Teaching and Mentoring Qualitative Research: A Journey of Struggles and Contradictions

Abstract

The year 1992 introduced to me the world of qualitative research, the year I started my PhD in Australia. The only mode of inquiry I knew then was quantitative research. Since then, my life has never been the same. I came home with my PhD in 1995 and immediately started my crusade for Qualitative Research (QualRes). I am happy to say that after almost 2 and a half decades of advocacy, of struggles and contradictions in the process of having QualRes integrated into the health sciences curriculum, my colleagues and I are positive and contented at the advances we have gained and at the various trajectories, it is heading. Now I can say that QualRes in the health sciences is here to stay…not without frowns and smirks, but, yes, it is here to stay. This presentation will focus on the various struggles and contradictions in my journey of introducing and aiming at institutionalizing QualRes as a mode of inquiry on health sciences in the Philippines. A journey that frowned at QualRes as unscientific and unacceptable in the academe to one that is embraced now as scientific, relevant, empowering, necessary, complimentary and challenging