Struggling to see a way through your data? Try a different lens

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, AskFuse Research Manager / Fuse Knowledge Exchange Broker, Teesside University

“Having trouble analysing your qualitative data? Are you lost in the sheer amount of data you have collected and don’t know where to start?”

This was the strapline of a course at Kings College London last week, called ‘Ethnography Language and Communication’ and a big reason why I attend the summer school. Within my NIHR Fellowship research, I have collected big piles of observation notes, interview transcripts and meeting minutes and struggled to make sense of them. So did the course deliver?

Over five days, we were presented with a range of analytical tools borrowed from linguistics and applied to qualitative data (interview transcripts and video recording of job interviews and classrooms) with an ethnographic lens. In essence, this means trying to understand how meaning is constructed in social interactions by studying text and recordings generated from these interactions in fine detail. First from the perspective of the specific situation in which these texts were constructed, but with an explicit aim to make valid statements about the wider social structures in which these interactions are embedded.

The course leaders* have even come up with a name for this academic discipline: ‘linguistic ethnography’. Linguistic ethnographers acknowledge that texts are representations of social actions and, therefore, that to understand these texts you need to closely investigate the social interactions that produced them.

However, they also explore how these interactions are embedded in institutional contexts and are closely linked to social interactions elsewhere, both in time and location, adding a historic and place perspective. Sociological concepts of power, social class, inequality and identity feature eventually in these analyses but are not presumed and not used in the first instance. The specific context of the social interaction is initially key for understanding what is going on.

The course attracted speakers and participants from across the globe, including the UK, US, China, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Turkey, Israel and many more. This international gathering aligned nicely with the aims of the course: being highly interactional, working across different contexts with different types of data and approaches coming together to co-create a better understanding of their data.

Although we discussed many theoretical concepts, the course was also practical and gave us the opportunity to experiment with a range of analytical tools (or what Ben Rampton preferred to call ‘sensitizing concepts’): from micro-analysis (a form of Goffmanian conversation analysis: applying a dramaturgical lens (life is a stage!) to data interpretation) to discourse genres featuring The X Factor, multi-modal analysis (looking simultaneously at different modes of communication such as language, gaze and gestures), semiotic landscapes (e.g. how shop signs in neighbourhoods communicate change) and trans-contextual analysis (how text moves and changes across contexts and interactions). If you are confused by the plethora of terms and concepts, you feel exactly as we did during the course!

However, this was also the point: gaining experience of applying a range of tools that overlap or sometimes contrast with our data to find new insights that we wouldn’t otherwise have discovered. If it is helpful, use it; if not, try another tool or a combination of tools. In this sense, the course was very pragmatic. And this also applies to the role of being a linguistic ethnographer. You do not need to do X, Y and Z as a minimum, with a potential dusting of C to call yourself a linguistic ethnographer. Instead, you prescribe to a set of principles about the nature (social interaction), context (multi situational) and structure (institutional framing) of texts and recordings, that help you to choose from and apply an analytical toolkit.

Applying a different lens

Did it help me make more sense of the qualitative data I collected for my research project? No (at least not yet), but the course provided me with a starting point for analysis. It also helped me realise that trying to incorporate and do justice to all the data that I collected is simply not possible. Instead, applying a linguistic ethnographic lens to my data will help me to identify instances of text that signify social interactions that are critical for my understanding. This will ultimately help me to build an argumentative structure for my papers.

I will still need to go through all my qualitative data in detail but have a better sense of how to navigate this now.


*Ben Rampton, Kings College London; Adam Lefstein, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Jan Blommaert, University of Tilburg; Jeff Bezemer, University College London; and Julia Snell, University of Leeds

Starting out and getting ahead in obesity research

Guest post by Enzo Di Battista, Research Dietitian at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

In the lead up to the UK Congress of Obesity (#UKCO2018), I attended an Early Career Research Workshop in the beautiful grounds of Newcastle University.

Dr Maria Bryant chaired the event in which we had three talks with some interactive elements.  Here I share a few reflections and tips from the workshop.

Grant application and interview success

Professor Judith Rankin kicked off with ‘Skills to enhance the success of (fellowship) interviews’. The talk was split into three main sections – completing a fellowship application, what to do prior to the interview and what to do during the interview.

On listening to Professor Rankin’s advice on completing a grant application for research, I noted ‘5 tips’:

1. Start early on the application – you should take about a year to draft, critique, draft, critique, and draft and critique (you get the idea).
2. Ensure you have a good supervisory team around you for advice and support.
3. Speak with additional experts in research methods. This might be a statistician or an experienced qualitative/mixed-methods researcher.
4. Contact senior people in the obesity field. Most are friendly people willing to take a look at draft applications, if given plenty of time to do so.
5. Liaise with your local clinical trials unit for advice (England), (Scotland), (Wales). 

Getting the application shortlisted is just the first step however, you have to convince funders of your credibility to give you the money. The post-doc fellowship interview is all about YOU, your vision for the research project (not a supervisors) and your commitment to a research career. To ensure you’re ready for interview, Judith stressed the importance of mock interviews. To demonstrate, Dr Bryant stepped up to role play with Judith and we had video interview examples.

To increase the likelihood of success at interview, a panel expects that you have: 

1. Enthusiasm for your project.
2. Designed an achievable project.
3. An understanding of the questions you are trying to address.
4. An understanding of the experimental approaches you plan to use. 

Influencing health-care policy

Dr Barbara McGowan was next to take to the floor for the second talk titled ‘Conducting research with an aim to influence health-care policy’.  She talked us through her career development, from working in the city as an analyst to becoming a medical doctor and research lead. Her story left the impression that her early work had given her an 'edge', improving her data interpretation skills and had benefited her research career path.

The main take-home for me was the clinical research Barbara was undertaking in pharmacotherapy (therapy using pharmaceutical drugs) for obesity. I summarised it in this tweet at the time:

Medications for obesity - findings of Liragultide & Semaglutide: Wt-loss of 8-12% at 1below -3 years.

Research to influence health care policy by Dr Barbara McGowan

Early Career Research Network for #UKCO2018 pic.twitter.com/KBDeFfPJ32

— Dr Enzo Di Battista (@EnzoRD_PhD) 5 September 2018

Semaglutide isn’t licenced in the UK but Barbara feels it will be in the next year or so.

Evaluating public health interventions

Upon returning from a comfort break we settled down to listen to Professor Ashley Adamson, Director of Fuse, talk about‘Evaluating public health interventions’. Ashley highlighted “The value of collaboration” and taking time to develop networks across sectors (industry, public sector, third sector, local government) to establish and maintain public health interventions.

Ashley asked us to form groups and consider how we would implement and evaluate a breakfast club initiative in primary schools. It was a useful exercise to consider what skills (e.g. project management, capacity/network building) and processes (ethics and legalities of working with school children/participant group) were needed for public health interventions and evaluation.

My favourite slide from the talk was entitled ‘An ideal evaluation’ which, as you can see from the picture below has 5 key points, with full references (BRILLIANT!).

Before closing the workshop, Maria asked for everyone’s opinions on the afternoon and what they would like from future events. On reflection, I felt that maintaining such a high calibre of speakers was key to the quality of the workshop – so that needs to be consistent. Perhaps in future, it would be interesting to hear about emerging subjects within the obesity field and to invite someone who has recently completed a PhD or Post-doc fellowship to share their personal experiences.

If you have any thoughts on what makes for an excellent Early Career Research Workshop please feel free to post a comment below and I can feed it back to the UKCO2019 organising committee. Many thanks!

Is it possible to have a research career without being a workaholic?

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, AskFuse Research Manager, Teesside University

This was one of the burning questions that NIHR trainees put to an esteemed panel of career advisers at their annual meeting in Leeds. Every year the National Institute for Health Research brings together their trainees at a two-day event to network, share experiences, take part in workshops and generally learn more about the largest national clinical research funder in Europe. This year’s theme: Future Training for Future Health.

With all these bright minds in the room and a dedicated session on successful fellowships and grant applications, you would think ‘top tips on surviving an interview’ and ‘what mistakes to avoid in an application’ would be on the top of their list. However, after several inspiring presentations from previous and current award holders who had climbed the academic ladder - including Fuse Director Ashley Adamson a NIHR Research Professor - participants were equally, if not more, concerned about maintaining a healthy life-work balance.


Follow the yellow brick road to academic success

While Brexit questions made a brave entrance (Q: How will Brexit affect future research? A: In the long term, not all all!), they could not knock questions about mental health and wellbeing from the top spot. When Ashley included pictures of her son in a musical-inspired animation of her academic pathway (follow the yellow-brick road!) to explain that she preferred part-time work to spend more time with her family, participants immediately asked “but how do you fit family in with an academic career?”.

New gadget SLI.DO was introduced by the NIHR at the meeting this year: participants could submit questions through a mobile app, which others could vote to be answered by the panel (Bush Tucker Trial for academics). Not having to stand up in front of an audience to say who you are, might have given some participants the confidence to ask uncomfortable questions. The honest and open stories from the presenters about their own struggles and failures in academia (“my new post oscillated between agony and despair”) might also have contributed to this confidence.


Paul McGee emphasises the importance of
 looking after your mental health in academia

Experiences of stress and concerns over mental health in academic careers were acknowledged throughout the conference in various presentations and workshops. This was perhaps most evident in the closing session by Paul McGee (aka The Sumo Guy) who emphasises the importance of looking after your mental health in academia. His four key messages (be kind to yourself; get perspective; hippo time - to wallow - is ok; and keep pushing) resonated with many participants and provoked a strong response on social media.

As public health researchers, we are familiar with these messages. In our studies, we underline the link between physical and mental health, express our deep concern over the lack of mental health services and highlight the importance of resilience training from an early age in schools. However, it appears that we are not very good at applying this evidence to our own life and work.

This was recently confirmed by a systematic review of published work on researchers' well-being featured in the Times Higher Education. The review, commissioned by the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust, found that academics face higher mental health risk than many other professions. Lack of job security, limited support from management and weight of work-related demands on time were listed as factors affecting the mental health of those who work in higher education.

Given this evidence, is it possible to have an academic career and stay healthy? Despite the questions raised at the annual event, the NIHR trainees were keen to acknowledge positive mental health messages: you can have a life and family outside academia (no need to be workaholic, although being a data geek is acceptable*); it’s ok to be different and carve your own path to develop your intellectual independence; and most of all: the key to success is self-care and not funding.

* An after-dinner presentation by @StatsJen taught us that there is a perfect correlation between eating cheese and death by entanglement in bedsheets. Will midnight cheese feasts be the next public health scare?

An education in how research influences parliament, policy & practice

Guest post by Charlotte Kitchen, PhD student, Mental Health Research Centre, Durham University

It seems fitting that my first post for the Fuse Open Science Blog is about my time in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST).

I have just returned from a three-month secondment from my PhD; this meant relocating from Durham University’s Queens Campus to POST's Westminster Offices in London. As you can imagine this was a bit of a culture shock for a country girl but it was also an amazing opportunity that I would definitely recommend to others. POST is Parliament’s in-house source of independent, balanced and accessible analysis of public policy issues from across the biological, physical and social sciences, as well as engineering and technology topic areas. POST is responsible for producing briefings (usually four page summaries of a topic) for MPs and Peers in order to place the findings of academic research on these topics into a policy context for Parliamentary use. The main mechanism for achieving this is the recruitment of POST fellows (that's me!) who are PhD students who undertake short placements with the objective of producing a briefing on a topic area of interest to Parliament.

The Parliamentary Archives

Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower) at Christmas

I was tasked with preparing a ‘POSTbrief’ on ‘selective education’ which was a responsive policy briefing based on a mini literature review. This was in reaction to the current debate on the issue and the government consultation on grammar schools, which closed in December 2016. I was required to research and write the brief, interview a range of leading academics and stakeholders, attend debates in the Houses of Commons and Lords as well as liaising with the House of Commons Education Select Committee. My PhD is in adolescent mental health so the prospect of working in a new topic area was daunting but it turned out to be a challenging and rewarding experience that has definitely improved my confidence, ability to articulate complex information and writing skills.

Whilst working at POST, I was asked to support the House of Commons Education Select Committee during the Autumn 2016 term - a lot more interesting than it sounds! I got to meet various MPs, attend a committee meeting where I was asked to brief the committee on the topic and had the opportunity to feed directly into the everyday work of Parliament. The enquiry the Committee was undertaking on the topic will report shortly. My work at POST culminated in the publication of an open-access parliamentary briefing 'Academic Evidence on Selective Secondary Education' which was circulated to MPs on the Education Select Committee and others with an interest in the area. I also had the opportunity to undertake some speech writing for an MP (under supervision, of course) just to keep things interesting!

Mr Speaker selfie

The take home message of my blog is don’t be afraid to apply for a POST fellowship - like I was! Before I applied, people said they were too competitive and it wasn’t a good idea to take time off during your PhD but three months away from your thesis is a small price to pay for the experiences I have had in the Houses of Parliament. Where else do you work where there is not one or two, but three gift shops!? One of the more surreal highlights had to be a selfie with the Rt Hon John Bercow MP, the Speaker of the House of Commons whilst attending a Christmas Carol Service. In all seriousness, this fellowship has added a parliamentary publication to my CV, provided me with much needed policy experience, opened my eyes to how research influences parliament, policy and subsequently practice. I learnt many of the practical ways you can get your research noticed: from keeping an up to date academic biography and profile, publishing open-access so non-academic institutions can access your work, producing blogs to make your work more accessible to non-specialists and utilising social media to publicise your research.

The whole experience at POST is one I will not forget in a hurry and it was made possible through funding from the British Psychological Society; the closing date for this year’s fellowship scheme is 31 August 2017. There are other funders who have different deadlines throughout the year such as research councils, societies and charities. For more established academics there are also opportunities to work more closely with parliament that are worth considering.

And finally, the obligatory tourist shot...

Me and my mum

Fuse Duck and Rachel’s Day Of (health policy related) Fun

Posted by Rachel Stocker

During the final year of my PhD (2014) I was very lucky to gain funding for a three month fellowship at the Houses of Parliament, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). POST is an office of both Houses of Parliament, providing independent and balanced analysis of public policy issues that have a basis in science and technology. POST recruits around 20 fellows per year, funded by a range of funding bodies including the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), the British Psychological Society (BPS), etc, to research and write a four page briefing ‘POSTnote’ on a science/technology related subject. The POSTnote itself gives a concise, unbiased overview of information, highlighting key areas for parliamentarians to consider when policy is being made. It’s (genuinely) a great opportunity to see how health policy actually works within parliament and the angle which parliamentarians take on health subjects rather than the angle researchers might take. Plus you get to wander round the parliamentary estate (as it’s called), eat in the subsidised restaurants, chill out next to Churchill… and… yeah!

I applied to work on the topic of end of life care, and as it happens, end of life care is high on the policy agenda at the moment. I wrote my POSTnote – which can be found here – between April and July 2014. Most POST fellows actually live in London for the three month period – which is fabulous – but as I’m pretty much set up here in the North East, with a husband, mortgage, and four babies cats, I couldn’t really swan off down to London. Luckily I could conduct nearly all of the required research and interviews from home, with a little bit of travel to London every so often to conduct interviews – most of the ‘big names’ live in London or nearby (sad but true) – and catch up with my supervisor at the POST offices.

Rachel and Fuse Duck at Queen's Campus, Durham University

So what does this have to do with Fuse Duck, I hear a chorus of voices ask? ……… well, Fuse Duck and I recently had a fabulous research policy day out (is this a thing?). He accompanied me to an event held at Portcullis House, run by POST, on my POSTnote. The event itself was titled ‘Palliative and End of Life Care’ and was a seminar, with several peers, MPs, researchers, and other interested individuals.

However when I say accompanied… Fuse Duck did not actually accompany me into the event. Despite having lugged him on a train from Darlington to London King’s Cross, then on two tubes across London to Westminster (he’s a bit portly and was shoved into my little suitcase on wheels), the security staff at Parliament deemed poor Fuse Duck to pose too much of a security risk in a parliamentary building. He had to sit in his bag at the security desk, next to the x-ray machine, and wait for me.

Who knew a lovingly hand knitted duck would pose such a threat to the inner workings of our parliamentary system? He didn’t seem too fussed luckily – although I could swear I saw an evil twinkle in his eye before we set off…

POST fellowships are open to those in the second or third year of their PhD (and some are open to post-docs), more information can be found here.