Lara Williamson

Perils and possibilities: achieving best evidence from focus groups in public health research

Objective: Focus group research is often seen as a cost‐effective way of gathering evidence from multiple research participants about the diversity of their views, experiences or beliefs. Our objective is to argue that focus group research only fulfils its potential if analysis of individual views is extended to include analysis of interaction between participants, so that we learn more why people hold these views.

Community engagement and climate change: learning from recent Australian experience

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to summarise the outcomes of a recent project in Victoria, Australia exploring the effectiveness of community engagement strategies in improving climate mitigation and adaptation outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Roundtables and interviews with a diverse range of community engagement practitioners and policy makers involved in climate change work were conducted, informed by a discussion paper outlining recent Australian and international learning about community engagement and climate change.Findings – The project confirms and builds on recent international learning about the importance of carefully planned and implemented community engagement as essential components in effective climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.Originality/value – The paper brings together learning from recent on‐the‐ground experience from Australian community engagement practitioners and policy makers working in the climate change field. In addition to evidence supporting the inte...

Ethical review and the assessment of research proposals using qualitative research methods

AbstractThe role of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) in health research is well established. Ethics committees have the good of research participants in mind but they must also assess scientific merit including the design and conduct of studies. In this article the authors’ focus is on qualitative research method and the challenge that the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) poses for ethics committees when they assess proposals using the methods outlined in the National Statement.We set out a process for judging the standard of qualitative research proposals and propose that qualitative health research can be assessed using a hierarchy designed for evaluating interview studies. We contrast well-designed studies with those that have design flaws in order to focus on the hallmarks of research merit in studies that use qualitative research methods. Finally, we show that our proposal is compatible with the National Statement.Ethics review provides an early opportunity to identify and redesign inadequate studies that will not contribute to our knowledge base. The challenge for members of ethics committees with little experience in qualitative studies is to be able to assess research excellence by assessing research merit in proposals, recognising the special design features of qualitative research methods.