From complex organisation / knowledge contexts to a Master’s dissertation

Carole Truman

(Soon to be) Prof. Health and Community Studies

Format for this session

The Context and requirements for your dissertation – using your experiences, knowledge and skills to write a dissertation

Some analogies Constraints and Opportunities Writing Aims and Objectives BREAK Evaluating the process (and your practice)

Why Me?

20 Years research experience in health, social care, social development e.g.:Needs assessment - sexual healthSupport Needs of the elderlyExercise, mental health and participationSelf - harm in forensic mental health; Community Safety; Prisoners’ Families

Know a bit about social research Have supported (hundreds of) students to do projects /

dissertations from UG to PhD to professionals in practice An exercise in knowledge utilisation

Some Analogies …

Ever played draughts against a five year old?

Why is it OK to kick the ball over the bar in rugby, but not in football?

If you’re standing in a GP’s surgery, how do you know that you’re not in a school? (or vice-versa)

In a supermarket which is stocked with thousands of products, how do you manage to leave with only a trolley-load?

Your goal – write a dissertation

What are the opportunities?

What are the constraints?

Knowledge Utilisation and AR – the common ground between them

Asks questions about the relationship between producing knowledge / evidence and how that knowledge can be used

Situates who can be a ‘knower’ within that context (stakeholders)

Uncovers the complex nature of relationships in knowledge processes

Provides ways of evaluating knowledge

The process …

[Action Research / Knowledge Utilisation] combines enquiry, intervention and evaluation and so mirrors the iterative processes employed by professional staff in assessing the needs of vulnerable people, responding to them and reviewing progress. (Hart and Bond 1995)

So ...

Action research ‘encompasses a whole range of approaches and practices, each grounded in different traditions, in different philosophical and psychological assumptions, pursuing different political commitments’.

Knowledge Utilisation has much in common with AR – but whereas AR would normally use research methods to generate knowledge, KU would seek to use processes which use and evaluate knowledge.

In other words ...

Knowledge is not produced for its own sake, but it is seen as being embedded in processes of social change or problem solving, inseparable from the idea of action (Brock and McGee 2002).

Working to a Plan

Defining a Problem Setting Aims and Objectives Developing a process Evaluating knowledge claims Health Warnings

Criteria for a Viable Project

It should be do-able: access, co-operation, feasible within the timescale, etc.

Aims and Objectives should be tailored to this.

For every project task, there is a writing task

Defining a Problem (or Opportunity)

Thinking about what sort of project you want to do, and what is going to be possible (remember, you are constrained by time, word-length etc….)

Background – policy context; the literature; knowledge / experience from elsewhere Background to your ambitions – what makes it interesting and worth doing?

Literature – what literature will be relevant – what knowledge can you draw upon?

JUSTIFICATION FOR YOUR PROJECT – making a convincing case to start the journey

From Problem / Opportunity to Plan

Having justified your ambitions and described the background …

Devise Aims and Objectives Aim: Your overall goal (for the purpose of the

dissertation, this may form part of a larger project) Objectives – Steps along the way - Sub-questions

that need to be met in order to meet the aim. (Could be expressed as hypotheses to test)

Be prepared to start big and focus down: most projects start off by being too ambitious

Objectives

Defined steps along the journey 3 or 4 would be ample for a project of this

scale Each objective should be sub-divided and

expressed using indicators Each indicator should then be linked to a

knowledge utilisation process

Some Guinea Pigs

Talk to me about a Project

We’ll define some aims and objectives

PLAN ACT

OBSERVEREFLECT