annfammed.org/cgi/reprint/3/suppl_1/s30. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

Identify and describe some of your initial reactions to the article. What jumped out at you? Did this article spark a desire in you to design a similar study? Why or why not?

My immediate reaction to the article was that it demonstrates how easily and thoroughly conceptual flaws in subject recruitment and selection can undermine the relevance and accuracy of conclusions of even an otherwise well-designed and executed study (Williamson, 2009). On one hand, the study seemed to execute the five stages of critical qualitative research outlined by Carspecken (in Hardcastle, Usher, & Holmes, 2006); on the other hand, it seems to have wasted that execution on a fundamentally flawed set of subject inclusion criteria. Specifically, the study attempted to examine the correspondence and to draw logical inferences from any apparent causal relationship between elements of lived experiences prior to fully manifested vocational burnout in nurses and their development of vocational burnout symptoms (Hardcastle, Usher, and Holmes, 2006).

The apparent fundamental flaw in the study was that it study considered data exclusively from subjects who had experienced vocational burnout. Certainly, that sets of data is relevant and useful to the study. However, the restriction of subject selection to subjects who had already met the DSM-IV criteria for vocational burnout severely limited the usefulness of the findings (Williamson, 2009). In its executed design, the study was inherently limited to identifying apparent similarities of the responses of the subjects to factors that might or might not be causally related to the burnout phenomenon. However, had the study included data from subjects who did not experience vocational burnout from the same workplace settings as the subjects, the data produced by the study would have been much more useful (Williamson, 2009).

Now evaluate the choice of this qualitative design in light of the study's research problem. Explain why it is or is not an appropriate design choice.

From the conceptual perspective of the study, it seemed to have fulfilled all five of the stages of critical qualitative research outlined by Carspecken (in Hardcastle, Usher, & Holmes, 2006): (1) it built a primary record through fieldwork;...

Generally, the study seems to have been appropriately designed to study the targeted phenomenon but for its limitation by virtue of the subject inclusion criteria.
Identify another qualitative design the researchers might have used for this topic.

A better qualitative design that would be more appropriate to studying the same phenomenon would include data provided by subjects who experienced symptoms of vocational burnout together with data provided by subjects experiencing the same potential factors in the development of vocational burnout (Williamson, 2009). Ideally, all of the subjects in the group diagnosed with vocational burnout should have a counterpart such as coworker from the same workplace setting who does not exhibit any objective signs of vocational burnout. In principle, the closer the lived experiences of the respective subjects, the more data the same study would generate in terms of determining the degree of causal relevance between workplace and lived experience factors and vocational burnout. Ultimately, the ability to study subjects exposed to identical circumstances would increase the same study design substantially