Philosophical Framework

As the central premise of this study was to elicit, explore and describe the meanings that newly qualified children's nurses attributed to their experience of being employed in first post destinations as children’s community nurses in children’s community nursing teams, it was important to explore the participants’ subjective views of their world of work. To do this it was necessary to elicit, explore and emphasise individual participant meanings to uncover the knowledge which could only be derived from social interactions.

Burr (2003) and Seale (2004) identified that ways of understanding the world are culturally and historically defined and therefore the social world of individuals is best understood through an appreciation of the social and cultural meanings that individuals, and in this work, newly qualified children’s nurses, assign to their experiences and subsequent actions during their transition into children’s community nursing teams. Blumer (1969), Williams and May (1996), and Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) have all asserted that understanding actions requires the development of insight into the intentions, motives, beliefs, rules and values of the individuals of interest. This acknowledges that each individual experience is influenced by the cultural and time bound context in which it is situated. In other words, the participants in this study are in part, the product of the specific social processes and interactions that they encounter in their day to day lives.

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As Mason (2002) notes, this means that whilst the participants all shared the common experience of transition into a new world of work, it was possible and expected that each would interpret and construct meaning from this experience through individual, unique and subjective realities. To ensure that the participants’ individual subjective interpretations remained central to this work I needed to select a methodological framework that was consistent with my research standpoint that individual experiences are shaped as people interpret events in their environment and that these influence their behaviour (Lauder et al.,1996; Hammersley & Atkinson 2007). Central to the research question for this study was my understanding that subjective knowledge is an important form of knowledge, and that this knowledge was key in understanding the participant’s experiences, interpretations and meanings from their subjective point of view. In agreement with Söderbäck (1999), I also contend that it was appropriate to undertake this research in the natural work setting of the participants, as a contextual understanding of their experience of transition was essential. Observing them in the real time and real work context of their work enabled me to view their actions and to explore their subjective interpretations of these. Charmaz (2000) describes this as a social constructivist standpoint where there can be mutual creation of knowledge between the researcher and the participants to derive an interpretive understanding of the studied world.

In keeping with Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) argument that knowledge is derived from social interactions it was necessary to discover the participants’ knowledge of their social world. This meant that it was necessary to enter the participants’ work-world, spending time with them as they went about their ordinary day-to-day work with children, young people, families and other members of the team.

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Qualitative research is a broad umbrella term for research methods that describe and explain peoples’ experiences and behaviours in social contexts, (Fossey et al., 2002) seeking to understand human experiences (Vivar et al., 2007) through description and interpretation of the social world (Creswell 1998). Blumer (1969) and Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) suggest that people construct unique identities through every day encounters with each other in social interaction and that they interpret events in the social world, which influence their behaviour. These interpretations are continually under revision as events unfold and shape their actions. It seemed that a qualitative approach would be particularly useful to uncover the processes and interpreted meanings involved in this. Especially as this involved identity reformulation. A conclusion reached by other researchers working in this field (see chapter 2).

According to Crotty (1998) qualitative descriptive approaches enable understanding and explanation of society or, as in this case, context specific situations, such as transition. Key in taking a qualitative approach is that it enables the communication of meaning through data collection methods using language (Blumer 1969). Blumer (1969) suggests that this helps to determine an individual’s understanding and interpretation of an event and what the event means to them. Hammersley & Atkinson (2007) agree and state that as human actions are based on social meanings the same event can mean different things to different people. Therefore, this research approach is consistent with individually constructed meanings.

That said qualitative research does not have a single unified set of techniques or philosophies (Mason 2002) making it difficult to define. This has led to considerable debate regarding the choice of a single philosophical approach and ‘rightness’ of combining different qualitative

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philosophies. Many researchers have argued that it is important to adhere closely to a set of rules associated with particular philosophical approaches, claiming that any reinterpretation of the original elements of the approach can “erode” the method (Glaser 1992, 2002) resulting in a methodological incongruity which threatens the credibility of the study findings (Rolfe 2006). Others for example Stern, (1994) and Johnson, Long, & White, (2001) support the combining of methods, suggesting that movement from a rigid structure can also produce a truthful, logical and knowledgeable account of a phenomenon. Indeed Hammersley & Atkinson (2007) also support flexibility in methodological approaches suggesting that:

“A first requirement of social research, according to this view, then, is fidelity to the phenomena under study, not to any set of particular methodological principles, however, strongly supported by philosophical arguments” (p. 6).

There is also some debate related to the description or labelling of qualitative research, specifically in relation to methodological influences or philosophical perspectives and the use of specific research methods. Much of this stems from early debates about the scientific value of qualitative research and attempts to shake off the perception of qualitative work as a soft science. Sandelowski (2000) for example, suggests that many qualitative researchers describe their studies as phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, or narrative in an effort to increase the credibility of their work. Indeed Wolcott (1992) and Sandelowski (2000) suggest that in too many cases this simply results in posturing rather than a correct interpretation of the approach. As noted in chapter 2 other researchers working in the field of transition have used different qualitative approaches to explore subjective interpretations of experience and actions in the social world. For instance Dearmun (1997) drew on a number of qualitative approaches and claimed that her work was informed by ethnography, phenomenology and grounded theory. In

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contrast, Boychuk Duchscher (2007) used grounded theory and Farasat (2011) drew on phenomenology as her philosophical approach.

Having considered the arguments on both sides of this debate I concurred with the position of Smith (2010). Smith (2010) explored the merits of undertaking qualitative research without specifying a single philosophical approach such as ethnography or grounded theory. She suggested that as qualitative inquiry evolves; the methods of undertaking qualitative research should stand alone without having to be underpinned by a particular philosophical perspective. I elected to describe my work as a qualitative descriptive study. This does not mean however that this method is any less valuable than a grounded theory study for example, as Sandelowski (2000) argues, qualitative description is one of the most frequently employed methodological approaches and an important method in itself and that it still presents a considerable challenge to any researcher.

Qualitative descriptive studies are often undertaken to provide a comprehensive summary of events in every day terms of those events. The research question related to gaining an understanding of newly qualified children’s nurses’ experience, therefore a qualitative descriptive design was an appropriate choice to ensure that the findings of this study were firmly grounded in experiences of the participants.