Hi Sue, I'd like to echo your comments regards last week's course, it was extremely helpful for me as a novice exploring Realism, so thanks especially to Justin for sharing your expertise, and also to Sonia Dalkin who's knowledge and experience we benefitted from.

My questions which Justin encouraged me to post is following on from a discussion that arose last week which was about using other methodologies to pursue a study after a Realist Synthesis - do some/any other methodologies work within or alongside realist methodology?   Which other methodologies do or not 'fit', and as we discussed last week Realism uses retroduction so if other  methodologies use retroduction, is this the key to the 'fit'?

Kind regards,
Susan
University of Dundee


-----Original Message-----
From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Suemann
Sent: 09 March 2015 13:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Mechanisms in realist evaluation of systems

First to say thank you to justin Jagosh for very stimulating course in liverpool last week - and for inspiring me to be brave enough to post here.

I am a relatively new recruit to realism and have been plunged into a complex realist evaluation of a health systems research project designed to design, implement and evaluate a range of (different) post partum care packages in four African countries.  I am drawing  on trish  greenhalgh's methodology for evaluating the south london modernisation initiative.  I have found the approach of looking at supportive/ unsupportive contexts for the mechanisms fits well here but I am unsure how the overarching selected mechanisms for systems are related to the way we look at individual level evaluations and individual level reactions such as fear, empowerment or motivation etc.
Can anyone advise ( I hope this makes sense!).

Finally to say we are starting a small skype-based journal club as a way of building skills for some of us earlier on in using the methodology.  If any of you experts out there would be happy to join us occasionally that would be fantastic.

Thanks for any help

Best wishes
Sue Mann
UCL NIHR knowledge mobilisation fellow

Sent from my iPhone

The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096