Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Presenting and writing up
be used. Political considerations, even fashions in ideas, will influence
whether research gets taken up by practitioners or
policy-makers. While we tend to think of use as instrumental use,
leading to some tangible action, some have argued for a wider definition.
Weiss and Bucuvalas introduced the notion of conceptual
use, or enlightenment, that could influence thinking about a program
without leading to immediate action.
Research that challenges accepted ideas, arrangements, programs and
institutions cannot readily be put to work in a direct and immediate
way. It cannot be plugged in to solve problems, particularly when it
runs up against the antagonism of interests embodied within the
current political balance. But decision-makers’ ratings of research
indicate that such research can contribute to their work and the work
of other appropriate decision-makers. It can enlighten them. They do
not necessarily apply it in the short term, but it affects the way they
think about issues and gradually it can affect what they do (Weiss &
Bucuvalas, 1980, p. 98).
Owen and Rogers (1999) suggest, in fact, that some form of conceptual
use always precedes instrumental use. Cousins and Leithwood
(1986) suggest six factors that may influence the utilisation of a
particular piece of research: the quality of the research, the credibility
of the researcher, the relevance of the research to the needs of
decision-makers, the clarity of communication with potential users
during and after the research, the nature and implications of the
findings, and the timeliness of reporting. We talk more about
the impact of research—the shift from research back to practice—in
the following chapter.
There are many publications whose purpose is to help researchers,
and others, write better. These focus variously on writing
style (Murphy, 1985; Strunk & White, 2000), on the process and
experience of writing (Woods, 1985; Becker, 1986; Wolcott, 1990;
Lofland & Lofland, 1995) and on writing for particular purposes,
such as for a thesis (Lewins, 1993; Rountree & Laing, 1996;
Anderson & Poole, 1998) or a journal article (Williams & Hopps,
1988; Pirkis & Gardner, 1998).
We do not go over this ground here. Rather, we focus on ways
of presenting qualitative findings, including decisions about voice
(whose voice/s to present) and decisions about structuring findings.
The latter is not an easy task, as data are often voluminous and of
their very nature reflect a diversity of experiences and perspectives,
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