two granddaughters when I get the chance!! I enjoy most
music except for Rap! I keep fit by jogging, walking, and bicycling(at least three times a week). I have travelled to many places and RVD the South-West U.S., but I would now like to find that special travel partner to do more travel to warm and interesting countries. I now feel it’s time to meet a nice, kind, honest woman who has some of the same interests as I do; to share the happy times, quiet times and adventures together.
Profile No. | Data Item | Initial Codes |
---|---|---|
2 | I enjoy photography, lapidary & seeking collectables in the form of classic movies & 33 1/3, 45 & 78 RPM recordings from the 1920s, ’30s & ’40s. I am retired & looking forward to travelling to Canada, the USA, the UK & Europe, China. I am unique since I do not judge a book by its cover. I accept people for who they are. I will not demand or request perfection from anyone until I am perfect, so I guess that means everyone is safe. My musical tastes range from Classical, big band era, early jazz, classic ’50s & 60’s rock & roll & country since its inception. | HobbiesFuture plans Travel Unique Values Humour Music |
At this stage, you have to make the themes. These themes should be categorised based on the codes. All the codes which have previously been generated should be turned into themes. Moreover, with the help of the codes, some themes and sub-themes can also be created. This process is usually done with the help of visuals so that a reader can take an in-depth look at first glance itself.
Now you have to take an in-depth look at all the awarded themes again. You have to check whether all the given themes are organised properly or not. It would help if you were careful and focused because you have to note down the symmetry here. If you find that all the themes are not coherent, you can revise them. You can also reshape the data so that there will be symmetry between the themes and dataset here.
For better understanding, a mind-mapping example is given here:
You need to review the themes after coding them. At this stage, you are allowed to play with your themes in a more detailed manner. You have to convert the bigger themes into smaller themes here. If you want to combine some similar themes into a single theme, then you can do it. This step involves two steps for better fragmentation.
You need to observe the coded data separately so that you can have a precise view. If you find that the themes which are given are following the dataset, it’s okay. Otherwise, you may have to rearrange the data again to coherence in the coded data.
Here you have to take into consideration all the corpus data again. It would help if you found how themes are arranged here. It would help if you used the visuals to check out the relationship between them. Suppose all the things are not done accordingly, so you should check out the previous steps for a refined process. Otherwise, you can move to the next step. However, make sure that all the themes are satisfactory and you are not confused.
When all the two steps are completed, you need to make a more précised mind map. An example following the previous cases has been given below:
Now you have to define all the themes which you have given to your data set. You can recheck them carefully if you feel that some of them can fit into one concept, you can keep them, and eliminate the other irrelevant themes. Because it should be precise and clear, there should not be any ambiguity. Now you have to think about the main idea and check out that all the given themes are parallel to your main idea or not. This can change the concept for you.
The given names should be so that it can give any reader a clear idea about your findings. However, it should not oppose your thematic analysis; rather, everything should be organised accurately.
If not, we can help. Our panel of experts makes sure to keep the 3 pillars of Research Methodology strong.
Also, read about discourse analysis , content analysis and survey conducting . we have provided comprehensive guides.
You need to make the final report of all the findings you have done at this stage. You should include the dataset, findings, and every aspect of your analysis in it.
While making the final report , do not forget to consider your audience. For instance, you are writing for the Newsletter, Journal, Public awareness, etc., your report should be according to your audience. It should be concise and have some logic; it should not be repetitive. You can use the references of other relevant sources as evidence to support your discussion.
What is meant by thematic analysis.
Thematic Analysis is a qualitative research method that involves identifying, analyzing, and interpreting recurring themes or patterns in data. It aims to uncover underlying meanings, ideas, and concepts within the dataset, providing insights into participants’ perspectives and experiences.
This post provides the key disadvantages of secondary research so you know the limitations of secondary research before making a decision.
A variable is a characteristic that can change and have more than one value, such as age, height, and weight. But what are the different types of variables?
Sampling methods are used to to draw valid conclusions about a large community, organization or group of people, but they are based on evidence and reasoning.
USEFUL LINKS
LEARNING RESOURCES
COMPANY DETAILS
The term "theme" is a small word, but it can intimidate students when they see it on an assignment or test. To overcome the fear and develop confidence, especially with regard to research papers, understand what the word means and see the parallels with any work, including poems, essays, plays, novels and movies.
A theme is a major and sometimes recurring idea, subject or topic that appears in a written work. A dominant theme usually reveals what the work is really about and can be helpful in forming insights and analysis. A theme can consist of one word, two words or more. For example, your teacher might ask you to explore the straightforward ideas of “anger” or “selfishness” or more complex themes of “emotional intelligence” or “conflicted emotions.” Either way, careful reading of the work is vital so that you can marshal examples of where the theme was apparent.
Themes in research papers might require a little digging, but they are there. Sometimes they are easier to spot when several research papers on the same subject are compared or contrasted, for this is when such subtext emerges. For example, three research papers on the subject of avid TV viewing by teenagers might contain different themes, such as simpler ideas including “passivity” or "grades" or a more complex theme, such as “effects on familial relationships.”
Once you've identified the theme of a research paper or papers, seize the opportunity and analyze it. Say that you like the idea of exploring how avid TV viewing -- more than four hours per day -- affects teens' grades. Further, suppose that researchers are in general agreement about the correlation but cast a wide net in terms of how they define “passivity.” You might set up a thematic segue for a research paper by saying, “Researchers continue to debate how to define passivity in teens and reach across the spectrum to include the number of hours per day they spend in solitude, the number of people they count as close friends and their lack of interest in hobbies and extracurricular activities.” Then you would take each of these ideas and expound in greater detail.
With education, health care and small business marketing as her core interests, M.T. Wroblewski has penned pieces for Woman's Day, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal and many newspapers and magazines. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Northern Illinois University.
Research in the fulton schools.
The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering have seven student research themes that are derived from the four main research themes:
Climate technology solutions, competitive manufacturing in an advanced economy, national and economic security, technology-enhanced health and medicine.
Derived from these themes, the student research themes were created to ensure that students are engaged in relevant, timely and important research. The themes represent prominent areas of need both nationally and globally. Research in these themes can produce real and lasting effects for the environment and the long term health of human beings across the globe.
Learn more about the Fulton Schools research themes .
Student research opportunities abound for both undergraduate and graduate students in the Fulton Schools. Two options for undergraduates are the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative , or FURI, and the Grand Challenges Scholars Program , or GCSP, among others. Master’s degree students can apply to the Master’s Opportunity for Research in Engineering , or MORE, program.
For all of these programs, research performed must fall into one of the following student research themes:
In an increasingly digital world, data collection is growing at a rapid pace. Fulton Schools faculty and student researchers are devising innovative approaches and tools that will help us better process, analyze, use, manage and access data. New computational tools, algorithms and data analysis techniques, including hardware and software approaches, machine learning, data analytics, data-driven decision-making and more will help advance scientific discoveries and collaborations across multiple fields where data use and capture is ubiquitous.
We are engaged in advancing the ways we educate engineering students. The Fulton Schools’ research focuses on learning methods, cognitive theory and best teaching practices, as well as the integration of engineering concepts in K-12 educational programs to engage students early and educate our community about the impact engineering has on everyday life.
The urgency to discover and deploy new forms of carbon-reducing energy technologies has become an indispensable part of our economic and environmental landscape. The Fulton Schools’ research in renewable and alternative energy sources is multifaceted with efforts in solar and photovoltaic energy, biotechnology, low- and high-power energy storage, power electronics, electric power systems, batteries and hydrogen fuel cells.
The Fulton Schools’ efforts in health innovation range from understanding the causes behind Alzheimer’s disease and improving methods for predicting epileptic seizures to developing advanced biosensors, bioassays and lab-on-a-chip devices for clinical diagnostics. Additional areas of research exist in novel biological materials, neural engineering, biomedical informatics, drug-delivery systems, health care systems analysis and modeling, health monitoring devices and human rehabilitation technologies.
As technology develops at a faster rate, there is a growing need to develop engineering systems to keep people and infrastructure secure, including securing cyberspace, developing secure communications, developing self-healing systems resilient to attack and identifying, monitoring and reducing threats. Fulton Schools researchers — faculty and students — are addressing issues of national defense, homeland security, border security, cyberwarfare and more, devising technology solutions as well as legal, policy and social implications.
Semiconductor devices are part of our everyday lives and the demand for techniques and processes to promote them continues to grow. Fulton Schools researchers are driving innovation forward through advances in areas such as power electronics, wireless and mixed-signal circuit design, memory devices and architectures, solar energy and batteries, advanced packaging and new semiconductor materials. Expansive industry collaborations and unique facilities at ASU center Arizona as a hub for the American semiconductor revolution.
The central thrust behind sustainability is the capacity of metropolitan areas to grow and prosper without destroying or depleting natural resources. The Fulton Schools’ research focuses on restoring and improving urban infrastructure, access to clean water and air, advanced construction techniques and management, environmental fluid dynamics, transportation planning, as well as geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering.
Students who participate in research have the opportunity to present their findings at the Fulton Forge Student Research Expo each fall and spring semester. Check out the research projects!
Home » Research Topics – Ideas and Examples
Table of Contents
Definition:
Research topic is a specific subject or area of interest that a researcher wants to investigate or explore in-depth through research. It is the overarching theme or question that guides a research project and helps to focus the research activities towards a clear objective.
You can Choose a Research Topic by following the below guide:
One of the most important factors to consider when choosing a research topic is your personal interest. This is because you will be spending a considerable amount of time researching and writing about the topic, so it’s essential that you are genuinely interested and passionate about it. Start by brainstorming a list of potential research topics based on your interests, hobbies, or areas of expertise. You can also consider the courses that you’ve enjoyed the most or the topics that have stood out to you in your readings.
Before deciding on a research topic, you need to understand what has already been written about it. Conducting a preliminary review of the existing literature in your field can help you identify gaps in knowledge, inconsistencies in findings, or unanswered questions that you can explore further. You can do this by reading academic articles, books, and other relevant sources in your field. Make notes of the themes or topics that emerge and use this information to guide your research question.
Your academic advisor or a mentor in your field can provide you with valuable insights and guidance on choosing a research topic. They can help you identify areas of interest, suggest potential research questions, and provide feedback on the feasibility of your research proposal. They can also direct you towards relevant literature and resources that can help you develop your research further.
The research topic you choose should be manageable within the time and resource constraints of your project. Be mindful of the scope of your research and ensure that you are not trying to tackle a topic that is too broad or too narrow. If your topic is too broad, you may find it challenging to conduct a comprehensive analysis, while if it’s too narrow, you may struggle to find enough material to support your research.
Discussing potential research topics with your peers or colleagues can help you generate new ideas and perspectives. They may have insights or expertise that you haven’t considered, and their feedback can help you refine your research question. You can also join academic groups or attend conferences in your field to network with other researchers and get inspiration for your research.
Choose a research topic that is relevant to your field of study and has the potential to contribute to the existing knowledge. You can consider the latest trends and emerging issues in your field to identify topics that are both relevant and interesting. Conducting research on a topic that is timely and relevant can also increase the likelihood of getting published or presenting your research at conferences.
While it’s essential to choose a research topic that aligns with your interests and expertise, you should also be open to exploring new ideas or topics that may be outside of your comfort zone. Consider researching a topic that challenges your assumptions or introduces new perspectives that you haven’t considered before. You may discover new insights or perspectives that can enrich your research and contribute to your growth as a researcher.
A research topic typically consists of several components that help to define and clarify the subject matter of the research project. These components include:
The purpose of a research topic is to identify a specific area of inquiry that the researcher wants to explore and investigate. A research topic is typically a broad area of interest that requires further exploration and refinement through the research process. It provides a clear focus and direction for the research project, and helps to define the research questions and objectives. A well-defined research topic also helps to ensure that the research is relevant and useful, and can contribute to the existing body of knowledge in the field. Ultimately, the purpose of a research topic is to generate new insights, knowledge, and understanding about a particular phenomenon, issue, or problem.
some common characteristics of a well-defined research topic include:
Here are some examples of research topics that are currently relevant and in-demand in various fields:
Here are some Research Topics Ideas from different fields:
Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer
Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.
Published on October 30, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on October 19, 2023.
The research question is one of the most important parts of your research paper , thesis or dissertation . It’s important to spend some time assessing and refining your question before you get started.
The exact form of your question will depend on a few things, such as the length of your project, the type of research you’re conducting, the topic , and the research problem . However, all research questions should be focused, specific, and relevant to a timely social or scholarly issue.
Once you’ve read our guide on how to write a research question , you can use these examples to craft your own.
Research question | Explanation |
---|---|
The first question is not enough. The second question is more , using . | |
Starting with “why” often means that your question is not enough: there are too many possible answers. By targeting just one aspect of the problem, the second question offers a clear path for research. | |
The first question is too broad and subjective: there’s no clear criteria for what counts as “better.” The second question is much more . It uses clearly defined terms and narrows its focus to a specific population. | |
It is generally not for academic research to answer broad normative questions. The second question is more specific, aiming to gain an understanding of possible solutions in order to make informed recommendations. | |
The first question is too simple: it can be answered with a simple yes or no. The second question is , requiring in-depth investigation and the development of an original argument. | |
The first question is too broad and not very . The second question identifies an underexplored aspect of the topic that requires investigation of various to answer. | |
The first question is not enough: it tries to address two different (the quality of sexual health services and LGBT support services). Even though the two issues are related, it’s not clear how the research will bring them together. The second integrates the two problems into one focused, specific question. | |
The first question is too simple, asking for a straightforward fact that can be easily found online. The second is a more question that requires and detailed discussion to answer. | |
? dealt with the theme of racism through casting, staging, and allusion to contemporary events? | The first question is not — it would be very difficult to contribute anything new. The second question takes a specific angle to make an original argument, and has more relevance to current social concerns and debates. |
The first question asks for a ready-made solution, and is not . The second question is a clearer comparative question, but note that it may not be practically . For a smaller research project or thesis, it could be narrowed down further to focus on the effectiveness of drunk driving laws in just one or two countries. |
Note that the design of your research question can depend on what method you are pursuing. Here are a few options for qualitative, quantitative, and statistical research questions.
Type of research | Example question |
---|---|
Qualitative research question | |
Quantitative research question | |
Statistical research question |
If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
Methodology
Statistics
Research bias
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
McCombes, S. (2023, October 19). 10 Research Question Examples to Guide your Research Project. Scribbr. Retrieved August 15, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-question-examples/
Other students also liked, writing strong research questions | criteria & examples, how to choose a dissertation topic | 8 steps to follow, evaluating sources | methods & examples, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".
I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”
Select your area of interest to view a collection of potential research topics and ideas.
PS – You can also check out our free topic ideation webinar for more ideas
If you’re struggling to get started, this step-by-step video tutorial will help you find the perfect research topic.
What (exactly) is a research topic.
A research topic is the subject of a research project or study – for example, a dissertation or thesis. A research topic typically takes the form of a problem to be solved, or a question to be answered.
A good research topic should be specific enough to allow for focused research and analysis. For example, if you are interested in studying the effects of climate change on agriculture, your research topic could focus on how rising temperatures have impacted crop yields in certain regions over time.
To learn more about the basics of developing a research topic, consider our free research topic ideation webinar.
A strong research topic comprises three important qualities : originality, value and feasibility.
To learn more about what makes for a high-quality research topic, check out this post .
A research topic and a research problem are two distinct concepts that are often confused. A research topic is a broader label that indicates the focus of the study , while a research problem is an issue or gap in knowledge within the broader field that needs to be addressed.
To illustrate this distinction, consider a student who has chosen “teenage pregnancy in the United Kingdom” as their research topic. This research topic could encompass any number of issues related to teenage pregnancy such as causes, prevention strategies, health outcomes for mothers and babies, etc.
Within this broad category (the research topic) lies potential areas of inquiry that can be explored further – these become the research problems . For example:
Simply put, a key difference between a research topic and a research problem is scope ; the research topic provides an umbrella under which multiple questions can be asked, while the research problem focuses on one specific question or set of questions within that larger context.
There are many steps involved in the process of finding and choosing a high-quality research topic for a dissertation or thesis. We cover these steps in detail in this video (also accessible below).
Finding quality sources is an essential step in the topic ideation process. To do this, you should start by researching scholarly journals, books, and other academic publications related to your topic. These sources can provide reliable information on a wide range of topics. Additionally, they may contain data or statistics that can help support your argument or conclusions.
Identifying Relevant Sources
When searching for relevant sources, it’s important to look beyond just published material; try using online databases such as Google Scholar or JSTOR to find articles from reputable journals that have been peer-reviewed by experts in the field.
You can also use search engines like Google or Bing to locate websites with useful information about your topic. However, be sure to evaluate any website before citing it as a source—look for evidence of authorship (such as an “About Us” page) and make sure the content is up-to-date and accurate before relying on it.
Evaluating Sources
Once you’ve identified potential sources for your research project, take some time to evaluate them thoroughly before deciding which ones will best serve your purpose. Consider factors such as author credibility (are they an expert in their field?), publication date (is the source current?), objectivity (does the author present both sides of an issue?) and relevance (how closely does this source relate to my specific topic?).
By researching the current literature on your topic, you can identify potential sources that will help to provide quality information. Once you’ve identified these sources, it’s time to look for a gap in the research and determine what new knowledge could be gained from further study.
Finding a strong gap in the literature is an essential step when looking for potential research topics. We explain what research gaps are and how to find them in this post.
When evaluating potential research topics, it is important to consider the factors that make for a strong topic (we discussed these earlier). Specifically:
So, when you have a list of potential topics or ideas, assess each of them in terms of these three criteria. A good topic should take a unique angle, provide value (either to academia or practitioners), and be practical enough for you to pull off, given your limited resources.
Finally, you should also assess whether this project could lead to potential career opportunities such as internships or job offers down the line. Make sure that you are researching something that is relevant enough so that it can benefit your professional development in some way. Additionally, consider how each research topic aligns with your career goals and interests; researching something that you are passionate about can help keep motivation high throughout the process.
When evaluating the feasibility and practicality of a research topic, it is important to consider several factors.
First, you should assess whether or not the research topic is within your area of competence. Of course, when you start out, you are not expected to be the world’s leading expert, but do should at least have some foundational knowledge.
Time commitment
When considering a research topic, you should think about how much time will be required for completion. Depending on your field of study, some topics may require more time than others due to their complexity or scope.
Additionally, if you plan on collaborating with other researchers or institutions in order to complete your project, additional considerations must be taken into account such as coordinating schedules and ensuring that all parties involved have adequate resources available.
Resources needed
It’s also critically important to consider what type of resources are necessary in order to conduct the research successfully. This includes physical materials such as lab equipment and chemicals but can also include intangible items like access to certain databases or software programs which may be necessary depending on the nature of your work. Additionally, if there are costs associated with obtaining these materials then this must also be factored into your evaluation process.
Potential risks
It’s important to consider the inherent potential risks for each potential research topic. These can include ethical risks (challenges getting ethical approval), data risks (not being able to access the data you’ll need), technical risks relating to the equipment you’ll use and funding risks (not securing the necessary financial back to undertake the research).
Private coaching might be just what you need.
MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative
MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative (Artist's Render courtesy of Igor Neminov)
by David Sweeney
June 29, 2023
The media lab is an interdisciplinary creative playground rooted squarely in academic rigor, comprising dozens of research groups, initiatives, and centers working collaboratively on hundreds of projects. we focus not only on creating and commercializing transformational future technologies, but also on their potential to impact society for good..
We categorize our work into five collective research themes: Connected Mind + Body, Cultivating Creativity, Decentralized Society, Future Worlds, and Life with AI.
The Media Lab
Connected Mind + Body | Revolutionizing the future of mental and physical wellbeing
Life with AI | Designing the future of smart systems to improve the human experience
Decentralized Society | Architecting the new internet for the good of the people
Future Worlds | Design and action for the future we want to live in
Cultivating Creativity | Catalyzing a global movement enabling everyone to unlock and unleash their individual and collective creativity
The School of Education prides itself on conducting research that seeks to challenge established borders and perspectives in Education. To this end, researchers within the School have identified a range of research themes that help inform their interests and foci. These research themes are not meant to be definitive, but instead provides insights into researchers’ interests in the domains of: learning, development and identity formation; education in the margins; the holistic embodiment of learning, and; society, ethics and how we live together. These research themes are evident in the five main research areas, in the work of specific academics, and in the specific projects that currently inform our academics' work.
Exploring human learning, intertwining cognitive, social, emotional and psychological development and identity formation.
The research in this theme explores human learning with the understanding that it is more than cognitive or academic development, but is intertwined and occurs simultaneously with social, emotional and psychological development, and identity formation. Our research considers that young people develop ‘learner identities’ in relation to and mediated by subject matter and skills, as well as other individuals and groups, both at and beyond school. These learner identities interact with a range of mediating influences that include but are not limited to school context, racial, geographic, gendered, socioeconomic, online and offline, and Indigenous ways of knowing, interacting, valuing, thinking, speaking and writing. This research also explores how teachers develop personal and professional identities mediated by their qualifications, experiences, professional learning, school context, and personal/professional goals.
Researchers in this theme interrogate and seek to develop insights into marginality in national and international education with reference to policy, practice and people. We also theoretically and pragmatically use margins as contexts for explorations of student and teacher learning and how this learning can be better supported. This is an interdisciplinary group, as members engage with marginality and marginalized groups in different education spaces, both nationally and internationally, drawing on their disciplinary perspectives from such fields as diverse as global education policy, mathematics education and language policy and practice.
Utilising unique or emerging approaches to explore learning, including through neuroscience, and post-qualitative methods.
The researchers in this theme seek to utilise unique or emerging approaches to explore learning such as holistic embodiment, more than human research methods, neuroscience/physiological responses and post qualitative methods. Learning is viewed through the lenses of contemporary methodologies (e.g. metalogue) and theories (social, critical and political theory). Improvement of knowledge and practice of research and teaching are investigated through generative dialogues, dialogic pedagogies, co-regulation and communities of practice.
The research thread of this theme relates to the ways in which educational research as praxis might contribute to a more ethical way of living together in society. Significantly, researchers in this cluster are drawn together by a bigger picture concern for the philosophical, pedagogical and political groundings of educating and education for an ethical society, and a closer to home concerns for diverse, intersectional and disadvantaged peoples who are marginalised under current conditions.
Below you can find 8 research themes that address European societal challenges. Each theme holds several research projects and opportunities. You can also create your own research (sub)theme.
Privacy concerns, growing social networks and competition in digital markets.
Peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG16) & Human Rights.
People, planet & profit, CSRD, legal compliance to (ISO) standards.
Welfare state, migration, education, democracy, population growth, poverty, ageing.
Climate change, mitigation & adaptation. Energy transition, NGOs and activism.
Life sciences, health and medicine, healthcare management and innovation, pandemic
Equality in careers, gender representation in governance, discrimination and psychological security.
Global trade (policies), international taxation, labor migration, remittances, diversity policies in companies.
Do you want to share a subtheme on your specific research topic within a broader research theme?
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Hardware & Software, Trustworthy Computing
Emerging memory and storage technologies
Embedded systems, CPS, edge computing, and mobile applications
Neuromorphic computing, deep learning and system security
Low power circuit and system
Yiran Chen received his B.S. in 1998 and M.S. in 2001 from Tsinghua University, and his Ph.D. in 2005 from Purdue University. In 2010, he joined the University of Pittsburgh as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2014, while holding the Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellowship. He is currently the John Cocke Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. He is the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) AI Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging Next-generation Networks (Athena), one of the 25 National AI Institutes in the United States, as well as the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) for Alternative Sustainable and Intelligent Computing (ASIC), and co-director of the Duke Center for Computational Evolutionary Intelligence (DCEI). His group's research focuses on new memory and storage systems, machine learning and neuromorphic computing systems, and mobile computing. He has supervised or is currently supervising, more than 60 Ph.D. students and 4 Postdocs throughout his academic career. 14 of his Ph.D. students and Postdocs have joined faculties at universities in the United States, Turkey, Hong Kong, and China, including 4 NSF CAREER Awardees.
Chen has published one book and more than 600 technical publications and has been granted 96 US patents. He has been honored with 15 paper awards, including two test-of-time awards, and the other 16 best paper nominations from international journals and conferences. He has received numerous awards for his technical contributions and professional services. He is one of only three individuals to have received Technical Achievement Awards from both the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and the Computer Society, with histories of 75 and 78 years, respectively. He has been a distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA) and Circuits and Systems Society (CASS), and a distinguished visitor of the IEEE Computer Society (CS). He is a Fellow of the AAAS, ACM, IEEE, and NAI, and currently serves as the chair of ACM SIGDA. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine from 2020 to 2023 and is the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Artificial Intelligence (TCASAI).
Chen has served as Chairman of the Board, Independent Director, and in other consultancy roles for several startups. Beyond his academic and professional pursuits, Chen is a fervent advocate for the responsible use of AI technologies and champions academic belonging, openness, freedom, and equality. He is a founding member of the steering committee of the Academic Alliance on AI Policy (AAAIP) and a member of the Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF).
Published on 16.8.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)
Authors of this article:
1 Cicely Saunders Institute, Kings College London, London, United Kingdom
2 Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
3 Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, Brighton, United Kingdom
4 Whitehall Surgery, Leeds, United Kingdom
5 NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, White Rose House, Wakefield, United Kingdom
6 Hull York Medical School, Institute of Clinical and Applied Health Research, Allam Medical Building, University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom
Matthew J Allsop, BSc, PhD, CPsychol
Leeds Institute of Health Sciences
University of Leeds
Worsley Building
Leeds, LS2 9LU
United Kingdom
Phone: 44 1133434185
Email: [email protected]
Background: Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life for people with life-limiting illnesses. Advance care planning conversations that establish a patient’s wishes and preferences for care are part of a person-centered approach. Internationally, electronic health record systems are digital interventions used to record and share patients’ advance care plans across health care services and settings. They aim to provide tools that support electronic information sharing and care coordination. Within the United Kingdom, Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems (EPaCCS) are an example of this. Despite over a decade of policy promoting EPaCCS nationally, there has been limited implementation and consistently low levels of use by health professionals.
Objective: The aim of this study is to explore the factors that influence the implementation of EPaCCS into routine clinical practice across different care services and settings in 2 major regions of England.
Methods: A qualitative interview study design was used, guided by Normalization Process Theory (NPT). NPT explores factors affecting the implementation of complex interventions and consists of 4 primary components (coherence, cognitive participation, collective action, and reflexive monitoring). Health care and social care practitioners were purposively sampled based on their professional role and work setting. Individual web-based semistructured interviews were conducted. Data were analyzed using thematic framework analysis to explore issues which affected the implementation of EPaCCS across different settings at individual, team, organizational, and technical levels.
Results: Participants (N=52) representing a range of professional roles were recruited across 6 care settings (hospice, primary care, care home, hospital, ambulatory, and community). In total, 6 themes were developed which mapped onto the 4 primary components of NPT and represented the multilevel influences affecting implementation. At an individual level, these included (1) EPaCCS providing a clear and distinct way of working and (2) collective contributions and buy-in. At a team and organizational level, these included (3) embedding EPaCCS into everyday practice and (4) championing driving implementation. At a technical level, these included (5) electronic functionality, interoperability, and access. Breakdowns in implementation at different levels led to variations in (6) confidence and trust in EPaCCS in terms of record accuracy and availability of access.
Conclusions: EPaCCS implementation is influenced by individual, organizational, and technical factors. Key challenges include problems with access alongside inconsistent use and engagement across care settings. EPaCCS, in their current format as digital advance care planning systems are not consistently facilitating electronic information sharing and care coordination. A redesign of EPaCCS is likely to be necessary to determine configurations for their optimal implementation across different settings and locations. This includes supporting health care practitioners to document, access, use, and share information across multiple care settings. Lessons learned are relevant to other forms of digital advance care planning approaches being developed internationally.
Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life for people with life-limiting illnesses through a person-centered, multidisciplinary, and holistic approach [ 1 ]. The focus on person-centeredness is reflected in health policy both within the United Kingdom and internationally [ 2 - 5 ]. Key to facilitating person-centered care in palliative services is the concept of advance care planning. This involves having planned conversations with a patient around their individual goals, wishes, and preferences for their current and future care [ 6 ]. If a person’s preferences are documented and shared, there is evidence of beneficial outcomes. Advance care planning has been associated with better quality of care, helping people to be cared for and die in their usual place of residence, and preventing unplanned hospital admissions [ 7 - 9 ]. However, other studies indicate that it has no impact on patient outcomes or quality of life [ 10 - 12 ]. Despite this uncertainty, advance care planning has been adopted by health care systems internationally as a key feature of person-centered care.
While there are benefits associated with advance care planning, delivery of palliative care requires the involvement of, and communication between, multiprofessional services across different settings of care (ie, hospice, general practice, community-based care, out-of-hours services, hospitals, emergency services, care homes, and social care) [ 13 , 14 ]. To overcome the need for information sharing across multiple health care providers and settings, electronic health record systems are increasingly being used to document and share advance care planning information. This approach has been reported across countries that include the United States [ 15 , 16 ], Australia [ 17 ], and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, the use of electronic health record systems for documenting and sharing advance care plans are called Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems, often referred to using the acronym EPaCCS.
EPaCCS emerged in response to the Department of Health’s 2008 End of Life Care Strategy, which advocated for improved coordination of care at the end of life for people with life-limiting conditions (ie, cancer and noncancer conditions, including dementia) [ 18 ]. Policy drivers for the widespread use of electronic systems (such as EPaCCS) across health and social care providers have continued to the present day [ 19 , 20 ]. This includes, for example, an expectation that care records for all people living with a long-term condition should include a person’s care needs and preferences, and should be shared with all those involved in their care [ 19 ]. The development of EPaCCS sought to overcome challenges arising through the fragmentation of health systems that can lead to patients not receiving person-centered care at the right time and in the right place [ 21 , 22 ]. This can result in patient needs not being met, unplanned and avoidable hospital admissions, and patients not being cared for, or dying in a place of their choice [ 23 - 25 ].
EPaCCS have been developed across the United Kingdom since 2008 and multiple variants have arisen. These include standalone web-based electronic registers such as Coordinate my Care which was implemented in London [ 26 ], and template forms integrated into already-existing electronic patient records, such as in Leeds [ 27 ] and the Key Information Summary in Scotland [ 28 ]. Regardless of the mode used for implementing EPaCCS locally across regions, the Palliative and End of Life Care Information Standard specifies the core content that should be recorded and shared (eg, demographic information, diagnosis, medication, advance care planning information, Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation decisions, and preferred places of care and death) [ 29 ]. The expectation is that once this information is stored, it should be possible to share across all settings involved in the delivery of palliative and end-of-life care, as well as sharing any updates on the care plan.
However, there is widespread variation with regard to how EPaCCS are implemented within local health care systems (eg, who initiates the creation of a record, which settings of care can access and edit information in EPaCCS records) [ 14 ] which has resulted in variable levels of interoperability and access [ 14 , 30 - 33 ]. In part, this may be a factor influencing the low use rates reported for EPaCCS, with 9%-43% of people with palliative care needs having an EPaCCS record created before death [ 14 , 27 , 34 , 35 ]. Alongside low use, there is uncertainty about how EPaCCS are being used in routine practice and limited evidence of their impact, inhibiting the development of an evidence base to guide how their implementation might be optimized [ 13 , 14 , 30 , 36 , 37 ]. The aim of this study was to explore health care professionals’ perspectives on factors that influence the implementation of EPaCCS in routine clinical practice across different care settings in England.
We undertook a qualitative interview study. This approach was selected as we sought to develop new insights and knowledge on a relatively understudied topic area [ 38 ]. Our study was informed by an interpretative paradigm [ 39 ]. That is, we explored the study aim from the standpoint of ontological relativism (the acceptance of multiple, mind-dependent realities) and epistemological constructionism (an appreciation that knowledge generated during data analysis and write-up reflected interpretations made collectively by the research team) [ 40 ]. We reported the research in line with the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ [consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research], see Multimedia Appendix 1 ) [ 41 ].
EPaCCS can be conceptualized as a complex intervention. This is because they comprise multiple interacting components and operate at the interface of different health care professionals, organizations, settings of care, and patients and their families [ 42 ]. Normalization Process Theory (NPT) is an implementation theory that is used to explain how complex interventions are normalized (ie, deeply embedded into, and used as part of, routine practice) [ 43 - 45 ].
In explaining the different types of “work” that people do in normalizing complex interventions, NPT consists of 4 interlinked primary constructs ( Table 1 ) [ 46 , 47 ]. We used these primary constructs of NPT as a guiding theoretical framework to guide data collection, analysis, and interpretation in understanding the factors affecting the implementation of EPaCCS into routine clinical practice.
NPT construct | Definition | Framework applied in this study |
Coherence (“sense-making work”) | “How do people work together in everyday settings to understand and plan the activities that need to be accomplished to put an intervention and its components into practice?” | The ways in which participants think about distinguishing use of digital systems from other formats for advance care planning, collectively agreeing on the purpose of EPaCCS individually understanding what EPaCCS requires of them, and constructing potential value of EPaCCS for their work. |
Cognitive participation (“relational work”) | “How do people work together to create networks of participation and communities of practice around interventions and their components?” | The ways in which participants become engaged in understanding what they need to do and support for EPaCCS to be sustained, influencing how EPaCCS use can be sustained, adapting to EPaCCS to support use by themselves and others, and supporting others’ engagement with EPaCCS. |
Collective action (“operational work”) | “How do people work together to enact interventions and their components?” | The ways in which participants perform the tasks required for EPaCCS to support advance care planning, build accountability and maintain confidence in the use of EPaCCS, understand the appropriateness of existing roles and responsibilities relating to EPaCCS use, and view the resources and organizational support for EPaCCS use. |
Reflexive monitoring (“appraisal work”) | “How do people work together to appraise interventions and their components?” | The ways in which participants appraise the effects of EPaCCS, themselves and with colleagues understand whether EPaCCS are operating well, individually understand and respond to the impact of EPaCCS, and modify their work in response to their appraisal of EPaCCS. |
a Definitions derived from May et al (2022) [ 46 ].
b How definitions of NPT constructs were “in the simplest possible terms” [ 48 ] and applied to data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
c EPaCCS: Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems.
Recruitment took place in 2 UK regions in London (population circa 9 million) and West Yorkshire (population circa 2.3 million). Participants comprised a subsample of respondents to an earlier survey who had agreed to be contacted for follow-up interviews. In West Yorkshire, EPaCCS comprise a template that is embedded within a patient’s electronic record, generally in the electronic record system used by primary care providers that can share information across different care settings within a defined geographical area. Within London, at the time of this study, the most used EPaCCS system was “Coordinate My Care” (CMC). This was a standalone system (eg, it operated outside routinely used patient records), and enabled patients to access their own records [ 14 ]. Since the conception of this study, it has been superseded by an EPaCCS system called “Universal Care Plan.”
Participants were initially selected using purposive maximum variation sampling to gather the widest range of perspectives [ 49 ]. This entailed sampling participants based on specific criteria (geographical location, professional role, setting of care, and levels of understanding of or engagement with EPaCCS based on previous survey responses). The logic underpinning this approach was to explore our research aim from diverse perspectives [ 49 ]. We worked across primary, secondary, and tertiary care settings in purposefully recruiting doctors, nurses, care home staff, paramedics, and general practitioners. Difficulties in recruitment, however, meant that we supplemented our recruitment approach with convenience sampling using the same criteria.
Participants were approached via email and provided with a participant information sheet. A combination of verbal and written informed consent was obtained, either by AB or JB, prior to interviews being conducted. Recruitment ran concurrently with data collection between November 2021 and June 2022. The concept of “information power” [ 50 ] was used to guide decisions on when to halt recruitment and data collection. This entailed several meetings during which research team members (AB, JB, MT, MA, CE, and KS) considered whether and when data collected from our sample held enough relevant and detailed information to comprehensively understand our research aim.
Single, web-based interviews were conducted by 1 of 2 researchers, both of whom had prior experience in qualitative interviewing [AB (male, research fellow) and JB (female, research fellow)]. The topic guide (provided in Multimedia Appendix 2 ) comprised questions about how participants used EPaCCS, alongside the factors that they perceived affected their implementation. During development, these questions were mapped onto the 4 primary constructs of NPT. Interviews were audio recorded, anonymized, and transcribed verbatim. All participant personal data were stored in a secure cloud storage platform within password-protected files. These data were only accessible to, shared between, and used by members of the research team, using data-sharing agreements.
Interview data were managed using NVivo (version 12; Lumivero) [ 51 ] and analyzed using thematic Framework analysis [ 52 ]. The 4 primary constructs of NPT were used as the theoretical framework to guide the coding and interpretation of data. Data analysis included moving between induction and deduction. We first used NPT to deductively build our initial analytic framework and then supplemented this through inductive coding in which we explored how patterns grounded in the data related to and enriched our analytic framework. Analysis consisted of seven iterative steps: (1) familiarization (through rereading transcripts), (2) coding (by labeling relevant segments of transcripts that aligned with our research aims), (3) creation of an initial analytic framework (by grouping similar codes into categories and categories into themes), (4) indexing (by applying our analytic framework back to raw data and refining it where appropriate), (5) charting (by creating a matrix that explored differences in data across region, role, and setting of care), (6) description (through defining and describing themes), and (7) interpretation (using our theoretical framework to further interpret our findings through the write-up of data). This approach allowed us to conduct within- and between-case pattern matching to explore where participant accounts on the use and implementation of EPaCCS converged or diverged, and how this was influenced by contextual factors (ie, setting, region, and role). Data analysis was led by AB, with fortnightly meetings between authors (AB, JB, MT, and MJA) to review the ongoing coding and analysis.
Multiple approaches were used to ensure rigor during data analysis. Throughout data collection and analysis, the researchers engaged in different forms of reflexivity. This included reflecting introspectively (inward reflections on how they impacted the research process and vice versa) and intersubjectively (reflections on relationships between them and participants) [ 53 ]. These were used as a “springboard for interpretations and more general insight” into the ways through which understandings of the research aim were being co-constructed through the research process, including analysis [ 53 ]. This included regular discussions with JB, who shared data collection and who was familiar with the data corpus. Moreover, throughout the analytical process, members of the wider interdisciplinary research team (consisting of academics and clinicians with experience in palliative care research and practice from across care settings including hospital, community, and primary care) acted as “critical friends” [ 54 ]. This entailed working collaboratively through regular meetings and written feedback in which findings were constructively challenged, reflexivity encouraged, and alternative interpretations of the data proposed. This process took place until the research team agreed that the final analytic framework accurately reflected participant accounts.
The North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee approved the research (reference 21/PR/0428). In this study, we also recognized ethics as a reflexive process through engaging in “ethics in practice” [ 55 ]. This approach was used to remain responsive to and navigate ongoing and potentially unexpected ethical issues that may have arisen throughout data collection, analysis, and write-up (eg, by reflecting on how the research might affect professionals’ clinical practice and potential impact on patients and carers). All participants provided written consent prior to participating in the study. Before analysis, all interview transcripts were deidentified and stored on a secure cloud storage platform only accessible to the study team. Organizations in which participants were based were offered reimbursement of £75 (US $95.91) for allowing a professional to participate in the study. The level of the incentive payment was based on the cost of 1 hour of a locum doctor in the United Kingdom and was agreed upon by the research ethics committee and study funder.
A total of 52 people (characterized in Table 2 ) participated out of the 99 people approached for interview participated (characterized in Table 2 ), from London (n=29) and West Yorkshire (n=23). These participants represented a range of different professionals who work across hospice, primary care, care home, hospital, and community settings.
Six themes were developed and are represented under the corresponding constructs of NPT (coherence, cognitive participation, collective action, and reflexive monitoring). Figure 1 provides an overview of these main themes.
London | West Yorkshire | Total | ||
29 | 23 | 52 | ||
Hospice | 8 | 4 | 12 | |
Primary care | 7 | 5 | 12 | |
Care home | 5 | 4 | 9 | |
Hospital | 5 | 3 | 8 | |
Ambulance | 3 | 3 | 6 | |
Community nurse | 1 | 4 | 5 | |
Registered nurse | 6 | 7 | 13 | |
Care home | 4 | 3 | 6 | |
Community | 1 | 4 | 5 | |
Hospital | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
General practitioner | 7 | 5 | 12 | |
Palliative care consultant | 6 | 4 | 13 | |
Paramedic | 3 | 3 | 6 | |
Clinical Nurse Specialist | 4 | 1 | 5 | |
Care home manager | 1 | 2 | 3 |
For a complex intervention to be normalized, it needs to be understood as a clear and distinct way of working that enhances patient care. In the case of EPaCCS, this required health care professionals to appreciate how adding all relevant advance care planning information onto a single digital platform allowed for easier sharing among organizations. Across all settings of care, however, participants did not always see how EPaCCS enhanced patient care and outcomes compared to traditional channels of communication. These included using paper-based discharge summaries, cover letters, face-to-face conversations, emails, and telephone for direct communication of advance care plans across settings:
I don’t think it [EPaCCS] changes much in terms of our GP engagement with patients … our primary channel of communication is telephone, face to face, perhaps email and EPaCCS doesn’t sort of sit with any of those. Our primary function really is to provide the clinical care and record that clinical care and those are traditional methods of doing that. EPaCCS is an add-on, and I think because it’s an add-on, it’s not the primary form of communication. [Lon18, GP, London]
Participants working in care homes across London and West Yorkshire reported using a range of different electronic patient record systems for documenting their residents’ care plans. These systems facilitated the documentation of patient wishes and preferences that could be easily accessed, reviewed, and updated internally by care home staff. Some electronic record systems used in care homes were also capable of integrating and sharing data with other systems across different settings, but this was often limited to those in general practice and not on the scale envisaged by EPaCCS:
The electronic care plan system that we are using, it’s something called PCS, so Person Centred Software. You can do your usual stuff like you said, day-to-day care notes and things like that. There also with PCS, the party piece it has is something called GP connect … with PCS if you do kind of speak with them, they are able to kind of merge certain systems together with their [other healthcare settings’] system … as far as I know PCS works with all of them [WY12&WY13, care home managers, West Yorkshire]
Theme 2: embedding epaccs into everyday practice.
The service-wide embedding of EPaCCS into everyday practice varied and was partly influenced by the extent to which they were an integral part of everyday care processes, structures, and settings. In some contexts, entire services had no access to EPaCCS. Where EPaCCS were present and accessible across multiple settings, implementation was still thwarted because they were not used consistently by some health care professionals:
it can be like an easy thing to do and I think it gets ingrained in your normal kind of process of doing a patient’s notes … but I think when people just don’t know about it or don’t know how to access it, it then becomes, it seems more of a challenge to actually set one up whereas once you’ve got used to it, it just becomes part of your normal routine first assessment, set up CMC and then it’s done. [Lon5, hospice community doctor, London]
Some participants reported that EPaCCS were integrated into everyday clinical routines. In these instances, EPaCCS were referred to as being “part of what we do” [WY2, community/hospice, West Yorkshire]. This included ensuring that EPaCCS management was integrated into key care processes such as initial assessments, caseload reviews, admission and discharge planning, multidisciplinary team meetings, handover sheets, and standard operating procedures:
Whenever we take on a new patient onto the caseload, we will do our level best to have a conversation about the current EPaCCS system we use, which is Coordinate My Care, to get consent to put people on that system … it’s very much part of our mantra, it’s something that we do … We talk about Coordinate My Care at our weekly multidisciplinary team meetings, so we ask people to check that people are on there and if they’re not, we try and think of a plan to get somebody on there. [Lon26, hospice consultant nurse, London]
Participants across all professional groups in both regions reflected on the role of colleagues who championed the use of EPaCCS. Champions were typically individuals who had been given dedicated time within their role to promote implementation and who encouraged staff engagement with EPaCCS. Champions used a range of approaches including offering peer support, taking active roles in teaching and education, presenting the potential benefits of EPaCCS, and keeping them present or “in view” in everyday clinical practice:
Having local champions who are just, [I] don’t want to say checking, but just ensuring that locally they’re being completed, that they’re demonstrating a difference. You know, there’s no point doing it if it’s not demonstrating any benefit really is there? [WY2, community/hospice consultant, West Yorkshire]
There were examples where engaging staff in the use of EPaCCS and learning how different systems work was described as a “constant recurring battle” [Lon06, hospital Clinical Nurse Specialist, London] that required time, dedication, and energy. This view was particularly present in hospital settings and the challenge was mainly attributed to high staff turnover. Different staff meant that the same messages and training had to be repeated continuously for EPaCCS to remain a priority for teams. However, such training did not always translate into increases in health professional use:
The reality is, I think that EPaCCS is underused, but generally across the hospital. That's why I have to be out there doing education and encouragement… it's continually education, trial, training, nudging, pushing to get them to use it because, a level of busyness, a churn of staff, you know they’re churning staff all the time, they’re coming from different Trusts who are not used to SystmOne, never mind EPaCCS, so it's a continual, continual, continual thing and training [WY7, hospital nurse, West Yorkshire]
Theme 4: collective contributions and buy-in.
Collective contributions referred to the extent to which health care professionals across settings of care contributed to the creation, sharing, updating, and use of EPaCCS records to inform care. Underpinning collective contributions was the degree to which health care professionals “bought into” EPaCCS by seeing them as a legitimate part of their role or as supporting the work of others. There was a general agreement that EPaCCS needed “buy-in from everyone - not just palliative care teams – for it to work ” [WY2, consultant, community/hospice consultant, West Yorkshire]. Despite this, health care professionals working in specialist palliative care were often the ones creating and updating EPaCCS records.
Participants had different perceptions in terms of the skills and capacity of professionals across different care settings to support advance care planning. Some felt that staff working in specialist palliative care were best placed to initiate sensitive conversations about advance care planning and end-of-life choices. Others reflected that although they believed health care professionals working outside of palliative care settings could broach advance care planning conversations, they did not always have the confidence to do so. Indeed, participant accounts suggested that when palliative care services were not involved in a patient’s care, this led to a general lack of clarity over who should do what, when, and how, which often resulted in the ad hoc creation of records.
If they’re working in specialist palliative care, most of those people will have those skills [for advance care planning]. If we then look at people who don’t deal exclusively with palliative care but see a lot of it, so district nurses, elderly medicine doctors, general practitioners, I think there is a lot of skill there. There’s not always the skill and there’s often a gap in confidence to apply the skills that people have … when people don’t have the skills and confidence, that first conversation where we seek, where we explain to the patient where they are in their illness and the fact that they’re in a palliative phase of their illness and seeking consent to use an EPaCCS doesn’t happen [WY6, hospice, West Yorkshire]
…in [our] Community Trust we’ve also got a respiratory service who are involved with people that are end stage of respiratory failure and we also have heart failure nurses and diabetic nurse specialists, and you know, those sorts of questions are talked about with patients often. But what we’re trying to do as a service in palliative care [non-specialist palliative care in Community Nurse Team] is encourage that to be done because it isn’t done as much as it should be really. You know when people are actually reaching sort of end-stage heart failure but yet nobody’s actually spoken to them about their wishes at the end of life. They feel it’s not their responsibility. [WY9, community nurse, West Yorkshire]
A concern among participants working in general practice was that it was difficult to contribute to EPaCCS because they did not always fit with their existing ways of working. Given the time constraints and competing priorities in general practice, accessing an EPaCCS record and then conducting and documenting advance care planning conversations was often seen as unmanageable and unrealistic:
we’ve only got a 10- or 15-minute window to see that patient for their current problem, so we don’t bother to update the CMC after just because of sheer time. So, unless you’re having a special CMC kind of session and you’ve dedicated a bit of time to go and do a home visit on someone or you’ve planned it in that you’re going to update the CMC and those wishes and concerns etc, that’s only when it really gets touched by the GP practice. [Lon16, GP, London]
Conversely, paramedics with access in London were likely to use EPaCCS records, typically because it helped decision-making around the urgent management of patients that they were hitherto unfamiliar with:
…we use it just as part of our decision making … I would say it’s a big part of my role… in the main bulk of my role which is in an ambulance setting I use it all the time, it’s second nature and it’s very valuable. [Lon29, paramedic, London]
At a technical level, the integration of EPaCCS within existing electronic systems was important to their implementation. However, according to participants, this process of integration had not always occurred. Across most care settings in London, participants were frustrated that CMC was not seamlessly interoperable with existing electronic patient record systems. This lack of technical interoperability (ie, basic data exchange capabilities between systems) created a restrictive process that resulted in additional work because health care professionals had to remember (and frequently update) log-in details and enter duplicate information across different systems:
Coordinate My Care for us is a completely separate system … it doesn’t pull data from the current electronic system, you still have to kind of manually enter the patient’s name, address, NHS number … it is extra work … that kind of influence[s] how detailed a care record might be. Sometimes we will just put on the basic information that you think’s important … if it was integrated into a current kind of electronic system then I guess it would just make it easier. [Lon5, hospice community doctor, London]
In services across West Yorkshire, problems were caused by the fact that EPaCCS were embedded within several different electronic health record systems. However, because no mechanism in place allowed for the sharing of information between these systems, health care professionals could not always access relevant information from EPaCCS records when they needed it:
In this area a lot of folks were using SystmOne and we use EMIS … So, they [hospice services] can’t see what we’ve done on our system and it’s a bit messy … I know EPaCCS is supposed to be a document that everyone can access and fill in, but you can’t, ours is just on our system and ‘cos no one else can fill it in or see what’s been changed that’s where it falls down…. it is stupid that you can’t share an EPaCCS with anyone, it seems like a bit pointless [WY17, GP, West Yorkshire]
Participants across different regions and settings reflected on the potential value of EPaCCS as a tool that could facilitate the coordination of care. Others reflected on first-hand experiences of how EPaCCS were valuable in the context of crisis and out-of-hours care. In particular, paramedics who had access felt that EPaCCS provided vital information needed to effectively support person-centered decision-making with people whom they did not know:
If I saw a CMC for example where it was recorded that the patient had a preference for treatment care in the home, that would make it much more likely that I would dispatch one of my colleagues because we already know that that is the patient’s preferences and so as far as possible, we’re going to work to make that happen … End of life care pushes against the normal direction of paramedic care, [the] normal direction of paramedic care is rescue, save … end of life care obviously isn’t about life-saving, it’s about dignified death, symptom control management. It’s a change of thinking and so a lot of paramedics struggle with that, and I think they will look for anything that will help them guide them in that process and I think CMC is one that people are very familiar with using and generally find quite helpful. [Lon29, paramedic, London]
I’ve worked with the ambulance service in the time before it [EPaCCS] was standard practice and I would say it’s such a necessity now that we’ve got it, if we lost it I think it would literally be like losing my hand … it cuts out awkward conversations and it also cuts out us doing something that may be an issue would be against their wishes … it takes that anxiety or the uncertainty out of the what are we going to do and see what’s best for this patient. [Lon28, paramedic, London]
However, other professionals reported that EPaCCS records were sometimes of poor quality and that there were frequent problems with accessing the system. Consequently, this reduced their confidence that EPaCCS records contained sufficiently up-to-date information to support decision-making. Concerns were not about the potential of EPaCCS to improve care but regarding implementation issues such as restricted access, shareability, and inconsistent use of these records by staff. There was a fear that such problems could lead to patients receiving interventions and treatments that were against their stated and recorded wishes and preferences. This was particularly the case for paramedics who, without access to records, were more likely to make risk-averse decisions to hospitalize patients in the absence of knowing their wishes:
I can tell you categorically that we have not acted in the patient’s best interest … I’ll have taken somebody into hospital without my knowledge that [they have] an end-of-life care plan somewhere [WY21, paramedic, West Yorkshire]
This study explored factors that influenced the implementation of EPaCCS in routine clinical practice across different care settings in 2 major regions of England. It identifies and elaborates on challenges around the implementation of EPaCCS, including problems with access, and inconsistent use and engagement across settings. A key issue was technological limitations, with separate electronic health records often operating in parallel systems or failing to provide sufficient documentation or access. Such problems have led to the potential value of EPaCCS being unrealized.
Guided by sociotechnical systems theory [ 56 ], Figure 2 summarizes these issues by highlighting how interactions between the individual, team, organizational, and technical dimensions of EPaCCS affected implementation. The content of this figure is grounded in the data. It was generated inductively through highlighting relationships between each of our themes alongside how they related to different levels of practice. This allowed us to move beyond description by explaining linkages between themes and bringing them together in a way that tells an overarching story of health care professionals’ perspectives on the processes that influenced the implementation of EPaCCS.
A key theme in this study was that limited buy-in and collective contributions to the creation, initiation, and use of EPaCCS across care settings affected implementation. Previous research has primarily used quantitative approaches to explore EPaCCS implementation, such as determining the proportion of EPaCCS records created across a specified population, and the average number of days that EPaCCS records are created before death [ 27 , 34 ]. However, our findings add novel and unique contributions by describing who initiates EPaCCS records, the factors that influence this, and the differences across regions. While some general practitioners and community nurses reported recording advance care planning discussions electronically, our study also highlights contributions made by health care professionals working across specialist palliative care settings. For some participants, providers of specialist palliative care were perceived as being better placed to initiate advance care planning conversations. A referral of a patient to specialist palliative care was perceived as affording greater time to interact with patients and other staff groups, alongside their experience in facilitating advance care planning discussions with patients and their families.
Participant experiences resonate with previously documented challenges related to advance care planning such as perceived lack of time, hesitancy in initiating conversations, and lack of care continuity [ 57 - 59 ]. Lack of clarity over who contributed to records and the timing of these contributions often resulted in poor-quality data. Such issues led to fears that EPaCCS records were incomplete or out of date, with some records being overly detailed or conversely, insufficiently informative to effectively support decision-making in out-of-hours or emergency care. The successful implementation of interventions that work across organizations (such as EPaCCS) relies on “whole systems” thinking [ 35 ]. Such implementation entails those involved in the use and implementation of EPaCCS (including commissioners and those responsible for service [re]design) accounting for the needs and influence of people working across different care settings and specialties.
In this study, care home staff reported having detailed discussions regarding residents’ wishes and preferences for care and documenting these within their own electronic systems. This aligns with previous research that the close relationships between care home staff and residents mean that staff are also well placed to have the sensitive and in-depth conversations required for advance care planning [ 60 ]. In this study, while electronic systems were reported to be used and engaged across care homes, the information contained within them was mostly inaccessible to external services. Care homes were also largely unable to access or provide helpful and detailed information from EPaCCS that could be used by other services. This highlights a key gap in the “whole systems” approach to EPaCCS. Addressing this gap is especially important given that care homes are projected to be the most common place of death in England by 2040 [ 61 ].
The implementation of EPaCCS at the individual, team, and organizational levels was affected by wider technological challenges. Issues related to the technical dimensions of EPaCCS have been well documented in the literature [ 13 , 30 , 33 , 36 ]. However, this study provides novel findings relating to health professional experiences of EPaCCS, further strengthened by its collection of data across 2 large geographical regions. This study builds on previous work and contributes details of how and why issues with access, functionality, and technical interoperability (ie, data integration, presentation, and exchange) [ 62 ] affected the implementation of EPaCCS across the United Kingdom. In London, challenges were experienced around the ability to move data between EPaCCS and existing electronic patient record systems (and vice versa) without duplication. Across West Yorkshire, a major interoperability issue was the failure of different electronic patient record systems to exchange advance care planning information. Moreover, while paramedics were most likely to use information within EPaCCS records in London to support decision-making in crisis contexts, they did not have this access across West Yorkshire. While these interoperability limitations affected health care professionals in different ways, they ultimately hindered the harnessing of the electronic information sharing and care coordination that EPaCCS is intended for.
Our findings highlight implications for practice relating to the use and implementation of electronic systems for palliative and end-of-life care. For complex interventions like EPaCCS to become normalized into everyday practice, they must fit within and enhance established systems of care [ 63 ]. It is also crucial that users can see their benefits to patient care and clinical practice compared to traditional ways of working [ 64 , 65 ]. However, these findings suggest that, in their current format, EPaCCS are not working as intended for facilitating person-centered care. Implementation challenges which resulted in missed opportunities to deliver care in line with recorded patient wishes, sometimes led to a loss of trust and confidence in EPaCCS, instead staff opted for more traditional means of communication and a return to traditional communication methods. Consequently, a redesign of EPaCCS is likely to be necessary to achieve the optimal configuration for successful implementation across different settings of care and geographical locations. To this end, we have generated a set of questions focusing on factors that were found to be influencing the uptake and use of EPaCCS across different settings of care (see Table 3 ).
Level of action | Relevant to | Questions to consider |
Individual or user | Professionals across settings of care involved in the creation, updating, reviewing, and use of electronic information sharing systems to inform decision-making | |
Team or organizational | Team leaders and service management | |
Technical or structural | Commissioners and policy makers |
While this study was conducted within England and discussed within the policy context of the United Kingdom, the policy implications have international relevance. The global strategy on digital health from the World Health Organization calls for the implementation of functional and interoperable electronic health records that can contribute to informed decision-making and high-quality, person-centered care [ 66 ]. Our findings highlight factors to consider when developing electronic systems for use in the delivery of palliative and end-of-life care. The questions presented in Table 3 , therefore, are likely to have relevance to policy makers and practitioners seeking to use and implement similar complex digital interventions (including electronic information-sharing systems) across multiple country and health care contexts. With increasing governmental policies on the development and implementation of health information technologies within the United Kingdom [ 62 ], these questions can guide efforts in the context of palliative and end-of-life care.
A strength and novelty of this work lies in the adoption of NPT to explain the processes across different levels of the health care system which affected whether and how EPaCCS were normalized into everyday practice. Through recruiting a wide range of health care professionals, across 5 settings of care, and 2 major regions within the United Kingdom, naturalistic generalizations [ 67 ] may be made from this work. That is, the findings of this study are likely to resonate with the personal experiences of healthcare professionals who use EPaCCS and similar health information technologies across end-of-life settings. We highlight 4 study limitations. First, we struggled to recruit community nurses across London, meaning that the application of study findings to this professional group is likely to be limited. Second, this study only sought the perspectives of health care professionals. Future research should explore patients' preferences on the content, sharing, and accessibility of their electronic records, alongside the impact of such digital interventions on the patient experience and clinical outcomes. Third, in line with other studies [ 68 ] throughout analysis, we found that the technical language of NPT and the overlapping of its components made deductively coding and interpreting data using this theoretical framework challenging. Fourth, we also appreciate that constructs comprising NPT focus on specific factors that influenced the implementation of EPaCCS in routine practice. Other implementation theories, models, and frameworks (eg, the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research [ 69 ], Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services [ 70 ], Capability, Opportunity, Motivation and Behaviour Theory [ 71 ]) may have provided different, yet equally valuable insights into answering the research question.
The successful implementation of digital interventions into routine care depends on the extent to which they enhance established ways of working with minimal disruption. EPaCCS represents just 1 approach to the electronic sharing of advance care plans, and other forms of digital advance care planning exist internationally. Integral to the implementation of digital advance care planning systems for palliative care is ensuring they can allow health care practitioners to document, access, use, and share information across multiple care settings. There also needs to be an effort at individual, team, and organizational levels to make sure that these tools are embedded into everyday care practices. It is paramount that they are championed within and between services, and that people know when, how, and why to use them. Commissioners, health care services, and practitioners should consider these multilevel factors when planning and rolling out digital advance care planning approaches.
This study is funded by the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research Programme (NIHR129171). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. MA is a University Academic Fellow, funded through a research fellowship from Yorkshire Cancer Research. We wish to acknowledge Dr Samantha Coster, our colleague at King's College London, for her support and guidance in editing this article. This manuscript is published on behalf of the wider Optimal Care project team. Members of the team who are not included as authors on this manuscript but who were coapplicants and made significant contributions to the conceptualization and design of the project include Prof Michael Bennett (University of Leeds) and Dr Samuel Relton (University of Leeds, United Kingdom). We would also like to extend specific acknowledgment and recognition of our patient and public involvement lead for the Optimal Care project, Mrs Barbara Hibbert, who supported the development of project plans, formed our patient involvement group and facilitated inclusive and insightful patient and public involvement group meetings.
Deidentified transcripts generated and analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
MJA is the grant holder and Chief Investigator and was responsible for study conceptualization and development of the study protocol, with critical input from grant coapplicants, SR, RF, MT, KES, CJE, PC, and PMM. AB and JB conducted interviews with study participants. Analysis was led by AB and conducted with critical input and supervision from JB, MT, and MA. All authors had access to all study data, discussed the interpretation of findings, take responsibility for data integrity and analysis, contributed to the analysis plan, and provided critical comments and contributed to the writing and development of the manuscript. All authors reviewed the final manuscript. Artificial Intelligence was not used to generate any portions of the submitted manuscript.
This study is funded by the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research Programme (NIHR129171). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. KES is the Laing Galazka chair at King’s College London, funded through an endowment from Cicely Saunders International and the Kirby Laing Foundation. MJA is a University Academic Fellow, funded through a research fellowship from Yorkshire Cancer Research. RF receives funding from the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research and is chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Implementation Strategy Group. We wish to acknowledge Dr Samantha Coster, our colleague at King's College London, for her support and guidance in editing this article. This manuscript is published on behalf of the wider Optimal Care project team. Members of the team who are not included as authors on this manuscript but who were coapplicants and made significant contributions to the conceptualization and design of the project include Prof Michael Bennett (University of Leeds) and Dr Samuel Relton (University of Leeds, United Kingdom). We would also like to extend specific acknowledgment and recognition of our patient and public involvement lead for the Optimal Care project, Mrs Barbara Hibbert, who supported the development of project plans, formed our patient involvement group and facilitated inclusive and insightful patient and public involvement group meetings.
COREQ (consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research) checklist.
Interview topic guide.
Coordinate My Care |
consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research |
Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems |
Normalization process theory |
Edited by A Mavragani; submitted 23.06.23; peer-reviewed by C Laranjeira, T Phenwan; comments to author 14.09.23; revised version received 18.10.23; accepted 30.05.24; published 16.08.24.
©Andy Bradshaw, Jacqueline Birtwistle, Catherine J Evans, Katherine E Sleeman, Suzanne Richards, Robbie Foy, Pablo Millares Martin, Paul Carder, Matthew J Allsop, Maureen Twiddy. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 16.08.2024.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (ISSN 1438-8871), is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
Robot expert Sooyeon Jeong and her lab work to make robots a force for good in human life and society. (Purdue University photo/Rebecca Robinos)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —
To face the world’s most pressing challenges, Purdue University has committed its signature strengths in science and technology to creating a leading research and education program in physical AI — the application of artificial intelligence to our physical world.
Here’s just a sample of the work coming out of the many hubs across campus.
AI is a foundational component of the Institute for Physical Artificial Intelligence , a Purdue Computes initiative.
First law of robotics: i, for one, welcome our new robot … health care providers.
Sooyeon Jeong, assistant professor of computer science, works in artificial intelligence to ensure that robots are more friendly helpers to humans and less inscrutable interlopers, more R2-D2 than HAL, more Baymax than Terminator.
From designing robots that socialize with hospitalized children to virtual agents helping Latinas with breast cancer in the Greater Lafayette and Chicago areas, Jeong’s projects all seek to ensure robots are doing the most good possible.
“As robots become more available in people’s daily lives, we need to make sure they’re helping in real ways, long term, in the real world,” Jeong said.
Watch (2:45): The complexities of humor make it difficult to teach conversational AI to be as humanlike as possible, says Julia Rayz, associate head of the Department of Computer and Information Technology at Purdue Polytechnic Institute.
With a new machine learning algorithm, Purdue engineers have made progress in figuring out how AI could improve monitoring and control systems overseeing small modular reactors (SMRs). The algorithm can rapidly learn about the physics behind a measurement of how steadily a reactor is producing power and predict changes in this indicator over time with 99% accuracy.
The discovery points to ways that AI might help cut the costs of operation and maintenance for SMRs so they can be more economically viable.
(Fun fact: The study was conducted using a “digital twin” of the PUR-1 reactor at Purdue. This is the first and only reactor in the U.S. licensed with a fully digital instrumentation and control system.)
Scientists in biomedical engineering have developed machine learning techniques to closely analyze a person’s wrist tremors, determining if patterns are the result of normal aging or a diagnosable disorder.
Reliably distinguishing normal age-related hand and wrist tremors from those caused by disorders would improve diagnosis, treatment and quality of care in older adults. And because a person’s shakiness can be affected by medications, blood sugar or sleep, being able to reliably assess natural versus disordered patterns of movement with the human eye proves tricky.
Dimensions of discovery: ipai special edition.
A special edition of the Office of Research’s monthly newsletter highlights the breadth of artificial intelligence research taking place across IPAI at Purdue, including discussions of governance and responsible AI , the use of AI in accelerating drug discovery , and an autonomous space station maintenance bot.
Purdue, Dominican Republic enter agreement to drive semiconductor growth
July 2, 2024
Purdue and leading microelectronics industry association SEMI partner to bolster semiconductor education
June 26, 2024
Engineers develop faster, more accurate AI algorithm for improving nuclear reactor performance
June 25, 2024
Can science make it too costly for hackers to attempt to steal information?
June 11, 2024
“voices of the counterculture” is available to view in the michelle smith performing arts library through the fall 2024 semester.
This summer, students in the First-Year Innovation and Research Experience (FIRE) summer program led by Dr. Elizabeth Massey, the assistant clinical professor who leads FIRE’s Music and Social Identity stream, worked with Special Collections in Performing Arts (SCPA) in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library and Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) in Hornbake Library to research and create an exhibit titled “Voices of the Counterculture,” focused on social and cultural themes from the 1970s.
Through their research and exploration process, the students identified five key themes of the decade: the Vietnam War, the burgeoning movement for LGBTQ+ rights, the contributions of Black artists and activists, youth activism, and psychedelic drugs. Then, with the help of SCPA Program Manager Ben Jackson, University Archivist Natalie Trapuzzano, and other UMD Libraries faculty and staff, they dug through UMD Libraries’ special collections, selecting posters, magazines, photographs, fanzines and other memorabilia reflecting those themes at UMD and nationally. The “High Week” advertisement shown on the poster for the exhibition is from the University of Maryland Posters and Broadsides collection within University Archives and highlights the agenda for new student orientation in 1970.
“We’re always looking for new ways for SCPA’s collections to be used for new creative work, especially by members of the campus community that have had limited experience working with archival collections,” said Jackson. “Getting to see a group of students experience wonder as they sifted through records and fliers was fulfilling in its own right, but all the more so as they channeled that awe into their own research and curation. Even though the themes of the exhibit are familiar to many, because their work began with and centered the primary sources unique to our campus special collections and archives, the insights were based on new evidence and represent novel contributions to scholarship. Which is to say, the students were able to learn from and became personally invested in our collections through open access and the freedom to follow their own curiosity and passion.”
Read more about this exhibit in Maryland Today.
Chat With Us!
Interface of change year 1 seed awards.
August 15, 2024
August 15, 2024
BATON ROUGE, LA - School of Kinesiology Director and Karen Wax Schmitt and Family Endowed Professor John Nauright presented and led the feature session on The Enhanced Games at the International Network of Doping Research Conference on August 15-16. The theme of the conference was “Pushing Boundaries in Enhancement.” He presented his work Beyond Scapegoats: Money, Doping and the Myth of the Level Playing Field in Sports , which explored the cases of Romanian gymnast Andrea Răducan, Russian ice skater Kamila Valieva, and recent discussions about Chinese swimmers.
In his paper, Nauright concludes that “The International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and other international federations repeatedly fail to live up to their self-described ideals as they find just enough “scapegoats” to reassure the public that their values being protected by defending a “level playing field” that we all know does not exist. Why should we continue to support a system that is willing to scapegoat children such as Andrea Răducan and Kamila Valieva as cheats to protect a puritanical system that does not exist in reality?
Nauright and other conference presenters participated in a round table discussion entitled WADA in Crisis. As the international doping regulatory body, WADA has become omnipresent in the creation of a banned substance list and the control and punishment of athletes.
Nauright is a member of The International Network of Doping Research (INDR), established in 2002. The INDR intends to share and encourage research on doping practices in their broadest cultural, social, and political dimensions. Members are only invited to join after publishing multiple research papers on issues related to doping and sport.
The College of Human Sciences & Education (CHSE) is a nationally accredited division of Louisiana State University. The college comprises the School of Education, the School of Information Studies, the School of Kinesiology, the School of Leadership & Human Resource Development, and the School of Social Work. CHSE has two model demonstration schools: the Early Childhood Education Laboratory Preschool, which enrolls birth to age four, and the University Laboratory School, which enrolls kindergarten through grade 12. The college also has four centers and institutes: the Early Childhood Education Institute, the Healthy Aging Research Center, the Leadership Development Institute, and the Social Research & Evaluation Center. The college is committed to achieving the highest standards in teaching, research, and service and improving quality of life across the lifespan.
Visit the College of Human Sciences & Education website.
The LSU School of Kinesiology (SOK) advances the understanding of physical activity, sport, and health to optimize the quality of life for diverse populations through excellence in teaching, learning, discovery, and engagement. SOK offers a BS, MS, Online MS, PhD, and two certificate options. Graduates go on to successful careers in the health and fitness industry, corporate wellness, sports agencies and businesses, athletic administration, and K-12 educational settings. SOK is part of the College of Human Sciences & Education.
Visit the School of Kinesiology website.
LSU Media Relations
POPULAR SEARCHES:
IMAGES
COMMENTS
Identification of themes that connect with the theory determines the contribution of research. Themes should be far away from the description of any facet of the context. Themes should be closer to explaining the endogenous constructs of a research. Further, often the contribution of a qualitative case study research (QCSR) emerges from the 'extension of a theory' or 'developing deeper ...
Thematic analysis is a method of analyzing qualitative data (e.g. interviews). Follow these 6 steps to find and describe themes in your data.
Your research theme positively states the qualities you will work toward. Some examples follow. "For students to value friendship, develop their own perspectives and ways of thinking, and enjoy science.". "Develop social-emotional skills and…a deeper understanding of mathematics". "Across both math and language arts, develop our ...
Tutorials and Fundamentals This is the first of a three-part blog which will provide an introduction to Thematic analysis and discussion of what a theme is (part 1), a description of the three schools of TA and some study design recommendations (part 2), and an outline of the six phases of reflexive TA (part 3). A list of key reference sources is also provided.
Techniques are compared. on six dimensions: (1) appropriateness for data types, (2) required labor, (3) required expertise, (4) stage of analysis, (5) number and types of themes to be gener-. ated ...
Looking for stellar, easy research paper topics? Check out our list of good research topics and paper-writing tips to help you get started.
This study provides a six-step theme analysis technique based on their methodology for researchers to employ in developing a conceptual model of their findings. This involves keeping an eye out for phenomena as data is being collected, brainstorming potential codes and themes, and making initial statements that will be refined into a final model.
This article supports evaluators who are new to qualitative data analysis. We start by defining thematic analysis, then give you a 5-step process to complete your own analysis. We end the article by highlighting some common challenges with thematic analysis.
Themes are at the heart of any qualitative research approach. Themes cannot be observed as they are perceptions, experiences, feelings, values and emotions residing in the minds of participants ...
Thematic Analysis is a qualitative research method that involves identifying, analyzing, and interpreting recurring themes or patterns in data. It aims to uncover underlying meanings, ideas, and concepts within the dataset, providing insights into participants' perspectives and experiences.
A theme is a major and sometimes recurring idea, subject or topic that appears in a written work. A dominant theme usually reveals what the work is really about and can be helpful in forming insights and analysis. A theme can consist of one word, two words or more. For example, your teacher might ask you to explore the straightforward ideas of ...
The ASU Engineering student research themes include data, education, energy, health, security, semiconductor manufacturing and sustainability.
Research Topic. Definition: Research topic is a specific subject or area of interest that a researcher wants to investigate or explore in-depth through research. It is the overarching theme or question that guides a research project and helps to focus the research activities towards a clear objective.
Learn how to turn a weak research question into a strong one with examples suitable for a research paper, thesis or dissertation.
Find the perfect research topic for your dissertation or thesis. Get the FREE list of 1000+ research ideas plus our proposal template!
We focus not only on creating and commercializing transformational future technologies, but also on their potential to impact society for good. We categorize our work into five collective research themes: Connected Mind + Body, Cultivating Creativity, Decentralized Society, Future Worlds, and Life with AI. Credit: The Media Lab.
The UCLA Cardiovascular Research Theme's mission is to pioneer innovation and discovery to prevent, detect and cure cardiovascular diseases. Born out of a joint mission of the UCLA Health System and DGSOM to collaboratively study and promote equitable health care. 70+ faculty members with the core mission of expanding our knowledge of immune ...
These research themes are not meant to be definitive, but instead provides insights into researchers' interests in the domains of: learning, development and identity formation; education in the margins; the holistic embodiment of learning, and; society, ethics and how we live together. These research themes are evident in the five main ...
Besides identifying indigenous themes—themes that characterize the experience of informants—researchers are interested in understanding how textual data illuminate questions of importance to social science.
ASU Engineering research themes Our five-year research impact themes are driving investigation and discovery across the Fulton Schools.
Theme/topic identification. Most fundamental tasks in research to identify a them e. A research theme is a proble m whose solutions are being sought. Either Experimen tal or theoretical methods ...
Research Themes. Below you can find 8 research themes that address European societal challenges. Each theme holds several research projects and opportunities. You can also create your own research (sub)theme.
Research Themes. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Hardware & Software, Trustworthy Computing. Research Interests. Emerging memory and storage technologies
In total, 6 themes were developed which mapped onto the 4 primary components of NPT and represented the multilevel influences affecting implementation. At an individual level, these included (1) EPaCCS providing a clear and distinct way of working and (2) collective contributions and buy-in.
AI and theme parks (3:41) Chris Rogers, a Purdue associate professor and director of the Computer Graphics Technology program in Indianapolis, explains new attractions announced by major theme parks. He also shares how AI technology and devices are already being used to customize the visitor experience, and ways parks are harnessing artificial ...
Style choices are an important dimension of culture and are often used to demonstrate individualism or belonging to a group. This column uses over 14 million images from high school yearbooks to track cultural change in the US over space and time. Style characteristics of men and women converged from the 1960s onwards, driven by higher individualism and lower style persistence for males ...
Themes should be far away from the description of any facet of the context. Themes should be closer to explaining the endogenous constructs of a research. Further, often the contribution of a qualitative case study research (QCSR) emerges from the 'extension of a theory' or 'developing deeper understanding—fresh meaning of a phenomenon'.
This summer, students in the First-Year Innovation and Research Experience (FIRE) summer program led by Dr. Elizabeth Massey, the assistant clinical professor who leads FIRE's Music and Social Identity stream, worked with Special Collections in Performing Arts (SCPA) in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library and Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) in Hornbake Library to ...
The Alaska NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Interface of Change project is soliciting proposals for seed grants from researchers, students, and project partners to carry out new and innovative research projects that support Interface of Change goals. Seed award projects should address themes relevant to the EPSCoR "Interface of Change" project.
School of Kinesiology Director and Karen Wax Schmitt and Family Endowed Professor John Nauright presented and led the feature session on The Enhanced Games at the International Network of Doping Research Conference on August 15-16. The theme of the conference was "Pushing Boundaries in Enhancement." He presented his work Beyond Scapegoats: Money, Doping and the Myth of the Level Playing ...