GRAP Opportunity – Qualitative Analysis for the mCME Project (Gill)

Opportunity ID: 01-Gill

Project Title: The Mobile Continuing Medical Education Project (The mCME Project)

Faculty Mentor: Chris Gill

Description Statement:

In the mCME project, we propose to test the effectiveness of a mobile phone-based continuing medical education (CME) delivery strategy among Vietnamese community-based physician assistants (CBPAs), a cadre of community health workers who provide primary health care to rural and disadvantaged populations.  Effectiveness was assessed using a three-armed randomized control trial involving 660 CBPAs. At baseline and at the end of six months, all subjects will undergo a standardized exam.  We hypothesize that CBPAs who received the SMS text reminders will outscore CBPAs who did not receive reminders, and that CBPAs assigned to the ‘interactive’ mobile CME model (Group 3) will be more engaged in this activity, and outscore those assigned to the ‘passive’ mobile CME model (Group 2). We further hypothesize that the mCME strategy will be cost-effective, and incur the secondary benefits of improved job satisfaction and self-efficacy among the participants.

Qualitative assessments will be conducted in December with the same group of participants who completed the six-month intervention. These will take the form of focus group discussions and key informant interviews. We will primarily be analyzing participants’ experiences with the intervention, around such topics as utilization, technology adoption, and changes in self-efficacy.

Scope of Work:

I am looking for one student to work with me on the data analysis of the qualitative component of this study. Tasks may include the following:

  1. Reading and analyzing focus group and in-depth interview transcripts to identify key patterns or themes
  2. Using data management software such as NVivo to organize and analyze qualitative data
  3. Creating concept maps to consolidate the data and developing a qualitative code book that can be used for later data analysis
  4. Working closely with the qualitative analysis team to critically examine qualitative data and link qualitative data with quantitative results

Minimum Skills Desired:

Prior qualitative data analysis experience preferred, familiar with qualitative data analysis software (NVivo or others) or willingness to learn

Time/Date Expectations:
This work will take approximately 10 hours per week, and will begin January 2016. Specific deliverables such as the development of a qualitative codebook must be completed by March, but success with initial tasks may lead to opportunities for further involvement with the project.

Additional Material Requested: None

Number of Positions: One (1)

Logistics & Support: Biweekly meetings with the program manager and/or PI