Book Review
Evaluating research in health and social care
Roger Gomm, Gill Needham and Anne Bullman (eds)
ISBN: 0-7619649-1-6,; 2000; 352, pages; London: Sage,;
Carol F Grbich
Flinders School of Medicine, School of Social Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide SA
At last a research text which is focussed away from the needs of researchers and toward the needs of readers. This book fills a gap in the literature in seeking as its audience researchers who may be specialists in one methodological area but who need to understand research undertaken in their area of interest but carried out in a different tradition, or those who need to understand how the evidence gathered in the research report they have funded has actually been undertaken, and in both cases how one might critically appraise such works.
This is not a cookbook of research methods but despite this the information provided is adequate in generating a basic understanding and appraisal of research approaches. The book is divided into 4 parts: Part 1 deals with Experimental Research and the randomised control trial; Part 2 covers Survey and case control studies; the third provides an introduction to qualitative approaches while Part 4 contains a series of checklists and 'critical appraisal questions'. Looking at Part 3, Qualitative Research, in more detail, this section comprises 5 chapters. The first 4 chapters follow the same format; a brief general introduction indicating the principles and philosophy of the overall approach, then links are provided to other parts of the book which need to be read first in order to make sense of the approach. At the end of each chapter, the authors reproduce previously published, pertinent articles and suggest follow-up activities. The four chapters incorporate examples of an interview-based study; non-participant observation-in a quasi-ethnographic style; participant observation (within the grounded theory approach); and action research. The 5th chapter in this section briefly clarifies some of the issues (including ethical and economic) in collecting and analysing qualitative data. Part 4 of the book clarifies the questions and issues the reader should be aware of while reading the three previous parts of the book.
The advantage of this approach is that the authors are not obliged to spend many pages teasing out or even addressing the complexities of qualitative approaches, but the disadvantages are that there will be many more kinds of ethnography and grounded theory and action research than have been displayed, varying along a continuum from traditional to postmodern approaches and a reader might be forgiven for thinking that the one version viewed is a representative example of the total field and an ideal one at that. The examples are largely directed toward health, social work and nursing; Using Evidence in Health and Social Care provides a refreshing, accessible and much needed introductory text to reading research.
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