Active and growing since the early 1990's QUIG is a loose
collectivity of qualitative researchers (faculty, students and
research institute scientists) mostly in but not limited to the health
sciences and adjacent applied health research fields.
QUIG's goals are:
•To build local, national and international capacity in critical,
theoretically-informed qualitative health research, scholarship and
teaching.
•To promote innovation and knowledge development at the leading edge
of the field.
•To be a site of expertise in the particular challenges of teaching
and practicing qualitative research in the health research field.
•To anchor, connect, challenge and inspire qualitative researchers
across health-related disciplines and institutional units.
• To function as a 'go-to' site for issues of methodology and teaching.
•To provide superior graduate education in qualitative research methodology.
Core identity and focus:
QUIG asserts a particular and distinctive identity: a place that
strives to raise the bar on the teaching and practice of qualitative
research in the heath field through the promotion of a 'critical' and
'theoretically- informed' perspective on method and on substantive
topic.
• By 'raising the bar' is meant going beyond conventional expectations
regarding the quality of this type of research inquiry, demanding a
superior level of scholarship and academic leadership in this area.
•By 'critical' is meant the capacity to inquire 'against the grain':
to question the conceptual and theoretical bases of knowledge and
method, to ask questions that go beyond prevailing assumptions and
understandings of phenomena, to acknowledge the socio-political
dimensions of health and health research.
• By 'theoretically-informed' is meant the reflexive, competent and
creative application to the research process of social theory and
theory from other disciplines.
• By 'health research' is meant both basic and applied research
inquiry into health, ill-health and health care in their broadest
senses, ranging from micro-level examination of bodily and social
experience to macro-level exploration of professional, institutional
and societal-level influences on health and health care
Activities:
• Cross departments/faculty collaboration: to support teaching-related
activities
• Website: maintenance of a accessible, vibrant electronic site for
the banking and exchange of ideas and resources.
• Inventories of education resources across the University of Toronto:
searchable listings of qualitative methodology courses and faculty are
available electronically on the current website.
• Essentials of Qualitative Research (EQR)course series: a coordinated
sequence of graduate courses in research methodology associated with a
Certificate of 'advanced' competency. Demand is growing and new
courses and program partners are being initiated.
• Seminar Series: two series 1) seminars on methodology and theory by
established researchers and visiting scholars, and 2) student seminars
for those with research-in-progress.
• Listserv network of researchers: currently ~ 500 faculty, students
and researchers from the University of Toronto, other universities in
Ontario, university affiliates and research institutes.
•
Institutional research outreach: links have been established with key
qualitative researchers in hospitals and research institutes around
the University of Toronto.
• Inter-University network: links with several universities outside of
the University of Toronto.
•International network: collaboration between researchers in health
science settings in other countries through a network of Centres with
a similar mission, such as the PROGIECS, Qualitative Health Research
and Evaluation Program at the Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de
Guadalajara, Mexico and the REDICS, the Spanish Qualitative Health
Research Network.
• Visiting Professor and post-doctoral program: to advance faculty
ability to teach qualitative methodology. The focus has so far been on
the development of teachers in developing countries, but the plan is
to extend this to meet the needs of Canadian faculty scattered thinly
and in isolation in health faculties across the country. It is
anticipated that the Centre can also offer opportunities for
post-doctoral fellows interested in qualitative methodology.
• Teaching symposia: In 2004 QUIG hosted a national invitational
workshop on teaching qualitative health research in the health
sciences. A second symposium, this time international, is planned for
winter 2010.
• Consultation and advocacy (informal) re educational
resources, thesis supervision, publication, research funding, project
staffing, publication, technology advice, among other topics.
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