In the course of our supervisory work over the years, we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. This second article addresses FAQs about context, research questions and designs. Qualitative research takes into account the natural contexts in which individuals or groups function to provide an in-depth understanding of real-world problems. The research questions are generally broad and open to unexpected findings. The choice of a qualitative design primarily depends on the nature of the research problem, the research question(s) and the scientific knowledge one seeks. Ethnography, phenomenology and grounded theory are considered to represent the ‘big three’ qualitative approaches. Theory guides the researcher through the research process by providing a ‘lens’ to look at the phenomenon under study. Since qualitative researchers and the participants of their studies interact in a social process, researchers influence the research process. The first article described the key features of qualitative research, the third article will focus on sampling, data collection and analysis, while the last article focuses on trustworthiness and publishing.
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In the course of our supervisory work over the years we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. The first article provides an introduction to this series. The second article focused on context, research questions and designs. The third article focused on sampling, data collection and analysis. This fourth article addresses FAQs about trustworthiness and publishing. Quality criteria for all qualitative research are credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Reflexivity is an integral part of ensuring the transparency and quality of qualitative research. Writing a qualitative research article reflects the iterative nature of the qualitative research process: data analysis continues while writing. A qualitative research article is mostly narrative and tends to be longer than a quantitative paper, and sometimes requires a different structure. Editors essentially use the criteria: is it new, is it true, is it relevant? An effective cover letter enhances confidence in the newness, trueness and relevance, and explains why your study required a qualitative design. It provides information about the way you applied quality criteria or a checklist, and you can attach the checklist to the manuscript.
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In the course of our supervisory work over the years, we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. The second article focused on context, research questions and designs, and referred to publications for further reading. This third article addresses FAQs about sampling, data collection and analysis. The data collection plan needs to be broadly defined and open at first, and become flexible during data collection. Sampling strategies should be chosen in such a way that they yield rich information and are consistent with the methodological approach used. Data saturation determines sample size and will be different for each study. The most commonly used data collection methods are participant observation, face-to-face in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Analyses in ethnographic, phenomenological, grounded theory, and content analysis studies yield different narrative findings: a detailed description of a culture, the essence of the lived experience, a theory, and a descriptive summary, respectively. The fourth and final article will focus on trustworthiness and publishing qualitative research.
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Over the last two decades, institutions for higher education such as universities and colleges have rapidly expanded and as a result have experienced profound changes in processes of research and organization. However, the rapid expansion and change has fuelled concerns about issues such as educators' technology professional development. Despite the educational value of emerging technologies in schools, the introduction has not yet enjoyed much success. Effective use of information and communication technologies requires a substantial change in pedagogical practice. Traditional training and learning approaches cannot cope with the rising demand on educators to make use of innovative technologies in their teaching. As a result, educational institutions as well as the public are more and more aware of the need for adequate technology professional development. The focus of this paper is to look at action research as a qualitative research methodology for studying technology professional development in HE in order to improve teaching and learning with ICTs at the tertiary level. The data discussed in this paper have been drawn from a cross institutional setting at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. The data were collected and analysed according to a qualitative approach.
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To improve people’s lives, human-computer interaction researchers are increasingly designing technological solutions based on behavior change theory, such as social comparison theory (SCT). However, how researchers operationalize such a theory as a design remains largely unclear. One way to clarify this methodological step is to clearly state which functional elements of a design are aimed at operationalizing a specific behavior change theory construct to evaluate if such aims were successful. In this article, we investigate how the operationalization of functional elements of theories and designs can be more easily conveyed. First, we present a scoping review of the literature to determine the state of operationalizations of SCT as behavior change designs. Second, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the operationalization process. We term the tool blueprints. A blueprint explicates essential functional elements of a behavior change theory by describing it in relation to necessary and sufficient building blocks incorporated in a design. We describe the process of developing a blueprint for SCT. Last, we illustrate how the blueprint can be used during the design refinement and reflection process.
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Aim: To evaluate healthcare professionals' performance and treatment fidelity in the Cardiac Care Bridge (CCB) nurse-coordinated transitional care intervention in older cardiac patients to understand and interpret the study results. Design: A mixed-methods process evaluation based on the Medical Research Council Process Evaluation framework. Methods: Quantitative data on intervention key elements were collected from 153 logbooks of all intervention patients. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 19 CCB professionals (cardiac nurses, community nurses and primary care physical therapists), from June 2017 until October 2018. Qualitative data-analysis is based on thematic analysis and integrated with quantitative key element outcomes. The analysis was blinded to trial outcomes. Fidelity was defined as the level of intervention adherence. Results: The overall intervention fidelity was 67%, ranging from severely low fidelity in the consultation of in-hospital geriatric teams (17%) to maximum fidelity in the comprehensive geriatric assessment (100%). Main themes of influence in the intervention performance that emerged from the interviews are interdisciplinary collaboration, organizational preconditions, confidence in the programme, time management and patient characteristics. In addition to practical issues, the patient's frailty status and limited motivation were barriers to the intervention. Conclusion: Although involved healthcare professionals expressed their confidence in the intervention, the fidelity rate was suboptimal. This could have influenced the non-significant effect of the CCB intervention on the primary composite outcome of readmission and mortality 6 months after randomization. Feasibility of intervention key elements should be reconsidered in relation to experienced barriers and the population. Impact: In addition to insight in effectiveness, insight in intervention fidelity and performance is necessary to understand the mechanism of impact. This study demonstrates that the suboptimal fidelity was subject to a complex interplay of organizational, professionals' and patients' issues. The results support intervention redesign and inform future development of transitional care interventions in older cardiac patients.
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Purpose: To gain a rich understanding of the experiences and opinions of patients, healthcare professionals, and policymakers regarding the design of OGR with structure, process, environment, and outcome components. Methods: Qualitative research based on the constructive grounded theory approach is performed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients who received OGR (n=13), two focus groups with healthcare professionals (n=13), and one focus group with policymakers (n=4). The Post-acute Care Rehabilitation quality framework was used as a theoretical background in all research steps. Results: The data analysis of all perspectives resulted in seven themes: the outcome of OGR focuses on the patient’s independence and regaining control over their functioning at home. Essential process elements are a patient-oriented network, a well-coordinated dedicated team at home, and blended eHealth applications. Additionally, closer cooperation in integrated care and refinement regarding financial, time-management, and technological challenges is needed with implementation into a permanent structure. All steps should be influenced by the stimulating aspect of the physical and social rehabilitation environment. Conclusion: The three perspectives generally complement each other to regain patients’ quality of life and autonomy. This study demonstrates an overview of the building blocks that can be used in developing and designing an OGR trajectory.
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Author supplied: Abstract How can you provide health clubs with the possibility of offering innovative and differentiating services in an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing environment? This was the issue raised by the Dutch health club industry, which has grown rapidly in recent years. To this end, we conducted extensive research in order to understand the needs of customers and flesh out a customer-driven marketing approach. As the most frequently used models and methods in marketing do not respond to the demands of small businesses, we adapted emerging generative-user research methods from the field of design. We demonstrate how we combined qualitative design research with quantitative customer research in a study for the health club industry. Finally, we discuss how the approach prompted new insights in the context of small business in the service sector through multidisciplinary collaboration. DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2015.070647 http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJTMKT.2015.070647
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Background: Low-educated patients are disadvantaged in using questionnaires within the health care setting because most health-related questionnaires do not take the educational background of patients into account. The Dutch Talking Touch Screen Questionnaire (DTTSQ) was developed in an attempt to meet the needs of low-educated patients by using plain language and adding communication technology to an existing paper-based questionnaire. For physical therapists to use the DTTSQ as part of their intake procedure, it needs to generate accurate information from all of their patients, independent of educational level. Objective: The aim of this study was to get a first impression of the information that is generated by the DTTSQ. To achieve this goal, response processes of physical therapy patients with diverse levels of education were analyzed. Methods: The qualitative Three-Step Test-Interview method was used to collect observational data on actual response behavior of 24 physical therapy patients with diverse levels of education. The interviews included both think-aloud and retrospective probing techniques. Results: Of the 24 respondents, 20 encountered one or more problems during their response process. The use of plain language and information and communication technology (ICT) appeared to have a positive effect on the comprehensibility of the DTTSQ. However, it also had some negative effects on the interpretation, retrieval, judgment, and response selection within the response processes of the participants in this study. No educational group in this research population stood out from the rest in the kind or number of problems that arose. All respondents recognized themselves in the outcomes of the questionnaire. Conclusions: The use of plain language and ICT within the DTTSQ had both positive and negative effects on the response processes of its target population. The results of this study emphasize the importance of earlier recommendations to accompany any adaption of any questionnaire to a new mode of delivery by demonstrating the difference and equivalence between the two different modes and to scientifically evaluate the applicability of the newly developed mode of the questionnaire in its intended setting. This is especially important in a digital era in which the use of plain language within health care is increasingly being advocated.
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Background: Peer review is at the heart of the scientific process. With the advent of digitisation, journals started to offer electronic articles or publishing online only. A new philosophy regarding the peer review process found its way into academia: the open peer review. Open peer review as practiced by BioMed Central (BMC) is a type of peer review where the names of authors and reviewers are disclosed and reviewer comments are published alongside the article. A number of articles have been published to assess peer reviews using quantitative research. However, no studies exist that used qualitative methods to analyse the content of reviewers’ comments. Methods: A focused mapping review and synthesis (FMRS) was undertaken of manuscripts reporting qualitative research submitted to BMC open access journals from 1 January – 31 March 2018. Free-text reviewer comments were extracted from peer review reports using a 77-item classification system organised according to three key dimensions that represented common themes and sub-themes. A two stage analysis process was employed. First, frequency counts were undertaken that allowed revealing patterns across themes/sub-themes. Second, thematic analysis was conducted on selected themes of the narrative portion of reviewer reports. Results: A total of 107 manuscripts submitted to nine open-access journals were included in the FMRS. The frequency analysis revealed that among the 30 most frequently employed themes “writing criteria” (dimension II) is the top ranking theme, followed by comments in relation to the “methods” (dimension I). Besides that, some results suggest an underlying quantitative mindset of reviewers. Results are compared and contrasted in relation to established reporting guidelines for qualitative research to inform reviewers and authors of frequent feedback offered to enhance the quality of manuscripts. Conclusions: This FMRS has highlighted some important issues that hold lessons for authors, reviewers and editors. We suggest modifying the current reporting guidelines by including a further item called “Degree of data transformation” to prompt authors and reviewers to make a judgment about the appropriateness of the degree of data transformation in relation to the chosen analysis method. Besides, we suggest that completion of a reporting checklist on submission becomes a requirement.
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