I used the following:

QUALRS-L an electronic discussion group for those interested in using qualitative research for studying humans.

BIOGRAPHIC-NARRATIVE-BNIM - an electronic discussion group for those with an interest in the above method

PerformSocSci newsgroup - a group interested in the performative social science element to research.

Subscribing to these groups and posting so basic information about my research truly demonstrated what the World Wide 'Web' means. A number of emails came through with links to other web based discussion groups including some specifically aimed at learning disability nursing.

Two people offered their thesis as a reference and were able to send these as email attachments. Several people pointed me in the direction of further reading around social software.

Using these networks to access a range of people I would have otherwise missed has made me reflect upon my sample and I feel confident now that these networks will be a viable and ethical approach.

People using networking sites are identifying themselves as learning disability nurses (either past or present) and often through their membership of the networks are demonstrating their wish to remain connected to others and to being 'internet savvy'.
As many proponents of narrative methods suggest the particpants need to be able to articluate their 'story', to share their experiences and to reflect upon this. My reading so far and my experience of networking leads me to feel that those who engage in social networks are often already doing all of the above.



Nicky

Monday 19 January 2009

Wales!












A whole week ( well 5 days) of distraction free reading last week. I hired a little house/cabin in Wales with no Internet access and an intermittent mobile phone signal to allow myself time to absorb some of the material I am reading. The first day was beautiful sunshine and I managed to take a lunchtime break and walk down to the estuary. The setting is a hillside above Dylan Thomas's boathouse. He apparently got his inspiration for 'Milkwood' there and I can see why anyone would be inspired (see photo of view from window). The remaining days saw gale force winds and rain lashing against the windows but the cabin was warm, I had a well stocked fridge and and a well stocked library.

I spent much of the time reading around Tom Wengraphs work on narrative biographical methods and more generally narrative work within nursing. In using this method I will be seeking the stories of 'ordinary' learning disability nurses around their lives and careers. More reading this week and am sticking to reading around methods.

Will keep you informed

Nicky

Saturday 10 January 2009

A meeting of minds!

Manchester Piccadilly is a great place for a meeting, cafes, shops and no long walk to the train home! Having the opportunity to discuss a number of key issues relating to my study really clarified things for me. Duncan is a key figure in the history of learning disability nursing and was able to talk me through my study and offer advice and guidance. I came away from the meeting clear that it was the voice of the 'ordinary' learning disability nurse that I wanted to hear and that I wanted to enable their stories to be told without prejudice. I was able to question my own assumptions about what may come out of the study and to put those to one side and use a biographical narrative method (Wengraph 2001) which would support this. Using this type of method allows freedom to explore aspects of the individuals life by framing a very broad question or statement to trigger the narrative.

Sampling has been another thought provoking area, I want to take my sample from a social networking site for a range of reasons (I may discuss another time). I also want to offer my research participants the opportunity to use the Internet to 'follow up' their interview should they want to. This will need careful ethical consideration.


I will be writing about this further but enough for now

Nicky

Thursday 8 January 2009

Who is the learning disability nurse?

I met with a friend today who trained as a learning disability nurse at the same time I did - the early 1980's. Fairly soon after qualifying she went to work in residential care with what is now the Local Authority. She maintained her registration as a nurse for years (and to be fair she may still today but we havent had that conversation for a long time). Some twenty odd years later still works with people with learning disabilities - instead of patients or clients they are 'tenants' and before that they were 'service users'. She is called a Care manager and had to undertake an NVQ qualification to meet the requirements of her employer but she did because she wanted to work with people with learning disabilities. Did her nurse education create the person who then left the NHS to work within a different model of care? Was she already subscribing to that model prior to her nurse education through her own set of beliefs and values about people with learning disabilities? What was her contribution to the inclusion of people with learning disabilities in society and was that the nurse in her or was it in spite of nursing?

So who is my sample for this study? Learning disability nurses currently on the register and working in NHS provision or will that be too narrow and take me to a place that defines learning disability in a very specific way. What about those nurses (?) who no longer 'nurse'?

Will leave that one for a while and come back to it. Its late!!!

Nicky

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Mmmmm Phenomenology (In a Homer Simpson Voice)

My study is about understanding the lives (specifically careers) of learning disability nurses. The construct of their reality, the way in which they have shaped the reality of learning disability nursing over the past 30 years. How the construct of disability in society has impacted on the ways in which these nurses work, define their role and care for people with a learning disability. I am interested in multiple realities and the way in which phenomenology can embrace these. The reality of Government & policy makers and the way in which this has created models of community care for people with learning disabilities and the part that learning disability nurses have in creating roles within this model. How will this impact on the future role of the learning disability nurse within a model of inclusion (?)

Hermeneutic phenomenology based on the work of Heidegger 1962 has a concern for investigating the essence of human experience which will underpin the study I am undertaking.
A philosophy, which although has its critics, will offer me the opportunity to adopt a humanistic approach, drawing on the experiences of learning disability nurses over the past 30 years but also examining policy and politics of the time. Gathering rich data through life story/oral history interviews will allow the stories of these nurses to be told. In doing this the lives of people with learning disabilities and the social change over that past three decades will also be illustrated and the multiple realities and their interactions exposed.

Nicky

Sunday 4 January 2009

Is it procrastination?

Ok, Christmas and New Year celebrations are over and they were a combination of sadness and joy this year. A friend's death at the beginning of my holiday brought great sadness and this combined with the festive season gave a focus on a number of things totally beyond my studies - mortality, family and the true meaning of 'life'. My son coming home for two weeks leave from the RAF has been wonderful but I can honestly say my head has been somewhere else for two weeks.

SO Son has returned to the RAF, the bedroom is now back to being a study and I am looking at the books on the shelf (you will note looking not yet reading :-) )

I am starting tonight by being kind to myself and not 'beating myself up' because my focus has been elsewhere and now just get on with it!!!!

Nicky

ps. On a positive note I have made an arrangement to go up and see Duncan (supervisor) in Manchester this Friday and I feel this will set my thoughts a bit straighter.

Thursday 1 January 2009

A new Year and first blog!!!

Well January 1st 2009 brings me to Blogspot and the creation of my blog to record my journey while undertaking my PhD.

An informal record, reflective journal etc etc hopefully this will help to keep me on track and my eye on the ball. I am not sure how often or what I will blog but as with most of my thought processes on this journey it will come to me I am sure :-)

will post more soon

Nicky x