What, you may ask, does a flea-market have to do with quantitative research? Honestly, I just wanted to put a photo on my blog post for a change. In terms of research, this image does beg several quantitative questions: how many flea markets in the US are run by people who consider themselves to be Christian? what are their thoughts about being open on a sunday? From a qualitative perspective, I'm interested in finding out if they are thanking god for the flea market or just the world in general, one in which they can have 'the most awesome flea market in the world'? Recently I coordinated a quasi-experimental study using a non-equivalent 'post-test' group design (Creswell 2009, 160). The study was one in which participants were purposely recruited (medical professionals with experience working in humanitarian/development situations in low-resource settings) to test an ethics decision-making tool. There were 6 different groups, 3 in Hamilton and 3 in Montreal, each comprised of 2-4 participants. For 4 of the groups, the participants were asked to familiarize themselves with the tool ahead of time, which required the reading of a 2-page set of questions (the decision-making tool). They were then brought together in a workshop-type setting where they applied the tool to a particular ethical dilemma case with the use of the tool. Following their 30 minute discussion, they were then asked to discuss their perceptions of the tool with the researchers. The researchers were also present during the case discussion, but remained observers to the proceedings. The participants were also asked, at the end of the session, to complete a questionnaire. The remaining 2 groups were not given the tool ahead of time, and were asked to work through an ethical dilemma case study initially without the tool, then with the tool. The groups were given one of three different case studies for their discussions to evaluate the applicability of the tool across a range of humanitarian situations (e.g., development, crisis, conflict). So in a way this experiment could be schematized as: Group A X(1 of 3 cases + tool)----------->O Group B X(1 of 3 without tool)----------->O In a sense, it could be said that Group B was a 'control', as they were not given the tool initially. This way we would be able to see what people who had a certain decision already made, would then think of their decision once they have such a tool in their hands. I won't go into detail as to the participant's conclusions about the tool, rather I want to will say that our 'quasi-experiment' was useful. It may not have been tremendously rigorous, we did introduce a few variables that might have made our findings difficult to verify - the variables of different health professionals (some with more or less experience, or more or less decision-making roles), the different cases (representing different humanitarian experiences), and the early or later exposure to the decision-making tool. Suffice it to say, our findings included some quantitative and some qualitative components (e.g., the n of participants; representative quotes). For my own research over the next 4 years at least, such experiments will not be part of my 'toolkit'. There are, however, valuable research concepts particular to quantitative research that are good to keep in mind when thinking of developing a qualitative research project: Construct validity, internal and external validity are valuable concepts when planning and evaluating research, be it qualitative or quantitative. You want to be sure you are using your theories and methods properly in the actual construction of the project. Otherwise you run the risk of fundamentally compromising the research. External validity, though less potentially damaging to the research, can still be detrimental. One has to be careful when generalizing findings beyond the population in which the research question was explored. Obviously, this is more of a potential problem in quantitative research, particularly experimental research where a certain intervention may not be as equally applicable for different populations (e.g., a new drug for instance). Internal validity is especially important for all research. As Creswell explains: There are those involving participants (i.e., history, maturation, regression, selection, and mortality), those related to the use of an experimental treatment that the researcher manipulated (i.e., diffusion, compensatory and resentful demoralization, and compensatory rivalry), and those involving procedures used in the experiment (i.e., testing instruments). (Creswell 2009, 162) I recall mentioning this in my first post that research questions will often determine the type of research design to use. For our ethics decision-making tool validation, the quasi-experimental model was the right choice. As for my research in narratives of the experience of creating representations of end of life, most certainly a quantitative approach using narratives, phenomenology and grounded theory is called for. Now on to complete the development of a 'pilot-study' on that topic. Che
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Came across this today: http://oml.bnn.nlThe site is of a television show in The Netherlands that follows terminally ill people to their deaths. The Netherlands is the country that invented the reality TV genre, and have legalized euthanasia, thus a show like this should not be a surprise. It is also so actually in keeping with the country's 'dialogue' culture. Their political system is based on conversation, dialogue and discussion; everyone's opinion is to be heard. Is this a series that is representing different opinions on euthanasia? Is there a dominant discourse being presented? What ethical debates have there been related to the representation of these individuals and their deaths? Representations of dying. Photography of dying. In higher resource countries, there is a growth in the number of visual representations of end of life. Art exhibitions, reality television shows, socio-political awareness campaigns, documentaries focused on the dying, their rights, their experiences, their hopes are becoming more and more. The issues in these countries is to raise awareness of palliative care, right to die movements etc. How do developments in these areas relate to images of suffering, dying and death used by humanitarian healthcare organizations? How do the debates in the use of representations of suffering bodies by humanitarian healthcare organizations relate to the representations of dying in resource rich countries? These are questions I am asking myself. These are questions I want to explore. For the moment, however, I am going to explore the experiences by photographers when photographing dying people. Here are a few people I will draw on: Walter Schels, an artist, who created a photographic exhibit about 'life before death.' Greg Southam, a photojournalist with the Edmonton Journal, who photographed Barb Tarbox, an anti-tobacco activist whose deathbed photograph appear now on the recent series of Health Canada anti-tobacco health-warning labels. But how does this relate to a war photographer's photographs of dying and death? Or those of a photojournalist photographing suffering in resource poor areas, times of crisis or contexts of extreme deprivation? I keep coming back to Tim Hetherington's essay in the book Photographs Not Taken, where he explores the debate he had with himself over not being able to reprint images he had of dead US soldiers when he had no problems reprinting images of dead Liberian fighters. Is this a sign of the crux of the ethical debates in these images of dying, death, suffering? Is it ultimately an issue of race/colonialism/imperialism? What else is involved? When ethics is invoked, whose ethics is it? Is it still a western/eurocentric ethics? Is there a humanitarian ethics myth? Is there a photojournalism ethics myth? How does that translate into practice? What do people in the photographs think? So much to think about. |
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