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JCPSLP
Volume 16, Number 3 2014
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
Dadds (2008) discussed empathetic validity in
practitioner research and this resonates with the experience
of many of the honours students. Research that is high
in empathetic validity “brings about new personal and
interpersonal understanding that touches and changes
hearts as well as minds” (p. 280). It is evident from the
students’ experiences with research participants, that
these relationships engender not only a shift in cognition,
but have an emotional impact too. Experience of working
with clients during workplace learning certainly affords
all undergraduate allied health students the opportunity
to engage with clients, and to develop a deeper
understanding of individual life experience. The issue of
time however, warrants further consideration. Honours
compels students to make the time and space to explore
an area of interest, and to engage with clients as research
participants. As this time is protected in the sense that the
student is unconcerned with delivering treatment in any
sense, the honours experience has the potential to afford
students with the time to talk, the time to reflect, and the
time to develop new understandings.
With clinical placements you don’t really have the time
with someone and it’s all very clinically based. During
honours I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to
them and because they were in their own home, they
felt a lot more comfortable and relaxed talking about
it. I think time plays a big role because that enables
people to relax and there’s no stress of I need to see
another ten patients before lunchtime.
(Lauren)
Honours has the exciting potential to enable students
to broaden their horizons, develop new perspectives on
practice and attain new perceptions of life, informed by the
experience of their clients.
Practice–research nexus
Praxis acknowledges that theory and practice are
integrated and individual practitioners develop their own
evolving personal theory about practice (Kilpatrick, 2008).
The practice–research nexus is intrinsic to honours study
and the students may struggle to find a balance between
the priorities of clinical practice and research.
Sometimes you’re just so focused on the research
that you can’t see it, you forget about it [clinical
practice] … it’s kinda like you can’t put it aside. Then
when I go and do the clinics that I do, it puts it a bit
in perspective. It depends on the setting and what
I’m doing but I try and keep them together. If I keep in
my mind that research is a separate thing and I don’t
intertwine it with the clinical side of things, what’s the
purpose of doing research?
(Rachel)
This is a fascinating insight into the potential tension
between clinical practice and research. Honours students
have limited clinical experience, but even less research
experience, so it is not surprising that they may find it
difficult to manage this complex juncture. Through the
experience of honours, changing perspectives allow the
students to analyse the relationship between research and
practice.
I think I have a better appreciation of research and how
difficult it really is to do it and I think I really believe in
evidence based practice from doing honours. Why are
we doing what we’re doing [in clinical practice] and
why is that better than doing something else? I think
that’s really important.
(Nicola)
consequence of this learning through research and the
student’s being is changed. It is the individual practitioner
who identifies research as a valued object, who constructs
the role in his or her life to attain it and who determines
whether it was worthwhile (Cusick, 2001, p. 15). Research
is integral to being a practitioner-researcher and it is
apparent that the honours students undergo a similar
change.
It’s been really beneficial to see the research that I’m
reading and to look at the population I’m researching
and the same things are coming out. It’s giving me
insight into where the research needs to be.
(Jess)
So it’s not going to directly affect my practice but the
aspect of research probably will, because I will keep on
researching different areas.
(Maria)
The experience of honours will inform the student’s
practice through the skills developed and knowledge
gained. The acquisition of knowledge and skills however,
cannot ensure learning for an unknown future. Learning
experiences should afford the possibility of developing
qualities in a student which enable authentic being (Barnett,
2004). Through the experience of honours, qualities such
as courage, carefulness, criticality and resilience are
nurtured, within the relative safety of research communities
of practice, in order to allow these honours students to
become novice practitioner-researchers.
New perspectives
As the honours students became increasingly immersed in
their research, and particularly their data collection,
changes in perspective began to emerge. Whether insight
was facilitated by reading the literature and reflecting on
practice, or through relationships with their research
participants, the common focus of these new perceptions
was clinical practice. Considering the intimate relationship
between research and practice for these allied health
students, this is not surprising, but it is pleasing to see that
practice and research are mutually informed through
honours.
It’s given me more ideas about the way you could go
in your clinical work. I quite often think about it when
I see kids … you could do some research on that. I
probably wouldn’t have thought about that before.
(Emma)
The development of empathetic relationships with
their research participants facilitated new perspectives,
as the students gained a deeper insight into the lives of
people with end stage renal disease, stroke, diabetes,
neurofibromatosis and children with a disability.
You realise there’s bigger things than just your normal
life. Knowing more about people’s experiences of
life, being exposed to different coping styles and to
different things that people have to deal with, makes
you think about things differently. To have your eyes
opened a little bit more than you would normally and
share their experiences. That was a really nice aspect
of the whole honours process.
(Lauren)
Maria’s perspective was changed not so much by the
children she was researching, but by listening to the
experiences of their parents and carers.
I don’t know what it’s like to have to look at your child
and say well I’ve bestowed this on him. I’m learning a
lot from them [mothers].
(Maria)
