Time for the method... Now where do I get the pesky ingredients?

I've been reading about research methods for some time now in an attempt to be a diligent PhD student and to be honest I have been somewhat confused to say the least.  Research methodology seems so intimidating, it's full of new language and some very long words (I still sound ridiculous when I say interpretive phenomenological analysis).  With this in mind I knew I would need some help and develop an awareness of different methods available so that I can defend my choice when it comes to my viva.  My fabulous friend and fellow PhD student Wendy recommended a week long course in Oxford that had helped her enormously,  It was rather nattily named 'Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods' and looked promising, so bags packed I set off for a week with complete strangers.  

I wasn't disappointed, the course was run by competent and experienced researchers and the people taking the course were all so diverse in their backgrounds with differing areas of research to talk about so was immediately interesting and engaging. Research subjects ranged from TB screening, medicines compliance, Fear of birth, Obesity, end of life care, psychology within the military and education to name but a few. Discussions and lectures were delivered alongside practical sessions to help contextualise and make sense of the masses of data we would be gathering from our interviews, focus groups and observations.  We were encouraged to try and consider fully the implications of using particular ways of gathering data to start with especially with regard to our own project.  The follow up to this was then to analyse the data in a structured way to add rigor to the research design.  One of the sessions was OSOP (One Sheet Of Paper), here is mine based upon my week away.......

The idea behind the OSOP is similar to a mind mapping process... I like all the pretty colours as it's simple things like this that keep me engaged! This is a process that enables the researcher to help develop themes within a transcript and I feel I have clearly identified that 'making new friends' was one of my favourite themes that I may be a little biased towards! 

I really wasn't expecting to get on so well with so many people but was surprised to feel so much warmth, especially on my birthday.  The lovely Nikki baked the most beautiful chocolate cake complete with candle when I was expecting to feel sad away from family and friends...

It was lush, the only annoying factor is that Nikki appears to be one of those women who can just knock up the most amazing cake at the drop of a hat! I did get the chance to FaceTime family in the evening and open cards and presents from home, to be honest my brain was filled up and buzzing with so much stuff I was glad to be in bed by 8:30 with some reading.... Oh how my life has changed! 

So back to work - The most challenging aspect for me so far is the understanding of my philosophical assumptions, basically the consideration of how I think (epistemology) and interact (ontology) with the world around me.  This is important because I have to consider how my assumptions and knowledge will impact the way I interprete my research findings... This is where qualitative research in my opinion has the potential to get messy! If I look even deeper with my philosophical lens I can try and place my epistemological position within a category that basically says that I could come from a positivist position (where my thoughts are more influenced by observation, social facts and general laws) -This is a great standpoint for a qualitative researcher... or interpretivism (where my thought are more influenced by knowledge based upon interpreting meaning in social action) very qualitative... I believe I sit somewhere in the middle.  

The importance of these at times mind blowing thoughts were illustrated when I undertook a practical interview session with the subject heading "what factors influence what people eat?" I thought I had prepared well, I planned to have the opening question that would elicit a narrative response and had simply heaps of questions that would help me find out how my interviewee was influenced by many factors when choosing what to nibble on.  This I thought was right up my street, if anyone can figure out the inner workings of someone's diet then I was the woman to do it! Oh how wrong could I be..... I got the fabulous Adam, who didn't really care about where he got his food from, never cooks for himself as he has an amazing partner who takes care of that and he managed to thrive on bread and jam when he was growing up..... Typical, nothing seemed to influence his food intake except for whatever was put in front of him... I wasn't expecting that but I was very glad that this rather lovely summertime spritz was placed in front of us later that evening....

So where am I now? Well I've settled on conducting focus groups and semi-structured interviews as a means of collecting my data with a grounded theory approach to interpreting an analysing the data. This is a method by where I will look at the transcripts of each interaction then look at themes and give them a category or code.  From this point I will look for themes that I was expecting then also adapt my line of questioning during the process to take any new themes into account.  My method with be looking at reaching a saturation point (when the women who I speak to aren't revealing any new themes) and at this point my theory will be grounded... I can't wait! 

The alternative festival......

Festival to many mean tents, entertainment, drinking, socialising and general merry making, this was definitely a festival with a difference.  The Holiday Inn for a start, with my room buddy and fellow PhD student Dana to keep me company we thoroughly enjoyed the facilities and opportunity to just spend time rather selfishly reading, swimming without the apron strings being constantly tugged at...bliss! We did enjoy the odd glass of wine with dinner and networked over lunches.  As for the entertainment I did manage to enjoy a few of the presentations but overall I was disappointed with the lack of imagination and creativity when individuals were disseminating findings and experience... death by powerpoint was definitely a feature but Both myself and Dana made the most of our time in Oxford and took our own useful learning points away.

Oxford is amazing! This is my first time in the centre of Oxford and being within a university campus I feel like I've walked onto the set of a Harry potter movie... Hats and gowns, culture, gargoyles, beautiful buildings. The whole place just oozes learning and all round cleverness and affluence.  This is definitely the place to be if you want to expand your thinking however on the first day I found it all quite overwhelming and didn't feel like I belonged at all.  I've been wrestling with an internal struggle since first gaining a place on this PhD programme.  How could I, Carol Richardson with the speckled childhood on a rough council estate with lived early experiences that should by all accounts led me to either further poverty, prison or addiction, be here surrounded by all these inspirational individuals that seem so comfortable in this setting, that speak so eloquently and are so academically competent.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be labeled a victim but I am continuously trying to understand my own identity in order to make me a more reflexive researcher and the process isn't always a comfortable one.  To be honest, I'm quite bored of hearing and telling my own sorry stories and don't think I am entirely deserving of the label; the girl that dragged herself up by her bootlaces and is now doing well... In the words of Tim Minchin; it's all luck... And if you haven't listened to this man before, please please watch this clip... It all makes beautiful sense!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEezZD71sc&feature=kp

So, will I ever escape this image? should I even bother trying? During this festival I've heard speakers that have allowed me to settle with the idea that the more you understand how you are perceived by others, the greater your understanding of the way they will communicate with you.  An imprint of your own personal ideals, morals and influences will always be present within qualitative research, the trick is to be aware of it and make the effort to remain impartial and truly honest with yourself. One particular speaker highlighted how she had been demonised in the media and will be forevermore associated with under age sex and was even labeled a paedophile as her research was on the sensitive subject of male teachers lived experiences of accusations from students claiming that they had been abused. The cases that she had covered included some interesting methodology (this is after all what the festival was all about!) where she blended all the stories then fabricated a new one that encompassed all the stories through the eyes of one fictional family. This allowed the participants to remain truly anonymous and is referred to as a composite fiction approach. The other advantage was that even though all of the individuals involved had been exonerated within a court of law of course she could not make a cast iron guarantee that they were in fact innocent. She had to make sure that she did not provide an opportunity for these individuals to create a new victim identity that they could use for personal gain. This researcher and distinguished professor, Pat Sikes revealed that she had in fact had a relationship with her teacher at school and had later married him.  This personal lived experience had given her a real personal insight into the traumas that extended to family, friends and colleagues and could have been a real advantage when undertaking this research.  Her discussion about the ethical process was very insightful especially an astonishing comment from an ethics committee that stated at one point that "teenagers never lie about sexual abuse", this challenged the ethics process and allowed me to be aware once again of my own morals, personal knowledge  and life experience.

This concept was cemented when listening to another account and study headed up by a researcher once again looking at an emotive, sensitive subject.. Her name is Dr Denise Turner from the University of Sussex and she had put together her presentation in order to try and help researchers tackle difficult or challenging subjects.  I figured that asking a woman about her personal weight issues would definitely fit into this category so went along with the hope of gathering some tips.  The lecture focussed on the research that Denise had undertaken on parents and families experiences after the unexpected death of a child, looking at issues such as how they were treated by police, social workers and other professionals.  She used a method of data analysis called Biographic Narrative Interpretative Method. Now I know that sounds rather posh but essentially it looks at a clear way of deriving meaning from a series of personal rich stories. In order to add credibility and strength to her interpretation for her thesis she engaged a panel of professional and lay members to look through and discuss the transcripts with some interesting feedback that gave her a very different point of view from the one that she had originally held. He reasoning behind this was that she had experienced the death of her own 9 year old boy and by opening out her interpretation she could minimise the risk of her work being misconstrued as some sort of victim art or confessional.... It was a very powerful stuff and really did leave a lasting impression on how important it is to understand where oneself sits in any research.

Linking this back to my work, I am now learning to accept that I will be the obese midwife researcher for quite some time...I've noticed that people comment more on the food I eat, the exercise I take and my own lifestyle. I'm often asked for dietary advice and about my own personal weight loss/gain/yo yo journey. In undertaking this study I am developing a new personal identity just as myself and my colleagues did when we became midwives... We have become accustomed to a strangers full obstetric history when we reveal our profession,with all the juicy details of their birth experiences, no holds barred. It's a good job we can listen to anything over lunch, not even a nasty placenta tale can put us off a good spaghetti bolognase.  And for those of you who were wondering what I ate, here are a few of the beautiful meals I tucked into!

Thank goodness the hotel had a gym.....

First review.... Done!!!!

I've been away for a while, now I could say that I've hidden myself in the office and have completely buried myself in the PhD.... but that would be lying. I have discovered that this aspect of the PhD journey is all about how to manage the distractions and develop discipline. I really need to work on that! However, my winter distractions have been rewarding and I have convinced myself that some of the active procrastination will in fact be beneficial to my learning.I know...clutching at straws maybe?! At the beginning of this journey it was expected that I would use the Researcher Development Framework (RDF) as a guide for my exploration of the skills required to become a good researcher....

With this in mind here are a few of my excuses for taking what seemed like an eternity to crack on with my first review:

London Marathon Training - Perfect, I could tell myself that this schedule is in itself encouraging me to express discipline, self motivation, perseverance, integrity and preparation.

Fundraising for the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust - Public engagement skills have been developed alongside strategy and project planning (essential when you mix midwives with cakes).

Maid of honour role - Once again, project planning, public engagement, ethics (tested to the max at the hen do), Income and funding generation (care of the kitty), People management, problem solving and argument construction (essential when the best man and the groom fell out a week before the wedding). Analysing skills were exercised when choosing what tone of nail varnish would be required for the big day.

Time spend on social media - Skills acquired included, information seeking, analysing, communication methods, society and culture, global citizenship.

Surfing - develops responsiveness to change, work/life balance and self confidence and language skills (surfing in Welsh is syrffio)

Midwife On call duties for friends - Maintenance of clinical skills, love, compassion and pure unadulterated joy for the work that I am so passionate about (not on the RDF planner but I think I may just add a new slice)

Just a few of the essential training sessions that I needed before completing that first review.  I can happily announce that I have passed through this important milestone with good feedback and positive constructive advice.... must have been all of that training!