practical Flashcards
State the research question for your practical
How do different newspaper sources represent mental health?
What is the aim of our clinical practical?
To use content analysis to see if there is a difference in the language used by broadsheet and tabloid newspapers in reporting mental health issues.
what is content analysis?
A method used to analyse, quantify and interpret qualitative data.
The content produced by people (TV shows, magazines, newspaper articles, books, and other forms of media) are observed and analysed
There are diff types of content analysis - we used summative CA
what method did we use in our clinical practical?
summative content analysis -
involves counting the frequency of keywords/terms or content in the data.
These keywords can be determined before or during the analysis of the raw data.
Then the frequency of the key terms can be further assessed in terms of the context; who said the key word, in the way it was said, to whom for example.
what are the strengths of the method we used in our clinical practical (summative content analysis)?
- Collection of data from sources that are pre-existing, so few ethical issues are involved. There is no deceit, and informed consent isn’t necessary.
- Summative content analysis means qualitative data is turned into quantitative which is easier to analyse as it can be put into graphs and compared
- Multiple researchers can categorise the data using the same categories, meaning inter-rater reliability can be checked (consistency, reduces bias)
what are the weaknesses of the method we used in our clinical practical (summative content analysis)?
- It requires interpretation of data, quite often words may be hard to ‘fit’ into a category. This reduces that scientific status of the method as results are likely to be subjective, lowering validity.
- If categories are set up that do not represent what is being studied, e.g. positive attitudes towards mental health, then the results will not be valid.
- Turning qualitative into quantitative may mean that detail and context is lost, reducing the validity of the results.
describe the procedure of our clinical practical
- Multiple researchers (2/3)
- Compared articles from broadsheet (Guardian) and tabloid (Daily Mail) on the same case: ‘Schizophrenic man murdered woman in Tenerife (2011)’
- Tallied the number of times Negative and Neutral words were used in the headlines and the articles and log this in your practical booklet
- Words were previously identified from reading other articles about mental health and more were added directly from the articles
- Deciding what is neutral and what is negative is subjective so was checked with a partner to ensure inter-rater reliability
state two results from your clinical practical investigation
More negative words were used in the newspaper article about a SZ man who murdered a woman in Tenerife in the tabloid (23) compared to the broadsheet newspaper (15).
More neutral words were used in the newspaper article about a SZ man who murdered a woman in Tenerife in the broadsheet (3) compared to the tabloid newspaper (1).
state two conclusions from your clinical practical investigation
Tabloid newspapers fuel negative stigma about mental health more than broadsheet because more negative words were used in in the tabloid (23) compared to the broadsheet newspaper (15).
What is the strength of our clinical practical in terms of inter-rater reliability?
Inter-rater reliability was high as more than one researcher analysed the sources and checked for consistency and agreement in the amount of times neutral and negative keywords were used to represent mental health from a broadsheet and tabloid article from 2011
What is the strength of our clinical practical?
P: We collected quantitative data which is easy to analyse.
E: We counted the frequency of neutral and negative words in a tabloid and broadsheet article.
T: Therefore we can compare language used by newspapers to see if they portray MHD more negatively
What is the weakness of our clinical practical in terms of validity?
P: We used content analysis which transforms qualitative data into quantitative data, and so is less detailed.
E: The words used are taken out of the context of the sentences used in the articles.
T: Therefore our data may not be valid.
What is the weakness of our clinical practical in terms of credibility?
Many newspapers from the UK have not been analysed (The Sun, The Times, etc.) which lowers the credibility, so the two newspapers we used may not accurately represent the use of neutral and negative words used by the media to represent MHD
What is the strength of our clinical practical in terms of credibility?
Two sources/newspapers were used (The Daily Mail and The Guardian) which represent a range of political views and have a large readership in the UK, meaning that the research into their use of neutral and negative words by the media is credible.
explain how our clinical practical could be improved
P = carry out thematic analysis instead of content analysis
E = (how) from reading the articles, themes can be identified which might go beyond single words
T = more valid / more useful
P= only one mental health disorder was investigated
E = the article on SZ is not representative of all MHD, more articles on varying MHD’s should be used to be more representative
T = increasing validity
P = only 2 sources were used
E = this is not sufficient evidence to analyse, more articles needed to be more representative and more meaningful to the practical
T = increasing validity
