Conference Report!

The history and philosophy section conference was great!

The Monday was a day on resources in the teaching of Conceptual and Historical issues in Psychology.

Dai Jones did a session on using and choosing text books; which was good and informative. Then there were very informative sessions on the BPS origins project and what the Science Museum can offer to the teaching of psychology both for undergraduates and 'A' level students. Thanks to Kelly Auty and Phil Loving for those sessions. Chris Howard and Lovemore Nyatanga did a presentation about some of the ways they teach CHiPs at Derby, after some group discussions Alan Collins and Pete Lamont led a discussion on what next. Which sort of became a theme of the conference, which might be ironic for a History conference.

After a really enjoyable meal with all the contributors back to the Travel lodge and on to the next day.

Day One

Not going to describe every paper I went to, but they were interesting, witty and led to many things to think about.

Martyn Pickersgill gave the opening keynote and that set the historical scene very well, in terms of how the DSM was developed and although it is a history I know well there were still aspects I had not fully appreciated.

In the first session of papers I went to, session 1B (see conference programme linked earlier) the main theme was sex, especially the 'paraphilic disorders' but also more general sex and gender issues.

To some extent that theme carried over into the second set of papers I went to, 2A. Finally rounded that off with some more sex, with the papers from 3A.

I want to introduce some of that material into my Gender and Sexualities module at Gloucestershire.

Day Two

Spent the first session fretting about my paper rather than going to any papers.

Session two included my paper. But also there was an interesting linkage between all four of the papers, it was almost a spontaneous symposium.

Session three I went to the symposium developed by John Cromby, David Harper & Paula Reavey. Dai is hoping that some of that material can find its way into the Psychology and Mental Health module we run.

Finally a truly great keynote from Ian Parker to finish a very good conference indeed.

Thanks to everyone who was involved in organising, presenting and taking part!

Square Pegs Round Holes

Anarchistic Epistemology for Qualitative Psychology

 Paul Feyeraband 1924-1994

This isn't about positive psychology, but more about the gnawing despair I have when thinking about the current instantiation of qualitative methodologies within psychology.

Qualitative psychology appears to be falling into the same trap that some quantitative psychology fell into, the notion that by following a set of procedures then valid knowledge will follow.

There are a number of possible reasons why this has happened.

Wanting to be taken seriously

By having a set of prescriptions in parallel with the sorts of prescriptions that quantitative psychology has perhaps there is a hope that will promote qualitative psychology as worthy. The most successful qualitative research approach across the social sciences, grounded theory, has long adopted the notion that "Care in applying the grounded theory methodology correctly is the single most important factor in ensuring rigour" (Cooney, 2011, p17). And from one of the originators of grounded theory

Grounded theory refers to a specific methodology on how to get from systematically

collecting data to producing a multivariate conceptual theory. It is a total    methodological package. It provides a series of  systematic, exact methods that start with with collecting data and take the researcher to a theoretical piece that is publishable.

Glaser, 2010, p 1.

Despite the early authors in psychology, such as Potter and Wetherell (1987) are careful to point out that their guidelines are guidelines, not a recipe to follow, it feels that twenty six years later we have lost that sense, and instead there is an expectation that following rules will lead to positive outcomes.

Teaching qualitative methods

Doing qualitative methods as an undergraduate student can be threatening. Very often students are confronted with the idea that Psychology is not a natural science at the same time that they are trying to learn ways to do research. It is less threatening to be told as long as a set of prescriptions are followed then they will get good marks, than to be told that the heart of qualitative methods is a joyful confusion. This problem is exasperated when methods teaching is divorced from theoretical and conceptual issues. In these circumstances it is more likely that students are taught a set of procedures and exhorted to work hard. Just like with quantitative methods students are likely to take those lessons on board, research is hard work and not fun, and if they try to navigate the maze we have set for them then they will get their reward.

A tentative solution

Discover anarchistic epistemology, along with an expectation that doing qualitative research is fun.

I might return to this in a slightly more coherent form later in the year.  

References

Cooney, A. (2011). Rigour and grounded theory. Nurse Researcher, 18(4), 17-22.  

Glaser, B. G. (2010). The Future of Grounded Theory. Grounded Theory Review, 9(2), 1-14.

Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology : beyond attitudes and behaviour  London : Sage