Reflections on Research

I guess I should start this blog by stating that I have never conducted a piece of clinical research. While I have been a participant in some studies and use research every day in my practice, I have not yet had the opportunity to apply my skills as a researcher.

Why then am I writing something for a page dedicated to research in learning disability nursing? I have been qualified as a registered learning disability nurse for nine months now, working as part of a newly formed intensive support team. As a firm believer in reflective practice I thought it was important to look back to the end of my time as a student, the start of my nursing career and explore how the use of evidence has helped me to further develop my practice.

I think every third year student nurse has fears: will I pass the course? Will I get a good job? Then there is the universal fear: am I ready and will I be a good nurse? I chose a role in a new service that provided a model of care I had only briefly encountered as a student. Furthermore, within this specialised team I had succeeded in getting a Band 5 to 6 development post. This added to the growing list of worries that I had; I knew I had a good level of knowledge on a range of subjects (and some shaky knowledge in some areas too) but I did not feel nearly prepared enough.

Before my first day in post I had conducted a number of literature searches to explore various aspects of the service, the types of individuals who require the support of an intensive support team and what we know about factors that may lead to placement breakdown. I realise now that this level of preparation is a little over the top, and will happily admit to being a massive geek. Looking back, my fears that university hadn’t prepared me at all for working life had caused me to overlook the skills that I had gained and had used for the three years of my degree. Not only was I able to retrieve evidence but I had the skills to appraise and synthesise this, allowing me to apply the findings to my own experience and practice. I was able to explore research and learn about topics and subject areas I had never even encountered before.

The application of research, in the form of evidence-based practice, should be a core element of professional nursing care. In my previous experience, working in the independent and voluntary sector with children and young people with learning disabilities my practice was well-intentioned if uninformed. Things were done, and on the whole done well I should add, because it worked previously or because it had always been done that way. However, even before knowing how to critically analyse an article or conduct a literature search I was researching topics and always wondering why.

As a qualified nurse I do not believe I have changed overly much. At a conference recently I was asked if I was as ‘challenging’ now as I was when I was studying and I’d imagine if you spoke to some of my colleagues they would answer in the affirmative. University taught me the gold standard, the ideal and the idealised version that shaped my expectations and practice. As a result of this, and my own personal development, I have learned to challenge and ask people the dreaded ‘why’ question. In fact, in the organisation I currently work for all members of staff were encouraged to do this because sometimes, in the day to day experience of work and caring, we lose sight of the ‘why’ and absorbed into the routine and the process. This, then, is the role of research, to give us an answer and to ensure that the support we give to an individual is meaningful to them and that our contribution makes a difference.

At the heart of my nursing care is a belief that in order to get the best for each individual I see, and help them to achieve their goals and aspirations, I have a duty to give the highest standard of care I can; this involves adopting best practice and remaining up-to-date. I do this at an individual level through various subscriptions and mailing lists, through social media and through the various events and conferences I attend. However, I recognised early on the need for like-minded individuals, and my favourite placements were those where people discussed developments and new ideas were valued and welcomed. It should come as no surprise that in choosing my first job role I asked about evidence, participation in research and how findings are embedded into clinical practice.

In my brief time as a nurse I have found that it is not enough to have a handful of individuals who carry out research, or a handful that keep themselves up-to-date and seek to improve their own practice. In order to improve outcomes for those people we support the services and organisations around them must be committed to quality improvement and strive for best practice. This does not mean just the development of their research portfolio but a number of key commitments: a commitment to developing staff, a commitment to providing access to current evidence and a commitment to embedding findings in clinical practice. The third commitment represents the greatest challenge, particularly in larger organisations when there is a need to share findings with a number of staff working in different localities.

In meeting this challenge, my current employer employs a number of strategies within the LD directorate including the development of clinical effectiveness groups; the purpose of which is to develop the care provided through the establishment of care pathways based on evidence and best practice. It is exciting to see that other nurses engage with this and are in some areas taking a lead role. Furthermore, through a clear strategy, forum events and events for qualified learning disability nurses the organisation demonstrates that good practice can be shared and developed by nurses at all levels and stages in their career.

The final challenge I would like to mention, and one I have not yet lived up to myself, is where nurses working in specialised areas should turn practice-based evidence into evidence-based practice to be able to share it more widely with their colleagues. I am aware through my work that intensive support models are being explored nationally, but there is a clear need to build up an objective evidence base to demonstrate the successful outcomes they may bring about. In doing this it ensures that we recognise and celebrate the unique contribution that we, as learning disability nurses, make to the lives of individuals so and their families and carers.

Joshua Kernohan

Managing Time Effectively aka The Frustrations of a Researcher in Waiting!

I love research! Why do I exclaim this fact? Well it continues to surprise me that so many student nurses I come across appear to view it with trepidation and fear. Colleagues at the University of Leeds are currently exploring the best, most effective ways to teach research to nursing students to attempt to counteract this worry and concern. I’m reminded of Ruth’s words in setting up this forum “Research is not an optional extra: we all need to develop this aspect of our role”. So what is it that’s scary? In her blog in February Ruth talked about the possible ‘miss-selling’ of research in the way it’s taught. I think that we can overload students with theories; methodologies and design and forget to focus on the heart of research, simply the question. In my experience, once someone has the opportunity to choose their question they quickly find the interest and enthusiasm that can transcend the more difficult stages (recognising the stress of many friends in the midst of doctoral research!).

The reason I have questioned this attitude to research more lately is because I see myself as a frustrated researcher in waiting. I undertook research as part of my BSc in learning disability nursing over 20 years ago now and loved every minute of it; but although I dabbled and contributed to other people’s studies I didn’t have an active involvement in research until I completed an MA in Social Research five years ago. This re-fired my enthusiasm but was quickly dampened by the demands of the day job. In reflecting on how we teach research at Leeds I’ve been minded to consider how I apply this to my own ‘research’ role. Somewhere along the line I’ve realised that I’ve placed too much importance on striving towards feeling like a researcher through a formal learning process and not enough on the heart of research. Although I’ve recognised the issues which impact on the health, lives and experiences of people with a learning disability I haven’t always ‘seen’ the research question within them. On occasions I’ve participated in the research process through exploring best practice or evaluating services without acknowledging a research role. In short I’ve been my own worst enemy!

So how do I change my focus? My first step has been to evaluate my role in relation to research, in particular seeing research opportunities within all of my activities as opposed to research being one strand of my work experience. In this way I have been able to develop areas of interest and experience that I may not have identified before e.g. Through placement liaison I have been involved in an evaluation of  a clinical supervision model within offender healthcare; Through teaching on a specific research module I have contributed to a systematic review on research teaching. Although I still have a tendency to jump from one idea to the next in a disorganised manner I have managed to develop a clearer vison for myself as a researcher and take confidence from this.  I often refer back to a fridge magnet I have with the words of T F Hodge, “to conquer frustration one must remain intensely focussed on the outcome, not the obstacles”.

My second step and one that remains a steep learning curve is to improve my time management. I like being a busy person and generally manage my workload through a love of lists! My time management for research involves dedicating time to think, read and explore ideas (not necessarily in that order). Whilst this may sound obvious to some people it is not something that comes naturally to me. I have realised I’m always in a hurry and instead of taking time with ideas I usually think “Well I’ll just answer that email, make that call, finish that presentation…”. A colleague who recently started a PhD commented that what she was enjoying most about her study was allowing her self-time to read.

I recently came across a great post on time management for academics by Nick Fearnster http://greatresearch.org/2013/08/31/time-management-tactics-for-academics/ Nick talks about his five B’s as tactics for time management. These are bits, budgets, buffers, bounds and barriers. There is a challenge here not just in how we manage time but how we view it. These tactics are about recognising the fluidity of time and not limiting ourselves but also being ruthless about our priorities; including when to say no. Another lesson I need to learn!

Jo Lay

University of Leeds

Feminism, learning disabilities and the importance of research

The inspiration behind this blog is the release of the movie “Suffragette”.

I had been considering a number of ideas for this blog but listening to a BBC Radio 4 interview made me realise this was the subject I wanted to write about. Feminism is a subject which I feel strongly about, and through this subject I want to start a necessary and important conversation about feminism and women with Learning Disabilities.

Being a woman in today’s society is hard.  As a woman I am often deemed as less than a man, not as strong, not as brave, not as intelligent, not as worthy.  Often I am told to “grow balls” to “man up”, it infuriates me, and it makes me feel less than a person. If people who use those phrases really examined what they were saying – would they still use them? Other times I worry about my appearance, my weight, do I have too many wrinkles, am I too pale, am I too grey, and then I worry that I have become superficial?  As women we are constantly under scrutiny and bombarded with images of how we should look act and speak. As a woman I spend so much time and money investing in making myself look and feel right so that society becomes more acceptable of me: I internalise my ideas from socialisation.  This makes me angry at myself and society, resulting in my feeling frustrated and angry.

Last year when considering topics for my dissertation I was incredibly interested in learning about the experiences of being a woman with learning disabilities,  knowing how unequal society is for women.  When I entered the world of learning disability nursing I was very naive. My journey resulted in meeting many women who showed me how hard the world can be for a woman with learning disabilities.  I met women who had been abused, I met women who had been marginalized throughout their whole lives,  I met women deemed unable to have a job.  Women who were told they were unable to raise their own children and women who had to fight to have a choice of where to live.  I met so many women who had things happen to them, because they were a woman. There are women living with uncertain futures, in the hands of people who don’t know them or what their wishes, hopes and dreams are.  This, for me, was one of the hardest lessons of learning disabilities nursing.

Whilst seeking research on the experiences of being a woman with Learning Disabilities, I found very little available: there is some but more is needed.  I would like to hear the stories of women with learning disabilities.  I want to be able to empower all women to have an equal and fair access to society, and to be able to make choices about their own futures.  If a woman has been a victim of sexual abuse and is afraid of men, how can it be right to put her in a home living with and being looked after by men?  Where are her rights?  But how can I empower women without understanding their stories, their lives?

I am planning next year to start a Masters in Disabilities Studies, and then move onto a PHD.  I believe through research, we can reach out to women with Learning Disabilities to support, enable and empower them to have the tools to help them live in a fairer and more just society, to be able to stand up to, and recognise, gender inequality.  To help them have greater control over their lives and their ability and belief in themselves that they can be in control of their future.  Through research I truly believe that we can start to tackle these issues, that we can learn from each other and teach one another coping mechanisms.  Research can show us the journey so far, and through research we have the ability to make changes to make society more equal and just for women with learning disabilities.

Helen Rose

November 2015

Words, numbers or both?

As someone who has predominantly been a qualitative researcher I have surprised myself over the past couple of weeks by the extent to which I have recently enjoyed working with quantitative data. Much as I love working with words, and looking for patterns and meaning in what people say, it has reminded me that the patterns that emerge from numbers can be just as exciting.

To provide you with some background I have been working on data entry for two different projects one with a relatively small number of participants (n=32) and the other with a larger data set (310 participants). In both instances I have been entering data into a software package known as SPSS that is designed to help researchers manage and analyse quantitative data and this meant that I first had to set up my coding. Not having done this for quite some time this was initially a little daunting but I was surprised by how quickly I was able to get back into doing it. Most importantly it really made me think about the data we had collected and what we needed to do with it. Having completed this initial stage I then had to start the process of entering all of the data and doing this has made me reflect on a couple of issues.

First it has reminded me of why we need large scale studies. In the smaller data set there seem to be some interesting findings but I have to remind myself that in the context of that study one person equates to a large percentage of the overall response and therefore one person responding in a particular way can seem to make a large difference to the overall findings. Of course there are statistical tests that can be applied to see whether these differences are statistically significant or whether they are just down to chance but I am not yet at that stage of analysis. However, the fact that these differences exist can shape future research in that they give rise to questions that can prompt us to undertake larger scale studies to see whether or not similar patterns would emerge from large data sets. In the context of learning disability research the number of large scale studies tends to be limited because (as a proportion of the population) people with learning disability are a relatively small group. Large scale studies therefore need to be multicentre in order to recruit a large enough sample and this can be challenging: nonetheless they are needed.

However, in the larger data set I have been working with whilst there are some responses that seem somewhat ‘unusual’ they are less likely to have a significant impact on the overall findings. Due to the fact that many more people are involved and that they have responded in a different way make it much more likely that ‘unusual’ responses are due to chance rather than reflecting a significantly different finding.  We can, therefore, be more confident in the findings that emerge and when we are undertaking research that seeks to inform practice it is essential that we have confidence in our findings.

Another thing that has struck me from the larger data set is what whilst I am still only part way through the data entry (I have completed 100 to date) my impression of the patterns that are emerging as I enter individual responses is (in some instances) not always borne out when I use the software to do a check for me of how many people have responded in a particular way. For example there was one area where I thought not many people had responded positively to a particular question but when I checked quite a few had. This reminded me of the importance of being able to separate impressions from the facts emerging from the data.

I have sometimes heard people say that they prefer qualitative research because they find it easier to understand. By this they tend to mean that they find the use of statistics to be off putting – they feel they are too complex to understand. However, there are some questions that require a numerical response: we need to know how many, how often, and how much in order to advance practice. Also whilst qualitative research may feel easier to read most qualitative researchers will tell you that qualitative analysis is far from simple! Both approaches therefore bring their own challenges.

So am I about to change to being a solely quantitative researcher? Of course not but my work over the past couple of weeks has reminded me that interesting patterns can emerge from both numbers and from words, that different questions require different research approaches, and that we need to gather both sorts of data if we are to improve the support that we offer to people with learning disabilities and their families. For me that it why I undertake research and so in the future I will probably be more likely to undertake quantitative (or at least mixed methods) research and to enjoy the different challenges.

 

Ruth Northway

January 2015

An end of year report…

First of all I feel I need to start this blog with an apology for there not being any posts for a few weeks – things have been a little hectic! However, as the year draws to a close I think it is timely to take stock of what we have achieved and to think about where we need to go.

As many of you will know this blog and the associated Facebook Group (LD Nurse Research) and Twitter feed (@LDNRes) were set up earlier this year to try and help take forward the recommendations within Strengthening the Commitment that relate to the use of evidence in practice and the need to strengthen learning disability nursing research. Our aim was to get people talking about learning disability nursing research and to get more people engaged in using and developing research. So what has been achieved so far?

Well we’ve had 26 blogs (thank you to all of the guest bloggers) and there have been over 3,700 views. For those of you who are part of the Facebook group you will know that we have had an amazing past 24 hours as over 100 new members have joined the group – we now have 649 members – not bad for a group that has only been going for 9 months. These figures are really encouraging in terms of knowing that research in on so many people’s agenda and we look forward to building on these further in 2015. However, numbers are only part of the story if we want to achieve our aim of getting people engaged. What has really encouraged me over the past 24 hours is that group members have been using the group to raise issues and promote discussion – people are talking about research.

This wish to be involved in, and engaged with, research was also evident at the research event we held on the 15^th December. On that day over 50 people (students, clinical staff, lecturers) came together to take stock of where we are currently in relation to learning disability nursing research and to discuss what our priorities should be for development. We aim to produce a position paper from the discussions held on that day (along with any comments others want to forward to us) and details will be posted here in due course. However, what struck me about the day was that although everyone was pragmatic about the challenges we face in developing research there was great enthusiasm for taking this agenda forward.

So, looking back on 2014, there have been challenges but also a lot of activity and enthusiasm which provides us with a good base from which to develop. We need to build on this during 2015 so that this time next year we can again look back on a productive year in terms of learning disability nursing research. This will only be achieved, however, if we work together to take this work forward. As one of my New Year resolutions I aim to make sure that there are regular blogs posted on this site but I know that I cannot do that alone. So this is where you come in! If you are looking for a New Year resolution why not commit to one of the following:

• Sending in your thoughts about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that are currently impacting on learning disability nursing research and also what you feel should be the priorities for development (if you could get comments to me by the 9^th January that would be really helpful as we need to hit a deadline for the position paper)
• Volunteering to write a guest blog – I would really like to be able to draw up a list of people who are willing to write a blog during 2015 and agree dates with them. Blogs can be about research you are working on, questions you have, or general thoughts about research – in fact anything research related. You don’t need to be a research ‘expert’ as the aim is to engage everyone in discussion and we can all learn from each other. Again if you would be willing to help please get in contact with me.

These are just a couple of ways you can get involved and please get in touch if you can think of other contributions you would like to make. Working together perhaps we can turn New Year resolutions into a New Year revolution in learning disability nursing research.

All the best for 2015 – hope to hear from you!

 

Ruth Northway

A quick question?

I have sometimes heard ‘Oh we’ll send round a quick questionnaire’ voiced as a solution to an identified need for information. In such circumstances I hope that when people say ‘quick’ they are referring to the fact that it will not take make excessive time demands on those being asked to complete it (an important consideration if you are aiming to get a good reponse). However, sometimes I fear that use of the word ‘quick’ reflects the belief that it is quick / easy to put together a survey when the reality is that this is far from the case if you want to develop a good questionnaire that is going to get you the information required. This is a task that I have recently been working on with colleagues and this has reminded me of some of the important things that need to be considered.

Rather than jumping straight into designing a new questionnaire the first question we should ask ourselves is whether there is already a questionnaire in existence that we could use. The advantage of this approach is that such a questionnaire may have been previously validated and found to be reliable and it can also make it possible for us to compare the responses we receive to those received by others. Pre-existing questionnaires may not, however, always be an option and so we then have to consider designing our own.

My first piece of advice may sound obvious but when developing a questionnaire make sure that you keep the aims and objectives of your research close at hand along with the research question you are seeking to answer. It is all too easy to get carried away with posing questions that you think would be interesting to explore but if they are not helping you to achieve your aims and objectives then they are not relevant for your questionnaire. All you will be doing by including them is increasing the length of the questionnaire and hence the time that it will take people to complete it. Stay focused.

In an interview, if someone doesn’t understand a question fully they can ask for clarification or the interviewer can phrase the question differently to promote understanding. However, in the case of a self -completion questionnaire the participant will only have what is written on the questionnaire to go on and so it is important to be as clear as possible when you are phrasing your questions. Make sure that you phrase your questions carefully and that you avoid terminology that may not be understood by participants (or that may be understood in different ways). Also ensure that you are clear in terms of what you want participants to do – for example should they tick only one response or tick all that apply? Should they answer all questions or only specific ones that apply to them.

What all of this points to is, of course, the importance of piloting your questionnaire .I never cease to be surprised by how things that I thought were clear can be interpreted in different ways by different people (sometimes because they haven’t read the question or instructions carefully) and it is only by piloting or testing out your questionnaire will you uncover these difficulties. What you want back from your survey are questionnaires that have been fully and correctly completed and testing out your data collection tool before your main study can help to increase the likelihood of this happening.

A final piece of advice I would offer is to think about how you are going to analyse your data when you are developing your questionnaire. If you are asking fixed response questions (for example yes/no or asking people to rate on a scale) then you will be counting the number of different types of responses but how are you going to do this? How will you actually record all of the data you receive so that you are able to analyse it? What software (if any) are you going to use to assist your analysis? All of these considerations may inform how you structure and design your questionnaire. Similarly you may want to include some open questions where you invite participants to write freely about a particular issue. This can be a great way of gathering more in depth information but again think about how you are going to analyse it. It may be possible to analyse free text responses if you have a relatively small sample of participants but what if you had a response rate of 2,300 and you had included three open questions and all participants answered all three questions – would you be able to manage 6,900 free text responses?

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things that need to be considered when designing a questionnaire but hopefully it gives some points to consider if you are thinking about developing one. My aim in encouraging you to think about these issues is not to discourage you from developing a questionnaire (if that is the best way to gather your data) but rather to encourage you to spend some time working at its development. Failing to do so will mean that both you and your participants could waste time engaging in  an exercise that still doesn’t provide the information you were looking  for. An investment of time in the short term can therefore bring longer terms benefits.

 

Note to self: don’t forget the tea towels

 

Now if asked to list what a researcher needs to remember to take with them I suspect you might include things such as an audio recorder, a note book, questionnaires, and consent forms- tea towels would not usually be considered. However, last week tea towels (along with biscuits, tea, coffee, sugar and milk) were all on my list. The reason? Along with colleagues with learning disabilities, staff from a local health board and colleagues from work I was getting ready to start on a journey that, we hope, will lead to us developing three collaborative proposals for research funding.

Submitting the proposals is still a long way off but this week we got together to think about three priority areas that had been identified at a participatory workshop two years ago. The purpose of this week’s session was to remind ourselves about the research process and to think about some questions we might ask in each of these areas when we develop our research proposals.

We spent a couple of hours generating lots of potential research questions (many more than it will be possible to answer in three research studies!). But it was interesting to see just how many ideas could be generated by bringing together a group of people with different ideas and experiences. I was reminded once again of how, if given the opportunity, people with learning disabilities have so much to contribute to discussions and debates that they have been excluded from far too often.

Admittedly many of the people who were at the event were already linked to advocacy groups and therefore even as I write I can hear some people say ‘well that’s not representative of all people with learning disabilities’. I totally agree and yes perhaps they were people who were used to taking part in such discussions. However, neither were the staff there representative of all staff working in learning disability services yet I suspect their inclusion would not be questioned on the basis of this issue. Nonetheless being privileged to work with those who were present reinforces for me the need for us all to work towards research being even more inclusive than it currently is. Those present had some great ideas- some that I have never even considered- but how many more people with learning disabilities are out there who (if given the chance to contribute) would make a fantastic contribution. We have made progress in terms of inclusive research but we still have a long way to go.

So why were the tea towels necessary? Well we held the event in a local village hall that provided great access for disabled people, gave us a lot of space to be able to organise group work and to move around, and had a lot of parking space: all important considerations when planning a participatory research event. It was available at a reasonable cost which is also important when seeking to work within a limited budget. Most importantly it gave us facilities to provide refreshments for all participants so long as we brought along the necessary supplies and cleaned up after ourselves (hence the tea towels). An important part of participatory research is learning to work together as a team and as we all know team work is often lubricated by tea, coffee and biscuits. So, you will now understand why tea towels were an important feature of my research activity this week and will remain on my list for future workshops!

‘Parking’ our research questions

My previous blog reflected on the need to keep asking questions – in this one I want to think about the next stage, namely that of refining your questions. In the context of research this is essential since the questions we ask determine the methods we use to answer them: research methods in and of themselves are neither inherently ‘wrong’ nor ‘right’ but they can be appropriate or inappropriate for a given question. For example if we want to find out how tall someone is we don’t set about weighing them and if we want to find out how someone feels about having a particular condition we wouldn’t go and ask those without that condition (although historically this approach has been taken when the people concerned have learning disabilities but that is probably a subject for another blog).

Nonetheless finding the right question –the one that captures exactly what it is that you want to know – can be challenging. In the context of learning disability nursing, where there are so many areas to be researched, we can be spoilt for choice. To try and explain I will use the analogy of parking.

If I enter a car park where there are a few spaces dotted about I somehow find it easier to park since choice of parking space is limited and I find parking between two already parked cars is easier since you have clear parameters within which to position your car. However, entering a car park where there are few already parked cars first requires that a choice is made as to where in the car park I want to be – where is going to be the easiest/ closest to where I want to be/ least likely to result in my car getting hit/ least likely to run the risk of being stolen? When the decision about where to park is made further problems arise as all I have to guide me are some lines marking out a bay (if I am lucky) that can be difficult to see and positioning the car can be much more difficult. Now I recognise that this may say more about my ability to park (or not) than it does about how other people park their cars. Nonetheless it does seem to me that there are some important parallels to be drawn with choosing research questions in learning disability nursing.

If I were to research an area of nursing that had been widely researched a review of the literature would show me exactly which space remained to be filled and therefore what the focus of my question was likely to be. In other words it would be like entering the car park that is already pretty full, finding a space and pulling up alongside vehicles (existing research) that are already parked. In learning disability nursing, however, a literature search is likely to reveal many more gaps in existing knowledge: more like the car park where few cars are already parked. This could be seen as either a problem or as an opportunity.

As someone who enjoys a challenge this situation seems to me to be one of opportunity. We do have many unanswered questions in learning disability nursing but this means that we have great potential to grow and develop our research. We do need to review the literature to see what has already been researched but even if similar studies are found do they apply to the situation we want to explore? Could there be value in replicating the study in another area? What do we (and others) feel are the most important questions that need addressing – this information will inform our priorities. What is realistic in terms of our time, skill and funding to research? All of these are questions that we need to consider when trying to pin down our research question – often we start off wanting to answer huge questions only to learn that it is better to be realistic and focus on what is achievable and to do it well. For example we may start with a broad idea that we want to learn more about what community nurses do but then narrow it down to an interest in how they undertake initial assessments. Even then, however, do we want to answer the question ‘How do community learning disability nurses undertake initial assessments?’ or perhaps ‘What is the role of the community learning disability nurse in undertaking initial assessment?’ Whilst these might seem broadly similar closer inspection will show that they might involve collecting slightly different types of data from different groups of participants.

Once we have, however, narrowed down our focus to the question(s) that we want to explore we can then start to progress with developing our research. To return to the analogy of parking once we have decided on the space we want to fill we can go for it and (if the lines around the bay are not already painted) get our paint brushes out and mark it out as our own.

So take time to check out what research is already there and use it to focus the many questions I am sure you already have. Talk with other people and enlist their support to help you refine the question, to make it realistic and achievable and to build your confidence (if you like think of it as getting other people to help guide you into that parking space). Don’t worry if it takes you a few attempts as all the time you will be learning and developing your skills and just like parking we have all had to start somewhere and have probably all had to make many attempts to get our cars into a particular space. The main thing is don’t be afraid of research, keep questioning and keep refining the questions. Once you have ‘parked’ your question (whether alone or with others) you have already started the research process and you are ready to start thinking about how to carry out your study.

More questions than answers…

When I get the chance to go to conferences I often find myself writing notes to myself in the margins of my note book. This was certainly true when I recently attended the RCN International Research Conference where looking back I see things such as ‘how do we define vulnerability?’, ‘what about people with learning disabilities who are homeless?’ and ‘what do nurses see as the key ethical issues in relation to safeguarding?’ scribbled at the side of my notes. By the end of that conference the song that was going round in my head was ‘There are more questions than answers…’ (you will probably need to be of a certain age to remember that one!).

 

Of course not all of these questions will translate into research studies but questions such as these are where research starts and they do not only arise from the minds of researchers. As practitioners there are probably many issues in practice that make you think ‘what?’, ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ However how often are these questions discussed with researchers who might be able to help with investigating the questions? Indeed sometimes such questions are not even voiced: they remain in our head or in our notebook.

 

Another problem is that when we are involved in our day to day work we sometimes cannot always see the questions and it is only when we get the chance to step back and reflect that they come to our minds. The reason for this is that we can sometimes be too familiar with what goes on around us and that can limit our ability to question. As Robert Pirsig (1974: 78) observes ‘What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness. Familiarity can blind you too’. If a newcomer were to come into your place of work what questions would they ask?

 

Identifying potential research questions is something that we can all do even if we do not ultimately undertake research. Sharing these questions with others and perhaps working in partnership with researchers to investigate them can lead to important practice based questions being explored. As another line of the song that was going round in my head says ‘The more I find out the less I know…’. You might think that this means there is no point in questioning but I think it has different implications: not knowing what we do not know can be dangerous particularly in practice contexts. So – any questions?

 

Reference:

Pirsig, R. (1974) Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, London: Vintage

 

Ruth Northway

April 2014