Mixed-Methods Research in Wellbeing and Health

Rachel Locke, Amanda Lees, Rachel Locke, Amanda Lees

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429558528
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Mixed-Methods Research in Wellbeing and Health brings together nine examples of high-quality research into wellbeing and health using a range of mixed methods. Research that employs mixed methods can yield robust data that is both more reliable and valid than that arising from a single-method approach.

Mixed-methods research is a vital component in responding to recent changes to the more complex needs of an increasingly diverse society and its health sector. This book covers how mixed-methods research can be designed creatively and applied sensitively in the context of wellbeing and health research. The editors have included a set of bespoke questions for reflection at the end of each chapter. The expert editorial commentary highlights the benefits and methodological challenges of mixed-methods research as well as 'thinking points' for researchers as they plan and carry out mixed-methods research on wellbeing and health topics. Within a holistic view of wellbeing and health, the mixed-methods research designs are applied appropriately in both practice and community settings. The research can be shaped by pragmatism and the actual needs of a study rather than purely theoretical considerations.

This practical book makes high-quality, mixed-methods research design and execution guidance readily accessible to health-care practitioners and researchers working in the fields of health, social care and wellbeing services and to undergraduate and postgraduate students in courses in research and health-care studies, as well as health management.

1
Methodological issues in researching everyday music therapy practice

Claire Flower

DOI: 10.4324/9780429263484-2

Background and introduction

In the music therapy room of the National Health Service (NHS) Child Development Service (CDS), a three-year-old boy sits on the floor by a large floor drum. His mother sits to his left, a music therapist to the right. In his left hand, he holds a beater, gripping it briefly before his hand loosens, and it drops to the floor. His mother picks it up, and hands it to him saying to the therapist as she does so, ‘You don’t mind if I help him, do you?’, to which the therapist quickly replies, ‘Oh, of course, of course’. The therapist leans forward toward the mother as she speaks and then out again, as though giving space to parent and child as they negotiate the new opportunities that having a beater affords. As the child beats the drum, she hands the parent another beater and then, reaching sideways, picks up a guitar. The child watches her while still beating the drum. As she begins to strum in time with his drumming, he pauses and then drops the beater to reach towards the guitar. ‘Oh dear, have I distracted you?’ the therapist sings as the child looks towards her. Parent and therapist both laugh as the parent, with a beater still in her hand, beats once more on the drum.

This is an account of a brief moment in time between a child, parent and music therapist written as part of a microanalysis of video material from a single session. Written in simple descriptive terms, the narrative hints at the complex actions and interactions that are continually negotiated and enacted in music therapy practice with children and their parents. It is this complexity that has been the focus of a qualitative research study into the enactment of music therapy between child, parent and therapist. Based within a specific NHS children’s service, the health and wellbeing of the child lie at the heart of music therapy practice in this setting. Developing robust and methodologically credible ways to research practice that is characterised by its emergent, improvisatory nature is a challenge for the music therapy profession. Mixed methods, such as those employed in this study, afford flexible frameworks that can be tailored to the demands and opportunities of both practice and research.

This chapter gives a brief introduction to music therapy practice within this specific health-care setting and the perspective such practice brings to bear on questions of health and wellbeing. It charts my own journey from practitioner to researcher, by way of a growing curiosity about particular aspects of practice within the institutional frame of the NHS. While the focus of the chapter is not on the study per se, my intention is to explore the uses made of clinical video material as a methodological thread, considering two distinct ways in which it was utilised. Examples illustrate the ways in which video material enriched the mixed methods used within the study, as well as offering a way of making research methods and everyday practice congruent. The chapter includes discussion of the ethical sensitivities of researching everyday practice, particularly when, as was the case here, the research setting is also the practitioner’s place of work. I argue in this chapter for the benefits of video as a flexible tool both within this study and in future research across disciplines.

A context for practice and research

The CDS within which both the practice and research explored in this chapter are situated is a community paediatric service within a large London NHS Trust. It describes itself as providing ‘specialist assessment and healthcare therapy for children with significant developmental needs, including those who are likely to have difficulty learning’ (Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, 2017a). Music therapy has been part of therapeutic provision within the CDS for more than two decades. As part of the multidisciplinary team, music therapists work closely with, amongst others, paediatricians, physiotherapists, occupational and speech and language therapists, offering individual or group sessions with children.

Music therapy is one of a group of professions in the UK collectively described as allied health professions and regulated by the Health Care and Professions Council. A broad definition of music therapy, and further information, can be found by visiting the British Association for Music Therapy website. A more site-specific description of music therapy can be found on the Trust’s website, where music therapy is described as follows:

Music therapy uses shared music-making to help children cope more effectively with their lives and difficulties, and allows them to show their potential. It is based on the understanding that all human beings are able to respond to music irrespective of ability or disability…. In our sessions the therapist and the child make music together – it is shared and spontaneous – through this the two establish a musical relationship.

(Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, 2017b)

In...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• List of contributors
• Foreword by Andrée le May
• Foreword by Simon Jobson
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Methodological issues in researching everyday music therapy practice
• Chapter 2: Using a mix of qualitative methods to investigate vulnerability in the medical profession
• Chapter 3: Qualitative methods to optimise design and conduct of randomised controlled trials with clinical populations
• Chapter 4: Mixed methods and wellbeing: Issues emerging from multiple studies into mentoring for doctors
• Chapter 5: Mixing methods and data: Exploring health and wellbeing on a social scale
• Chapter 6: Community-participatory investigation of the health-environment-wellbeing nexus of WaSH in rural Eswatini
• Chapter 7: Using mixed and multi-modal methods in psychological research with young people
• Chapter 8: A multimethods approach FOR defining a strategy TO engagE vulnerable families in research
• Chapter 9: Mixed methods in community-based health and wellbeing practices
• Conclusion: Developing mixed-methods research practice in wellbeing and health
• Index