Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

24. The framework for the qualitative study (p. 165):
I certainly chose the framework for the qualitative study. What is meant is just that six case
studies would have meant another 60-80 pages, and the ‘framework’ of the dissertation was
already filled out.
25. “Experience” and “Effect” in the same research question:
As stated above, I have second thoughts about the formulation of subquestion 4; I think
“effects” should have been replaced or complemented by “influence(s)”. This also goes for
page 166; “effects” is not used anywhere else in the section (p. 165-177), and in the
conclusion “influence” is actually used instead of “effect”. However, the word “outcome(s)”
is also used (p. 168 and 177), and in principle the same critique could be raised against the use
of this word. I would like to elaborate this issue a little. As can be seen from the interview
guide and the corresponding Table 6.1, neither “effects” nor “outcome” were used when
formulating the questions in the interviews. I wanted the participants to report their
experiences of core elements in the therapeutic process, not to reflect on “causes” and
“effects”. However, I also wanted the participants to reflect on the personal “outcome” (c: real
life consequences of their BMGIM process, and this is reflected in the core categories and the
grounded theory formulated in section 7.4. The problem here is that “The influence of
BMGIM on mood and quality of life” was addressed both quantitatively (based on the
questionnaires and reported as effects) and qualitatively (based on the interviews and reported
as core categories). I wanted the participants not only to talk about their experiences, but also
to comment on the “effects” documented in the (preliminary results of the) descriptive
statistics. This is discussed in section 9.4.1, and it was not only very interesting to hear the
participants’ comments on these “effects”; the “effects” had also the function of cues to
discuss which elements of mood and QoL the participants considered appropriate and
measurable.
26. Redundancy in the presentation of research methods (Chapter 4 and 6):
The reader will note a certain amount of duplications, especially between chapters 4 and 6 –
and again in chapter 9. I acknowledge the resulting redundancy, however I deliberately chose
to include the duplications, in order to guide the reader firmly through the many procedural