Dear Jo and NI,

I think psychometrics are interesting from a narrative standpoint. A couple of good texts are Nikolas Rose’s Governing the Soul... and Lock and Strong’s Social Constructionism.

Rose’s thesis uses a Foucauldian discursive framework to argue that the development of the Psy disciplines emerged from, and made sense within, the need to have new modes of social and personal regulation, espec triggered by WWII. So, in this context psychometrics developed as a means of ensuring good job-person fits and, eg, to make sure that people diddn’t crack under pressure. And of course IQ tests, then, later, in my ex-discipline the psychometrics of empirically-grounded psychotherapy, and so on.

So, from this position psychometrics are a product of social construction, as opposed to ‘measuring’ something that really, essentially and foundationally exists – although realists would no doubt disagree with this.

Lock and Strong cite people like Harre and Shotter who argue in a similar vein: Harre, in particular, I recall argues for the absurdity of regarding what is essentially a discourse (story) a (socially constructed) template for measuring reality in a postpositivist sense.

That said, psychometrics can be useful. The Beck Depression Inventory, for example, is a pretty good tool to triangulate the narrative of a depressed individual in my view.

Best,

Alec

From: Narrative Inquiry where social science meets art [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of jo kirkpatrick
Sent: 16 November 2011 23:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I have a queer feeling!

I will happily defer to your superior experience on NHS permission Sue. A manual I just read made it sound like a total nightmare but it is for RCTs rather than simple interviews so it is probably misleading me.

By the way what do the rest of us think about psychometrics? I accept that they might take some of the risk out of taking on a new employee but I can't see them being able to predict future behaviour or define more than basic personality types/traits with much accuracy with only 11 or 16 items. Although I know we only have 44 chromasomes to produce billions of combinations of every characteristic so perhaps it is possible but that assumes we the right items.

BW Jo

From: Suzanne Hacking <[log in to unmask]>
To: jo kirkpatrick <[log in to unmask]>; "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, 15 November 2011, 0:41
Subject: RE: I have a queer feeling!

Yes, I wouldn't get too hung up on exact methods yet, there's no need to expose anyone to publicity simply because you are using them in a research study. Personally I think there's no issue with making an application to NHS and people shouldn't be put off or try to circumvent it, because overall the process is not supposed to be an obstacle course, it's just supposed to protect the participants. I think the involvement of clinicians for the study generally overall improves them - depends what the object is - and also involvement of the clinicians would increase the utility and clinical relevance of the results (maybe).

People who know the participants might recognise them but they would anyway. I think all the thinking about this is just part of the process of designing the methods - yes, you may go the social route, but the important thing is to be conscious of what the process is, the possible consequences and your own part in it, that's also part of your own reflection about your part in the research. I don't think there are any right answers here, just whether what you are planning on getting and doing is worth the potential compromises.

Sue.

From: jo kirkpatrick [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 14 November 2011 15:18
To: Suzanne Hacking; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I have a queer feeling!

Hi Sue, Alec, Chrissy and all

This is the thing that made me rethink doing AE as my PhD study and do a mixed quant and qualt ethnographic phenomenological study instead. I think I will need to do the AE at some point but not as first study. The implications for my friends and family and the friends and families of the other participants need careful consideration. It is alright promising to anonimise everything but if my life is involved, and my name will be on the report so the trail from me could easily lead to them. Most of them have been living double lives for 30 to 50 years. It is not fair to expose them and their lives to the microscope of my AE unless they are truely committed to coming out publically and are fully prepared for the consequences. As a scientist researching an anonymous group of participants the link to myself is far more tenuous. And for this reason, I have decided to leave the clinic out of the recruitment and interview process so even the name of the clinic can be left out of the report. I have my participants so I really don't need them. Thus I will only need to deal with the UCLan ethics committee, not the NHS which takes forever.

Best wishes Jo

From: Suzanne Hacking <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, 11 November 2011, 2:20
Subject: Re: I have a queer feeling!

Hi, yes it does seem intuitive that if you know people and they know and trust you, they should be aware of the issues, however, they might not be, especially when it goes beyond the individual. One of the reasons we have ethical submissions is that the individual researchers may not consider all of the issues, because they may not appreciate the wider issues themselves whereas a disinterested group has a variety of perspectives and can at the least act in an advisory capacity. I know people know this but we don't always think through the whole situation for the people concerned, not deliberately, but especially if we have a self interest. For instance, say someone was investigating a closed group, say whose comparitive poverty of circumstance didn't usually expose their own practices or attitudes to a wider critical view. If there was some clumsy handling of expressed feedback, it might expose the group to a different perspective, that illuminated limited horizons; it could be quite a shock and actually destroy the trust of the community of interest, it could allow people to escape that poverty but what if there were no avenues for escape, or in order to escape they had to cross some boundary that they wouldn't have understood the reason before - it's not just is that ethical? but what is the potential effect and is that justified by the research knowledge gained.

I know I've just launched into this from lurking... Sue.

From: Narrative Inquiry where social science meets art [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Alec Grant [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 03 November 2011 16:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I have a queer feeling!

Dear Chrissie (and all),

Yes Chrissie, you’ll need to go for university ethics approval through FREGC.

Nigel and I had to do the same before writing Living in the Borderlands, and I had to ask my wife to sign an informed consent form which felt very strange. It’s a tricky one. There is a small literature dealing with some of the tensions, incl. relational-situational vs procedural ethics in autoethnography, and whether the methodology actually constitutes empirical research in the sense ethical committees are used to. Carol Rambo, whose work is part of this, actually claimed that what she was doing was oral/social history when it came to the crunch for her (can send you the relevant refs if you want?).

Right now, I personally think such committees and processes (of which I’m part here at Brighton) constitute blunt and inapt tools for making ethical judgements on AE, but they’re what we have and we have to go through them. Maybe in the future the ethical processes will develop and be more responsive to AE, but right now this is what we have to do if you’re involving other people in your research, as opposed to, eg, using fiction as a literary device.

Difficult one, I know. Good luck!

Best,

Alec

From: Narrative Inquiry where social science meets art [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: 03 November 2011 11:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: I have a queer feeling!

Hi All

Hope you are all well.

I just thought I’d ask if anybody could throw some light on an ethical question.

I am currently trying to work (emphasis on trying) on an autoethnographic piece of work that involves three family members, myself included. The piece itself will be grounded in Queer Theory/Sexual identity.

It is essentially a dialogue between the three of us to be presented in a way not to far from how the narrative is presented in Short et al., ‘Living in the Borderlands’ or in Ellis’s Heartful Autoethnography, but I am not sure yet.

I have carried out preliminary interviews but will be going back again in a couple of weeks to record more detailed data in response to specific questions. I have the full consent of the individuals concerned to do this.

However, it does occur to me that I am employed in the university of Brighton as researcher and that obviously my current research had to go through ethics approval. Do I need to do the same for my autoethnographic work, although this is not commissioned research by the University and being privately conducted, however it is my intention that the work be viewed by an autoethnographic study group (includes University employees and others) which does technically mean publication in the legal sense.

Should I stop what I am doing and seek advice or am I seeing more in this than I should?

Thanks for reading this.

Kindest regards

Chrissy

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