Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise, Virginia Tech, 1981 Kraft Drive, Room 1032, Blacksburg, VA, 24060, USA.
Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education, Virginia Tech, 284 Litton-Reaves Hall, Mail Code 0343, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA.
Implement Sci. 2020 Sep 3;15(1):70. doi: 10.1186/s13012-020-01002-1.
There is a need to unpack the empirical, practical, and personal challenges within participatory approaches advocated to optimize implementation. The unpredictable, chaotic nature of participatory approaches complicates application of implementation theories, methods, and strategies which do not address researchers' situatedness within participatory processes. As an implementation scientist, addressing one's own situatedness through critical reflection is important to unearth how conscious and unconscious approaches, including ontological and epistemological underpinnings, influence the participatory context, process, and outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this exploratory work is to investigate the heretofore blind spot toward the lived experience of implementation researchers within the participatory process.
We developed an integrated research-practice partnership (IRPP) to inform the implementation of a gestational weight gain (GWG) control program. Within this IRPP, one investigator conducted a 12-month autoethnography. Data collection and triangulation included field notes, cultural artifacts, and systematic timeline tracking. Data analysis included ethnographic-theoretical dialogue and restorying to synthesize key events and epiphanies into a narrative.
Analysis revealed the unpredicted evolution of the GWG program into a maternal health fair and three themes within the researchers' lived experience: (1) permeable work boundaries, (2) individual and collective blind spots toward the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of implementation paradigms, and (3) maladaptive behaviors seemingly reinforced by the research culture. These themes contributed to the chaos of implementation and to researchers' experience of inadequate recovery from cognitive, emotional, and practical demands. These themes also demonstrated the importance of contextual factors, subjectivity, and value-based judgments within implementation research.
Building on extant qualitative research guidelines, we suggest that researchers anchor their approach to implementation in reflexivity, intentionally and iteratively reflecting on their own situatedness. Through this autoethnography, we have elucidated several strategies based on critical reflection including examining philosophical underpinnings of research, adopting restorative practices that align with one's values, and embracing personal presence as a foundation of scientific productivity. Within the predominant (post-) positivism paradigms, autoethnography may be criticized as unscientifically subjective or self-indulgent. However, this work demonstrates that autoethnography is a vehicle for third-person observation and first-person critical reflection that is transformative in understanding and optimizing implementation contexts, processes, and outcomes.
为了优化实施，需要深入了解倡导的参与式方法所面临的经验、实践和个人挑战。参与式方法的不可预测、混沌本质使得应用实施理论、方法和策略变得复杂，这些理论、方法和策略并没有解决研究人员在参与式过程中的处境。作为一名实施科学家，通过批判性反思来解决自身的处境问题，对于揭示有意识和无意识的方法（包括本体论和认识论基础）如何影响参与式背景、过程和结果至关重要。因此，这项探索性工作的目的是调查参与式过程中实施研究人员的生活体验这一迄今为止被忽视的盲点。
我们建立了一个综合的研究-实践伙伴关系（IRPP），为控制妊娠体重增加（GWG）项目的实施提供信息。在这个 IRPP 中，一名研究人员进行了为期 12 个月的自传式民族志研究。数据收集和三角验证包括实地记录、文化人工制品和系统时间线跟踪。数据分析包括民族志-理论对话和重新讲述，将关键事件和顿悟综合成一个叙述。
分析揭示了 GWG 项目出人意料地演变成了一个产妇健康博览会，以及研究人员生活体验中的三个主题：（1）工作边界的渗透性；（2）个体和集体对实施范式的本体论和认识论基础的盲点；（3）看似被研究文化强化的适应不良行为。这些主题导致了实施的混乱，也导致了研究人员在认知、情感和实际需求方面无法充分恢复。这些主题还展示了实施研究中背景因素、主观性和基于价值观的判断的重要性。
在现有的定性研究指南的基础上，我们建议研究人员将他们的实施方法建立在反思性上，有意识地、迭代地反思自己的处境。通过这项自传式民族志研究，我们基于批判性反思提出了一些策略，包括检查研究的哲学基础、采用与个人价值观一致的修复性实践，以及将个人存在作为科学生产力的基础。在占主导地位的（后）实证主义范式中，自传式民族志可能被批评为不科学的主观性或自我放纵。然而，这项工作表明，自传式民族志是一种用于第三人观察和第一人称批判性反思的工具，它在理解和优化实施背景、过程和结果方面具有变革性。
