Research Course Health Sciences - Ethnography and Meta Ethnography

Department of Health and Care Sciences, University of Tromsø and Clinical Research Centre, University Hospital of North Norway have the pleasure to invite doctoral students and researchers to participate in a research course in ethnography and meta ethnography. The course will take place at the University of Tromsø that is the world's northernmost university.

Ethnography is a well-established qualitative research approach to studying health care settings and provides a way of capturing the rich detail of a small number of cases or settings. Evidence synthesis is an emerging approach to integrating the findings of research to provide a cumulative view and may be useful for integrating the findings of several qualitative case studies. This research course will explore the practice of ethnography looking at some of the particular challenges and issues faced by researchers working in health care settings. The course will also examine one approach to evidence synthesis – meta ethnography.

The organizers welcome participants from a broad range of disciplines interested in qualitative research and evidence synthesis 

Key-note speakers are:

	Dr Catherine Pope. Professor, University of Southampton, UK
	Dr Nicky Britten. Professor, University of Exeter, UK
	Dr Lillebeth Larun. Researcher, Norwegian knowledge Centre for the Health Services, Norway

Application

 

 

Application form

Deadline is January 1^th 2012

 

Registration and accommodation

There is no registration fee. Further information about accommodation facilities is to be found at http://www.destinasjontromso.no/

Organisation of the Research course

The course is organised in two parts. The first part provides a critical examination of some of the key issues and challenges encountered in doing ethnography in health care settings. The course will begin by considering the interpretive foundations for ethnography and then explore the research process – looking at issues related to field access and some of the practical concerns and ethical dilemmas encountered in data collection. There will be an opportunity to learn about ethnographic studies of the Norwegian health care system as well as the presenter’s own research conducted in the UK and USA. This part of the course will continue by considering validity and rigour in qualitative research and examine techniques for critically appraising ethnographic research.

The second part of the course is an introduction to meta ethnography – a novel method for integrating the findings of several qualitative or ethnographic studies. The will take the student through an exemplar meta-ethnography following the approach described by Noblit and Hare (1988) using four papers. These will be used to identify key concepts and begin the process of ‘reciprocal translation’ which is core to the method. The course will also look at how to push the analysis forward by using techniques to display and consider the emerging findings and will conclude by outlining the challenges of doing qualitative synthesis.

An interactive learning format based on small group working and group discussion will be used throughout the course.

Objectives:

By the end of the workshop the participant should be able to:

• Outline the epistemological and ontological foundations of ethnography

• Consider and identify possible solutions to the problems of accessing the field

• Reflect on the range of ethical dilemmas posed in ethnographical studies of health care settings

• Describe approaches to validity and rigour that can be applied to ethnography

• Begin to critically appraise a qualitative/ethnographic paper

• Describe Noblit & Hare’s approach to meta-ethnography and undertake key components of this approach (such as identifying concepts from primary papers, undertaking reciprocal translation of concepts across papers).

• Consider the strengths and weaknesses of meta-ethnography

 

Preparation

For part 1 all students should identify and read one paper reporting an ethnographic study which they will critically appraise during the course.

 

For part 2 all participants need to read four example papers which will be used to identify key concepts and begin the process of ‘reciprocal translation’. The data collection sheet should be used.

 

Assessment

The course assignment involves writing a critical appraisal of an ethnographic paper/study or a proposal for a synthesis of qualitative research. The length of the paper should not exceed 5 pages, double spaced, font 12.

The paper may be written in English, Swedish, Danish or Norwegian and should be submitted to Aud Obstfelder by May 1th

Participants must request their own university for approval of study points

Number of participants

25 students and researchers in medicine and health sciences

Course leaders:

Dr Ellen Blix, research manager, University Hospital North Norway

Dr Aud Obstfelder, Associate professor, University of Tromsø

Arrangement committee

Dr Cathrine Arntzen, post doc, University Hospital North Norway

Dr Anne Husebekk, professor, University of Tromsø

Gudrun Nilsen, research manager, Health region Finnmark, College of Finnmark

Keynote speakers:

Catherine Pope is a Professor of Medical Sociology at University of Southampton and Nicky Britten is Professor of Applied Health Care Research at the University of Exeter.  They have been involved in a variety of research synthesis projects in the past 10 years including meta-ethnographies of the experience of diabetes, medicine taking, help seeking for cancer, generalism in primary care, GP use of guidelines, use of complementary medicine by people with cancer and lay experiences of psychotropic medication. They are also involved in a variety of other applied health research projects about such topics as medicine taking, patient experience of health care, and health service organisation. Between them they have over two decades’ experience of teaching research methods and running workshops of this type.

Lillebeth Larun is a researcher at The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services. The knowledge center supports the development of quality in the health services by summarizing research, promoting the use of research results, contributing to quality improvement, measuring the quality of health services, and working to improve patient safety.

Program

Reading List