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Gary Rolfe

Publications and source records attributed to Gary Rolfe.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Validity, trustworthiness and rigour: quality and the idea of qualitative research.

AIM: In this paper, I call into question the widely-held assumption of a single, more or less unified paradigm of 'qualitative research' whose methodologies share certain epistemological and ontological characteristics, and explore the implications of this position for judgements about the quality of research studies. BACKGROUND: After a quarter of a century of debate in nursing about how best to judge the quality of qualitative research, we appear to be no closer to a consensus, or even to deciding whether it is appropriate to try to achieve a consensus. The literature on this issue can be broadly divided into three positions: those writers who wish qualitative research to be judged according to the same criteria as quantitative research; those who believe that a different set of criteria is required; and those who question the appropriateness of any predetermined criteria for judging qualitative research. Of the three positions, the second appears to have generated most debate, and a number of different frameworks and guidelines for judging the quality of qualitative research have been devised over recent years. DISCUSSION: The second of the above positions is rejected in favour of the third. It argues that, if there is no unified qualitative research paradigm, then it makes little sense to attempt to establish a set of generic criteria for making quality judgements about qualitative research studies. We need either to acknowledge that the commonly perceived quantitative-qualitative dichotomy is in fact a continuum which requires a continuum of quality criteria, or to recognize that each study is individual and unique, and that the task of producing frameworks and predetermined criteria for assessing the quality of research studies is futile. CONCLUSION: Some of the implications of this latter position are explored, including the requirement that all published research reports should include a reflexive research diary.

Data Collection↗
PubMed2006

Judgements without rules: towards a postmodern ironist concept of research validity.

The past decade has seen the gradual emergence of what might be called a postmodern perspective on nursing research. However, the development of a coherent postmodern critique of the modernist position has been hampered by some misunderstandings and misrepresentations of postmodern epistemology by a number of writers, leading to a fractured and distorted view of postmodern nursing research. This paper seeks to distinguish between judgemental relativist and epistemic relativist or ironist positions, and regards the latter as offering the most coherent critique of modernist/(post)positivist nursing research. The writings of poststructuralist philosophers, including Barthes, Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault and Rorty are examined, and a number of criteria for a postmodern ironist concept of research validity or trustworthiness are suggested. Whilst these writers reject the idea of Method as a guarantee of valid research, they nevertheless believe that value judgements can and must be made, and turn to notions of ironism, différance, and the different. Ultimately, the postmodern ironist reader of the research report must make a judgement without criteria, based on her own practical wisdom or 'prudence'.

Anthropology, Cultural↗
PubMed2005

Towards a geology of evidence-based practice--a discussion paper.

We begin this paper with a consideration of the significance of a historical perspective in presentations of evidence-based practice in the nursing and medical literature. We suggest that whereas writers often produce coherent historical narratives as justification for particular views of the nature of EBP, an examination of its origins reveals no such signs of historical development or progress in our conception or understanding of it. We then explore alternative modes of thought for attempting to understand and critique the variety of definitions and descriptions of EBP to be found in the literature. We eventually reject the linear mode of historical thinking in favour of Deleuze's notion of rhizomatic thought and the metaphor of geology. Finally, we employ the rhizomatic mode of thinking and writing to construct a geology of evidence-based practice which attempts to expose and embrace contradictions in definitions and uses of the term rather than discount them in an authorised historical narrative written from the perspective of the dominant discourse.

Benchmarking↗
PubMed2005

'To save the honour of thinking': a slightly petulant response to Griffiths.

This is a response (a reply? a riposte?) to Peter Griffiths (Int. J. Nurs. Stud., in press, ) that attempts to answer some of the charges, which he levels at our book 'Deconstructing Evidence-based Practice' (Routledge, London, 2004). It begins by countering Griffiths' mistaken assertion that, in deconstruction, 'anything goes'. It argues that Griffiths is wrong because he has literally mistaken the meanings of certain words; that is, he has taken them wrongly. His biggest mistake, on which all of his others rests, is to mistake the word 'deconstruction' to imply a form of extreme relativism in which there are no right or wrong readings. In this, he is simply wrong. He is wrong in his assumption that there are no wrong readings, and the fact (yes, fact) that he is wrong demonstrates that some readings can be wrong. In particular, he mistakes the word 'challenge' to mean 'deny', and the word 'authority' to mean 'legitimacy'. This is not simply our reading of what we took him to mean (which could, by our own argument, be mistaken). It is his reading and his writing, there on the page in black and white. And this misreading, this mistake, inevitably leads him to a wrong conclusion. Having clarified the small matter that, in deconstruction, anything does not go, and that deconstructionists are not constrained to accept everything that is written about them, we then attempt to point out some other mistakes in Griffiths' non-review. Most importantly, we reject Griffiths' accusation that postmodernism is a strategy to 'save us from thinking' and instead, with Lyotard, advocate it as an attempt 'to save the honour of thinking'.

Evidence-Based Medicine↗
PubMed2005

The deconstructing angel: nursing, reflection and evidence-based practice.

This paper explores Jacques Derrida's strategy of deconstruction as a way of understanding and critiquing nursing theory and practice. Deconstruction has its origins in philosophy, but I argue that it is useful and relevant as a way of challenging the dominant paradigm of any discipline, including nursing. Because deconstruction is notoriously difficult to define, I offer a number of examples of deconstruction in action. In particular, I focus on three critiques of reflective practice by the meta-narrative of evidence-based practice (EBP) and attempt to show how those critiques can be directed back at EBP itself. I conclude with the observation that EBP is open to many of the criticisms that it directs at other discourses, including problems of a lack of empirical evidence, of distortions due to memory, and of falsification of the 'facts'.

Anecdotes as Topic↗
PubMed2002

Faking a difference: evidence-based nursing and the illusion of diversity.

Whilst it is desirable for the dominant paradigm (discourse) in any discipline to be seen to be encouraging diversity, I will argue in this paper that the result of real diversity is to decentralize power and strengthen the challenges to that discourse. It is therefore in the interests of the dominant discourse (if it wishes to remain dominant) to act to neutralize the power of its competitors by forcing them to conform to the rules of the dominant discourse. In this way, the illusion of diversity is maintained, but its power for radical change is greatly diluted. In deconstructing some of the most influential 'texts' (in the broader sense of the term) of evidence-based nursing, I have attempted to show that the usual way of divesting competing discourses of their power is through an assimilation into the dominant discourse in the name of diversity. However, such assimilation is, in reality, more akin to an aggressive takeover bid which maintains the rules, values and culture of the dominant discourse. For example, when qualitative bids for research funding are judged according to the rules of quantitative research, that is, according to their generalizability, sample size, and so on, the outcome is inevitably to their disadvantage. Simply by agreeing to play, any competing discourse accepts the rules of the game that are designed to deny fair competition. The rhetoric of diversity therefore masks a strategy for maintaining power which can only be challenged by (Lyotard's notion of) the philosopher, who attempts to expose the inequality inherent in it.

Evidence-Based Medicine↗
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Humans↗