Table 4 Strategies to enhance entry into qualitative careers and research in child and adolescent psychiatry
From: Pathways and identity: toward qualitative research careers in child and adolescent psychiatry
Level of intervention | Category | Potential strategies |
|---|---|---|
Becoming a qualitativist: the investigator (internal factors) | Grounding: personalizing the investigator’s research focus | • Previous interest or knowledge in the humanities and social sciences can provide a useful template for qualitative research • A shift in the hidden curriculum (i.e., from scientific exclusivity) toward one of “epistemological inclusion” (i.e., to welcoming humanities and social sciences) stands to benefit qualitative researchers |
De/centering: balancing inward and outward views | • Foster “polyocular sampling,” in which multiple viewpoints are incorporated, including: • Outward-facing views—decentering—through which to incorporate the voices of children, their caretakers, and relevant others • Inward-facing views—centering—through which to bring reflexivity and oneself into the work | |
Practicalities: leveraging advantages | • Data collection can be completed in a weeks or months, not years • Institutional review approval usually falls under expedited or exempt categories • Synchronized videoconferencing makes interviews and data collection simple, even at geographic remove • Costs are low, additionally so since the advent of AI-supported transcription • Analytic methods such as thematic analysis (TA) are accessible and require a modest learning curve | |
Being a qualitativist: the discipline and the scientific environment (external factors) | Epistemological flexibility | • Finding academic lodging within groups and institutions that espouse scientific openness can be conducive to success as a qualitativist • Narrative competence—the capacity to recognize, absorb, metabolize, interpret, and be moved by stories of illness”—can help close gaps between patients and providers |
Recounting: moving beyond bibliometrics | • “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted” (attributed to Einstein) • There are many ways to tell the story of mental health problems—not just one right way and many wrong ways | |
Dis/integrating: mixing and unmixing methods | • Joining a mixed methods project as a qualitativist has natural appeal and fosters collaboration across epistemologies • There are risks to be considered as well, including being tokenized or relegated to an irrelevant role | |
Nurturing quality: the future | Capacity building: invigorating a quality pipeline | • Organized teaching of alternative approaches to science, such as qualitative methods within a medical context • Making use of a broadening literature and expertise on incorporating qualitative methods into medical education |
Joining: building communities | • Education is necessary but not sufficient in pursuit of qualitative competence; theory and learning need to come alive in practice • Communities of practice can be a prime way to launch into a first study accompanied, feeling support and guidance at such a critical career juncture |