Different Paths, Same Destination

Ellen Nicholson, DHSc,
AUT University

Susan Burwash, PhD,
Eastern Washington University

introduction

Research Objectives

Two Approaches

Critical Participatory Action Research

Process

• 8 OT co-researchers recruited
• "Neutral" venue
• Enabling Occupation II text/chapters
• Co-researchers attended transformative CoP
• "Critical dialog" named, analyzed as project data

Narrative Inquiry

Process

• 4 participants and researcher shared narratives of experience
• Field texts: interviews, group conversations, artifacts, journals
• Research texts: narrative accounts of each participant
• Looking across accounts: where stories do/don't touch
• Exploring personal, practical and social implications of inquiry

Comparing approaches

Critical PAR:
Complex, with many unknowns
Time-consuming & resource intensive
Needed a skilled facilitator, who can also participate in the research
Cyclical, iterative
Transformative due to investment, process, & valuing of co-researchers as ‘expert knowers’

Narrative Inquiry:
Complex, many unknowns
Resource intensive & time consuming
Relational – requires interpersonal/ facilitatory skills
Concern for integrity of participant narratives, where these stories may take people, where these stories meet
Power of stories told in community, being heard, reflecting on career, validation of practice

Comparing findings

Phase I: Deconstruction-Planning
Social obstacles to OP
Power, press and the practice context; professional and individual history; managing the expectations of others; the problematisation of children and practice

Phase II: Action-Reconstruction
Actions for OP
Co-construction of occupational knowledge; using the language; Negotiating possibilities and opportunities; Exemplifying a meaningful praxis

Narratives of participants:
Stories from childhood, about choosing OT, about OT education, about their OT careers
Four places marked across participants narratives for further discussion: reaching for the real; identities; the heart, mind and soul of occupational therapy practice; and resisting/relocating in the face of challenges to working in an occupation-based way.

implications

Social Media

FUTURE PLANS