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This article is from Global Health Action , volume 7 . Abstract Background: Participatory approaches to qualitative research practice constantly change in response to evolving research environments. Researchers are increasingly encouraged to undertake secondary analysis of qualitative data, despite epistemological and ethical challenges. Interpretive focus groups can be described as a more participative method for groups to analyse qualitative data. Objective: To facilitate interpretive focus groups with women in Papua New Guinea to extend analysis of existing qualitative data and co-create new primary data. The purpose of this was to inform a transformational grounded theory and subsequent health promoting action. Design: A two-step approach was used in a grounded theory study about how women experience male circumcision in Papua New Guinea. Participants analysed portions or ‘chunks’ of existing qualitative data in story circles and built upon this analysis by using the visual research method of storyboarding. Results: New understandings of the data were evoked when women in interpretive focus groups analysed the data ‘chunks’. Interpretive focus groups encouraged women to share their personal experiences about male circumcision. The visual method of storyboarding enabled women to draw pictures to represent their experiences. This provided an additional focus for whole-of-group discussions about the research topic. Conclusions: Interpretive focus groups offer opportunity to enhance trustworthiness of findings when researchers undertake secondary analysis of qualitative data. The co-analysis of existing data and co-generation of new data between research participants and researchers informed an emergent transformational grounded theory and subsequent health promoting action.

This article is from Global Health Action , volume 7 . Abstract Background: Participatory approaches to qualitative research practice constantly change in response to evolving research environments. Researchers are increasingly encouraged to undertake secondary analysis of qualitative data, despite epistemological and ethical challenges. Interpretive focus groups can be described as a more participative method for groups to analyse qualitative data. Objective: To facilitate interpretive focus groups with women in Papua New Guinea to extend analysis of existing qualitative data and co-create new primary data. The purpose of this was to inform a transformational grounded theory and subsequent health promoting action. Design: A two-step approach was used in a grounded theory study about how women experience male circumcision in Papua New Guinea. Participants analysed portions or ‘chunks’ of existing qualitative data in story circles and built upon this analysis by using the visual research method of storyboarding. Results: New understandings of the data were evoked when women in interpretive focus groups analysed the data ‘chunks’. Interpretive focus groups encouraged women to share their personal experiences about male circumcision. The visual method of storyboarding enabled women to draw pictures to represent their experiences. This provided an additional focus for whole-of-group discussions about the research topic. Conclusions: Interpretive focus groups offer opportunity to enhance trustworthiness of findings when researchers undertake secondary analysis of qualitative data. The co-analysis of existing data and co-generation of new data between research participants and researchers informed an emergent transformational grounded theory and subsequent health promoting action.

Qualitative and quantitative research approaches are generally considered to be mutually exclusive. It is possible, however, that a synthesis can be achieved at the level of interpretation and explanation of findings. This paper is divided into four sections to provide: (1) an understanding of explanation and the explanation problem in research; (2) understanding of the unique elements of the explanatory problem of applied research; (3) development of an appropriate explanatory solution; and (4) analysis of an attempt to achieve synthesis. The case study used in the analysis section involved collaboration between researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and practitioners from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. UNC-CH was approached by Charlotte-Mecklenburg officials for help in preparation of a grant proposal for the study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers' center, the Teaching Learning Center. The design proposed by the co-principal investigators (a Teaching Learning Center staff member and a UNC-CH researcher) used a combination of exploratory, interpretive, verification, and reliability studies. Through their interactions, the two principal investigators assumed the perspectives of each other (i.e., the researcher assumed the concerns of the practitioner, and the practitioner came to understand the abstract interest of the researcher), and explanatory synthesis was approached, if not achieved, during data analysis. (LC)

Qualitative and quantitative research approaches are generally considered to be mutually exclusive. It is possible, however, that a synthesis can be achieved at the level of interpretation and explanation of findings. This paper is divided into four sections to provide: (1) an understanding of explanation and the explanation problem in research; (2) understanding of the unique elements of the explanatory problem of applied research; (3) development of an appropriate explanatory solution; and (4) analysis of an attempt to achieve synthesis. The case study used in the analysis section involved collaboration between researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and practitioners from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. UNC-CH was approached by Charlotte-Mecklenburg officials for help in preparation of a grant proposal for the study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers' center, the Teaching Learning Center. The design proposed by the co-principal investigators (a Teaching Learning Center staff member and a UNC-CH researcher) used a combination of exploratory, interpretive, verification, and reliability studies. Through their interactions, the two principal investigators assumed the perspectives of each other (i.e., the researcher assumed the concerns of the practitioner, and the practitioner came to understand the abstract interest of the researcher), and explanatory synthesis was approached, if not achieved, during data analysis. (LC)

The methodology of interpretation of qualitative data was explored using a grounded theory approach to the synthesis of data, examining the construction of categories in particular. The focus is on ways of organizing data and attaching meaning, as research problems embedded in cultural context are explored. A qualitative research training task with 4 groups of 3 to 5 members each (for a total of 27 graduate student subjects) evaluating comic strip culture was used to address the consistency between groups, how groups differ, and how different ways of categorizing data lead to different interpretations of comic strip culture. Intra-group differences and perceptions were pronounced, and group consensus varied considerably from individual reports. Individuals reported more diverse answers than group consensus indicated, and group answers were more simplified and focused on fewer categories than those of individuals. Implications of the research center on the idiosyncratic nature of qualitative research and issues related to generalizability, as well as the relationships between the types of questions being asked and the interpretations and relationships between the knowledge-base of researchers and the interpretation of data. One table presents the categories of cultural values elicited. (Author/SLD)

The methodology of interpretation of qualitative data was explored using a grounded theory approach to the synthesis of data, examining the construction of categories in particular. The focus is on ways of organizing data and attaching meaning, as research problems embedded in cultural context are explored. A qualitative research training task with 4 groups of 3 to 5 members each (for a total of 27 graduate student subjects) evaluating comic strip culture was used to address the consistency between groups, how groups differ, and how different ways of categorizing data lead to different interpretations of comic strip culture. Intra-group differences and perceptions were pronounced, and group consensus varied considerably from individual reports. Individuals reported more diverse answers than group consensus indicated, and group answers were more simplified and focused on fewer categories than those of individuals. Implications of the research center on the idiosyncratic nature of qualitative research and issues related to generalizability, as well as the relationships between the types of questions being asked and the interpretations and relationships between the knowledge-base of researchers and the interpretation of data. One table presents the categories of cultural values elicited. (Author/SLD)

The methodology of interpretation of qualitative data was explored using a grounded theory approach to the synthesis of data, examining the construction of categories in particular. The focus is on ways of organizing data and attaching meaning, as research problems embedded in cultural context are explored. A qualitative research training task with 4 groups of 3 to 5 members each (for a total of 27 graduate student subjects) evaluating comic strip culture was used to address the consistency between groups, how groups differ, and how different ways of categorizing data lead to different interpretations of comic strip culture. Intra-group differences and perceptions were pronounced, and group consensus varied considerably from individual reports. Individuals reported more diverse answers than group consensus indicated, and group answers were more simplified and focused on fewer categories than those of individuals. Implications of the research center on the idiosyncratic nature of qualitative research and issues related to generalizability, as well as the relationships between the types of questions being asked and the interpretations and relationships between the knowledge-base of researchers and the interpretation of data. One table presents the categories of cultural values elicited. (Author/SLD)