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studies and wondering how you would ever come to understand and use it in a familiar and confident manner. Now that you are some way through your course, you will be familiar with this ‘language of practice’ and will have more than likely forgotten how it felt to be excluded and isolated by healthcare professionals who are experienced at using the language of practice as they go about their business. Moreover, like many healthcare professionals, you may view the acquisition of this language as a ‘rite of passage’ which students, yourself included, must traverse as part of the process of socialisation into the profession. We do not subscribe to this view, being of the mind that inaccessible language creates barriers that are both unnecessary and damaging to healthcare practice (including research), and in particular to nursing and midwifery students who are attempting to understand and undertake research perhaps for the first time. We will therefore take the time to describe as clearly as possible what we mean by certain terms and how we are using them, in order that you can begin to understand the language of research and its centrality to your practice. In this chapter, we introduce the ‘language of research’, including research philosophies, research paradigms, methodologies and methods. ch_01.indd 2 13/09/2013 16:24 Understanding the language of research 3 Research philosophies Researchers are often asked to explain the philosophical basis for their research, whether this be funded research or research undertaken as part of research degree studies. Philosophy is generally concerned with questions about reality, existence, values, reason, mind and language; whereas research philosophy is concerned with how the world is perceived and how best we can come to understand the world. By this we mean to what extent researchers believe that, on the one hand, we are active in creating or shaping the social world in which we live, or on the other hand, that the social world exists independently of what we may think of it. On first reading this paragraph you might already feel lost, thinking that research is too deep, complicated and complex, and not for you. This is understandable if you are new to research and has much to do with unfamiliar terminology for what are actually quite straightforward ways of thinking about important questions and how best to find the answers. While research may be detailed, can be complex, and may involve groups of people with very different views about a particular issue, it is nevertheless something you can undertake. The most important point to make here is that you can come to understand the philosophical basis of research and begin to understand how your own worldview shapes the kinds of research you may want to undertake. It is important to note that the approach advocated in this chapter is not without its critics. Authors have pointed out that holding fast to a philosophical position at the outset can inhibit our understanding, as it precludes the possibility of an alternative viewpoint (Dyson and Brown, 2006). For example, if we were to ask student nurses and midwives for their views on being supported in the practice setting by academic teachers we would be taking the philosophical position that it is possible to understand the social world in which the student lives, and therefore we would be prepared to accept the student’s view on this matter. The alternative position is that it is not possible to understand how the student perceives the world with any degree of certainty; therefore we need other forms of knowledge to answer the question posed in order that we can be sure of or convinced by the information (data) gathered. Our method of enquiry, should we view the world this way, might be to collect information (data) about how many times students were visited in practice by academic teachers, how long these encounters lasted, and whether or not a formal assessment was conducted. ch_01.indd 3 13/09/2013 16:24 Research skills for nurses and midwives 4 In spite of criticisms of an approach where the researcher has a predetermined idea of how we can come to know the world, an advantage is that the researcher can more readily apply a structured and logical approach to designing and carrying out the research. Certainly, for beginning researchers this is a most useful approach. However, it is important (and indeed the position taken in this book) that the beginning researcher strives to keep an open mind. Dyson and Brown (2006) sum up this position when suggesting that researchers who adopt a philosophical viewpoint at the outset may use it as a cloak against other philosophical positions. While this approach has the attraction of consistency, it may lead the researcher to believe they have found the one ‘true’ philosophical position, to the exclusion of all others (Dyson and Brown, 2006, p. 3). When placed in the context of research, philosophy is about how we can come to know the social world in order to understand why practitioners and users of health and social care services think and subsequently act in the way they do. For example, we may ask the question why, in spite of evidence to the contrary, do individuals continue to engage in unhealthy practices such as smoking, excessive drinking and overeating? Similarly, why do a significant number of health
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