Structural issues affecting mixed methods studies in health research: a qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health researchers undertake studies which combine qualitative and quantitative methods. Little attention has been paid to the structural issues affecting this mixed methods approach. We explored the facilitators and barriers to undertaking mixed methods studies in health research.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 20 researchers experienced in mixed methods research in health in the United Kingdom.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Structural facilitators for undertaking mixed methods studies included a perception that funding bodies promoted this approach, and the multidisciplinary constituency of some university departments. Structural barriers to exploiting the potential of these studies included a lack of education and training in mixed methods research, and a lack of templates for reporting mixed methods articles in peer-reviewed journals. The 'hierarchy of evidence' relating to effectiveness studies in health care research, with the randomised controlled trial as the gold standard, appeared to pervade the health research infrastructure. Thus integration of data and findings from qualitative and quantitative components of mixed methods studies, and dissemination of integrated outputs, tended to occur through serendipity and effort, further highlighting the presence of structural constraints. Researchers are agents who may also support current structures - journal reviewers and editors, and directors of postgraduate training courses - and thus have the ability to improve the structural support for exploiting the potential of mixed methods research.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The environment for health research in the UK appears to be conducive to mixed methods research but not to exploiting the potential of this approach. Structural change, as well as change in researcher behaviour, will be necessary if researchers are to fully exploit the potential of using mixed methods research.</p

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Is Migration Kin Structured?

We estimate the strength of kin-structured migration in six human populations (five from New Guinea and one from Finland) and in one population of nonhuman primates. We also test the hypothesis that migration is not kin structured by generating a sampling distribution of the estimator under the null hypothesis of independent random migration. We are unable to detect a statistically significant level of kin-structured migration in any population. However, five of our six human populations were from Papua New Guinea, and we cannot dismiss the possibility that migration is kin structured in other parts of the world

Team training: implications for emergency and critical care pediatrics.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The field of team training is quickly evolving and data are emerging to support the close relationship between effective teamwork and patient safety in medicine. This paper provides a review of the literature on team training with specific emphasis on the perspectives of emergency and critical care pediatricians. RECENT FINDINGS: Errors in medicine are most frequently due to an interaction of human factors like poor teamwork and poor communication rather than individual mistakes. Critical care settings and those in which patients are at the extremes of age are particularly high-risk, making emergency and critical care pediatrics a special area of concern. Team training is one approach for reducing error and enhancing patient safety. Currently, there is no single standard for team training in medicine, but multiple disciplines, including anesthesiology, emergency medicine and neonatology, have adapted key principles from other high-reliability industries such as aviation into crisis resource management training. SUMMARY: Team training holds promise to improve patient safety in pediatric emergency departments and critical care settings. We must carefully delineate the optimal instructional strategies to improve team behaviors and combine these with rigorous outcomes assessment to diagnose team problems and prescribe targeted solutions, and determine their long-term impact on patient safety

Isolated housewives and complex maternal worlds: the significance of social contacts between women with young children in industrial societies.

This article reconsiders the picture of the mother of young children in industrialised societies as the 'isolated housewife', suggesting this notion is by no means straightforward. We suggest there is considerable evidence for the existence of mothers' social contacts and their significance both as 'work' and 'friendship' in industrial societies. A pre-occupation with the notion of the 'isolation' of 'housewives' has led social researchers to neglect sustained examination of the social relationships within which many/most mothers are involved on a day-to-day basis. Complexities of interpretation, for example what 'isolation' can actually mean, need to be drawn out from the existing literature. Evidence presented from two recent ethnographic studies shows patterned opportunities/constraints occurring in relation to mothers' social contacts within localised settings, whether through organised groups or other personal ties. The complex nature of individual women's social contacts is thus brought out. Some key questions are raised for the importance to sociology, anthropology and social policy of these apparently insignificant or invisible women's networks