Ah bollix, that was meant to be a private email from a proud PhD supervisor to a brilliant but reticent former supervisee. It was also meant to be bilingual (maith thú, bean mhór) , but Apple evidently wasn't having any truck with fadas. Sorry Tracey, don't let it put you off.
Sam Porter
Professor of Nursing Sociology
Head of Department of Social Sciences and Social Work
Bournemouth University
Royal London House R203
Bournemouth BH1 3LT
-----Original Message-----
From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sam Porter
Sent: 11 October 2016 22:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 'Realist RCTs'
Wonderful to read this McConnell. It's like watching you spread your wings and fly. Maith th?, m? bean mh?r x
Sent from my iPhone
On 11 Oct 2016, at 19:20, Tracey McConnell <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I'm not an expert in any way, but my limited knowledge and intuition suggests that RCTs may be useful for testing conceptualized causal pathways. My argument would be that RCTs support and complement realist evaluation and vice versa. In fact, I would go one step further in arguing that any RCT without a realistic evaluation component is like providing an answer without any reasoning or justification for that answer. I also feel that realist evaluation should be valued as an important, if not vital part of the research endeavor to provide evidence in support of interventions, and an important guide for how they can be best supported in the real world context.
Tracey
Dr Tracey McConnell
Research Fellow
School of Nursing and Midwifery
Queen's University Belfast
Medical Biology Centre
97 Lisburn Road
Belfast BT9 7BL
Tel 02890972434
________________________________
From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] on behalf of Jagosh, Justin [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: 11 October 2016 18:30
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: 'Realist RCTs'
Rasmus,
Thanks for that excellent post. When you say,
what makes an evaluation genuinely realist is the notion of generative causality. Generative causality has to be taken seriously and this requires a deep qualitative understanding of the programme at hand. You need to understand how the participants changed their reasoning and behaviour because of the resources the were exposed to. Of course, this cannot be done quantitatively. This however, does not rule out the use of an RTC for the sole purpose of establishing outcome.
It would be interesting to explore this idea further. Is 'establishing outcomes' synonymous with 'conceptualizing outcomes?' If so, could it be argued that conceptualizing the outcomes should happen at a stage in the research before conducting a 'randomized experiment in the open system'. When we did a realist synthesis of Participatory Research we exploded the concept of 'outcomes' to reconfigure a causal pathway. Establishing a causal pathway or adjudicating amongst several rival theories may not be a process served well through randomization. I think at the heart of this debate is whether RCTS (a) support and complement realist evaluation (b) are neutral yet compatible or (c) are obscuring and thus in contradiction to realist evaluation.
Justin
BU is a Disability Two Ticks Employer and has signed up to the Mindful Employer charter. Information about the accessibility of University buildings can be found on the BU DisabledGo webpages This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.
BU is a Disability Two Ticks Employer and has signed up to the Mindful Employer charter. Information about the accessibility of University buildings can be found on the BU DisabledGo webpages This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.
|