Practice Based Reflection

and Research – Week 11

Research Dissemination
Module Review
with thanks to the 2024 module team
Session Aims

• To determine why research dissemination is

important.
• To explore the different methods of
communicating research findings.
• To consider appropriate audiences when
sharing research findings.
• To review key topics covered on the module.
• Assignment Q&A.
“Research is of no use unless
it gets to the people who
need to use it”
Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Scientific Adviser for
the Department of Health
Dissemination
Dissemination proposal(s) = stating how and
where you will make other people aware of your
research findings.
Why does this matter?
What are the benefits of ‘good’ dissemination?
Why is it important?

Effective dissemination and communication are

vital to ensure that the conducted research has
a social, political, or economical impact. They
draw attention of governments and stakeholders
to research results and conclusions, enhancing
their visibility, comprehension, and implementation
(NIHR, 2022).
Dissemination – the forgotten stage?

‘Sadly, the world of counselling and psychotherapy

research is littered with interesting, relevant, well-written,
engaging, challenging, sometimes startling and
occasionally profound examples of research that…
populate unfashionable academic library bookshelves, or
lurk unseen in dark corners of online databases, rarely
read, never thought about and always on the edge of
becoming completely irrelevant – after all that hard work.
Yet we have the potential to make a much greater
contribution to the world of counselling and psychotherapy.’
(Reeves, 2015 p227)
Benefits of Dissemination

• An ethical obligation.
• Increase profile/visibility of your research.
• Provide more opportunity for discussion,
feedback and critical evaluation.
• Promote collaboration.
• Enhance possible implications for practice.
• Contribute to growing practice-based evidence
base for counselling and psychotherapy.
Three P’s

Posters Presentations Papers

Historically, there have been three primary ways of

dissemination and remain as popular methods in
the nursing field (Brown & Schmidt, 2009; Dudley-
Brown, 2012).
Creative approaches
• Historically, creative approaches were in the
minority. Examples include:
– Art exhibitions (e.g. Davidson, 2012).
– Graphic novels (e.g Dahl et al., 2012).
– Films (e.g. Jones, 2013).
– Cartoons (Bartlett, 2013).
– Drama performances (e.g. Kontos & Naglie, 2009).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18QvWLhnt4I
Social media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkmRVlzjg2E
Things to consider

Objectives
• What do you want to achieve, for example, raise awareness and
understanding, or change practice? How will you know if you are
successful and made an impact? Be realistic and pragmatic.
Audience
• Identify your audience(s) so that you know who you will need to
influence to maximise the uptake of your research e.g.
commissioners, patients, clinicians and charities. Think who might
benefit from using your findings. Understand how and where your
audience looks for/receives information. Gain an insight into what
motivates your audience and the barriers they may face.
Timeline
• When will dissemination activity occur? Identify and plan critical
time points, consider external influences, and utilise existing
opportunities, such as upcoming conferences.
Possible audiences; Possible outlets

Who? Where?
• Other researchers • Poster or presentation at
• Other counselling research conference
practitioners • Article in peer-reviewed journal
• Allied professionals (e.g. • Training / professional
social work, teaching, development workshop for
nursing) practitioners
• Practice managers • Article in practitioner magazine
• Current and potential e.g. Therapy Today
clients • Article in mainstream media
• Networks of activists and • Social media
service-users • Keynote talk at relevant event.
• The media
• Your participants?
Research proposal - Dissemination

• Brief (200 word aprox) proposal of where and

how you intend to disseminate your findings.

• Be specific where possible: which conference?

Which journal? Which organisation(s)? Which
audience do you have in mind?
What is reflective practice?

• Practitioners take a step back to think about

what they know about their work and how they
know that, with a critical learning perspective
(Barnes & Cotterell, 2012).
• Examining our own meaning making process.
• Traced back to Socrates and the idea of
learning through questioning.
Reflexivity in research
• Me-search within the Re-search (Burnard, 2014
as cited in Kara, 2015) and critical self
awareness (Broussine, 2018).
• Reflexivity locates you within your research
(Mason, 2012).
– This is in opposition to traditional views of research
as an activity where the researcher is a neutral
presence who manipulates variables, with no
involvement or disclosure of their personal qualities
(Jewkes, 2012).
• All researchers have feelings connected with
their research work.
Reflexive practice in research (Kara,
2015)

• Some researchers keep a reflexive journal.

• Some researchers attend to reflexivity at regular
intervals and consider reflexive questions e.g.
– How do I define my identity? How does that affect my research?
– What are my values and beliefs and how are they operating in
my research?
– Which of my biases and assumptions are relevant here and how
are they affecting my research?
– What impact do my emotional responses have on my research?
– What are the relevant power balances and imbalances? Are
they changing throughout the research?
– What are the political aspects of my research?
Outcome Research Process Research
How effective is counselling? What happens in counselling?

What are the effects? How and why does change happen?

How long do they last? What are clients’ experiences of

counselling?

How do they compare with other What are counsellors experiences?

approach(es)?
Differences between quantitative and qualitative approaches

Quantitative (Quantity) Qualitative (Quality)

Positivism – Interpretivism/
scientifically verified constructivism
Numbers Words
Random sampling Purposive sampling
Statistical analysis Interpretive analysis
Prove/test theories Explore human
experience
How many? How, why, what?
Mixed Methods
• Mix of qualitative and quantitative data collection and
analysis.
• Gives a richness and depth to aspects of the research.
• Balances out the limitations in one another – detail and
depth of qualitative and the generalisability of
quantitative.
• Can have components of each methodology (e.g.
Questionnaire to gain lots of general information about
participants then in-depth interviews with a purposefully
selected sample from the questionnaire).
• However – it can be more time consuming, it requires
skills of data collection and data analysis across both
qualitative and quantitative methods.
Epistemological Approach Focus Methods of Data Collection Methods of Analysis

Grounded Theory The creation of new theory Semi-structured interviews, Constant comparative
influenced by previous data method
collection

Phenomenology The study of individual In depth interviews Phenomenological analysis

essences of lived experience focusing on preserving the
individual nature and context
of experience

Ethnography The study of cultural Observation; participant Analysis focusing on cultural

processes observation theory

Narrative The study of the experience In-depth interviews Analysis presented creatively
through the telling of stories as stories and/or themes.

Case Study Investigates a phenomenon Multiple sources of Tells the story of the case in
in its real-life context information to create a coherent manner. Identify
*Case study is a research triangulation: stages within therapy, turning
strategy Questionnaires, transcript, points, causal links between
therapy notes, in-depth events in therapy and
interview, observation, outcomes.
measures (process and
outcome)
Recruitment

• What is the group of people you would like

to ask?
• Inclusion / exclusion criteria
• Depends on methodology (8-12
participants)
• Advertise / send information to look for
participants (How? Where?)
Data collection
• Interviews (semi-structured, unstructured)
– Questions should be broad and general and as open
ended as possible, to allow the individual to
construct meanings of a situation or experience.
• Focus groups.
• Qualitative surveys / questionnaires.
• Participant observation.
• Researcher / participant diaries.
• Creative methods.
• Ensure you data collection method is in keeping with
the approach you have chosen.
Data analysis
Interpretative phenomenological
analysis (IPA)
• Smith et. al. (2009) – methodological framework
• Focuses on how people make sense of their lived
experience (e.g. motherhood, sexuality, gender, culture
etc.)
• Can be used to analyse single cases or small groups
• The researcher interprets data – codes / themes –
double hermeneutic approach
• The researcher needs to declare and ‘bracket’ their own
bias
• The researcher can use their own reflexivity
7 Stages of
IPA
Grounded theory

• Glaser and Strauss (1967)

• Focuses on building a new theory from data
• Relationship between concepts within theory
• Context is important.
Thematic analysis
• Braun and Clarke (2006) suggest that it is the
first qualitative method that should be learned as
'..it provides core skills that will be useful for
conducting many other kinds of analysis' (p. 78).
• A method of identifying themes in data in relation
to research question (e.g., helpful factors in
counselling for depression)
• Widely used across methodologies
• Analysis is not shaped by existing theory
• It is influenced by the researcher’s standpoint
and knowledge
• Analyse large data sets simultaneously.
Outcome (or Symptom) Measures

• Questionnaires or other tools that clients complete at key stages in

counselling (usually at start or end of session).
• Identifies changes that take place during therapy.
• Outcome measures can be used across many different research
methods from RCT’s to case studies (Duncan & McInnes, 2020).

• Commonly used outcome measures:

 CORE-OM: very commonly-used measure of general
psychological distress
 PHQ-9: measure of symptoms associated with depression
(NHS)
 GAD-7: measure of symptoms associated with anxiety (NHS)
Process Measures
• Where outcomes measures identify the changes that
take place during therapy. Process measures aim to
identify the variables that cause the change.
• Tools that can help assess how clients are experiencing
the therapeutic work.
– whether they like/don’t like it.
– how they feel about their therapist.
– what they might want differently in the therapeutic work.
• Less widely used than outcome measures, and are
more suited to evaluations where the focus is on
improving outcomes through systematic feedback,
rather than on demonstrating what the outcomes are.
Ethics
• We hope to see you address the following ethical considerations:
– Informed consent
– Confidentiality and anonymity
– Management of sensitive topic exploration (if applicable)
– Mitigation of harm
– Storage and disposal of participant information and data
– Reference to gaining ethical approval from the university ethics
panel.
• Every research encounter brings up context-specific ethical
challenges – so think about your research proposal and what
considerations are required.
Assignment Q&A
Section Rough word count

1.
Background/Literature review 500
2.
Research question, aims & objectives 200

3.
Methodology 250
4.
Participant Recruitment 150
5. Data Collection 400
6.
Data Analysis 400
7. Ethical Issues 400
8.
Dissemination 200

(Suggested word count only – you may want to weight the sections slightly differently)
 Sources to inform you
• https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/how-to-disseminate-your-research/19951#:~:text=
of%20being%20utilised.-,What%20does%20NIHR%20mean%20by%20disseminatio
n%3F,of%20the%20research%20without%20delay
.
• Barnes, M. and Cotterell, P. (2012). Critical perspectives on user involvement. Policy Press.
• Bartlett, R. (2013). Playing with meaning: using cartoons to disseminate research findings.
Qualitative Research, 13(2), 214–27.
• Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative
Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
• Broussine, M. (2008) The seductive qualities of creative methods: critical awareness. In M.
Broussine (ed.). Creative methods in organizational research , 33–50. SAGE.
• Brown, J. M., & Schmidt, N. A. (2009). Sharing the insights with others. In N. A.
Schmidt & J. M. Brown (Eds.). Evidence-based practice for nurses: Appraisal and
application of research (pp. 399-417). Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
• Dahl, S., Morris, G., Brown, P., Scullion, L. and Somerville, P. (2012). Somewhere nowhere:
lives without homes. University of Salford Housing and Urban Studies Unit.
• Davidson, J. (2012) The journal project. Qualitative Inquiry 18(1), 86–99. Davidson, J.,
Paulus, T. and Jackson, K. (2016). Speculating on the future of digital tools for qualitative
research. Qualitative Inquiry, 22(7), 606–10.
• Dudley-Brown, S. (2012). Dissemination of translation. In K. M. White & S. Dudley-
Brown (Eds.). Translation of evidence into nursing and health care practice (pp. 263-
253). Springer Pub. Co.
• Duncan, C., & McInnes, B. (2020). Doing Quantitative Research with Outcome
Measures. In Bager-Charleson, S., & McBeath, A. (Eds). Enjoying Research in
Counselling and Psychotherapy: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods
Research (pp 195-212). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Glaser, B.G. & Strauss, A. (1967) The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for
qualitative research. Aldine
• Jewkes, Y. (2012) Autoethnography and emotion as intellectual resources.
Qualitative Inquiry 18(1), 63–75.
• Jones, K. (2013) Infusing biography with the personal: writing Rufus Stone. Creative
Approaches to Research 6(2), 4–21.
• Kara, H. (2020). Creative Research Methods : A Practical Guide (Second edition.).
Policy Press.
• Kontos, P. and Naglie, G. (2009). Tacit knowledge of caring and embodied selfhood.
Sociology of Health & Illness, 31(5), 688–704.
• Mason, J. (2018). Qualitative researching (3rd edn). SAGE.
• Reeves, A. (2015). Dissemination of Research. In Vossler & Moller (Eds.) The
Counselling and Psychotherapy Research Handbook. Sage.
• Smith, J.A., Flower, P., Larkin, M. (2009) Interpretative phenomenological analysis:
theory, method and research. Sage.