Strengthening Qualitative Research Through Methodological Innovation and Integration: An Integration of Conversation Analysis and Ethnography

这个项目的目的是开发一套整合对话分析和民族志的方法论指南。会话分析是一种广泛使用的研究社会互动的方法，主要研究言语交际。人种志是一种方法论，研究人员在很长一段时间内参与人们的日常生活，以收集密切的观察数据。尽管他们有共同的兴趣，但很少有研究成功地将这两种方法结合在一起。对话分析人士仔细研究了言语交流，但很少注意到这些对话对更广泛的社会图景有何贡献。相比之下，民族志学者对互动的社会框架更为敏感，但往往会掩盖互动的关键细节。在这个混合方法的项目中，研究人员使用人种学方法来提供对重要社会背景的访问，同时使用对话分析来追踪社会变化的详细机制。他们开发了这种混合方法来调查新生儿筛查结果对家庭的影响。新生儿筛查是最近发展起来的一种用于确定婴儿罕见的代谢和遗传疾病的技术。在美国，为了这个目的，所有的新生儿都要进行“脚后跟抽血”测试。可能的异常被报告给儿科医生，并转介给遗传学家进行进一步的探索。这项研究使用对话分析来研究遗传学家和父母在测试结果后立即进行沟通的细节，并使用民族志方法来跟踪家庭在两年时间里对诊断的反应和调整。综合对话分析-民族志研究议程将研究社会互动，将其作为构成个人生活、家庭形成和社会机构工作过程的一系列过程。目标是确定临床医生与父母的沟通如何影响家庭对诊断及其后果的理解，以及他们采取的应对策略。就更广泛的影响而言，研究结果有助于将对话分析和民族志结合在一起，并为沟通及其在新生儿筛查中的后果的学术研究提供了实质性的帮助。此外，尽管研究人员正在开发将更罕见的遗传疾病纳入新生儿筛查的技术，但人们对这些检测结果与其诊断和预后不确定性的背景之间的沟通知之甚少。这项研究将产生有关新生儿筛查的社会后果以及各种沟通方式、疾病和患者特征的影响的政策相关数据。

SES-0751032Stefan TimmermansJohn HeritageUniversity of California, Los AngelesThe aim of this project is to develop a set of methodological guidelines for integrating conversation analysis and ethnography. Conversation analysis is a widely used methodology focused on verbal communication for the investigation of social interaction. Ethnography is a methodology in which researchers participate in people's daily lives for an extended period of time to gather close observational data. In spite of their shared interests, few studies have successfully integrated both approaches. Conversation analysts have closely examined verbal exchanges but paid little attention to how these conversations contribute to the broader social picture. Ethnographers, in contrast, have been more sensitive to the social framing of interactions but tend to gloss over key details of interactions. In this mixed-methods project the investigators use ethnographic methods to provide access to salient social contexts, while using conversation analysis to trace detailed mechanisms of social change. They develop this mixed method approach to investigate the effects of newborn screening results on families. Newborn screening is a recently developed technique for determining rare metabolic and genetic disorders in infants. In the U.S. a 'heelprick' blood test is applied to all newborns for this purpose. Possible abnormalities are reported to pediatricians and referred to geneticists for further exploration. This study uses conversation analysis to study the details of communication between geneticists and parents immediately following test results, and uses ethnographic methods to follow the families' reactions and adjustments to the diagnosis over a two-year period. An integrated conversation analysis-ethnography research agenda will study social interaction as a sequence of processes that constitute the course of individual lives, formation of families, and working of social institutions. The goal is identify how clinician-parent communications influence family understandings of the diagnosis and its consequences, together with their adoption of coping strategies. In terms of broader impact, study findings contribute methodological to combining conversation analysis and ethnography and substantively to scholarship on communication and its consequences in newborn screening. In addition, while researchers are developing technologies to include more rare genetic conditions in newborn screening, little is known about the communication of these test results with their context of diagnostic and prognostic uncertainty. The study will yield policy relevant data about the social consequences of newborn screening and the effects of various communication styles, disease, and patient characteristics.