Practical Research and Evaluation

A Start-to-Finish Guide for Practitioners

Lena Dahlberg,Colin McCaig

• Editore: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Anno: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781446244401
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Social Sciences
• Categoria: Social Science Research & Methodology

This book is a starter ?DIY? text for practitioners who are looking to conduct evaluation studies and research as part of their own professional practice.

The growing emphasis on evidence-based practice means that there is an increasing need for practitioners to have at least a basic understanding of research, be aware of methodological pitfalls and to be updated on new methods. This book provides a practical, user-friendly guide to social science research methods for professionals who have benefited from little, if any, formal research methods training but find themselves in a role that requires them to read and understand complex research findings and carry out their own research as part of their professional practice.

Practical Research and Evaluation is aimed at practitioners working in education, health, social care and community work. Many in this market are non-graduates or are those whose study did not contain a research element, but are required to know how research works. This book has three main aims which will benefit this audience - to enable readers to carry out small-scale research projects of their own, provide them with the basic understanding necessary to commission research, and enable them to better understand and evaluate critically research reports.

This book is designed specifically for ?Do-it-Yourself? researchers working in the public or voluntary sectors. It is accessible and relevant to practitioners, uses non-technical language wherever possible and employs grounded examples, practical tips, checklists and readings lists throughout.

ONE

Practitioner Research and the Research Process

Lena Dahlberg and Colin McCaig

By the end of this chapter, you should be acquainted with:

• the meaning of the term ‘practitioner-researcher’;
• which environments practitioner-researchers are likely to work in, the challenges they may face and how to tackle them;
• the different phases of the research process.

Introduction

In our knowledge society, there is an expectation that practice should be evidence based. The emphasis on evidence and knowledge means that practitioners need to keep themselves updated with the research development in their area and may even find themselves in a position in which they have to undertake research to inform their practice. The main objective of this book is to provide a user-friendly handbook of social science research methods for the busy professional who has benefited from little, if any, formal research methods training and yet needs to know how research works. It is a practitioner-researcher handbook to research that aims to:

(1)	enable readers to carry out small-scale research or evaluation projects of their own;
(2)	enable readers to better understand research or evaluation reports; and
(3)	provide readers with the basic understanding of research necessary to commission pieces of research or evaluation for others to carry out.

The first part of this chapter will discuss the specific roles of practitioner-researchers and the environment in which they are likely to carry out research. It will also discuss the advantages of practitioner research, and the potential challenges and how to deal with them. In the second part of this chapter, we will give an overview of the research process from start to finish, from the first idea to the dissemination of findings. This overview will serve as an outline of the chapters to follow and their positions in the research process.

Practitioners undertaking research or evaluations may have some public sector and voluntary sector roles, for example, within the areas of education, health, social services and community. When this group of people are involved in research and evaluation, this is likely to take place within their own organisations, professions and practice. This is the group generally referred in the literature as ‘practitioner-researchers’.

This book will also be useful for university and college lecturers with limited research experience or training. Lecturers may engage with research and evaluation either to inform their own teaching or enhance their academic credentials. As such, university and college staff can be seen as practitioner-researchers, particularly if the subject of their research is teaching and learning in educational environments. This book will also be of use to postgraduate research students, particularly because many of the examples used herein are of relatively small-scale and limited research projects carried out under time pressure and with limited resources. Whatever the background and approach of the readership, this book aims to provide both practitioner-researchers and others with insight into research basics so that they can carry out a small-scale research study on their own.

Yet another practitioner group with a clear interest in research is the commissioners of research. It is they that set the frame for research. This group of readers will have an interest in research issues in general. Specifically for this group this book will provide an insight into how to prepare research briefs and review proposals.

Naturally, many practitioners may be interested in research without wishing or having the chance to undertake or commission research or evaluations. They may see themselves more as users of research than as researchers or commissioners, ensuring that their practice is evidence-based. This book will better equip users of research, allowing them to understand the research and evaluation process and outcomes, but also to be more critical of research and evaluations, that is, to be able to identify what is rigorous and what is weak in studies they come across. A deeper understanding of research will also enable practitioners to consider how research and evaluations can be used, and how findings can be applied in their own practice.

Practitioner Research

Your Role as a Practitioner-Researcher

In this book, we refer to ‘practitioner-researcher’ as anybody who combines his/her position within practice with conducting research concerning that practice. (S)he can be involved in research of any kind of design. It can be a research study, a piece of action research or an evaluation (see Box 1.1). The study may be carried out by means of qualitative or quantitative methods or by a combination of different kinds of methods. Practitioner-researchers may be emphasising theory or, more often, applications of research. Nevertheless, practitioner-researchers share the common characteristic that they are well placed to work in a participative or collaborative style, including engagement with both colleagues and service users (Fuller and Petch, 1995), and they are likely to undertake studies small in scale. As noted by Jarvis (1999), though, practitioners who have become practitioner-researchers do not always regard themselves as such and their role has not received much attention.

Box 1.1 Characteristics of practitioner research

Drawing on Shaw (2005), it can be argued that practitioner research is likely to have some, though not necessarily all, of the following characteristics:

• Direct data collection and management or reflection on existing data.
• Aims and outcomes set by professionals.
• Intended practical benefits for professionals, organisations or service users.
• A substantial proportion of the inquiry undertaken by practitioners.
• Focus on professionals’ own practice and/or that of their immediate peers.
• Small-scale and short-term.
• Usually self-contained, that is, not part of a larger research programme.
• Data collection and management typically carried out as a lone activity, that is, a kind of ‘own account’ research.

Practitioner-researchers may find themselves within various fields within the public or voluntary sectors, but it should be noted that practitioner research has not advanced in parallel throughout different services. For example, documented work on practitioner research is substantially greater in fields such as education than it is in social and health services. Draper argues that the role of practitioner-researcher within nursing would have been unthinkable in the early 1990s and that nursing 25 years ago was ‘undeniably and unashamedly a practical profession’ (2000: 43). So, why has practitioner research not developed simultaneously in all social fields? Fox et al. (2007) have identified two reasons for this. First, in health and social care there is a predominance of experimental research and a perception that research using randomised controlled study designs is of highest quality. Second, bureaucratic structures within health and social care are slow to change and it takes time to accept that research that is carried out in unusual and creative ways is not automatically poor research. Another explanation is offered by Yerrell:

It is not surprising that nursing research has had little impact in a context where a highly educated medical workforce is dealing with less abstract concepts compared to an arguably less educated nursing workforce that hangs on to complex abstract notions of caring health beliefs and patent-centredness. (2000: 37)

Practitioner-researchers may have different intentions for their research. It may be something that is a requirement of their post (either in order to provide information for policy decisions or as a response to the increasing expectation that practice should be evidence-based), part of a course of study, career development or personal interest (Fox et al., 2007; Jarvis, 1999). Before embarking on research, practitioner-researchers need to understand the subject, the context and the implications of the social change that may follow from research. In doing so, practitioner-researchers will work towards enabling an attitude to research that is both critical and impartial. Being critical implies acknowledging that there is not one single ‘truth’ out there, that is, that many different ‘truths’ may be held by individuals and groups. Being impartial implies that findings are not presented as ‘the only truth’ that inevitably leads to a single, irreversible solution. Practitioner-researchers usually have no organisational authority to implement change and they need to be perceived as being trustworthy and without implementing an agenda of their own (Fox et al., 2007).

The role of practitioner-researcher is to take on board and understand different views of the organisation, although it should be noted that not all of these may be overtly discussed or mentioned. Often research brings these undiscussed issues out in the open, which can be threatening and make people anxious. Therefore, it is important that the practitioner-researcher clarifies both who the stakeholders are in the research project and considers the culture of the organisation. Fox et al. identify three main groups of stakeholders:

(1)	The commissioner – the person(s) who asked for the research to be undertaken.
(2)	Service providers – those who are involved in delivering the service that is going to be researched and who are potentially affected by the findings.
(3)	Service users – people for whom the service is tailored and who should benefit from improvements. (2007: 62)

Other stakeholders may include boards of trustees, elected members of a council or managers in the organisation. Stakeholders have in common vested interests in the outcomes of research, although they are likely to have different interests. To give an example of what this could mean in practice, some stakeholders may want to cut costs by shutting down an inefficient service, while others may be dependent on this service as a user but would like to see improvements in certain aspects of it, and yet others may have invested many years in working in and developing the service and wish to preserve it as it is.

Practitioner-researchers carrying out research need to consider the environment or organisational culture in which they find themselves, whether this is a social service department, a school, a community centre, a town planning department or a leisure centre. Fox et al. simply define ‘organisational culture’ as ‘how things are around here’ and argue that the organisational culture needs to be considered in terms of:

(1)	Decision-making – how decisions are made and implemented, and what the goals are and who sets them.
(2)	Power – who has the power in the organisation with regard to, for example, budgets, meetings, key stakeholders, and information access and dissemination. (2007: 61)

The organisational culture also has a lot to do with how research is perceived and acted upon. When was research last discussed or a report circulated? When where research findings last acted upon? Does the person responsible for research promote research in general or only their own research? Does this person have a good relationship with the manager? Who has the power to block or protect research? The culture has implications for your role as a practitioner-researcher. It is worth thinking through whether and how your relationships would change if you begin to call yourself a researcher, and whether it would change your team. In other words, you need to think about the implications of undertaking research within the organisation.

Advantages of Practitioner Research

Why should practitioners undertake or even be interested in research? Many fields of the public sector have had to meet with demands for professional accountability. There have been increased expectations that practice should be informed by research, that is, being evidence-based, and the use of performance indicators, quality assurance and evaluations has been introduced. At the very least, this means that there is a case for practitioners to develop a degree of ‘research-mindedness’ (Fuller and Petch, 1995).

Researchers are usually ‘outsiders’ with a neutral or detached view on what is being researched. This is not the case when it comes to practitioner-researchers, as they tend to undertake research on their own practice, involving their own professions and collecting data within their own organisations. With this come both advantages and disadvantages.

Among the major advantages of practitioner research (compared to external research) are those relating to specific knowledge and organisational culture, for example, that a practitioner will know the most relevant and meaningful questions to ask, that the research is undertaken by somebody who understands the field, that the research is sympathetic towards values within specific practices and that the research benefits practice and promotes change. It has also been argued that practitioner research is more ethical than academic research since it has more potential to ‘give voice to the voiceless’ (McWilliam 2004: 114; compare with Shaw, 2005). For practitioner-researchers and their peers, practitioner research has the additional advantages that it may raise the standing of the profession, increase professional skills and promote reflective learning (Fuller and Petch, 1995; Fox et al., 2007).

Challenges of Practitioner Research and How to Deal with Them

The insider position of practitioner-researchers is, however, linked with some potential problems. First, practitioner-researchers may be seen as biased, less trustworthy and with vested interests – both by academics and by people within the organisation (Fox et al., 2007). With regard to scepticism from academics, it has been argued that practice is to practitioners what disciplines are to academics, that is, that academics are as keen to be informed by and contribute to their disciplinary knowledge as practitioners are keen to be informed by and contribute to their professional knowledge. The difference is that vested interest – or ‘interestedness’ in McWilliam’s (2004) terminology – in a discipline is seen as legitimate, while vested interest in practice is not, as it is the practice that is under scrutiny in the research study or evaluation. Nevertheless, both internally and in relation to other researchers it is important that practitioner-researchers are seen as impartial and objective. Therefore, they need to show that they do not have an...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Practitioner Research and the Research Process
• 2 Introduction to Research and Evaluation Basics
• 3 Research and Evaluation Design
• 4 Ethics and Research Governance
• 5 Writing a Research Proposal or Brief
• 6 Literature Reviews
• 7 Action Research
• 8 Different Kinds of Qualitative Data Collection Methods
• 9 Preparation and Process of Qualitative Interviews and Focus Groups
• 10 Qualitative Data Analysis
• 11 Different Kinds of Quantitative Data Collection Methods
• 12 Quantitative Data Collection
• 13 Quantitative Data Processing and Analysis
• 14 Dissemination
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index