This thesis reports on the way in which action research techniques %% ere used to conduct a two-year programme of commissioned research. This programme consisted of a brief in two phases from the English National Board for Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting to develop performance indicators (PIs) for training institutions on a national basis. The substantive research findings are reported. and the contribution of particular aspects of action research to the research project are evaluated, with reference both to the literature on performance monitoring in the public sector and the literature on educational action research. The research findings from a first phase of work show that terminology about performance monitoring is confused, especially with respect to distinctions between "qualitative" and "quantitative" issues. They also show that much current practice neglects important ethical issues such as potentially conflicting models of accountability. An analytic framework is therefore proposed for clarifying various aspects of this terminology and incorporating an ethical dimension which locates information systems within a context of differing and possibly competing interests. The thesis then describes how this framework was used to develop a second phase of research within a policy environment which had, by that time, become highly unstable. Findings from this second phase showed that it would be possible for the Board to specify some core data items from which nationally agreed PIs could be developed, but not without further debate about accountability structures and different models of resource allocation. The research project made an active contribution towards assisting the development of performance and quality monitoring structures at training institution level by publishing some of the research tools, literature and findings as a teaching pack ( Balogh et al 1989). The specific contribution of action research to this project is evaluated by reference to Lew in's (194) original formulation, to Smith's (1981) distinction between four levels of discourse: the discipline, the paradigm, the operational and the technical, and to insights drawn from the critical policy analysis literature. This multi-disciplinary evaluation proves to be useful in contributing to critical debate on nurse and midwife education policy, and more generally in relation to the rapidly developing field of human services management information systems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:615506 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Balogh, Ruth Penelope |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10018907/ |
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