Donna L. Goodwin

Gauging the Quality of Qualitative Research in Adapted Physical Activity

Qualitative inquiry is increasingly being used in adapted physical activity research, which raises questions about how to best evaluate its quality. This article aims to clarify the distinction between quality criteria (the what) and strategies (the how) in qualitative inquiry. An electronic keyword search was used to identify articles pertaining to quality evaluation published between 1995 and 2012 (n=204). A five phase systematic review resulted in the identification of 56 articles for detailed review. Data extraction tables were generated and analyzed for commonalities in terminology and meanings. Six flexible criteria for gauging quality were formulated: reflexivity, credibility, resonance, significant contribution, ethics, and coherence. Strategies for achieving the established criteria were also identified. It is suggested that researchers indicate the paradigm under which they are working and guidelines by which they would like readers to evaluate their work as well as what criteria can be absent without affecting the research value.

Self-Regulated Dependency: Ethical Reflections on Interdependence and Help in Adapted Physical Activity

This article explores the ethical implications of the goal of functional independence for persons with disabilities. Central to independence is protection against the fear and uncertainty of future dependency and assurance of a level of social status. Moreover, independence reflects individualism, autonomy and control of decisions about ones life. Dependency, in contrast, implies the inability to do things for oneself and reliance on others to assist with tasks of everyday life. The ethics of independence are explored within the context of the medical and social constructionist models of disability and contrasted against the ethics of support that underscores self-regulated dependency. Self-regulated dependency gives emphasis to the need for support created through relationships, choices and the management of resources. Finally, the article concludes with a challenge to meaningfully translate the principles of ethics to the multiplicity of adapted physical activity contexts.

Inclusive leisure experiences of older adults with intellectual disabilities at a senior centre

Inclusive leisure is described as the extent to which people with and without impairments engage in leisure ventures together. The leisure experiences of four older adults with intellectual impairments, four ‘mainstream’ older adults and three staff members from a senior citizen recreation centre were captured using the interpretive phenomenological research methods of focus group interviews and field notes. Self-determination theory provided the conceptual framework for the study and facilitated the interpretation of the findings. Thematic analysis of the conversations revealed three themes with respective subthemes (a) shared leisure motivations, (b) expecting too much and (c) wanting even more. Although the mainstream older adults and centre staff recognised a need for more inclusive activities, older adults with impairments expressed satisfaction with the inclusive nature of the centre. The challenges and successes of the inclusive nature of the community-based senior citizens centre have also been discussed.

Thinking ethically about inclusive recreational sport: A narrative of lost dignity

Through narrative reflections of Jack’s story of inclusive recreational sport, the meaning of dignity in professional practice is explored. Jack’s story is one of respect, strong humiliation and embarrassment, and vulnerability. Through the lens of relational ethics, the aggression of a stranger illustrates how the lack of mutual respect, compassion and knowledge creates experiences of indignity. Jack’s story highlights how relationships can shape, constrain and enable lives. Understanding that which constitutes a dignified recreational sport context for instructors and participants opens opportunities for authentic social relationships based upon respect of oneself, as well as others to emerge. Jack’s narrative further reinforces the need to create pedagogical spaces for discussions of various forms of dignity and ethical professional practice in inclusive recreational sport contexts.

Understanding Dignity: Experiences of Impairment in an Exercise Facility

Dignity, as an essential quality of being human, has been overlooked in exercise contexts. The aim of this interpretative phenomenological study was to understand the meaning of dignity and its importance to exercise participation. The experiences of 21 adults (11 women and 10 men) from 19 to 65 yr of age who experience disability, who attended a specialized community exercise facility, were gathered using the methods of focus-group and one-on-one interviews, visual images, and field notes. The thematic analysis revealed 4 themes: the comfort of feeling welcome, perceptions of otherness, negotiating public spaces, and lost autonomy. Dignity was subjectively understood and nurtured through the respect of others. Indignities occurred when enacted social and cultural norms brought dignity to consciousness through humiliation or removal of autonomy. The specialized exercise environment promoted self-worth and positive self-beliefs through shared life experiences and a norm of respect.

Framing Cross-Cultural Ethical Practice in Adapt[ive] Physical Activity

ABSTRACT Academics and practitioners are often at a loss when it comes to understanding the ethical socio-political and cultural contexts that invade the world of adapted physical activity. Ethical practice is situated in the local and the specific. In this article we highlight the reality that both academics and practitioners need to be ever mindful that the cultures surrounding the education, sport and rehabilitation components of adapted physical activity are distinctive environments that vary across the globe. Because of the cultural diversity surrounding adapted physical activity, we set out an embryonic framework for ethically thinking about practice in our field. Ultimately, we hope that this framework will go some way to illuminate questions of situated ethical importance that are becoming increasing conundrums within adapted physical activity.

We all carry each other, sometimes: care-sharing as social justice practice in integrated dance.

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore how one integrated dance community engages in everyday practices of care-sharing as a form of social justice. The notion of care-sharing emerged from a performance ethnography in which 12 dancers co-created a research-based integrated dance. For this community, integrated dance is a recreational and pre-professional art practice that is inclusive of people with a wide range of embodiments and capacities, including those experiencing disability. Within this dance context, disability is not regarded as a bodily problem in need of therapy, but as a matter of social injustice. To navigate these and other forms of social injustice, dancers practised care-sharing, which involved: life-sustaining, communal acts of radical interdependence; practices of consensus-building and the sharing of discomfort; and a commitment to negotiating complex power relations. We conclude by sharing some points of learning, hoping that they may offer new perspectives on therapeutic recreation research and practice.

Revisiting Our Research Assumptions 20 Years On: The Role of Interdisciplinarity

The purpose of this documentary analysis was to examine trends in research published in Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly (APAQ) over a 10-yr span. A total of 181 research articles published from 2004 to 2013 were coded and analyzed using the following categories: first-author country affiliation, theoretical framework, intervention, research methods, disability categories, and topical focus. Results indicate high frequencies of nonintervention and group-design studies, as well as a low frequency of studies that describe a theoretical or conceptual framework. Trends in disability of participants and topical focus reflect current interests of researchers publishing in APAQ. While some scholars have suggested that changes in research on adapted physical activity would occur, the results of this analysis suggest that many of these categories remain largely unchanged for research published in APAQ. This study calls attention to similarities between the results of the current analysis and previous ones

Introduction: Reflexions on Interdisciplinarity in Adapted Physical Activity

ABSTRACT The articles included in this special issue of Quest emerged from a research workshop entitled Thinking About Our Thinking in Adapted Physical Activity, held at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, from June 18–19, 2013. The aim of the workshop was to examine different worldviews that contribute to the adapted physical activity research literature, to identify key disciplinary assumptions, and to outline their consequences for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the field. A lack of understanding of the basic assumptions held by researchers often impedes communication between the disciplines. Hence, a sub-theme of this special issue is communication across disciplines. These conversations are, of course, essential to interdisciplinary inquiry.