3,209 research outputs found
Experience, evidence and what counts in UK music therapy – an arts-based autoethnographic study
The field of music therapy is not bland: therapists train because of deep belief in the dignity of people and the power of music; participants begin therapy because something significantly challenging is present in their lives; fundraisers share stories which are painful, life affirming, uncomfortable; receptionists juggle quiet spaces with loud spaces with stimulation without sensory triggers; carers listen, absorb, give and give some more, often beyond the limits of their energy. And pulse and meter and melody and dynamics and bodies and voices and wood and skin and metal are the raw materials.However, it might be argued that the search for evidence in music therapy has led to something akin to a parallel reality, - one in which measured, analytical reporting of certain aspects of the work is shared, often in official documents. The vital, sensory, embodied, relational experience which is music making, and which lies at the heart of the therapy is rendered in careful and dispassionate text. There are good reasons for this, and for the steady growth of ‘evidence-based practice’, which lie in the history of the profession and its search for validation. Yet the evidence which is shared in these texts has tended to become increasingly disconnected from many features of the musical therapeutic encounter that music therapists value.In this study, conceived from a critical realist perspective, I ask ‘what is experience in music therapy’, ‘what is evidence in music therapy’, ‘are evidence and experience in fact the same thing, or could they be’? I look at my own experiences, and evidencing of these experiences, gained across 24 years of working as a music therapist. In so doing, I find I cannot maintain a single role or persona. Unexpectedly, in the course of this reflexive exploration, four Roles arrive noisily and will not go away (Music Therapist, Researcher, Musician and Carer). They debate, argue and probe at the heart of what counts, and at the cultures of music therapy which systematise and perpetuate what counts. They consider the turn to evidence-based practice in music therapy and ask ‘what is the evidence of’, and ‘does this make sense to insiders, outsiders, either, both’?This multivocal, dialogical approach allows me to adopt the different positions taken by each of the four Roles as they ask ‘does this make sense to me’, and to advocate for culture change in both music therapy and academia. It resonates with the focus of this research – experience, evidence and what counts in music therapy, and invites various different methodological approaches - autoethnography, arts-based research, phenomenology, and Aesthetic Critical Realism which is introduced to the field of music therapy for the first time. A complex web of different kinds of experience and evidence emerges through poems, stories, vignettes, images and mobile making and results in a concept of four phases of experience, leads to defined categories of different kinds of experience, and to the proposition that in music therapy, experience is evidence of personhood.The thesis is relational: those engaging with it are part of the network of experiences in the field of music therapy, because I conceptualise this field as including all musical, logistical, contractual, academic, public and informal encounters of all stakeholders, from participants to next-door neighbours. Because you are engaging with this thesis, I regard you as a Collaborator, but it is not necessary for you to be familiar with the field. Thank you for your involvement
With the Participatory Consumer Audience in mind: exploring and developing professional brand identity designers reflexive practice
This PhD reflects upon first-hand unidirectional and passive consumer audience experience approaches prevalent in professional UK brand identity design. It explores: How brand identity designers might move towards an improved reflexive practice in the design of consumer audience experiences. This practice-led research focuses on the ideas generation stage of their design process.
An ongoing constructivist audience paradigm shift signals that when thinking about and using their positionality in relation to their consumer audience experiences, designers need reflexive practice to support critical reflection of themselves, their biases and assumptions. This research uncovered a lack of relevant theory regarding reflexive practice specific to the context of brand identity design. This insufficiency throws into doubt designers' relational, participatory and equitable approaches in their working practices and their abilities to address market imperatives, including client requirements connected to the ongoing audience paradigm shift.
Aligned with John Dewey's ethical pragmatism and drawing from Creswell, Tashakkori and Teddlie, my study adopts a mixed methods methodology. Alongside established qualitative and quantitative methods, this includes my practice via design visualisations, as discussed by Drucker, and builds upon Carl DiSalvo's approach of practice used to do inquiry and design as a method of inquiry. My practice enabled me to critically reflect, evaluate and construct reflexive practice knowledge, including the development of reflexive practice communications, to advance understanding of and improve other designers' reflexive practice, and to communicate my process of reflexive design practice research.
Thirty UK-based professional brand identity designers participated in this research: nineteen participants in Phase One, a questionnaire, and six in Phase Two semi-structured interviews. Phase One and Two findings identified a gap in that designers are not employing a reflexive design practice and lack the resources to do so. Seeking to improve these shortcomings, eighteen initial reflexive design practice principles were explored and tested in Phase Three, a workshop involving five design participants. Results showed that the principles facilitated participants to advance prior thinking and engage in a reflexive design practice.
Further reflections and insights from the same five Phase Three participants uncovered a need to refine and reduce the principles and communicate them in a guide. Eight revised overarching and eighteen sub-principles in a prototype guide were explored in Phase Four in applied practice by three brand identity designers involved in Phase Three. Results corroborated workshop findings and provided further recommendations.
Contributions of this research are three-fold. First, offering an advanced understanding of professional brand identity designers' reflexive practice and process knowledge. Second, it produced a reflexive design guide with eight overarching and eighteen sub-reflexive design principles and corresponding digital app, thereby offering a preliminary new design practice method. This method offers a way to improve designers' thinking about and operation of their relational positionality, participatory consumer audience experience approaches, and reflexive design practice actions. Third, it provides a contribution to knowledge via its methodology, which integrates design visualisation practice into a mixed methods approach
Conversations on Empathy
In the aftermath of a global pandemic, amidst new and ongoing wars, genocide, inequality, and staggering ecological collapse, some in the public and political arena have argued that we are in desperate need of greater empathy — be this with our neighbours, refugees, war victims, the vulnerable or disappearing animal and plant species. This interdisciplinary volume asks the crucial questions: How does a better understanding of empathy contribute, if at all, to our understanding of others? How is it implicated in the ways we perceive, understand and constitute others as subjects? Conversations on Empathy examines how empathy might be enacted and experienced either as a way to highlight forms of otherness or, instead, to overcome what might otherwise appear to be irreducible differences. It explores the ways in which empathy enables us to understand, imagine and create sameness and otherness in our everyday intersubjective encounters focusing on a varied range of "radical others" – others who are perceived as being dramatically different from oneself. With a focus on the importance of empathy to understand difference, the book contends that the role of empathy is critical, now more than ever, for thinking about local and global challenges of interconnectedness, care and justice
Talking about personal recovery in bipolar disorder: Integrating health research, natural language processing, and corpus linguistics to analyse peer online support forum posts
Background: Personal recovery, ‘living a satisfying, hopeful and contributing lifeeven with the limitations caused by the illness’ (Anthony, 1993) is of particular value in bipolar disorder where symptoms often persist despite treatment. So far, personal recovery has only been studied in researcher-constructed environments (interviews, focus groups). Support forum posts can serve as a complementary naturalistic data source. Objective: The overarching aim of this thesis was to study personal recovery experiences that people living with bipolar disorder have shared in online support forums through integrating health research, NLP, and corpus linguistics in a mixed methods approach within a pragmatic research paradigm, while considering ethical issues and involving people with lived experience. Methods: This mixed-methods study analysed: 1) previous qualitative evidence on personal recovery in bipolar disorder from interviews and focus groups 2) who self-reports a bipolar disorder diagnosis on the online discussion platform Reddit 3) the relationship of mood and posting in mental health-specific Reddit forums (subreddits) 4) discussions of personal recovery in bipolar disorder subreddits. Results: A systematic review of qualitative evidence resulted in the first framework for personal recovery in bipolar disorder, POETIC (Purpose & meaning, Optimism & hope, Empowerment, Tensions, Identity, Connectedness). Mainly young or middle-aged US-based adults self-report a bipolar disorder diagnosis on Reddit. Of these, those experiencing more intense emotions appear to be more likely to post in mental health support subreddits. Their personal recovery-related discussions in bipolar disorder subreddits primarily focussed on three domains: Purpose & meaning (particularly reproductive decisions, work), Connectedness (romantic relationships, social support), Empowerment (self-management, personal responsibility). Support forum data highlighted personal recovery issues that exclusively or more frequently came up online compared to previous evidence from interviews and focus groups. Conclusion: This project is the first to analyse non-reactive data on personal recovery in bipolar disorder. Indicating the key areas that people focus on in personal recovery when posting freely and the language they use provides a helpful starting point for formal and informal carers to understand the concerns of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder and to consider how best to offer support
A comparative analysis of good enterprise data management practices:insights from literature and artificial intelligence perspectives for business efficiency and effectiveness
Abstract. This thesis presents a comparative analysis of enterprise data management practices based on literature and artificial intelligence (AI) perspectives, focusing on their impact on data quality, business efficiency, and effectiveness. It employs a systematic research methodology comprising of a literature review, an AI-based examination of current practices using ChatGPT, and a comparative analysis of findings. The study highlights the importance of robust data governance, high data quality, data integration, and security, alongside the transformative potential of AI. The limitations revolve around the primarily qualitative nature of the study and potential restrictions in the generalizability of the findings. However, the thesis offers valuable insights and recommendations for enterprises to optimize their data management strategies, underscoring the enhancement potential of AI in traditional practices. The research contributes to scientific discourse in information systems, data science, and business management
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