Barbour, R

Featherstone, VA

English

University of Salford Institutional Repository

Primary Health Care Research and Development 2001; 2: 5Opening the black box: qualitative methodstraining from the Wolds Primary CareResearch Network (WoReN)From its inception, WoReN has endeavoured tomeet the demands of its members. Qualitativemethods have, finally, been accepted by the main-stream, and are no longer used only by ‘consentingeccentrics’! This sea change had been reflected inthe research needs of WoReN members. This hasresulted in Dr Rosaline Barbour (a medical sociol-ogist from the University of Glasgow) and ValerieFeatherstone (research facilitator for the network)entering into a long-term collaboration to designand run innovative, extended, workshop formats.These workshops aim to unlock the black box ofqualitative research methods, including dataanalysis.A shortened version of these workshops wasaccepted and run at last year’s North AmericanPrimary Care Research Group’s Twenty-EighthAnnual Meeting, held in Florida in November2000 – an indication of the international accept-ance of qualitative methods and of the Barbour/WoReN variety in particular.Dr Barbour has over 20 years’ experience ofqualitative research, and has been designing andrunning workshops for the last five years. TheWoReN workshops reflect this expertise andpresent qualitative research as a ‘craft skill’ locatedmidway between the extremes of esoteric andmechanistic approaches. The first workshop con-sists of a consideration of the elements whichunderpin qualitative research methods, includingtheoretical issues, sampling and research design. Inaddition, the practicalities of conducting interviewsand running focus groups are discussed, and parti-cipants actually generate their own data set at theworkshop, using focus groups. The second work-shop involves participants in interrogating and ana-Arnold 2001 1463-4236(2001)PC045XXlysing this data. These workshops run over twoseparate days, with a gap in between to allow tapesto be fully transcribed, in order to give participantsan experience as close to actual research practiceas possible. As the workshops themselves haveevolved over time, a ‘virtual data set’ has accumu-ated, which gives each new set of participants achance to engage first-hand with the constantcomparative method of analysis. Thus they cancontextualize themes and insights arising in theirown workshops with reference to our ‘virtual pro-ject’. The impact of issues such as gender, age,professional/lay views, socioeconomic circum-stances or any other factors which emerge ashaving a bearing on the content of generated datacan then be considered. To derive maximum bene-fit from these workshops,participants need toattend both days.The next workshop, to be held closer to home,has been funded by the Northern and YorkshireRegional R&D Training Bursary Scheme. This istherefore offered free of charge to all those whowish to attend. It will be tailored to reflect the inter-sts and needs of participants, and will be held inor near Hull, East Yorkshire, on 23 and 27 March2001. If you are interested in this workshop, pleasecontact Val Featherstone at WoReN to discussyour particular experience and research trainingneeds.WoReN, College House, East Riding Campus,Beverley Road, Willerby HU10 6NS.T l/Fax: 01482 466958. Email: v.featherstoneKmedschool.hull.ac.uk

Opening the black box: qualitative methods training from the Wolds Primary Care Research Network (WoReN)

Featherstone, Valerie A.

Barbour, Rosaline S.

University of Huddersfield Repository

https://salford-repository.worktribe.com/file/1461962/1/Published%20Version

Opening the black box: qualitative methods training from the Wolds Primary Care Research Network (WoReN)

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