Methodological Conventions in
Transition: Shifting the Balance
between Theorizing and Application
Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research
Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
University of Toronto
Sept 27, 2010
Sally Thorne, RN, PhD, FCAHS
Professor and Director
UBC School of Nursing
Vancouver, BC
Location
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Discipline
Training
Conceptual
Orientation
Nursing
Methodological Affinities
Phenomenology
Philosophy/
Psychology
Ethnography
Anthropology
Grounded Theory
Sociology
Confronting Resistance
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•
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•
Health science
community
Social scientist colleagues
Grant reviewers/Journal
editors
Paradigm thinking
Methodolatry
“slavish attachment and devotion to method”
“a preoccupation with selecting and
defending methods to the exclusion of the
actual substance of the story being told.”
Janesick, V. J. (1994). The dance of qualitative research design: Metaphor,
methodolatry, and meaning. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 209–219). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rule-Alignment
The Entrée: Tabula Rasa
“Nothing is known…”
Researcher Role Abdication
“The data speak for themselves….”
The Convenient Exit
“Saturation
was
achieved…”
The Primacy of Abstraction
“The overarching
metaphor….”
Narrative Imperative
“My study
participants
speak their
truth…”
The Meaning of Meaning
“My journey…..”
Truth Claim Grandiosities
Lachrymal validity
Adulatory credibility
Theory
in Qualitative Health Research
Epistemological Differences
Social Science
Health Science
What Theory Privileges
and
What it
Obscures
The Fallout of Borrowed
Theoretical Tradition
•
•
•
Losing the disciplinary
grip
Manipulating language
signifiers
Discrediting the field with
fuzziness and irrelevance
A Necessary but Not Sufficient
Schism?
Emancipation of Qualitative
Health Research
Applied Qualitative Methodology
The Next Generation
Venturing Beyond Description
and Theorizing
Using Research to Bring a Clinical
Angle of Vision into the EvidenceBased Context
• Limits of conventional
science
• Experiential phenomena not
amenable to measurement
• Patterns in experience
• Commonalities and variations
• Critical reflection on context
Applied Qualitative Research as a
Corrective to Big Science
Illuminator
Variance Interpreter
Challenger
Humanizer