Surveying Qualitative Research Teaching on British Clinical Psychology Training Programmes 1992–2006: A Changing Relationship?

Abstract

There have been indications that qualitative research has become more popular in British clinical psychology, particularly amongst trainee clinical psychologists. In a 1992 survey conducted by the author, 81% of UK clinical psychology training programmes that responded reported that they taught qualitative methods for an average 4.85 hours and that only a small number of students submitted qualitative dissertations. This article reports the results of a similar survey conducted in 2005–2006. Twenty-six programmes responded (a response rate of 83.9%). In contrast to the 1992 survey, 100% of the responding programmes reported that they taught qualitative methods for an average of 12.6 hours (approximately 31.1% of total research methods teaching). The most popular methods were Grounded Theory, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Discourse Analysis. All of the programmes reported that they would accept theses solely using qualitative methods, with an average of 42.8% of dissertations falling into this category in the previous four years. The results are discussed in the context of the development of British clinical psychology and training.

Keywords:

• clinical psychology
• qualitative research
• research methods teaching
• training

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mark McDermott, the research committee at the School of Psychology at UEL for providing research assistant support, and Anita Potton for engaging in that role so enthusiastically. Thanks are also due to Ken Gannon and Gary Brown for feedback on a pilot questionnaire; Jan Burns and Myra Cooper for their support; the editors and reviewers; and all those who completed and returned the questionnaires.

Notes

1.Where respondents were asked for a single figure (e.g., number of hours of teaching) and instead gave a range, the midpoint was chosen as the value. If figures were given for each cohort then a mean for the programme was calculated. Where percentages are reported, these are rounded up to the first decimal place and thus they do not always add up to 100%.

2.Responses to this question were not always exhaustive and so programmes could report a method being used in a thesis where it had not been mentioned in response to this question. This does not necessarily mean it was not taught on the programme.

3.The programme, which reported no qualitative dissertations between 2002 and 2006, noted that there had been one before that period and there was one forthcoming in the next academic year. The programme also reported that a number of placement-based service evaluations were qualitative in nature.

4.I'm indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for pointing this out.