In the eighth, and final, instalment of the qualitative methods conference series, Dr Polly Radcliffe talks about her qualitative research on pregnancy and substance use.

This lecture focuses on discourse analysis, and how it was used to explore how pregnant women who used drugs managed their identity. Polly talks about conducting interviews with pregnant and post-partum women who attended addiction treatment services. The interview data were complemented by interviews with staff who worked in those addiction treatment services and by taking comprehensive field notes that formed a research diary. Polly discusses the range of different accounts given by the participants, and how qualitative methods were used to identify how social action was accomplished through language.

The lecture also contains worked examples of using NVivo to manage qualitative data from semi-structured interviews.

We were unable to record Polly’s lecture on the day of the conference, so this video was recorded at a later date. The lecture is therefore in a slightly different format to the others, a format with which we are all becoming increasingly familiar.

It is a full, and fascinating, lecture. So, as with previous weeks, put your phone on charge, close your emails for a while and enjoy!

Previous weeks in the qualitative methods conference series

Share this story