THRI HDR Conference Week
29 November - 2 December
We are pleased to invite you to our student conference.
This online event consists of 4 x 2.5-hour sessions with a mix of long (20 minute) and short (10 minute) presentations.
Each day addresses a particular theme:
Participant recruitment
Monday 29 Nov | 1-3:30pm
Qualitative Data Analysis and Theory
Tuesday 30 Nov | 10am-12:30pm
Quantitative Data Analysis and Theory
Wednesday 1 Dec | 12-2:30pm
Ethics
Thursday 2 Dec | 2-4:30pm
As well as showcasing their work, presenters will highlight the challenges they have overcome during their research.
Please join us to share the highs and the hiccups in our PhD journeys.
Register here (opens in a new window)
Zoom Link (opens in a new window)
Program
Day 1 Facilitators: Kyar Wilkey & Sam Hogan
Participant RecruitmentMonday 29 November | 1:00-3:30pm | ||
| 1:00pm-1:05pm | Welcome and housekeeping | |
| 1:05-1:20pm | “Place based pedagogies in medical education” – Tagrid Yassine This presentation will look at how the concept of 'place' is viewed across disciplines and theories, and what this means for conducting and analysing qualitative research. | |
| 1:20-1:45pm | “Recruiting marginalised and vulnerable population for health research: Experiences from a Mixed-Methods Research in Ghana” – Benedict Osei Asibey Marginalised and vulnerable people, particularly in developing countries are less likely to participate in health research. This presentation aims to describe my recruitment approach for surveys and interviews among adults experiencing homelessness in a Ghanaian city. The presentation focuses on the outcome of implementing recruitment strategies that focused on working with community organisations and building rapport with the homeless population through their community leaders. | |
| 1:45-2:00pm | “Challenges recruiting and conducting qualitative research online” – Sandra Sonego Developing strategies to assist the design of qualitative health research in the transition to online research environments. | |
| 2:00-2:10pm | Break | |
| 2:10-2:25pm | “Solving a recruitment and retention dilemma” – Jenny McDonald The initial recruitment for a qualitative longitudinal study of medical student self-assessment was complicated by the lockdown. The initial sample recruited was 7 students. Only 5 returned for the second interviews, and 3 for the third interview 18 months later. My dataset was expanded to included written reflections by all of the participants. This allowed triangulation of the findings from narrative analysis of the semi-structured interview transcripts with data from different contexts. | |
| 2:25-2:40pm | “Recruitment challenges for focus groups during COVID-19” – Kyar Wilkey This presentation will discuss the challenges I have experienced in recruiting participants for focus groups during COVID-19 and how I plan to overcome these issues in moving forward. | |
| 2:40-3:05pm | “Recruiting and retaining survey participants in a university context” – Anton Du Toit Recruiting participants to a research study can be challenging. I will present data from my own primary research comparing success rates from multiple modes of recruitment. If the study is longitudinal, retaining participants until study completion is an additional challenge; data on retention rates will be presented. The implications from these data will be discussed. One way to improve recruitment and retention is to make the process more convenient for participants. Using mobile-based data collection achieves this by putting the process on a familiar and frequently used device. The capabilities and use of the mobile-based data collection platform Ethica will be described. The platform allows for branching survey designs and complex survey schedules if required. Ethica also allows collection of multiple types of data: not only surveys, but also video and audio, sensor data, and data from Bluetooth devices. | |
Day 2 Facilitator: Coralie Properjohn
Qualitative data analysis and theoryTuesday 30 November | 10:00am-12:30pm | |
| 10:00-10:05am | Welcome and housekeeping |
| 10:05-10:30am | “Gender and sexuality diverse women's experiences of cancer and cancer care” – Sam Sperring Drawing on my research into GSD women’s experiences of cancer and cancer care, this presentation will evaluate the efficacy of using visual methods, specifically, Photovoice, when conducting research with marginalised communities on sensitive topics. |
| 10:30-10:45am | “Contraception experiences, body mapping, and embodiment theory” – Susan Manners Why I selected body mapping as a method of researching contraception experiences, how body maps link with embodiment theory, and challenges/reflections in conducting body mapping online. |
| 10:45-11:10am | “Mapping the premenstrual body - Women's embodied experiences of premenstrual body dissatisfaction through body mapping” – Samantha Ryan Body dissatisfaction has been found to be highest during the premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle, however the factors involved are little understood. To examine this, I have utilised qualitative interviews and an arts-based method known as body mapping. A material-discursive-intrapsychic theoretical framework has been applied within this research in order to examine how women construct and experience their premenstrual bodies and changes to body management behaviours. |
| 11:10-11:20am | Morning Break |
| 11:20-11:35am | “Finding Your Leadership Lens” – Chris Pitt This project has examined how leadership theories need to undertake a holistic perspective to engage Indigenous populations. A mixed methods pilot study was coordinated across Indigenous Academic and Professional staff (n=10) to identify the preferred values and qualities that they aspire to see in a leader. The second stage of the project has been developing and evaluating leadership model through a mixed methods evaluation involving data collection with both non-Indigenous and Indigenous employees. |
| 11:35m-12:00pm | “A reflective journey in theory” – Colin Ellis This presentation is aimed to provide participants a brief reflective journey in how I have chosen the theory and methodology I will be using in my thesis. I will give a brief outline of each of the theories I have considered and my rationale behind these. |
Day 3 Facilitator: Moin Uddin Ahmed
Quantitative data analysis and theoryWednesday 1 December | 12:00-2:30pm | |
| 12:00-12:05pm | Welcome and housekeeping |
| 12:05-12:30pm | “The burden of diabetes-related foot disease among older adults in Australia” – Moin Uddin Ahmed Understanding of social determinants of diabetes-related foot disease (DFD) has not been definitive in Australian studies. This study aims to explore the social determinants of DFD among individuals aged 45 years and over using a representative Australian population of New South Wales (NSW). Interventional messages to reduce all forms of DFDs should target those from high-risk groups, including individuals who had diabetes for about two decades, were from English speaking countries, and were from low socioeconomic status families. |
| 12:30-12:45pm | “Panel data analysis: Fixed and Random effects using STATA” – Feleke Astawesegn Public health researchers commonly analyse datasets with multiple observations of a set of cross-sectional units over time. Units that may make up panel data series include individuals, firms or countries. This presentation aimed to discuss the basics of panel data, commonly used panel data regressions (the random effects and fixed effects regression) and the statistical tests to select the most appropriate model. |
| 12:45-1:10pm | “Geospatial modelling for health” – Kedir Yimam Ahmed Detailed subpopulation data in the era of precision public health would help efforts to further improve global health outcomes. |
| 1:10-1:20pm | Break |
| 1:20-1:35pm | “Self-help strategies to mitigate mental health issues within Arabic-speaking refugee and migrant populations globally: A Systematic Review” – Deena Mehjabeen The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic disorder is often higher within migrants and refugees than the host country general population. Structural and cultural barriers and low mental health literacy often delay or limit mental health help-seeking and service utilisation. This systematic review aims to identify self-help strategies used among Arabic-speaking migrants and refugee populations worldwide, and examine their effectiveness, cultural acceptability and the participants’ experiences. |
| 1:35-2:00pm | “Imputing a completely missing variable” – Paul Fahey We demonstrate the feasibility of adding pre-diagnosis behaviour to a cancer registry data set. We first visualise the behavioural variables as present but suffering from 100% missing data, then apply an imputation process, estimate the error in the imputed values and correct for this misclassification during the statistical analysis. Large data sets are required and results tend to have wide confidence intervals, but there are some advantages over the more common data linkage approach. |
| 2:00-2:25pm | “Maternal Health Service Utlisation in Ethiopia: Reflecting on 20 Years of Demographic and Health Survey Data” – Tensae Mekonnen My PhD research examined maternal health care of reproductive age women in Ethiopia over a period of 16 years (2000-2016), using the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) data. Specifically, the study examined the trends and determinants of antenatal, skilled delivery and postnatal care services utilisation. The analysis is generating insights to improve maternal health service utilization in Ethiopia. |
| 2:25-2:40pm | “Probabilistic Record Linkage” – Sithum Munasinghe Probabilistic record linkage is becoming popular, especially in medical research. Probabilistic linkage algorithms are used to combine multiple data source in the absence of common de-identified identifiers across multiple data sources. This presentation will demonstrate probabilistic record linkage with a real example. |
Day 4 Facilitator: Sandra Marjanovic
EthicsThursday 2 December | 2:00-4:30pm | |
| 2:00-2:05pm | Welcome and housekeeping |
| 2:05-2:20pm | “Ethics and qualitative research” – Carlos El-Haddad I have completed several research projects during my PhD candidature, each requiring a separate ethics application/process. Looking back, it may have been more helpful to submit a more complete initial ethics application to cover several projects. I will discuss this idea for future research projects. |
| 2:20-2:45pm | “Navigating the cultural interface with Aboriginal Elders” – Coralie Properjohn In this presentation I employ Nakata’s Indigenous standpoint theory and the concept of “cultural interface” to describe the space and the processes in which both Aboriginal Elders and myself, as researcher, found ourselves as we negotiated writing support letters for an Ethics application. Extracts from the letters from Aboriginal Elders and field notes are used to illustrate how all parties navigated the cultural interface individually and collectively. |
| 2:45-3:10pm | “Ethical considerations for highly sensitive research: a case study from Sri Lanka” – Piumee Bandara This presentation will cover ethical considerations such as participant recruitment, safety protocols, and maintaining confidentiality when conducting highly sensitive research (i.e., suicide, domestic violence, and child abuse) in a lower middle-income country setting. |
| 3:10-3:20pm | Afternoon break |
| 3:20-3:35pm | “Lessons learned from International Ethics applications – Sam Hogan Running through some of the experiences and lessons learned through gaining both domestic and international ethical approval for a project. |
| 3:35-4:00pm | “Children as health ambassadors: An approach to improving health, wellbeing, and learning outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and communities” – Phillip Good The five AH&MRC key principles for research with Aboriginal people refers to the individual participants total wellbeing and the total wellbeing of their community. Aboriginal health does not just mean the physical well-being of an individual but refers to the social, emotional, and cultural well-being of the whole community in which each individual is able to achieve their full potential as a human being, thereby bringing about the total well-being of their community. |
| 4:00-4:15pm | “The challenges of Reflexive Thematic Analysis” – Lucy Dahill This presentation will offer a worked example of Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) as a method used in qualitative analysis. It will touch on how we came to choose RTA as our method and if there were any limitations to its use during the analysis. |
| 4:15-4:30pm | “Recruitment: engaging community” – Cris Carriage |