Articles on Social Media and Mobile Technology in Public Health
PhD – Research
Research Plan under Construction
14 thoughts on “PhD – Research”
openskies7 on said:
Very interesting, I look forward to following your work. As a pharmacist working in retail we see the need to go behind raising awareness and actually engaging to make a difference. The intimacy with which some forms of Social Media can engage will be the key.
Thank you, I am looking fwd to having a meaningful engagement around this subject of youth engagement. I hope to have the rest of the proposal up in a couple of days.
Its a good topic for a study but there are risks. Essentially you are trying to study something undergoing transformational change.
Details are a bit light as to methods.
I don’t personally like the term emergent technology in this context-too vague. I prefer Web 2.0 and mobile as these terms are used in the literature. NBN is another transformational change technology. I think you will find it hard to in practice to separate “health and wellbeing” from other services and aspect of life. Expect things to blur in the next few years with this topic. Boundaries will merge. The engagement possible with new social media tools may well be qualitatively different from what has been previously possible in health promotion research.
Your choice of methods will need to account for the emergent nature of the topic. Perhaps participatory action research methods may be a good fit.
I think doing several countries will be too broad- scope limitation seems key to me in masters and Phd. (not that I’ve ever done one-just seen many suffer.) It must be do-able. Keep it contained. I suggest pick only one country and why not one at hand when the time comes. Much will depend on the relationships and contextual knowledge you can access.
Do you have a specific research question? I fear “exploring” something is great for self study but not for a PhD.
I would like to see you do something like this.
Research Aim: To document emergent health promotion practice concepts about how to co-develop and evaluate health promotion interventions with Aboriginal young people and relevant services and communities in the NT aimed at reducing sexual infections using new technologies such as Web 2.0, NBN and Mobile phone based platforms to engage, mobilise and evaluate the interventions.
Sounds long winded but the work needs to swallow it own tail like a mythical snake. What you think you are going to do now will transform as you engage with the problem. Your understanding will also transform as the community and the technology changes as they interact. Learning will be chaotic and emergent. Your study will be you emergent collective understanding of the process-of what happened to your understand of the problem and the solutions.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment. Very stimulating.
HI Malcolm, this is such important feedback. I value all view points and feel absolutely enriched in the process. I will upload more information as I finalize on a few more details in the next day or two.
Thank you!!
I’ve had a read of your proposal. I think you’re definitely on the right track. I think to do all those things in eight different places and write it all up into a dissertation in three years is an enormous project. I’m wondering whether one way to make the research collaborative and productive might be to start with a collaborative examination of the uses to which young people in the various locations use the 2.0 technologies, then talk to them about health-related issues which are of concern to them, and collaborate with them to design and implement some web 2.0 app or webspace (sorry my technovocabulary is rather limited) which addresses their concerns. You would be able to triangulate between the different uses of 2.0 in different places, the different concerns of youth in different places, the different public systems for an interesting analysis.
This looks very well thought out Kishan,
My only comment would be regarding this: “However, it is also important to study the possible harm that social media can pose to youth under some circumstances. Therefore this research will also provide information on this subject in order to evaluate the efficacy and advise online media literacy skills.”
I think this might be to big in scope and beyond your methodology but that’s just based on what I’ve read above, not what your actual plan may be. I would pick one ‘possible harm’ such as ‘dissemination of misinformation’ to reduce the scope to something that you can realistically do.
That’s my 2 dimes worth, hope it helps!
~Dave.
firstly, thanks for opening it up. i’m really enjoying this shift in approach – as @hughstephens has done recently with his research project too. open networks and interconnectedness is so stimulating, for all parties involved.
anyway, a lot of really comprehensive comments above. and my thoughts echo some of theirs. it reads well so far and seems like you have a very clear idea of what you want to explore. the whole thing seems a bit broad to me – but i guess being that there is not a lot of solid references to start with it needs to be broad. but in this respect, perhaps limiting the study of harm you might miss out on some important findings (peer pressure? coercion? spreading rumours? bullying?).
i think the gold of the research – and this is my interpretation of what i think you’re interested in – is in building the assets you mention in the last paragraph of the background. making something useful. could it be possible to have an outcome based PhD? in the arts they call them practice led PhDs, where essentially people make work as they do the research.
i also think the methods needs some work. you want the quantitative data, but as i see it the bulk of the research is actually qualitative. i don’t know how much reading you’ve done on different qualitative research methods there are, but to me grounded theory would give you a great range in terms of inductive analysis. there’s a great paper from a few years back going through 3 major qualitative methods called Choose Your Method: A Comparison of Phenomenology, Discourse Analysis, and Grounded Theory that is worth a read. http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/17/10/1372.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
and finally, the aim:
To analyze, understand and map young people’s use of social media and mobile technology, in order to effectively engage and design innovative and effective health communications strategies, in partnership with youth in the region.
perhaps too wordy? to analyze seems to be enough – in doing that you’ll be developing understanding and mapping. effective used twice.
exciting project. great work. look forward to seeing what happens next.
Hi David, thank you for the thorough read and fine comments. The first change i’ll make is to the “aim” section which I agree is too wordy.
Secondly, I’m tempted to add just one more aspect to study, which is bullying to the ‘possible harms’ section.
As outcome based Phd would be highly desirable but i’m not sure how to balance unbiased research and at the same time forming a product/method. The main concern is that this might take more than 3 years and I’m seriously in need of containing this to not more than 4 years.
You’re right, I havent spilt any blood on my methodology and that will be my greatest weakness. I’ll have to find a supervisor who is good with mixed methods and probably take some refresher courses. Nevertheless, I have been suggested a couple of times as you have to look into Grounded Theory. Thank you for the link , it was quite helpfull.
i’ll Tweet you when I get a couple of steps ahead. Merci.
Feedback from Mascha Friedrichs, Masters in Anthropology student from the Netherlands:
‘ve had a read through your research proposal. It looks good, just a few comments: I think you need to include some information about what Web 2.0 actually is, as I think many people, including me, have never heard of it. Probably because of that the 5 aspects you list are also not completely clear to me. The methods section needs some elaboration and references. I’ve included my own research proposal with this email, so have a look at the methods section. I’m not too sure whether the references are still there, my computer has a problem with endnote. Useful books are:
Teddlie, C. & Tashakkori, A. (2009). Foundations of mixed methods research: Integrating
quantitative and qualitative approaches in the social and behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks
CA: Sage.
Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches / John W. Creswell. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, c2009. (available at the hospital library)
Social research methods : qualitative and quantitative approaches
Bernard, H. Russell / Sage Publications / 2000
The first 2 give a good idea about combining methods, the book by Bernard gives good information on how to carry out research.
I think it’s also worthwhile to provide a rationale as to why you’ve chosen these countries in particular. This might help you to decide whether or not to include the NT. It also seems a bit strange to me that you name the NT, which is only part of a country, and then 3 other countries. Even picking just one country, as someone suggested, doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me! When you’ve got your methods more clear, write a time-line, how many weeks/months do you want to spend on each part and each location, this should make clear whether it’s do-able. But generally, I think it sounds good, it’s surely an interesting and worthwhile topic!
Feedback from Prof Gerard Bodeker, Oxford University:
Hello Kishan,
Look like you have begun a productive dialogue on Web2.0!
I would echo Malcolm’s comments:
Research questions needs to be tight & focussed & not exploratory.
Too many country sites will make it unmanageable – just NT or NT & Timor Leste should do. Also, I think that you’d run into problems with the authorities in Malaysia & Indoneisa if you went around talking with kids about sexuality.
And as has been said, it will be best to pick on specific health category – e.g. STI’s or something in this category. Otherwise, malaria, HIV, TB etc are all too broad.
Methodology needs quite a bit of work. What info do you want? What is the best means of gathering this? How will you organize your data? How will you analyse your data? How will this analysis relate to a testing of the hypotheses in your initial research question?
I also agree that looking at the risks of social media is beyond the scope of this research. You can refer to it & reference other studies on it. But doctoral research is essentially very focussed, detailed and tight. This theme would over-extend your scope.
I hope that these thoughts help.
Good to know of your progress & very best wishes to you.
This sounds like an interesting study, i agree with the other comments about the need to keep it quite tight, but don’t worry too much at this stage, I’m sure your supervisors will help you work on that in the first few months of the PhD, and in my experience students manage to focus down quite quickly.
I think you need to read around methods more. It sounds as if you’re thinking of doing a mixed methods study, in which case you will find reading something on mixed methods by one or two well respected authors in the field. Look for books or articles by people like Cresswell, Plano Clark, Teddlie or Tashakkori. Another methodological option might be grounded theory, you might find Bryant and Charmaz’s handbook for Grounded Theory of interest.
Hi Dr. Bond,
Thank you for reading through my paper, and I agree that I need to read up on methodology. Thank you so much for recomending some authors and laying down some options.
Very interesting, I look forward to following your work. As a pharmacist working in retail we see the need to go behind raising awareness and actually engaging to make a difference. The intimacy with which some forms of Social Media can engage will be the key.
Thank you, I am looking fwd to having a meaningful engagement around this subject of youth engagement. I hope to have the rest of the proposal up in a couple of days.
Its a good topic for a study but there are risks. Essentially you are trying to study something undergoing transformational change.
Details are a bit light as to methods.
I don’t personally like the term emergent technology in this context-too vague. I prefer Web 2.0 and mobile as these terms are used in the literature. NBN is another transformational change technology. I think you will find it hard to in practice to separate “health and wellbeing” from other services and aspect of life. Expect things to blur in the next few years with this topic. Boundaries will merge. The engagement possible with new social media tools may well be qualitatively different from what has been previously possible in health promotion research.
Your choice of methods will need to account for the emergent nature of the topic. Perhaps participatory action research methods may be a good fit.
I think doing several countries will be too broad- scope limitation seems key to me in masters and Phd. (not that I’ve ever done one-just seen many suffer.) It must be do-able. Keep it contained. I suggest pick only one country and why not one at hand when the time comes. Much will depend on the relationships and contextual knowledge you can access.
Do you have a specific research question? I fear “exploring” something is great for self study but not for a PhD.
I would like to see you do something like this.
Research Aim: To document emergent health promotion practice concepts about how to co-develop and evaluate health promotion interventions with Aboriginal young people and relevant services and communities in the NT aimed at reducing sexual infections using new technologies such as Web 2.0, NBN and Mobile phone based platforms to engage, mobilise and evaluate the interventions.
Sounds long winded but the work needs to swallow it own tail like a mythical snake. What you think you are going to do now will transform as you engage with the problem. Your understanding will also transform as the community and the technology changes as they interact. Learning will be chaotic and emergent. Your study will be you emergent collective understanding of the process-of what happened to your understand of the problem and the solutions.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment. Very stimulating.
Cheers
Malcolm
HI Malcolm, this is such important feedback. I value all view points and feel absolutely enriched in the process. I will upload more information as I finalize on a few more details in the next day or two.
Thank you!!
Feedback from Prof. Michael Christie:
I’ve had a read of your proposal. I think you’re definitely on the right track. I think to do all those things in eight different places and write it all up into a dissertation in three years is an enormous project. I’m wondering whether one way to make the research collaborative and productive might be to start with a collaborative examination of the uses to which young people in the various locations use the 2.0 technologies, then talk to them about health-related issues which are of concern to them, and collaborate with them to design and implement some web 2.0 app or webspace (sorry my technovocabulary is rather limited) which addresses their concerns. You would be able to triangulate between the different uses of 2.0 in different places, the different concerns of youth in different places, the different public systems for an interesting analysis.
This looks very well thought out Kishan,
My only comment would be regarding this:
“However, it is also important to study the possible harm that social media can pose to youth under some circumstances. Therefore this research will also provide information on this subject in order to evaluate the efficacy and advise online media literacy skills.”
I think this might be to big in scope and beyond your methodology but that’s just based on what I’ve read above, not what your actual plan may be. I would pick one ‘possible harm’ such as ‘dissemination of misinformation’ to reduce the scope to something that you can realistically do.
That’s my 2 dimes worth, hope it helps!
~Dave.
Yes, that’s a quite broad scope that and i’d prefer to narrow it down to what you’ve suggested. Thank you Will insert the changes now…
firstly, thanks for opening it up. i’m really enjoying this shift in approach – as @hughstephens has done recently with his research project too. open networks and interconnectedness is so stimulating, for all parties involved.
anyway, a lot of really comprehensive comments above. and my thoughts echo some of theirs. it reads well so far and seems like you have a very clear idea of what you want to explore. the whole thing seems a bit broad to me – but i guess being that there is not a lot of solid references to start with it needs to be broad. but in this respect, perhaps limiting the study of harm you might miss out on some important findings (peer pressure? coercion? spreading rumours? bullying?).
i think the gold of the research – and this is my interpretation of what i think you’re interested in – is in building the assets you mention in the last paragraph of the background. making something useful. could it be possible to have an outcome based PhD? in the arts they call them practice led PhDs, where essentially people make work as they do the research.
i also think the methods needs some work. you want the quantitative data, but as i see it the bulk of the research is actually qualitative. i don’t know how much reading you’ve done on different qualitative research methods there are, but to me grounded theory would give you a great range in terms of inductive analysis. there’s a great paper from a few years back going through 3 major qualitative methods called Choose Your Method: A Comparison of Phenomenology, Discourse Analysis, and Grounded Theory that is worth a read. http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/17/10/1372.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
and finally, the aim:
To analyze, understand and map young people’s use of social media and mobile technology, in order to effectively engage and design innovative and effective health communications strategies, in partnership with youth in the region.
perhaps too wordy? to analyze seems to be enough – in doing that you’ll be developing understanding and mapping. effective used twice.
exciting project. great work. look forward to seeing what happens next.
david
Hi David, thank you for the thorough read and fine comments. The first change i’ll make is to the “aim” section which I agree is too wordy.
Secondly, I’m tempted to add just one more aspect to study, which is bullying to the ‘possible harms’ section.
As outcome based Phd would be highly desirable but i’m not sure how to balance unbiased research and at the same time forming a product/method. The main concern is that this might take more than 3 years and I’m seriously in need of containing this to not more than 4 years.
You’re right, I havent spilt any blood on my methodology and that will be my greatest weakness. I’ll have to find a supervisor who is good with mixed methods and probably take some refresher courses. Nevertheless, I have been suggested a couple of times as you have to look into Grounded Theory. Thank you for the link , it was quite helpfull.
i’ll Tweet you when I get a couple of steps ahead. Merci.
Kishan
Feedback from Mascha Friedrichs, Masters in Anthropology student from the Netherlands:
‘ve had a read through your research proposal. It looks good, just a few comments: I think you need to include some information about what Web 2.0 actually is, as I think many people, including me, have never heard of it. Probably because of that the 5 aspects you list are also not completely clear to me. The methods section needs some elaboration and references. I’ve included my own research proposal with this email, so have a look at the methods section. I’m not too sure whether the references are still there, my computer has a problem with endnote. Useful books are:
Teddlie, C. & Tashakkori, A. (2009). Foundations of mixed methods research: Integrating
quantitative and qualitative approaches in the social and behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks
CA: Sage.
Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches / John W. Creswell. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, c2009. (available at the hospital library)
Social research methods : qualitative and quantitative approaches
Bernard, H. Russell / Sage Publications / 2000
The first 2 give a good idea about combining methods, the book by Bernard gives good information on how to carry out research.
I think it’s also worthwhile to provide a rationale as to why you’ve chosen these countries in particular. This might help you to decide whether or not to include the NT. It also seems a bit strange to me that you name the NT, which is only part of a country, and then 3 other countries. Even picking just one country, as someone suggested, doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me! When you’ve got your methods more clear, write a time-line, how many weeks/months do you want to spend on each part and each location, this should make clear whether it’s do-able. But generally, I think it sounds good, it’s surely an interesting and worthwhile topic!
Mascha
Feedback from Prof Gerard Bodeker, Oxford University:
Hello Kishan,
Look like you have begun a productive dialogue on Web2.0!
I would echo Malcolm’s comments:
Research questions needs to be tight & focussed & not exploratory.
Too many country sites will make it unmanageable – just NT or NT & Timor Leste should do. Also, I think that you’d run into problems with the authorities in Malaysia & Indoneisa if you went around talking with kids about sexuality.
And as has been said, it will be best to pick on specific health category – e.g. STI’s or something in this category. Otherwise, malaria, HIV, TB etc are all too broad.
Methodology needs quite a bit of work. What info do you want? What is the best means of gathering this? How will you organize your data? How will you analyse your data? How will this analysis relate to a testing of the hypotheses in your initial research question?
I also agree that looking at the risks of social media is beyond the scope of this research. You can refer to it & reference other studies on it. But doctoral research is essentially very focussed, detailed and tight. This theme would over-extend your scope.
I hope that these thoughts help.
Good to know of your progress & very best wishes to you.
Gerry
Hi Kishan
This sounds like an interesting study, i agree with the other comments about the need to keep it quite tight, but don’t worry too much at this stage, I’m sure your supervisors will help you work on that in the first few months of the PhD, and in my experience students manage to focus down quite quickly.
I think you need to read around methods more. It sounds as if you’re thinking of doing a mixed methods study, in which case you will find reading something on mixed methods by one or two well respected authors in the field. Look for books or articles by people like Cresswell, Plano Clark, Teddlie or Tashakkori. Another methodological option might be grounded theory, you might find Bryant and Charmaz’s handbook for Grounded Theory of interest.
Hi Dr. Bond,
Thank you for reading through my paper, and I agree that I need to read up on methodology. Thank you so much for recomending some authors and laying down some options.
Kishan
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