qualitative research presentation template

[Guide] How to Present Qualitative Research Findings in PowerPoint?

By: Author Shrot Katewa

As a researcher, it is quite pointless to do the research if we are unable to share the findings with our audience appropriately! Using PowerPoint is one of the best ways to present research outcomes. But, how does one present qualitative research findings using PowerPoint?

In order to present the qualitative research findings using PowerPoint, you need to create a robust structure for your presentation, make it engaging and visually appealing, present the patterns with explanations for it and highlight the conclusion of your research findings.

In this article, we will help you understand the structure of your presentation. Plus, we’ll share some handy tips that will make your qualitative research presentation really effective!

How to Create a Structure for your Qualitative Research Presentation?

Creating the right structure for your presentation is key to ensuring that it is correctly understood by your audience.

The structure of your Research Presentation not only makes it easier for you to create the document, it also makes it simple for the audience to understand what all will be covered in the presentation at the time of presenting it to your audience.

Furthermore, having a robust structure is a great way to ensure that you don’t miss out on any of the points while working on creating the presentation.

But, what structure should one follow?

Creating a good structure can be tricky for some. Thus, I’m sharing what has worked well for me during my previous research projects.

NOTE – It is important to note that although the following structure is highly effective for most research findings presentation, it has been generalized in order to serve a wide range of research projects. You may want to take a look at points that are very specific to the nature of your research project and include them at your discretion.

Here’s my recommended structure to create your Research Findings presentation –

1. Objective of the Research

A great way to start your presentation is to highlight the objective of your research project.

It is important to remember that merely sharing the objective may sometimes not be enough. A short backstory along with the purpose of your research project can pack a powerful punch ! It not only validates the reasoning for your project but also subtly establishes trust with your audience.

However, do make sure that you’re not reading the backstory from the slide. Let it flow naturally when you are delivering the presentation. Keep the presentation as minimalistic as possible.

2. Key Parameters Considered for Measurement

Once you’ve established the objective, the next thing that you may want to do is perhaps share the key parameters considered for the success of your project.

Every research project, including qualitative research, needs to have a few key parameters to measure against the objective of the research.

For example – If the goal of your project is to gather the sentiments of a certain group of people for a particular product, you may need to measure their feelings. Are they happy or unhappy using the product? How do they perceive the branding of the product? Is it affordable?

Make sure that you list down all such key parameters that were considered while conducting the qualitative research.

In general, laying these out before sharing the outcome can help your audience think from your perspective and look at the findings from the correct lens.

3. Research Methodology Adopted

The next thing that you may want to include in your presentation is the methodology that you adopted for conducting the research.

By knowing your approach, the audience can be better prepared for the outcome of your project. Ensure that you provide sound reasoning for the chosen methodology.

This section of your presentation can also showcase some pictures of the research being conducted. If you have captured a video, include that. Doing this provides further validation of your project.

4. Research Outcomes (Presenting Descriptive Analysis)

qualitative research presentation template

This is the section that will constitute the bulk of the your presentation.

Use the slides in this section to describe the observations, and the resulting outcomes on each of the key parameters that were considered for the research project.

It is usually a good idea to dedicate at least 1 or more slides for each parameter . Make sure that you present data wherever possible. However, ensure that the data presented can be easily comprehended.

Provide key learnings from the data, highlight any outliers, and possible reasoning for it. Try not to go too in-depth with the stats as this can overwhelm the audience. Remember, a presentation is most helpful when it is used to provide key highlights of the research !

Apart from using the data, make sure that you also include a few quotes from the participants.

5. Summary and Learnings from the Research

Once you’ve taken the audience through the core part of your research findings, it is a good practice to summarize the key learnings from each of the section of your project.

Make sure your touch upon some of the key learnings covered in the research outcome of your presentation.

Furthermore, include any additional observations and key points that you may have had which were previously not covered.

The summary slide also often acts as “Key Takeaways” from the research for your audience. Thus, make sure that you maintain brevity and highlight only the points that you want your audience to remember even after the presentation.

6. Inclusions and Exclusions (if any)

While this can be an optional section for some of the researchers.

However, dedicating a section on inclusions and exclusions in your presentation can be a great value add! This section helps your audience understand the key factors that were excluded (or included) on purpose!

Moreover, it creates a sense of thoroughness in the minds of your audience.

7. Conclusion of the Research

The purpose of the conclusion slide of your research findings presentation is to revisit the objective, and present a conclusion.

A conclusion may simply validate or nullify the objective. It may sometimes do neither. Nevertheless, having a conclusion slide makes your presentation come a full circle. It creates this sense of completion in the minds of your audience.

8. Questions

Finally, since your audience did not spend as much time as you did on the research project, people are bound to have a few questions.

Thus, the last part of your presentation structure should be dedicated to allowing your audience to ask questions.

Tips for Effectively Presenting Qualitative Research Findings using PowerPoint

For a presentation to be effective, it is important that the presentation is not only well structured but also that it is well created and nicely delivered!

While we have already covered the structure, let me share with you some tips that you can help you create and deliver the presentation effectively.

Tip 1 – Use Visuals

Using visuals in your presentation is a great way to keep the presentations engaging!

Visual aids not only help make the presentation less boring, but it also helps your audience in retaining the information better!

So, use images and videos of the actual research wherever possible. If these do not suffice or do not give a professional feel, there are a number of resources online from where you can source royalty-free images.

My recommendation for high-quality royalty-free images would be either Unsplash or Pexels . Both are really good. The only downside is that they often do not provide the perfect image that can be used. That said, it can get the job done for at least half the time.

If you are unable to find the perfect free image, I recommend checking out Dreamstime . They have a huge library of images and are much cheaper than most of the other image banks. I personally use Dreamstime for my presentation projects!

Tip 2 – Tell a Story (Don’t Show Just Data!)

I cannot stress enough on how important it is to give your presentation a human touch. Delivering a presentation in the form of a story does just that! Furthermore, storytelling is also a great tool for visualization .

Data can be hard-hitting, whereas a touching story can tickle the emotions of your audience on various levels!

One of the best ways to present a story with your research project is to start with the backstory of the objective. We’ve already talked about this in the earlier part of this article.

Start with why is this research project is so important. Follow a story arc that provides an exciting experience of the beginning, the middle, and a progression towards a climax; much like a plot of a soap opera.

Tip 3 – Include Quotes of the Participants

Including quotes of the participants in your research findings presentation not only provides evidence but also demonstrates authenticity!

Quotes function as a platform to include the voice of the target group and provide a peek into the mindset of the target audience.

When using quotes, keep these things in mind –

1. Use Quotes in their Unedited Form

When using quotes in your presentation, make sure that you use them in their raw unedited form.

The need to edit quotes should be only restricted to aid comprehension and sometimes coherence.

Furthermore, when editing the quotes, make sure that you use brackets to insert clarifying words. The standard format for using the brackets is to use square brackets for clarifying words and normal brackets for adding a missing explanation.

2. How to Decide which Quotes to Consider?

It is important to know which quotes to include in your presentation. I use the following 3 criteria when selecting the quote –

Relevance – Consider the quotes that are relevant, and trying to convey the point that you want to establish.
Length – an ideal quote should be not more than 1-2 sentences long.
Choose quotes that are well-expressed and striking in nature.

3. Preserve Identity of the Participant

It is important to preserve and protect the identity of the participant. This can be done by maintaining confidentiality and anonymity.

Thus, refrain from using the name of the participant. An alternative could be using codes, using pseudonyms (made up names) or simply using other general non-identifiable parameters.

Do note, when using pseudonyms, remember to highlight it in the presentation.

If, however, you do need to use the name of the respondent, make sure that the participant is okay with it and you have adequate permissions to use their name.

Tip 4 – Make your Presentation Visually Appealing and Engaging

It is quite obvious for most of us that we need to create a visually appealing presentation. But, making it pleasing to the eye can be a bit challenging.

Fortunately, we wrote a detailed blog post with tips on how to make your presentation attractive. It provides you with easy and effective tips that you can use even as a beginner! Make sure you check that article.

7 EASY tips that ALWAYS make your PPT presentation attractive (even for beginners)

In addition to the tips mentioned in the article, let me share a few things that you can do which are specific to research outcome presentations.

4.1 Use a Simple Color Scheme

Using the right colors are key to make a presentation look good.

One of the most common mistakes that people make is use too many colors in their presentation!

My recommendation would be to go with a monochromatic color scheme in PowerPoint .

4.2 Make the Data Tables Simple and Visually Appealing

When making a presentation on research outcomes, you are bound to present some data.

But, when data is not presented in a proper manner, it can easily and quickly make your presentation look displeasing! The video below can be a good starting point.

Using neat looking tables can simply transform the way your presentation looks. So don’t just dump the data from excel on your PowerPoint presentation. Spend a few minutes on fixing it!

4.3 Use Graphs and Charts (wherever necessary)

When presenting data, my recommendation would be that graphs and charts should be your first preference.

Using graphs or charts make it easier to read the data, takes less time for the audience to comprehend, and it also helps to identify a trend.

However, make sure that the correct chart type is used when representing the data. The last thing that you want is to poorly represent a key piece of information.

4.4 Use Icons instead of Bullet Points

Consider the following example –

This slide could have been created just as easily using bullet points. However, using icons and representing the information in a different format makes the slide pleasing on the eye.

Thus, always try to use icons wherever possible instead of bullet points.

Tip 5 – Include the Outliers

Many times, as a research project manager, we tend to focus on the trends extracted from a data set.

While it is important to identify patterns in the data and provide an adequate explanation for the pattern, it is equally important sometimes to highlight the outliers prominently.

It is easy to forget that there may be hidden learnings even in the outliers. At times, the data trend may be re-iterating the common wisdom. However, upon analyzing the outlier data points, you may get insight into how a few participants are doing things successfully despite not following the common knowledge.

That said, not every outlier will reveal hidden information. So, do verify what to include and what to exclude.

Tip 6 – Take Inspiration from other Presentations

I admit, making any presentation can be a tough ask let alone making a presentation for showcasing qualitative research findings. This is especially hard when we don’t have the necessary skills for creating a presentation.

One quick way to overcome this challenge could be take inspiration from other similar presentations that we may have liked.

There is no shame in being inspired from others. If you don’t have any handy references, you can surely Google it to find a few examples.

One trick that almost always works for me is using Pinterest .

But, don’t just directly search for a research presentation. You will have little to no success with it. The key is to look for specific examples for inspiration. For eg. search for Title Slide examples, or Image Layout Examples in Presentation.

Tip 7 – Ask Others to Critic your Presentation

The last tip that I would want to provide is to make sure that you share the presentation with supportive colleagues or mentors to attain feedback.

This step can be critical to iron out the chinks in the armor. As research project manager, it is common for you to get a bit too involved with the project. This can lead to possibilities wherein you miss out on things.

A good way to overcome this challenge is to get a fresh perspective on your project and the presentation once it has been prepared.

Taking critical feedback before your final presentation can also prepare you to handle tough questions in an adept manner.

Final Thoughts

It is quite important to ensure that we get it right when working on a presentation that showcases the findings of our research project. After all, we don’t want to be in a situation wherein we put in all the hard-work in the project, but we fail to deliver the outcome appropriately.

I hope you will find the aforementioned tips and structure useful, and if you do, make sure that you bookmark this page and spread the word. Wishing you all the very best for your project!

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Presenting Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research Resources: Presenting Qualitative Research

Created by health science librarians.

What is Qualitative Research?
Qualitative Research Basics
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Training Opportunities: UNC & Beyond
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Qualitative Software for Coding/Analysis
Software for Audio, Video, Online Surveys
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Writing Up Your Research
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Publishing Qualitative Research

Presenting Qualitative Research, with a focus on posters

Qualitative & Libraries: a few gems
Data Repositories

Example posters

The Meaning of Work for People with MS: a Qualitative Study A good example with quotes
Fostering Empathy through Design Thinking Among Fourth Graders in Trinidad and Tobago Includes quotes, photos, diagrams, and other artifacts from qualitative study
Examining the Use and Perception of Harm of JUULs by College Students: A Qualitative Study Another interesting example to consider
NLM Informationist Supplement Grant: Daring to Dive into Documentation to Determine Impact An example from the Carolina Digital Repository discussed in a class more... less... Allegri, F., Hayes, B., & Renner, B. (2017). NLM Informationist Supplement Grant: Daring to Dive into Documentation to Determine Impact. https://doi.org/10.17615/bk34-p037
Qualitative Posters in F1000 Research Archive (filtered on "qualitative" in title) Sample qualitative posters
Qualitative Posters in F1000 Research Archive (filtered on "qualitative" in keywords) Sample qualitative posters

Michelle A. Krieger Blog (example, posts follow an APA convention poster experience with qualitative posters):

Qualitative Data and Research Posters I
Qualitative Data and Research Posters II

"Oldies but goodies":

How to Visualize Qualitative Data: Ann K. Emery, September 25, 2014 Data Visualization / Chart Choosing, Color-Coding by Category, Diagrams, Icons, Photographs, Qualitative, Text, Timelines, Word Clouds more... less... Getting a little older, and a commercial site, but with some good ideas to get you think.
Russell, C. K., Gregory, D. M., & Gates, M. F. (1996). Aesthetics and Substance in Qualitative Research Posters. Qualitative Health Research, 6(4), 542–552. Older article with much good information. Poster materials section less applicable.Link is for UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated users.

Additional resources

CDC Coffee Break: Considerations for Presenting Qualitative Data (Mark D. Rivera, March 13, 2018) PDF download of slide presentation. Display formats section begins on slide 10.
Print Book (Davis Library): Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook, 3rd edition From Paul Mihas, Assistant Director of Education and Qualitative Research at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at UNC: Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (4th ed.) by Miles, Huberman, and Saldana has a section on Displaying the Data (and a chapter on Designing Matrix, Network, and Graphic Displays) that can help students consider numerous options for visually synthesizing data and findings. Many of the suggestions can be applied to designing posters (April 15, 2021).
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Chapter 20. Presentations

Introduction.

If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a qualitative study is conducted, but it is not presented (in words or text), did it really happen? Perhaps not. Findings from qualitative research are inextricably tied up with the way those findings are presented. These presentations do not always need to be in writing, but they need to happen. Think of ethnographies, for example, and their thick descriptions of a particular culture. Witnessing a culture, taking fieldnotes, talking to people—none of those things in and of themselves convey the culture. Or think about an interview-based phenomenological study. Boxes of interview transcripts might be interesting to read through, but they are not a completed study without the intervention of hours of analysis and careful selection of exemplary quotes to illustrate key themes and final arguments and theories. And unlike much quantitative research in the social sciences, where the final write-up neatly reports the results of analyses, the way the “write-up” happens is an integral part of the analysis in qualitative research. Once again, we come back to the messiness and stubborn unlinearity of qualitative research. From the very beginning, when designing the study, imagining the form of its ultimate presentation is helpful.

Because qualitative researchers are motivated by understanding and conveying meaning, effective communication is not only an essential skill but a fundamental facet of the entire research project. Ethnographers must be able to convey a certain sense of verisimilitude, the appearance of true reality. Those employing interviews must faithfully depict the key meanings of the people they interviewed in a way that rings true to those people, even if the end result surprises them. And all researchers must strive for clarity in their publications so that various audiences can understand what was found and why it is important. This chapter will address how to organize various kinds of presentations for different audiences so that your results can be appreciated and understood.

In the world of academic science, social or otherwise, the primary audience for a study’s results is usually the academic community, and the primary venue for communicating to this audience is the academic journal. Journal articles are typically fifteen to thirty pages in length (8,000 to 12,000 words). Although qualitative researchers often write and publish journal articles—indeed, there are several journals dedicated entirely to qualitative research [1] —the best writing by qualitative researchers often shows up in books. This is because books, running from 80,000 to 150,000 words in length, allow the researcher to develop the material fully. You have probably read some of these in various courses you have taken, not realizing what they are. I have used examples of such books throughout this text, beginning with the three profiles in the introductory chapter. In some instances, the chapters in these books began as articles in academic journals (another indication that the journal article format somewhat limits what can be said about the study overall).

While the article and the book are “final” products of qualitative research, there are actually a few other presentation formats that are used along the way. At the very beginning of a research study, it is often important to have a written research proposal not just to clarify to yourself what you will be doing and when but also to justify your research to an outside agency, such as an institutional review board (IRB; see chapter 12), or to a potential funder, which might be your home institution, a government funder (such as the National Science Foundation, or NSF), or a private foundation (such as the Gates Foundation). As you get your research underway, opportunities will arise to present preliminary findings to audiences, usually through presentations at academic conferences. These presentations can provide important feedback as you complete your analyses. Finally, if you are completing a degree and looking to find an academic job, you will be asked to provide a “job talk,” usually about your research. These job talks are similar to conference presentations but can run significantly longer.

All the presentations mentioned so far are (mostly) for academic audiences. But qualitative research is also unique in that many of its practitioners don’t want to confine their presentation only to other academics. Qualitative researchers who study particular contexts or cultures might want to report back to the people and places they observed. Those working in the critical tradition might want to raise awareness of a particular issue to as large an audience as possible. Many others simply want everyday, nonacademic people to read their work, because they think it is interesting and important. To reach a wide audience, the final product can look like almost anything—it can be a poem, a blog, a podcast, even a science fiction short story. And if you are very lucky, it can even be a national or international bestseller.

In this chapter, we are going to stick with the more basic quotidian presentations—the academic paper / research proposal, the conference slideshow presentation / job talk, and the conference poster. We’ll also spend a bit of time on incorporating universal design into your presentations and how to create some especially attractive and impactful visual displays.

Researcher Note

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given about conducting qualitative research?

The best advice I’ve received came from my adviser, Alford Young Jr. He told me to find the “Jessi Streib” answer to my research question, not the “Pierre Bourdieu” answer to my research question. In other words, don’t just say how a famous theorist would answer your question; say something original, something coming from you.

—Jessi Streib, author of The Power of the Past and Privilege Lost

Writing about Your Research

The journal article and the research proposal.

Although the research proposal is written before you have actually done your research and the article is written after all data collection and analysis is complete, there are actually many similarities between the two in terms of organization and purpose. The final article will (probably—depends on how much the research question and focus have shifted during the research itself) incorporate a great deal of what was included in a preliminary research proposal. The average lengths of both a proposal and an article are quite similar, with the “front sections” of the article abbreviated to make space for the findings, discussion of findings, and conclusion.

Figure 20.1 shows one model for what to include in an article or research proposal, comparing the elements of each with a default word count for each section. Please note that you will want to follow whatever specific guidelines you have been provided by the venue you are submitting the article/proposal to: the IRB, the NSF, the Journal of Qualitative Research . In fact, I encourage you to adapt the default model as needed by swapping out expected word counts for each section and adding or varying the sections to match expectations for your particular publication venue. [2]

You will notice a few things about the default model guidelines. First, while half of the proposal is spent discussing the research design, this section is shortened (but still included) for the article. There are a few elements that only show up in the proposal (e.g., the limitations section is in the introductory section here—it will be more fully developed in the conclusory section in the article). Obviously, you don’t have findings in the proposal, so this is an entirely new section for the article. Note that the article does not include a data management plan or a timeline—two aspects that most proposals require.

It might be helpful to find and maintain examples of successfully written sections that you can use as models for your own writing. I have included a few of these throughout the textbook and have included a few more at the end of this chapter.

Make an Argument

Some qualitative researchers, particularly those engaged in deep ethnographic research, focus their attention primarily if not exclusively on describing the data. They might even eschew the notion that they should make an “argument” about the data, preferring instead to use thick descriptions to convey interpretations. Bracketing the contrast between interpretation and argument for the moment, most readers will expect you to provide an argument about your data, and this argument will be in answer to whatever research question you eventually articulate (remember, research questions are allowed to shift as you get further into data collection and analysis). It can be frustrating to read a well-developed study with clear and elegant descriptions and no argument. The argument is the point of the research, and if you do not have one, 99 percent of the time, you are not finished with your analysis. Calarco ( 2020 ) suggests you imagine a pyramid, with all of your data forming the basis and all of your findings forming the middle section; the top/point of the pyramid is your argument, “what the patterns in your data tell us about how the world works or ought to work” ( 181 ).

The academic community to which you belong will be looking for an argument that relates to or develops theory. This is the theoretical generalizability promise of qualitative research. An academic audience will want to know how your findings relate to previous findings, theories, and concepts (the literature review; see chapter 9). It is thus vitally important that you go back to your literature review (or develop a new one) and draw those connections in your discussion and/or conclusion. When writing to other audiences, you will still want an argument, although it may not be written as a theoretical one. What do I mean by that? Even if you are not referring to previous literature or developing new theories or adapting older ones, a simple description of your findings is like dumping a lot of leaves in the lap of your audience. They still deserve to know about the shape of the forest. Maybe provide them a road map through it. Do this by telling a clear and cogent story about the data. What is the primary theme, and why is it important? What is the point of your research? [3]

A beautifully written piece of research based on participant observation [and/or] interviews brings people to life, and helps the reader understand the challenges people face. You are trying to use vivid, detailed and compelling words to help the reader really understand the lives of the people you studied. And you are trying to connect the lived experiences of these people to a broader conceptual point—so that the reader can understand why it matters. ( Lareau 2021:259 )

Do not hide your argument. Make it the focal point of your introductory section, and repeat it as often as needed to ensure the reader remembers it. I am always impressed when I see researchers do this well (see, e.g., Zelizer 1996 ).

Here are a few other suggestions for writing your article: Be brief. Do not overwhelm the reader with too many words; make every word count. Academics are particularly prone to “overwriting” as a way of demonstrating proficiency. Don’t. When writing your methods section, think about it as a “recipe for your work” that allows other researchers to replicate if they so wish ( Calarco 2020:186 ). Convey all the necessary information clearly, succinctly, and accurately. No more, no less. [4] Do not try to write from “beginning to end” in that order. Certain sections, like the introductory section, may be the last ones you write. I find the methods section the easiest, so I often begin there. Calarco ( 2020 ) begins with an outline of the analysis and results section and then works backward from there to outline the contribution she is making, then the full introduction that serves as a road map for the writing of all sections. She leaves the abstract for the very end. Find what order best works for you.

Presenting at Conferences and Job Talks

Students and faculty are primarily called upon to publicly present their research in two distinct contexts—the academic conference and the “job talk.” By convention, conference presentations usually run about fifteen minutes and, at least in sociology and other social sciences, rely primarily on the use of a slideshow (PowerPoint Presentation or PPT) presentation. You are usually one of three or four presenters scheduled on the same “panel,” so it is an important point of etiquette to ensure that your presentation falls within the allotted time and does not crowd into that of the other presenters. Job talks, on the other hand, conventionally require a forty- to forty-five-minute presentation with a fifteen- to twenty-minute question and answer (Q&A) session following it. You are the only person presenting, so if you run over your allotted time, it means less time for the Q&A, which can disturb some audience members who have been waiting for a chance to ask you something. It is sometimes possible to incorporate questions during your presentation, which allows you to take the entire hour, but you might end up shorting your presentation this way if the questions are numerous. It’s best for beginners to stick to the “ask me at the end” format (unless there is a simple clarifying question that can easily be addressed and makes the presentation run more smoothly, as in the case where you simply forgot to include information on the number of interviews you conducted).

For slideshows, you should allot two or even three minutes for each slide, never less than one minute. And those slides should be clear, concise, and limited. Most of what you say should not be on those slides at all. The slides are simply the main points or a clear image of what you are speaking about. Include bulleted points (words, short phrases), not full sentences. The exception is illustrative quotations from transcripts or fieldnotes. In those cases, keep to one illustrative quote per slide, and if it is long, bold or otherwise, highlight the words or passages that are most important for the audience to notice. [5]

Figure 20.2 provides a possible model for sections to include in either a conference presentation or a job talk, with approximate times and approximate numbers of slides. Note the importance (in amount of time spent) of both the research design and the findings/results sections, both of which have been helpfully starred for you. Although you don’t want to short any of the sections, these two sections are the heart of your presentation.

Fig 20.2. Suggested Slideshow Times and Number of Slides

Should you write out your script to read along with your presentation? I have seen this work well, as it prevents presenters from straying off topic and keeps them to the time allotted. On the other hand, these presentations can seem stiff and wooden. Personally, although I have a general script in advance, I like to speak a little more informally and engagingly with each slide, sometimes making connections with previous panelists if I am at a conference. This means I have to pay attention to the time, and I sometimes end up breezing through one section more quickly than I would like. Whatever approach you take, practice in advance. Many times. With an audience. Ask for feedback, and pay attention to any presentation issues that arise (e.g., Do you speak too fast? Are you hard to hear? Do you stumble over a particular word or name?).

Even though there are rules and guidelines for what to include, you will still want to make your presentation as engaging as possible in the little amount of time you have. Calarco ( 2020:274 ) recommends trying one of three story structures to frame your presentation: (1) the uncertain explanation , where you introduce a phenomenon that has not yet been fully explained and then describe how your research is tackling this; (2) the uncertain outcome , where you introduce a phenomenon where the consequences have been unclear and then you reveal those consequences with your research; and (3) the evocative example , where you start with some interesting example from your research (a quote from the interview transcripts, for example) or the real world and then explain how that example illustrates the larger patterns you found in your research. Notice that each of these is a framing story. Framing stories are essential regardless of format!

A Word on Universal Design

Please consider accessibility issues during your presentation, and incorporate elements of universal design into your slideshow. The basic idea behind universal design in presentations is that to the greatest extent possible, all people should be able to view, hear, or otherwise take in your presentation without needing special individual adaptations. If you can make your presentation accessible to people with visual impairment or hearing loss, why not do so? For example, one in twelve men is color-blind, unable to differentiate between certain colors, red/green being the most common problem. So if you design a graphic that relies on red and green bars, some of your audience members may not be able to properly identify which bar means what. Simple contrasts of black and white are much more likely to be visible to all members of your audience. There are many other elements of good universal design, but the basic foundation of all of them is that you consider how to make your presentation as accessible as possible at the outset. For example, include captions whenever possible, both as descriptions on slides and as images on slides and for any audio or video clips you are including; keep font sizes large enough to read from the back of the room; and face the audience when you are.

Poster Design

Undergraduate students who present at conferences are often encouraged to present at “poster sessions.” This usually means setting up a poster version of your research in a large hall or convention space at a set period of time—ninety minutes is common. Your poster will be one of dozens, and conference-goers will wander through the space, stopping intermittently at posters that attract them. Those who stop by might ask you questions about your research, and you are expected to be able to talk intelligently for two or three minutes. It’s a fairly easy way to practice presenting at conferences, which is why so many organizations hold these special poster sessions.

A good poster design will be immediately attractive to passersby and clearly and succinctly describe your research methods, findings, and conclusions. Some students have simply shrunk down their research papers to manageable sizes and then pasted them on a poster, all twelve to fifteen pages of them. Don’t do that! Here are some better suggestions: State the main conclusion of your research in large bold print at the top of your poster, on brightly colored (contrasting) paper, and paste in a QR code that links to your full paper online ( Calarco 2020:280 ). Use the rest of the poster board to provide a couple of highlights and details of the study. For an interview-based study, for example, you will want to put in some details about your sample (including number of interviews) and setting and then perhaps one or two key quotes, also distinguished by contrasting color background.

Incorporating Visual Design in Your Presentations

In addition to ensuring that your presentation is accessible to as large an audience as possible, you also want to think about how to display your data in general, particularly how to use charts and graphs and figures. [6] The first piece of advice is, use them! As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. If you can cut to the chase with a visually stunning display, do so. But there are visual displays that are stunning, and then there are the tired, hard-to-see visual displays that predominate at conferences. You can do better than most presenters by simply paying attention here and committing yourself to a good design. As with model section passages, keep a file of visual displays that work as models for your own presentations. Find a good guidebook to presenting data effectively (Evergreen 2018 , 2019 ; Schwabisch 2021) , and refer to it often.

Let me make a few suggestions here to get you started. First, test every visual display on a friend or colleague to find out how quickly they can understand the point you are trying to convey. As with reading passages aloud to ensure that your writing works, showing someone your display is the quickest way to find out if it works. Second, put the point in the title of the display! When writing for an academic journal, there will be specific conventions of what to include in the title (full description including methods of analysis, sample, dates), but in a public presentation, there are no limiting rules. So you are free to write as your title “Working-Class College Students Are Three Times as Likely as Their Peers to Drop Out of College,” if that is the point of the graphic display. It certainly helps the communicative aspect. Third, use the themes available to you in Excel for creating graphic displays, but alter them to better fit your needs . Consider adding dark borders to bars and columns, for example, so that they appear crisper for your audience. Include data callouts and labels, and enlarge them so they are clearly visible. When duplicative or otherwise unnecessary, drop distracting gridlines and labels on the y-axis (the vertical one). Don’t go crazy adding different fonts, however—keep things simple and clear. Sans serif fonts (those without the little hooks on the ends of letters) read better from a distance. Try to use the same color scheme throughout, even if this means manually changing the colors of bars and columns. For example, when reporting on working-class college students, I use blue bars, while I reserve green bars for wealthy students and yellow bars for students in the middle. I repeat these colors throughout my presentations and incorporate different colors when talking about other items or factors. You can also try using simple grayscale throughout, with pops of color to indicate a bar or column or line that is of the most interest. These are just some suggestions. The point is to take presentation seriously and to pay attention to visual displays you are using to ensure they effectively communicate what you want them to communicate. I’ve included a data visualization checklist from Evergreen ( 2018 ) here.

Ethics of Presentation and Reliability

Until now, all the data you have collected have been yours alone. Once you present the data, however, you are sharing sometimes very intimate information about people with a broader public. You will find yourself balancing between protecting the privacy of those you’ve interviewed and observed and needing to demonstrate the reliability of the study. The more information you provide to your audience, the more they can understand and appreciate what you have found, but this also may pose risks to your participants. There is no one correct way to go about finding the right balance. As always, you have a duty to consider what you are doing and must make some hard decisions.

The most obvious place we see this paradox emerge is when you mask your data to protect the privacy of your participants. It is standard practice to provide pseudonyms, for example. It is such standard practice that you should always assume you are being given a pseudonym when reading a book or article based on qualitative research. When I was a graduate student, I tried to find information on how best to construct pseudonyms but found little guidance. There are some ethical issues here, I think. [7] Do you create a name that has the same kind of resonance as the original name? If the person goes by a nickname, should you use a nickname as a pseudonym? What about names that are ethnically marked (as in, almost all of them)? Is there something unethical about reracializing a person? (Yes!) In her study of adolescent subcultures, Wilkins ( 2008 ) noted, “Because many of the goths used creative, alternative names rather than their given names, I did my best to reproduce the spirit of their chosen names” ( 24 ).

Your reader or audience will want to know all the details about your participants so that they can gauge both your credibility and the reliability of your findings. But how many details are too many? What if you change the name but otherwise retain all the personal pieces of information about where they grew up, and how old they were when they got married, and how many children they have, and whether they made a splash in the news cycle that time they were stalked by their ex-boyfriend? At some point, those details are going to tip over into the zone of potential unmasking. When you are doing research at one particular field site that may be easily ascertained (as when you interview college students, probably at the institution at which you are a student yourself), it is even more important to be wary of providing too many details. You also need to think that your participants might read what you have written, know things about the site or the population from which you drew your interviews, and figure out whom you are talking about. This can all get very messy if you don’t do more than simply pseudonymize the people you interviewed or observed.

There are some ways to do this. One, you can design a study with all of these risks in mind. That might mean choosing to conduct interviews or observations at multiple sites so that no one person can be easily identified. Another is to alter some basic details about your participants to protect their identity or to refuse to provide all the information when selecting quotes . Let’s say you have an interviewee named “Anna” (a pseudonym), and she is a twenty-four-year-old Latina studying to be an engineer. You want to use a quote from Anna about racial discrimination in her graduate program. Instead of attributing the quote to Anna (whom your reader knows, because you’ve already told them, is a twenty-four-year-old Latina studying engineering), you might simply attribute the quote to “Latina student in STEM.” Taking this a step further, you might leave the quote unattributed, providing a list of quotes about racial discrimination by “various students.”

The problem with masking all the identifiers, of course, is that you lose some of the analytical heft of those attributes. If it mattered that Anna was twenty-four (not thirty-four) and that she was a Latina and that she was studying engineering, taking out any of those aspects of her identity might weaken your analysis. This is one of those “hard choices” you will be called on to make! A rather radical and controversial solution to this dilemma is to create composite characters , characters based on the reality of the interviews but fully masked because they are not identifiable with any one person. My students are often very queasy about this when I explain it to them. The more positivistic your approach and the more you see individuals rather than social relationships/structure as the “object” of your study, the more employing composites will seem like a really bad idea. But composites “allow researchers to present complex, situated accounts from individuals” without disclosing personal identities ( Willis 2019 ), and they can be effective ways of presenting theory narratively ( Hurst 2019 ). Ironically, composites permit you more latitude when including “dirty laundry” or stories that could harm individuals if their identities became known. Rather than squeezing out details that could identify a participant, the identities are permanently removed from the details. Great difficulty remains, however, in clearly explaining the theoretical use of composites to your audience and providing sufficient information on the reliability of the underlying data.

There are a host of other ethical issues that emerge as you write and present your data. This is where being reflective throughout the process will help. How and what you share of what you have learned will depend on the social relationships you have built, the audiences you are writing or speaking to, and the underlying animating goals of your study. Be conscious about all of your decisions, and then be able to explain them fully, both to yourself and to those who ask.

Our research is often close to us. As a Black woman who is a first-generation college student and a professional with a poverty/working-class origin, each of these pieces of my identity creates nuances in how I engage in my research, including how I share it out. Because of this, it’s important for us to have people in our lives who we trust who can help us, particularly, when we are trying to share our findings. As researchers, we have been steeped in our work, so we know all the details and nuances. Sometimes we take this for granted, and we might not have shared those nuances in conversation or writing or taken some of this information for granted. As I share my research with trusted friends and colleagues, I pay attention to the questions they ask me or the feedback they give when we talk or when they read drafts.

—Kim McAloney, PhD, College Student Services Administration Ecampus coordinator and instructor

Final Comments: Preparing for Being Challenged

Once you put your work out there, you must be ready to be challenged. Science is a collective enterprise and depends on a healthy give and take among researchers. This can be both novel and difficult as you get started, but the more you understand the importance of these challenges, the easier it will be to develop the kind of thick skin necessary for success in academia. Scientists’ authority rests on both the inherent strength of their findings and their ability to convince other scientists of the reliability and validity and value of those findings. So be prepared to be challenged, and recognize this as simply another important aspect of conducting research!

Considering what challenges might be made as you design and conduct your study will help you when you get to the writing and presentation stage. Address probable challenges in your final article, and have a planned response to probable questions in a conference presentation or job talk. The following is a list of common challenges of qualitative research and how you might best address them:

Questions about generalizability . Although qualitative research is not statistically generalizable (and be prepared to explain why), qualitative research is theoretically generalizable. Discuss why your findings here might tell us something about related phenomena or contexts.
Questions about reliability . You probably took steps to ensure the reliability of your findings. Discuss them! This includes explaining the use and value of multiple data sources and defending your sampling and case selections. It also means being transparent about your own position as researcher and explaining steps you took to ensure that what you were seeing was really there.
Questions about replicability. Although qualitative research cannot strictly be replicated because the circumstances and contexts will necessarily be different (if only because the point in time is different), you should be able to provide as much detail as possible about how the study was conducted so that another researcher could attempt to confirm or disconfirm your findings. Also, be very clear about the limitations of your study, as this allows other researchers insight into what future research might be warranted.

None of this is easy, of course. Writing beautifully and presenting clearly and cogently require skill and practice. If you take anything from this chapter, it is to remember that presentation is an important and essential part of the research process and to allocate time for this as you plan your research.

Data Visualization Checklist for Slideshow (PPT) Presentations

Adapted from Evergreen ( 2018 )

Text checklist

Short catchy, descriptive titles (e.g., “Working-class students are three times as likely to drop out of college”) summarize the point of the visual display
Subtitled and annotations provide additional information (e.g., “note: male students also more likely to drop out”)
Text size is hierarchical and readable (titles are largest; axes labels smallest, which should be at least 20points)
Text is horizontal. Audience members cannot read vertical text!
All data labeled directly and clearly: get rid of those “legends” and embed the data in your graphic display
Labels are used sparingly; avoid redundancy (e.g., do not include both a number axis and a number label)

Arrangement checklist

Proportions are accurate; bar charts should always start at zero; don’t mislead the audience!
Data are intentionally ordered (e.g., by frequency counts). Do not leave ragged alphabetized bar graphs!
Axis intervals are equidistant: spaces between axis intervals should be the same unit
Graph is two-dimensional. Three-dimensional and “bevelled” displays are confusing
There is no unwanted decoration (especially the kind that comes automatically through the PPT “theme”). This wastes your space and confuses.

Color checklist

There is an intentional color scheme (do not use default theme)
Color is used to identify key patterns (e.g., highlight one bar in red against six others in greyscale if this is the bar you want the audience to notice)
Color is still legible when printed in black and white
Color is legible for people with color blindness (do not use red/green or yellow/blue combinations)
There is sufficient contrast between text and background (black text on white background works best; be careful of white on dark!)

Lines checklist

Be wary of using gridlines; if you do, mute them (grey, not black)
Allow graph to bleed into surroundings (don’t use border lines)
Remove axis lines unless absolutely necessary (better to label directly)

Overall design checklist

The display highlights a significant finding or conclusion that your audience can ‘”see” relatively quickly
The type of graph (e.g., bar chart, pie chart, line graph) is appropriate for the data. Avoid pie charts with more than three slices!
Graph has appropriate level of precision; if you don’t need decimal places
All the chart elements work together to reinforce the main message

Universal Design Checklist for Slideshow (PPT) Presentations

Include both verbal and written descriptions (e.g., captions on slides); consider providing a hand-out to accompany the presentation
Microphone available (ask audience in back if they can clearly hear)
Face audience; allow people to read your lips
Turn on captions when presenting audio or video clips
Adjust light settings for visibility
Speak slowly and clearly; practice articulation; don’t mutter or speak under your breath (even if you have something humorous to say – say it loud!)
Use Black/White contrasts for easy visibility; or use color contrasts that are real contrasts (do not rely on people being able to differentiate red from green, for example)
Use easy to read font styles and avoid too small font sizes: think about what an audience member in the back row will be able to see and read.
Keep your slides simple: do not overclutter them; if you are including quotes from your interviews, take short evocative snippets only, and bold key words and passages. You should also read aloud each passage, preferably with feeling!

Supplement: Models of Written Sections for Future Reference

Data collection section example.

Interviews were semi structured, lasted between one and three hours, and took place at a location chosen by the interviewee. Discussions centered on four general topics: (1) knowledge of their parent’s immigration experiences; (2) relationship with their parents; (3) understanding of family labor, including language-brokering experiences; and (4) experiences with school and peers, including any future life plans. While conducting interviews, I paid close attention to respondents’ nonverbal cues, as well as their use of metaphors and jokes. I conducted interviews until I reached a point of saturation, as indicated by encountering repeated themes in new interviews (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed with each interviewee’s permission, and conducted in accordance with IRB protocols. Minors received permission from their parents before participation in the interview. ( Kwon 2022:1832 )

Justification of Case Selection / Sample Description Section Example

Looking at one profession within one organization and in one geographic area does impose limitations on the generalizability of our findings. However, it also has advantages. We eliminate the problem of interorganizational heterogeneity. If multiple organizations are studied simultaneously, it can make it difficult to discern the mechanisms that contribute to racial inequalities. Even with a single occupation there is considerable heterogeneity, which may make understanding how organizational structure impacts worker outcomes difficult. By using the case of one group of professionals in one religious denomination in one geographic region of the United States, we clarify how individuals’ perceptions and experiences of occupational inequality unfold in relation to a variety of observed and unobserved occupational and contextual factors that might be obscured in a larger-scale study. Focusing on a specific group of professionals allows us to explore and identify ways that formal organizational rules combine with informal processes to contribute to the persistence of racial inequality. ( Eagle and Mueller 2022:1510–1511 )

Ethics Section Example

I asked everyone who was willing to sit for a formal interview to speak only for themselves and offered each of them a prepaid Visa Card worth $25–40. I also offered everyone the opportunity to keep the card and erase the tape completely at any time they were dissatisfied with the interview in any way. No one asked for the tape to be erased; rather, people remarked on the interview being a really good experience because they felt heard. Each interview was professionally transcribed and for the most part the excerpts are literal transcriptions. In a few places, the excerpts have been edited to reduce colloquial features of speech (e.g., you know, like, um) and some recursive elements common to spoken language. A few excerpts were placed into standard English for clarity. I made this choice for the benefit of readers who might otherwise find the insights and ideas harder to parse in the original. However, I have to acknowledge this as an act of class-based violence. I tried to keep the original phrasing whenever possible. ( Pascale 2021:235 )

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Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis Research Conference

It seems that you like this template, qualitative and quantitative analysis research conference presentation, free google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

What’s the difference between a qualitative analysis? And a quantitative one? Qualitative analysis relies on non-numerical methods such as interviews or surveys and quantitative ones use mathematical or statistical methods. If you need to present both results for your next research conference, this template is perfect to support your data! Make sure to include both qualitative and quantitative results in your analysis, such as case studies or market trends. Synthesize this information into a cohesive presentation that captivates your audience. The slides are soft and filled with charts to make your information very visual and engaging, download and edit them now!

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Monograph Matters

Qualitative analysis: process and examples | powerpoint – 85.2.

Authors Laura Wray-Lake and Laura Abrams describe qualitative data analysis, with illustrative examples from their SRCD monograph, Pathways to Civic Engagement Among Urban Youth of Color . This PowerPoint document includes presenter notes, making it an ideal resource for researchers learning about qualitative analysis and for instructors teaching about it in upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses.

Citation: Wray-Lake, L. & Abrams, L. S. (2020) Qualitative Analysis: Process and Examples [PowerPoint]. Retrieved from https://monographmatters.srcd.org/2020/05/12/teachingresources-qualitativeanalysis-powerpoint-85-2

Preparing the presentation of qualitative findings: considering your roles and goals

Dr. Philip Adu is a Methodology Expert at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP). In this post he explains the things to consider when presenting your research findings.

This post follows on from his previous blog post “Perfecting the art of qualitative coding” in which he took us through the stages of qualitative coding and, along the way, outlined the features he found most useful.

In my previous blog post, I presented on making good use of the innovative features of NVivo across the three main stages of qualitative analysis. Expounding on the third stage which is the ‘ Post-Coding stage (Presenting your findings) ’, I want to throw light on things to consider when drafting and refining your presentation. The moment you reach a milestone of successfully using NVivo 12 (Version 12.1.249; QSR International Pty Ltd, 2018) to complete the data analysis process, the reality of preparing all of this data so you can present your findings sets in (Adu, 2016). Your methodical review of the qualitative data and development of codes, categories and themes has yielded massive and interesting NVivo outputs. The outcomes include but are not limited to; codes/nodes, categories/themes, Word Clouds, Word Tree, Framework Matrices, Cluster Tree, code-case matrices, and code-attribute matrices (see Figure 1). These findings need to be carefully examined – selecting the ones that will be useful in drafting a meaningful presentation. You can watch the presentation I developed below:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEyGGFtVQFw

Note, not all of this information (i.e. the outcomes) needs to be presented to your audience (see Adu, 2019 ). Other questions that may arise as you develop your presentation include; what kind of results should you present? How do you engage with your audience when presenting your findings? How would you help your audience to understand and believe your findings?

In this post, I will discuss the three pertinent components a good presentation of qualitative findings should have. They are; background information, data analysis process and main findings.

Figure 1. Presentation of findings

Presenting background information

Participants’ past and current situations influence the information they provide to you. Due to this, there is the need to provide readers a summary of who participants are and any background information which may help them to put the findings into the proper context. Also, as a researcher analyzing qualitative data, there is the likelihood of your own background impacting the data analysis process. In the same way, you need to let readers know who you are, what your background is and how you ‘bracketed’ them from not having an effect on the findings ( Adu, 2019 ).

Presenting the data analysis process

Qualitative analysis doesn’t only involve engaging in subjective development of codes and categories, but also promoting transparency in the coding and categorization process (Greckhamer & Cilesiz, 2014). Due to this, you are expected to describe the main and detailed steps you took to analyze your data to arrive at your findings and their respective outcomes. Addressing the following questions would be great:

What coding strategy did you use?
What kinds of codes did you assign to relevant excerpts of the data?
What are the examples of codes you generated?
What categorization technique did you use?
How did you develop categories/themes out of the codes?

Your audience’s aim is not only consuming what you found but also learning more about how you came up with the results.

Presenting main findings

When it comes to the presentation of findings, there are two main structures you could choose from. You could present them based on the themes generated or based on the cases (participants or groups of participants) you have. The decision to either structure depends on the kind of research question(s) or the research purpose you have. For a detailed explanation of the types of presentation formats and how to select an appropriate structure, see Chapter 13 of the book, “ A Step-by-Step Guide to Qualitative Data Coding ”.

Considering your roles and goals

As you plan on how to communicate the above components, make sure you accomplish your goals and carry out your role as a communicator of qualitative data analysis outcomes (See Figure 1). Your roles are; to thoughtfully arrange the data analysis outcomes and to adequately address your research questions.

Liken the presentation of your findings to sharing a puzzle which has been solved. Your goal is to prevent a situation where the burden is put on the audience to piece together the puzzle of findings. In other words, you are expected to present the findings in a meaningful way that would enhance the audience’s understanding of the data analysis outcomes (Adu, 2016 & 2019). By so doing, they are more likely to trust what you found.

Let’s summarize the action items:

Out of a pool of qualitative analysis outcomes, select the ones that would allow you to address your research questions and meaningfully communicate your findings.
Decide on how you want to structure the presentation of the findings.
Irrespective of the presentation format you choose, make sure you include background information, the data analysis process and main findings in your presentation.
Make sure you are ‘narrating’ participants’ stories or what you found – making the numeric outputs include the tables and charts generated play a supporting role when presenting the main findings.

Adu, P. (2016). Presenting Qualitative Findings Using NVivo Output to Tell the Story. [PowerPoint slides]. SlideShare. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/kontorphilip/presenting-qualitative-findings-using-nvivo-output-to-tell-the-story

QSR International Pty Ltd. (2018). NVivo 12. Version 12.1.249 [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://qsrinternational.com/nvivo-qualitative-data-analysis-software

Adu, P. (2019). A Step-by-Step Guide to Qualitative Data Coding . Oxford: Routledge

Greckhamer, T., & Cilesiz, S. (2014). Rigor, Transparency, Evidence, and Representation in Discourse Analysis: Challenges and Recommendations. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 13(1), 422-443. doi:10.1177/160940691401300123

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Philip Adu is a Methodology Expert at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP). His role is to provide support to dissertating students in TCSPP addressing their methodology related concerns. You could access some of his webinars at the ‘Methodology Related Presentations – TCSPP’ YouTube Channel. He completed his Doctoral degree in Education with a concentration in Learning, Instructional Design and Technology from West Virginia University (WVU). Dr. Adu recently authored a book titled, “A Step-by-Step Guide to Qualitative Data Coding” (available on routledge.com or amazon.com ). You could reach Dr. Adu at [email protected] and @drphilipadu on twitter.

30+ Best Research PowerPoint Templates (For Research Presentations)

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Research PPT Presentation

Show off your Biologist research with the Biologist PowerPoint Presentation Template. A simple, yet captivating template style that prioritizes clean functionality over flashy style. A great choice for those looking to present clean and easy-to-understand information.

Auxilium – Research PPT Presentation

Auxilium is a professionally designed research template, designed for presenting SEO research and market research. The template uses a sleek white on blue slide design and comes with a range of bordering options to match the aesthetic.

Free Research PowerPoint Templates

Research is a costly endeavor, so it’s understandable if you want to avoid spending any money on a professional premium research template. Let’s take a look at some free research PowerPoint templates you can get your hands on right now.

Clinical Case – Free Research Presentation Template

Clinical Case is an extensive presentation research template, providing you with a range of simple slide designs that makes molding the template for your own personal needs a breeze.

Free Criminology Research PPT Presentation

If you’re putting together a criminology dissertation, and need a qualitative research ppt for the same, this template is right up your alley. It’s one of the best free research PowerPoint templates out there, and contains 26 powerful slides to impress your audience.

Free Marketing Research PPT Presentation

Check out this research ppt presentation providing you with everything that you need to leave your clients spellbound. It’s one of those free research PowerPoint templates that can easily give virtually any premium product a run for its money.

Free Research PPT Template

Scouring the internet for a feature-rich qualitative research ppt that sets you apart from the crowd? This free research PowerPoint template is just what you need. Whether you use it for University research purposes, or business marketing presentations, it will always exceed your expectations.

Free Research PPT Presentation

Chemistry Thesis, despite what the name might suggest, is a multipurpose research template that provides a great foundation to present your research in a sleek and modern format. The template provides a range of beautifully tailored custom slides and infographics for you to enjoy.

Free Research PowerPoint Template

The Intellectual Property template is a fantastically designed thesis and research platform, with a range of simple slide designs. The template provides custom slides, infographics, image placeholders, and even icons for you to use.

Present Your Research Effectively with These Templates!

There is nothing easy about presenting your research in a compelling and captivating fashion. But that doesn’t mean finding the right template to get you started has to be a struggle. With these templates under your belt, you have everything you need to make an incredible research presentation.

The 7 most common qualitative slides and how to use them

Table of contents.

Building strategy slide decks isn’t just about fancy charts and data. You also need to understand how to build conceptual or qualitative slides.

Fortunately, you only need to master a handful of conceptual slides. And these will be sufficient for communicating most qualitative insights. These include:

Process, flow, and journey slides

Driver trees

Ranges and sliders, from-to slides, tables and heatmaps, text slides.

In this article, we break down each type of qualitative slide and teach you exactly when and why to use each.

Processes, flows and journeys

Oliver Wyman The Digital Travel Revolution Slide 13

Process slides, flow slides, and journey slides are all used to show the effect of time. If you want to show an insight that has a time dimension, you should consider communicating it with a process, flow or journey.

In the slide above, Oliver Wyman is illustrating a travel guest’s journey from pre-travel research to post-travel review. Underneath, they highlight competitors and customer satisfaction at each stage of the journey.

Other common examples include customer journeys and the marketing funnel. You can see more examples of processes, flows and journeys in our slide library .

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Matrixes are used to show how multiple concepts differ on two dimensions. They are useful because they show a full map of where those concepts could exist, as well as any overlap between the concepts.

For example, in the chart above, BCG are comparing traditional robotics and advanced robotics on the dimensions of task complexity and level of structure.

You can see more examples of matrixes in our slide library .

Oliver Wyman The Digital Travel Revolution Slide 22

Driver trees are used to break down an outcome into the drivers or variables that influence it. You can continue to break down those drivers, which builds more and more branches of the tree.

These slides are most commonly used to break down a big, challenging problem into smaller, more manageable chunks. And in later slides, you’ll usually deep dive into each of the drivers in the tree.

In the slide above, you can see how Oliver Wyman broke down RevPARD into its drivers. And you can check out more examples of driver trees in our slide library .

LEK Strategic Healthcare Landscape Review Slide 11

Ranges and sliders show where a particular metric sits on a dimension. They are used when you don’t have a quantitative metric (so you can’t use a chart) but you want to show the ‘relativity’ between different data points.

For example, in the slide above, L.E.K Consulting is comparing a number of metrics on the dimension of coordination. There is no quantitative measure of coordination, so they use a slider.

You can check out more examples of ranges and slides in our slide library .

From-to slides are used to show how changes across a number of dimensions using text. First, you need to define a number of categories, then describe the current state, then describe the future state.

There are two common uses for from-to slides:

You can use them as a context slide and then in later slides you can deep dive into how you’ll achieve the change
You can use them to summarize the effect of an action or recommendation (like in the BCG example above)

You can check out more examples of from-to slides in our slide library .

LEK Strategic Healthcare Landscape Review Slide 10

Many people argue that tables are not appropriate in slide decks. But that’s not quite right. Although they are often too dense to belong in the body of the slide, they fit quite well in an appendix.

Tables are a good way to summarize quantitative information. They are most commonly used to break down a calculation or show a complex quantitative output. Plus, you can turn your table into a heatmap by colorizing the cells based on their values.

You can check out more examples of tables and heatmaps in our slide library .

LEK Strategic Healthcare Landscape Review Slide 4

Text slides are simply slides with text on them. But not all text slides are made the same.

The thing that differentiates good text slides from bad text slides is structure. Good text slides are structured in a way that makes it easy for the reader to understand the dense text. So think about how you can break up your text into logical groupings or categories.

For example, in the L.E.K Consulting example above, they’ve categorized six key trends and structured their text into two groups: a description of the trend and the implication of the trend. They’ve also used icons to break up the text.

You can check out more examples of text slides in our slide library .

30+ Best Research Presentation Templates for PowerPoint (PPT)

Finding the right PowerPoint template plays an important part in getting your message across to the audience during a presentation. And it’s especially true for research presentations.

Using the right colors, graphs, infographics, and illustrations in your slides is the key to delivering information more effectively and making your presentation a success.

Today, we handpicked a great collection of research presentation PowerPoint templates for you to make the perfect slideshows for various types of research papers and studies.

Whether you’re preparing for a presentation at a school, event, or conference, there are templates in this list for all purposes. Let’s dive in.

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Science & Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is a perfect choice for preparing a research presentation to share your scientific findings and reports.

The template has 30 unique slides with unlimited color options. There are a few infographics included in the slideshow as well.

Why This Is A Top Pick

The presentation has a very modern and creative design where you can showcase your data and information in an attractive way. You won’t be making boring research presentations ever again.

Labvire – Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Labvire is another modern PowerPoint template you can use for various types of research presentations. It’s also ideal for laboratory-related research presentations. The template has fully customizable slide layouts with editable charts, graphs, and more. You can choose from more than 40 unique slide designs as well.

Novalabs – Science Research PowerPoint Template

Novalabs PowerPoint template features a highly visual and attractive design. The template includes 36 different slides that feature large image placeholders for adding a more visual look to your presentations. There are lots of editable graphics, shapes, and tables included in the template too. Feel free to customize them however you like.

Research & Development PowerPoint Template

The minimal and clean design of this PowerPoint template makes it a great choice for delivering more effective research presentations. With fewer distractions in each slide, you’ll be able to convey your message more easily. The template comes with 30 unique slides. You can change the colors, fonts, and shapes to your preference as well.

Marketing Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

When talking about research presentations, we can’t forget about marketing research. Most sales and marketing meetings usually include a sophisticated marketing research presentation. This PowerPoint template will help you design those research presentations without effort. It includes a total of 150 slides, featuring 30 unique slides in 5 different color schemes.

Free Business Market Research Presentation Template

This is a free PowerPoint template designed for making business market research presentations. It gives you 27 different and fully customizable slides to create professional slideshows for your business meetings.

Free Business Data Analysis & Research Presentation

With this PowerPoint template, you can create colorful and creative business research and data analysis presentation without any design skills. It includes 35 unique slides with lots of infographics and editable shapes. The template is free to use as well.

Lernen – Research Thesis PowerPoint Presentation

Larnen is the ideal PowerPoint template for making research slideshows for your thesis presentations. It includes 30 unique slides that are available in light and dark color themes. It also has editable charts and graphs.

Aristo – Research Academic PowerPoint Presentation

This PowerPoint template is also made with academic research presentations in mind. The template has a professional design with clean layouts and light colors. It comes with more than 30 different slides.

Biosearch – Science Research PowerPoint Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to make professional presentations to present research data and results. It lets you choose from 40 different slides and 90 color themes. The slides are available in both light and dark color themes as well.

Neolabs – Laboratory & Science Research PPT

Neolabs is another science research presentation made with laboratory research teams in mind. You can use it to make effective slideshows to present your research findings. There are 30 unique slides in this template.

Free Business Cost Analysis PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint and Google Slides template that comes with 35 unique slides. It’s ideal for making research presentations related to business financials.

Research & Case Study PowerPoint Template

Create the perfect case study presentation using your research data with this PowerPoint template. It includes a modern slide design with infographics and charts for effectively presenting your data.

Liron Labs – Laboratory Research PowerPoint Template

Another PowerPoint template for laboratory research presentations. This template includes 15 useful slide layouts with editable graphics, free fonts, and image placeholders. You can edit and customize the colors and text as well.

Research Thesis PowerPoint Template

Make an attractive and creative research thesis presentation using this PowerPoint template. There are over 30 unique slides in this template. You can either use dark or light color themes to create your presentations.

Colorful Thesis Research PowerPoint Template

If you want to make your research presentations look more colorful and creative, this PowerPoint template is for you. It has 15 different slides with fully customizable layouts. It has editable shapes, free fonts, and image placeholders too.

Free Data Analysis Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is also free to download. You can also customize it using PowerPoint or Google Slides. This template is ideal for marketing agencies and teams for presenting research and data analysis.

Laboratory & Science Research PowerPoint Template

You can make more convincing and unique lab research presentations using this PowerPoint template. It features a creative design that will easily attract the attention of your audience. You can use it to make various other science and research presentations too. The template includes 30 unique slides.

The Biologist – Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this PowerPoint template is designed with biology and science-related presentations in mind. It includes many useful slide layouts that can be used to make various types of research presentations. There are 30 different slide designs included in this template with editable shapes and colors.

Modern Science & Research PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a PowerPoint template to create a modern-looking research presentation, this template is perfect for you. It features a collection of modern and attractive slides with lots of space for including images, icons, and graphs. There are 30 unique slides in the template with light and dark color themes to choose from.

Marketing Report & Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template doubles as both a research and report slideshow. You can use it to create various marketing reports as well as marketing research presentations. It comes with 30 slides that feature minimal and clean designs. It includes lots of editable charts, infographics, and tables as well.

Market Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

Another modern PowerPoint template for making market research presentations. This template includes 25 unique slides with master slides, image placeholders, and editable colors. The template is ideal for marketing agencies and corporate businesses.

Free Academic Research Thesis PowerPoint Template

Free Academic Research Thesis Defense PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is designed for defending your academic research thesis dissertation. Needless to say, it’s a useful template for academics as well as teachers. The template features 23 unique slide layouts with customizable designs.

Free Economics Research Thesis Presentation Template

You can use this free template to create thesis and research presentations related to economics. It’s useful for academic students and gives you the freedom to choose from 21 slide layouts to make your own presentations.

Labia – Research Presentation Powerpoint Template

Labia is a research presentation template made for professionals. It comes with a set of modern slides with multipurpose designs. That means you can customize them to make many different types of research presentations. There are 30 unique slides included in this template that come in 5 different color themes.

Medical Research Infographics & Powerpoint Slides

You’ll be using lots of charts, graphs, and infographics in your presentations to showcase data in visual form. Not to mention that visuals always work well for attracting the audience’s attention. You can use the infographic slides in this template to create better research presentations. Each slide features a unique infographic with animated designs.

Foreka – Biology Education & Research Presentation PPT

Foreka - Biology Education & Research PPT

Foreka is a PowerPoint template made for educational presentations, especially for covering topics related to biology. But it can also be customized to present your research presentations. The slides have very useful layouts that are most suitable for making research slide designs. There are 30 slides included with light and dark color themes.

Maua – Aesthetic Business Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is suitable for making elegant and stylish business reports and business research presentations. It’s especially great for making background research and competitor research slideshows. The template comes with 30 slides featuring master slides, image placeholders, and more.

World Data Scientist Powerpoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to create research presentations for many different types of topics, industries, and projects. The template includes lots of data-centric slides where you can easily showcase your data in visual form. There are 30 unique slides included with the template as well.

Free SWOT Analysis Infographics PowerPoint Template

SWOT analysis is a commonly used methodology in business research presentations. With this free PowerPoint template, you can create stylish SWOT analysis infographics for your presentations. It includes SWOT infographics in 30 different styles.

Free Market Research Presentation Infographics PPT

Free Market Research Presenattion Infographics PPT

This is a collection of free PowerPoint slides that feature various styles of infographics you can use in your business and market research presentations. There are 30 different infographic slides included in this template. You can edit, change colors, and customize them however you like.

Sinara – Science & Research Powerpoint Template

Sinara is a brilliant PowerPoint template you can use to craft a professional presentation for science-related research and reports. It’s available in 3 different color schemes as well as the option to customize the colors to your preference. The template comes in light and dark themes too.

Political Science and Research PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template will be quite useful to political science and international relations students. It features a total of 150 slides you can use to create attractive presentations for your research and methodologies. There are slides in 5 different color schemes.

How to Make a Research Poster in PowerPoint

We bet you didn’t know that you could actually design posters in PowerPoint. Well, you can and it’s very easy to do so.

The easiest way to make a poster in PowerPoint is to use a pre-made template like the one above.

You can easily copy one of the slides from a template, and resize the slide dimensions to create a vertical poster. Then add a title with a few lines of text and you’ll have yourself a poster.

Or, if you want to craft a poster from scratch, you can read our complete guide on how to create posters in PowerPoint with step-by-step instructions.

For more useful presentation templates, be sure to check out our best educational PowerPoint templates collection.

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Qualitative research proposal template powerpoint presentation slides

Our Qualitative Research Proposal Template Powerpoint Presentation Slides are explicit and effective. They combine clarity and concise expression.Ever wondered why customers behave in a certain way? Or how they may respond to a new product? Use qualitative research to inform initial branding, product testing, and to gain insight into potential customers. To gauge customer satisfaction over time and to improve and grow existing products, the established companies hire marketing research agencies. Help your clients to understand the underlying reasons and motive behind customer decisions with our Qualitative Research Proposal Template PowerPoint Presentation Slides. With this PPT template, gain insights into the client’s customer base by laying the project context and objectives like the amenities that customers use and their attitudes. Outline the timeline of the research with the design phase, research phase, analysis phase and project completion phase. The PowerPoint presentation also includes the methodologies used, the time taken on each, sampling and targeting demographics, and deliverables of qualitative research. Gain your client’s trust and inform them beforehand about the cost budget break-down and the investments expected from them. Besides this, it is beneficial to showcase the company history, offerings, client testimonials, team information, and statement of work and contract to build an edge over the competitors. You can also use the additional slides to layout a roadmap of the research for different years. The PPT proposal can be used to elaborate on the methods used for qualitative research like individual interviews, focus groups, observations, in-home videos, journal & diary, and lifestyle immersion. Conclude, that once you have a clear understanding of the client’s customer, then adapt a step-by-step guide to using email marketing to generate consistent leads and convert them into real-time sales. Select our research PPT design and get a state-of-art overview of qualitative research methods in business as well as management. Now it is your turn, go ahead and download the research proposal presentation slideshows and showcase the techniques used by your business agency.

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Presenting our Qualitative Research Proposal Template PowerPoint Presentation Slides that is sure to impress your potential client. The content has been well-researched by our team of excellent researchers. You can change the colour, fonts, texts, images without any hassle to suit your business needs. It can be saved and opened in various formats like PDF, JPG, and PNG. The template is easily compatible with Google Slides that makes it easily accessible. It is readily available in both standard screen 4:3 and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios. Download the presentation, enter your content in the placeholders, and propose it with confidence!

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Slide 1 : This slide introduces Qualitative Research Proposal Template. Mention Client name, User assigned, Designation and Company name. Slide 2 : This slide displays Cover Letter for Qualitative Research Proposal Template. Slide 3 : This slide shows Table of Content of the presentation. Slide 4 : This slide depicts Context and Objective. Slide 5 : This slide displays Timeline of Qualitative Research Services Slide 6 : This slide showcases Methodology for Qualitative Research Proposal Template. Slide 7 : This slide depicts Sampling & Targeted Demographics for Qualitative Research Proposal Template Slide 8 : This slide showcases the Deliverables of Qualitative Research Services. Slide 9 : This slide depicts the Investment details for Qualitative Research Proposal Template. Slide 10 : This is About Us slide to showcase Company specifications. Slide 11 : This slide represents Our Clients details for Qualitative Research Proposal Template Slide 12 : This is Our Team slide with Names and Designations. Slide 13 : This is Our Team slide with Names and Designations. Slide 14 : This slide shows Client Testimonials. Slide 15 : This slide represents Statement of Work and Contract for Qualitative Research Proposal Template. Slide 16 : This is Sign-off slide. Slide 17 : This is Icons Slide for Qualitative Research Proposal Template. Slide 18 : This slide is titled as Additional Slides for moving forward. Slide 19 : This is Our Mission slide with Vision, Mission and Goal. Slide 20 : This is 30 60 90 Days Plan slide. Slide 21 : This slide showcases Roadmap process. Slide 22 : This slide shows 4 step Roadmap process. Slide 23 : This slide displays 5 step Roadmap process. Slide 24 : This slide shows Timeline process.

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Use our Qualitative Research Proposal Template Powerpoint Presentation Slides to effectively help you save your valuable time. They are readymade to fit into any presentation structure.

Ratings and Reviews

by Evans Mitchell

December 29, 2021

by O'Kelly Phillips

by Dewey Stephens

Open access
Published: 14 May 2024

Designing for student autonomy combining theory and clinical practice – a qualitative study with a faculty perspective

Charlotte Silén 1 ,
Katri Manninen 1 , 2 &
Angelica Fredholm 1 , 3

BMC Medical Education volume 24 , Article number: 532 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

41 Accesses

Metrics details

Although extensive research exists about students’ clinical learning, there is a lack of translation and integration of this knowledge into clinical educational practice. As a result, improvements may not be implemented and thus contribute to students’ learning. The present study aimed to explore the nature of clinical faculty members’ learning related to how they apply research about student autonomy.

A course, “Designing learning for students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice” was conducted for faculty responsible for students’ clinical education. Within the frame of the course the participants designed a project and planned how they would implement it in their clinical context. Fourteen clinical faculty members participated in the study. The participants’ interpretation of the educational intervention, which combines complex theory with the equally complex clinical practice, was explored by studying how the participants’ approaches and understanding of the facilitation of autonomy were manifested in their projects. The projects in the form of reports and oral presentations were analyzed using qualitative content analysis together with an abductive approach.

One identified domain was “Characteristics of the design and content of the projects”. This domain was signified by two themes with different foci: Preparing the soil for facilitating student autonomy ; and Cultivating opportunities for students to actively strive for autonomy. A second identified domain, “ Embracing the meaning of facilitating autonomy ” was connected to participants understanding of theories underlying how to support the development of autonomy. This domain contained two themes: Connection between activities and autonomy is self-evident and Certain factors can explain and facilitate development of autonomy.

Education directed to strategic clinical faculty members to develop evidence-based approaches to student learning can be productive. To succeed there is a need to emphasize faculty members individual understanding of actual research as well as learning theories in general. Faculty trying to reinforce changes are dependent on their own mandate, the structure in the clinic, and recognition of their work in the clinical context. To achieve a potential continuity and sustainability of implemented changes the implementation processes must be anchored throughout the actual organization.

Peer Review reports

Clinical education is a comprehensive part of health care education programs and therefore important and vital for health care students to become knowledgeable well-educated professionals. Research on students’ clinical learning has been extensively reported but there is still a lack of translation and integration of this knowledge into clinical educational practice. This is a problem when trying to improve clinical training and there is a need to understand more of this matter. Hence, this study explores clinical faculty members’ learning related to how they apply research.

Introduction

The clinical environment offers a rich and powerful setting for learning and professional development [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. In the clinical environment, abstract knowledge becomes tangible through its application in patient care. Students’ encounters with patients and staff representing their own and other professional groups provide unique experiences to reflect on and integrate in their learning. They can train and test their skills, observe, and examine patients, and provide care and treatment. Generalizable knowledge about diseases and their impact on people’s lives can be realized in each patient encounter. The variation that every patient encounter and personal experience offer enhances this knowledge. Learning in every encounter is not only related to the clinic as a physical place per se, but to relationships and experiences relating to this encounter [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. As such, the clinic and the activities that occur in the clinic offer an inherent space for learning. This learning space provides contact with the reality of future professions, provides challenges, motivational factors, and feedback on behavior and thoughts. In this way, knowledge and professional development increases [ 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 ].

Crucial aspects of creating and taking care of the rich opportunities for students’ learning are linked to the clinical environment, clinical supervisors and other stakeholders involved in the organization and implementation of clinical education. Responsible actors must engage, understand and be able to apply knowledge about how to support student learning to contribute to development. There is extensive research available regarding how to make the clinical learning environment fruitful for learning and to support students to reach their learning goals, while becoming well educated and well-functioning professionals (cf. [ 2 , 3 , 4 ], [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]).

However, several researchers point out that there is a lack of translation and integration of research-based knowledge into educational practice in the clinic [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. This means that the main problem is not a lack of knowledge about student learning in the clinic, but the issue is why available research-based knowledge is not sufficiently applied. The complex nature of healthcare, the many faculty members involved, the lack of continuity related to education, and the fact that the education takes place in two different arenas – the university and the clinic – may explain some of the hindrances [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. A major challenge in the development of health-care education is reaching and motivating faculty members to enhance their knowledge on how to improve student learning. This is especially true for faculty members involved in clinical education since their role mainly focuses on patient care and not on student education [ 12 , 13 ]. There is an expressed need for research illuminating how further professional development for faculty members can lead to improvement of clinical education [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In particular, studies are needed to examine the connection between the individual clinical faculty member and their application of knowledge in the clinical context. A more in-depth understanding of these connections is paramount to support clinical faculty members to integrate research and thereby enhance student learning.

In the present study, an educational intervention directed to faculty responsible for students’ clinical education was designed, executed, and studied. The intervention sought to improve how clinical faculty understand and apply research regarding what may influence and stimulate student autonomy in clinical education. In connection with the educational intervention, a study was carried out that aimed to examine faculty learning in terms of integration of theoretical knowledge in the clinic. The findings were meant to contribute to the understanding of how to support clinical faculty members to apply educational research on autonomy and thus enhance learning and consequently professional development for students in the clinic.

Autonomy and professional development

Development of autonomy is known to be crucial for student learning and professional development in the clinical setting. This concept was therefore chosen as the core of the intervention and this study. Nevertheless, autonomy is a complex concept, and its meaning is not possible to cover fully in the context of this study. The most fundamental aspects deemed important for this study will be presented below.

According to substantial research, autonomy is a fundamental need to experience self-governance and ownership of one’s actions [ 3 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Development of autonomy in learning is the foundation of life-long learning, meaning the ability to move on, constantly reevaluate your own knowledge, ability to obtain and use information, and understanding of your learning processes [ 18 , 19 , 24 ]. Studies about promoting self-directed and/or self-regulated learning have shown the importance of taking into account factors such as student motivation, experience of control, ability to seek and apply knowledge, ability to discern learning needs and ability to evaluate the outcome of learning [ 18 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Clinical practice needs autonomous health care providers, and here autonomy means something more than independence and control over your own learning. It has been shown that autonomy fosters personal identity and meaning, independent choices, responsibility, and critical thinking [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Important for professional competence is the ability to discern, assess, and pose new questions in unclear and incalculable situations [ 23 , 24 ]. Research shows how a curriculum designed to strengthen autonomy can create a qualitatively different understanding of a subject or professional field, as demonstrated in student’s ability to link theory and practice with abstract thinking [ 22 , 24 ].

In this study autonomy has been particularly connected to the meaning of authenticity and attachment. These concepts are identified as important parts of autonomy related to learning and professional development [ 2 , 3 , 22 , 28 , 29 ]. The rationale for this statement is outlined below. Autonomy is connected to authentic experiences in clinical training. It is also indicated that transformative learning processes that contribute to the development of a professional identity can be triggered by authentic experiences and the meaning-making of these processes [ 3 , 28 ]. Manninen et al. [ 29 ] showed how authenticity in clinical education functions as a driving force for learning by creating meaning and relevance. Furthermore, Manninen [ 2 , 29 ] has identified how authenticity can be both an external and an internal phenomenon, where external authenticity is produced by education and the surrounding environment – such as the interaction with patients in a clinical setting. Internal authenticity is experienced when students form mutual relationships with patients, feel a sense of belonging and perceive themselves as part of the team [ 2 , 29 ]. Levett-Jones & Lathlean [ 30 ], stress the positive effects on learning that occur when students experience a sense of belonging in their clinical practice. These experiences of relationships and sense of belonging are captured in the concept of attachment and linked to the development of autonomy [ 3 , 28 ]. Students need to be offered participation as well as actively strive to attach themselves to the actual clinical context in order to experience authenticity and autonomy in their learning. Prerequisites for students to experience and to seek attachment are based on mutual trust and respect [ 31 , 32 ]. Several studies [ 3 , 21 , 22 , 28 , 29 ] showed how both autonomy and authenticity are social phenomena having to do with the relationships that students can form in their clinical education and the clinical relevance of given tasks. Thus, students can develop as autonomous professionals when they experience both external and internal authenticity. This includes opportunities to experience attachment and gain responsibility for relevant parts of patient care, as well as the opportunity to follow up on administered care [ 2 , 3 ]. Students need to have access to and responsibility for entire processes, such as being able to evaluate the results of care and not just isolated actions or events. This reasoning applies to students, regardless of the clinical placement level since the complexity and length of processes can vary [ 33 , 34 ].

Designing for learning in the clinic

To further professional development, the design of learning in the clinic should offer students opportunities to experience through emotion and action what it means to be a professional nurse, doctor, or physiotherapist, etc [ 35 ]. By doing so, the risk for a narrow and static approach to knowledge decreases, thus making it easier to focus on knowledge application and the complexity of professional knowledge. A comprehensive review of the literature by Trede et al. [ 36 ] shows that the development of a professional identity is facilitated by learning based on cooperation and dialogue in practice and characterized by authentic experiences. Education should be designed to raise awareness of what autonomy means in clinical education to enhance student learning and the development of a professional identity. In turn this demands that clinical faculty members understand the concept and can integrate it in clinical education. The clinical application of evidence-based concepts means the ability to combine concepts and theory with a complex clinical practice [ 12 , 14 , 16 , 17 ]. This is regarded as a challenge for faculty responsible for developing clinical education and supporting students in their learning.

For the purpose of this study, an educational intervention was designed to present, explain, and illuminate theory and research related to supporting students’ development of autonomy. The study reached out to participants working in strategic positions in different clinical settings that enabled them to contribute to the design and development of clinical education in collaboration with different universities and educational programs. The participants designed and planned the implementation of a project aimed at enhancing student autonomy in their clinical context. The aim of this study was to explore the nature of clinical faculty members’ learning related to how they apply research about student autonomy in their projects .

The research approach was qualitative, interpreting participants’ experiences from a life-world perspective. The interpretation of meaning and lived experience was made possible through the tradition of phenomenological hermeneutics founded by Heidegger and further developed by Gadamer and Ricouer [ 37 ]. It is argued here that the lifeworld is mediated through narratives where individuals’ subjective understanding and sense-making of their lifeworld become visible [ 38 ]. Thus, the individual projects portrayed and studied here are viewed as narratives that manifest understanding of the phenomena under examination, the meaning of which is revealed through interpretation.

Pedagogical framework for the intervention

The pedagogical framework described in the background regarding the development of autonomy and professional identity formed an important part of the content of the designed educational intervention and the present study. Additionally, the educational intervention was based on constructivist learning theories that emphasize active, creative processing of information, including cognitive, emotional, and social aspects as well as testing and practical actions (cf. [ 35 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]). In the applied pedagogical framework, the lifeworld is seen as the total sum of the environment and everyday experiences that forms the individual’s world, thus forming the basis for the individual’s interpretations, thoughts, reactions, and actions [ 43 ]. Learning was seen as fundamentally situated in a physical as well as social and cultural context [ 39 , 40 , 43 ].

The intervention, a course, “Designing learning for students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice”, was designed for health-care professionals responsible for students’ clinical practice in Stockholm County Council, or other participants with similar overarching clinical pedagogical work assignments. The relevant faculty role for this in Sweden is often an adjunct clinical lecturer (ACL) and this term will be used in the following description of the participants. They have their main employment and activities in the health care sector outside of a higher education setting and provide the university with specific expertise not found within the organization. The ACL supports both clinical supervisors and students at the clinical workplace, has the possibility to influence prerequisites for clinical education and functions as a bridge between the university and the local clinical education organization.

The intervention – “Designing learning for students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice.”

The purpose of the course that constitutes the intervention in the present study was to strengthen the pedagogical competence of the ACL for her/him to understand the meaning of research-based knowledge about learning, and how to apply this knowledge in clinical supervision and teaching. The goal was that the ACL should be able to contribute to and support students’ opportunities to develop autonomy in learning. The intervention was designed aiming to help ACLs understand research about how to facilitate autonomy in clinical practice. The intervention design was built on the pedagogical framework described above. In one extensive and concluding learning activity, participants designed and implemented projects aiming to enhance student autonomy in their clinical context. These projects constitute the focus for analysis in this study.

The course was given online and included 5 weeks full-time study. The online design was believed to enhance accessibility and enable adaptation to individual clinical contexts. It was spread over 6 months to allow time for the participants to process the content of the course and to plan and implement their projects. The course consisted of both asynchronous parts and synchronous meetings using Zoom. However, the online design of the course and the analysis of outcomes related to this design is not within the scope of this study. Two of the authors, (CS, AF) were responsible for the course and acted as lectures and tutors. Other experts were invited to the synchronous meetings giving lectures and participating in discussions. A digital learning platform was created, and the participants were divided into groups of 4–5 participants and one tutor, who worked together mainly asynchronous online. The groups were mixed in terms of professional background and the nature of their clinical workplace to learn from each other and provide a range of perspectives while working with different learning activities. The content of the course was focused on the meaning of autonomy in learning and its application in clinical practice for students. The participants worked individually with written tasks and communicated with their group members and the tutor. They were asked to build on their previous knowledge and experiences and actively apply new knowledge and thoughts. The tutor facilitated communication in the group by posing questions and commenting on the written work and discussions. All learning activities were designed to allow participants to discern the relevance and implications of theory in their own individual clinical context and describe this with concrete examples. The core concepts of autonomy, authenticity and attachment were presented in lectures online and discussed synchronously. These lectures were also available on the digital platform.

In one extensive and concluding learning activity, participants designed and implemented projects aiming to enhance student autonomy in their clinical context. Participants worked on the project throughout the course, from a preliminary project plan to implementation, and evaluation. The projects were discussed in their groups as well as individually with the tutor. The projects were presented as written reports and final oral presentations synchronously in zoom. In the written reports, they described the design, theoretical background, implementation, and outcome of the projects. For the oral presentations, participants were asked to focus on what they perceived as most meaningful in their projects and how they applied pedagogical knowledge and reasoning.

Participants

The course was open to all ACLs in the region. A written invitation to the course was spread through the regional network where ACLs are registered. A pedagogical course within higher education comprising at least 5 weeks full time study was required to take the course. The participants of the course were informed about the study and could volunteer to take part or not. There were 15 ACLs that took part in the course and fourteen of them participated in the study: seven registered nurses (five with postgraduate specialist nursing education), two radiology nurses, two biomedical analysts, one physician, one speech therapist and one occupational therapist. All participants were women, aged 36 to 63, with ACL experience from 1 to 13 years.

The context in which the study participants were active as ACLs mirrored the variations of the health-care field. Variations came to the fore related to in-patient and out-patient care, medical specialty and whether the unit offered a specialized service, such as a laboratory, radiology, or anesthesia at an operating department. The responsibilities and tasks of the ACLs were different. Some of them were responsible for students from one profession at various sites and others responsible for one unit and all students at that site. Others coordinated both supervisors and students within one unit, while others mainly acted as supervisors with a special assignment to act as an ACL at a specific site. The number of and kinds of students placed at the different units varied. In most cases, the ACLs were responsible for students from one profession and one educational level – undergraduate or postgraduate – but there were also examples involving several professions and different educational levels. The organization of the students’ clinical placements governed the ability for the ACL to plan activities. There were variations in the length of the placement and whether students stayed in one place or rotated between different departments. What could be designed to stimulate student autonomy depended on what the students were supposed to learn for their profession and on their educational level.

Data collection

As described above the participants’ projects were chosen as objects for analysis. Data were collected using the written and oral accounts of the projects that constituted the concluding learning activity in the course. There were 11 projects included in the data. Three of them were collaborative projects where participants worked together; in two cases in the same clinic and specialty, and in one case from two different hospitals but in the same clinical specialty. Written accounts in the form of project reports were used together with video- and audio-recorded oral presentations of the projects.

Data analysis

Based on the learning theories presented in the pedagogical framework for the intervention, the point of departure for the analysis was that ACLs showed what they had learned by planning and implementing projects in their own clinical setting with the aim of contributing to and supporting the students’ opportunities to develop autonomy. The application of the theory they had studied, i.e., the discernment of the meaning of the theory in the clinical context and in everyday practice, was made by the ACLs. Thus, it was the participants who expressed how they would use what they had learned to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

The participants’ learning was analyzed based on the written projects together with the oral presentation of these projects. An interpretative content analysis of both the manifest and latent content was performed [ 44 , 45 ]. The manifest content refers to data close to the expressions used by the participants, in this case the written and oral descriptions of the projects. The latent content refers to the authors’ interpretation of the meaning of what is expressed related to the development of autonomy. An abductive approach was also applied, and thus data were analysed iteratively going back and forth between parts and wholes, both inductively, and deductively informed of theoretical perspectives during the research process [ 46 ]. The theoretical foundation for analysis was the above-described concepts furthering the development of autonomy. The inductive part of the analysis aimed to contribute to new perspectives and a development of how these concepts can be interpreted.

Condensed meaning units were extracted in the written projects and the video- and audio- recordings and subsequently coded. The codes were compared for differences and similarities and grouped into categories describing variations in focus and approaches to support development of student autonomy. In the next step, categories were interpreted and designated as latent themes. The identification of manifest and latent content of the participants understanding of theories underpinning autonomy, was built on revisiting the condensed meaning units and codes with focus on critical features, the relationship between concepts and practice, and how concepts were connected [ 44 , 45 ]. Thus, one project can be represented in both themes and several of the categories. Examples illustrating the steps of the data analysis process are described in Appendix 1. Two of the authors (CS, AF) performed the basis of the analysis iteratively independently and together. Emphasis was put on reflexivity concerning preconceived interpretations related to the researchers’ involvement in the course. The preliminary findings were critically reviewed by the third author (KM), less involved in the course, and then discussed and negotiated between all the authors to achieve consensus. All authors have extensive knowledge and experiences of clinical education as teachers, clinical supervisors, and as experienced qualitative researchers in medical education. The researchers’ collaborative analysis was meant to contribute richness and credibility to the findings.

The analysis of the content and implementation of the participants’ projects is described in two domains. A: Characteristics of the design and content of the projects, and B: Embracing the meaning of facilitating autonomy. Domain A was related to the description of the projects based on who was engaged and the focus of the content of the implementation. The categories and themes related to domain A illustrate the outcome of learning in terms of how they organize activities to implement student autonomy. The basis for the categories and themes in domain B was the analysis of the meaning of the projects and how the participants talked about how to achieve autonomy. The findings in Domain B relate to the participants’ learning in terms of their understanding of how to apply the theories underlying the support for the development of autonomy. An overview of the findings is displayed in Fig. 1 . Quotes are presented with numbers of the participants and marked with oral account (oa) and written account (wa).

- Overview of findings

Domain A: Characteristics of the design and content of the projects

The way the participants designed and described their projects on how to support students’ development of autonomy in clinical practice varied. Two themes with different foci were identified; Preparing the soil for facilitating student autonomy; and Cultivating opportunities for students to actively strive for autonomy . The first theme comprised two categories; Engaging supervisors to support student autonomy and Emphasizing organizational dimensions that have an impact on implementation. The second theme was characterized by the two categories Activities involving students during significant parts of their clinical placement and Specific activities focused on certain knowledge and skills. The content of Domain A is illustrated in Table 1 .

Preparing the soil for facilitating student autonomy

Several participants chose to prepare the soil , that is, they utilized their knowledge of developing student autonomy to prepare the clinical practice environment for the students. Within this theme two categories were identified: Engaging supervisors to support student autonomy and Emphasizing organizational dimensions that have an impact on implementation. The first category focused on the supervisors, and the second took a broader approach, including the structural factors of the clinical placement, the supervisors’ role, and managers on different levels.

Engaging supervisors to support student autonomy

To reach the goal of fostering independence in students, the supervisors in the clinic were engaged by the ACLs. One approach within this category was to focus on support for supervisors by offering written plans, advice and thoughts on factors that have an impact on student independence in the clinic.

The documents written by the ACL varied between concise information sheets, and comprehensive plans on activities. The documents contained hints and advice about how supervisors should act to facilitate student independence. The supervisors’ responsibilities in relation to the students were also pointed out. A document could be created by the ACL, presented, and handed over to the supervisors to use. Other documents were authored by the ACL, presented, discussed, and adapted to the supervisors’ comments before they were finalized and used.

“In the meeting with the supervisors, we used time to discuss the guide (advice to the supervisors to support student autonomy). Many supervisors attended the meeting …we believe we have created a great participation” (No 12 and 13, oa).

Another example was a comprehensive operational plan aiming to develop a pedagogical framework for supervision that would increase the supervisors’ own confidence, allowing the students to practice autonomy in their professional role.

“The plan is that the supervisor guides the student from Active Observations, involves the student to Work Together, then invites the student to Take a Lead and finally Work Independently “ (No 1, wa).

The ACLs instructions to the supervisors differed. In some cases, the content of the documents was left for the supervisors to use as they saw fit, while other documents contained prompts on how to use it and how to act.

Follow ups of the content of the created documents and usefulness of the initiated guidance for the supervisors varied. In some cases, there were no systematic plans for follow up, while others discussed and revised the content of the document.

Another approach within the category of preparing the soil was signified by activities that process the meaning of and facilitation of autonomy. The aim of these activities was to stimulate reflection on factors affecting the development of autonomy to ensure continuation.

“To make the implementation [new activities] work, there is a need for careful and long-term planning ….it takes even more communication [ between different stakeholders ] …and it must be adapted to the students’ actual clinical placement” (No 8 and No 14, wa).

An activity taking the form of a workshop was characterized by the ACLs presenting what autonomy and factors stimulating student development might mean for the students.

“I created a workshop and gave a lecture about the concepts we had studied in the course – about how to facilitate autonomy…. I talked about attachment, trust, and authenticity and how that relates to autonomy” (No 10, oa).

One activity consisted of recorded lectures by the ACL combined with prepared tasks for the supervisors to complete. In the lectures, the different factors presented in the course that the ACLs had attended were presented. Through the tasks, the supervisors were encouraged to reflect on what these factors might mean for their students in their own clinical context. It was up to the supervisors to decide when they wanted to study the recorded material.

“The recorded lectures combined with tasks were meant to provide those responsible for the students in clinical practice knowledge about factors influencing students’ possibilities to reach autonomy during their placement……It would provide them with tools and ways of thinking to be able to change the organization of the clinical practice towards the goal of increased autonomy for students” (No 11, wa).

Emphasizing organizational dimensions that have an impact on implementation

In this category, the importance of considering organizational structures of both the health-care unit and the students’ clinical education when implementing measures to stimulate student autonomy were pointed out. The dimensions brought up and considered in the participants’ projects were the structure of the clinical practice, such as how responsibility of supervision was distributed, and the total number of students at the unit, but also the spread of students over a semester. The ACLs considerations included the duration of the placement, how and whether the students were rotating between different sections at the unit or stayed in one place. To enhance development of student autonomy, the idea of continuity in supervision was emphasized, and to maintain sustainability, managers on several levels were engaged in the planning, as were supervisors.

” We involved managers and administrative assistants in our planning…. administrative assistants plan supervisors’ work schedules and thus influence their work…. a pedagogical encounter was set up to engage them [ managers and administrative assistants ] in a pedagogical discussion…. We also created a group with supervisors from different departments of the clinic to discuss the project and the purpose of the idea of achieving continuity” (No 8 and No 14, wa).

Communication and cooperation with the university was stressed as crucial for whether the supervisors succeeded in facilitating student autonomy. There was an agreement among the ACLs in this category on the importance of including managers from different levels to succeed with the planned project.

” We contacted our manager and presented the project to her, and we contacted our administrative assistants and informed them about who the main supervisors were so that their shift work would not be affected” (No 4, oa).

Cultivating opportunities for students to actively strive for autonomy

In this theme, cultivating opportunities for students , another significant approach to use the knowledge of autonomy was identified. The ACLs planned activities directly to students to stimulate their development of autonomy. The theme consists of two categories: Activities involving students during significant parts of their clinical placement and Specific activities focused on certain knowledge and skills.

Activities involving students during significant parts of their clinical placement

Activities in this category were planned to capture multiple competences and were integrated throughout most of the practice period. A characteristic activity planned by the ACLs included in this category involved assignments that were identified and described for the specific students to complete in pairs.

“Learning activity: The students listen and observe a professional encounter with a patient. Afterwards they attend a workshop about how to document data in a patient’s chart…. The students work together and give each other feedback …. they are asked to go on working like this, writing on their own, discussing with each other and after that consulting the supervisor” (No 10, oa).

The planned activities were related to students’ vocational training and involved ideas about progression regarding students’ possibilities to act autonomously and the complexity of the assignment itself. Students trained different skills on their own and did not only watch their supervisors. They had to make choices between different actions, such as how to proceed in a certain situation, as well as judge when an assignment was finished and how it should be reported. Similar activities were also planned for other students without emphasis on peer learning. Instead, the supervisor continuously identified learning tasks for one student at a time, and thus independence was gradually required.

Variations could be noted in the ACLs approach to stimulating autonomy in these activities. In some cases, the learning tasks were planned in detail by the ACL and the training was limited to certain skills and behaviors. Other approaches were planned to continuously encourage the student to take responsibility and perform independently.

…the supervisors were encouraged to give students increased responsibility, e.g. by allowing them to be supervised by colleagues/other professions/other students and receive more assignments to solve themselves…. such as that they can develop a sense of autonomy in parallel with a sense of belonging with the whole health-care team and the workplace.” (No 10, wa).

Students’ reflections on their own performance were emphasized as important to stimulating development of autonomy. Sometimes, the reflection sessions were mainly about how the tasks had been carried out. In other cases, the students’ own perceptions about their progression towards autonomy were also important to discuss.

“The ACL met the student and the supervisor every week to reflect, based on a certain model. The core concepts of autonomy, authenticity, attachment, trust, and professional identity were discussed to evaluate whether the students felt that they experienced autonomy at the clinical placement. The students were asked to write in their logbook and their questions were discussed during the weekly reflection time.” (No 7, wa).

Specific activities focused on certain knowledge and skills

In this category, ACL’s planned projects contained learning tasks that focused on single skills completed at a specific time during the placement. The aim was to stimulate the development of autonomy in different ways connected to this learning task. A typical kind of activity was characterized by the ACL creating conditions for the students’ training but leaving the implementation to the students. These kinds of activities could be about connecting well-planned written tasks to common clinical issues for the patients who were cared for on the ward. The students could choose when to review the written tasks and how to perform them.

” It is difficult for students to feel attachment and ‘to be nurses’ on the ward when they are there for a short period of time, the patients are very ill, and they don’t have the right knowledge and skills to independently take care of them. I created written learning activities for students to work with on their own or together with other students…it meant that they could select a patient to talk to, search for knowledge and consider questions about a patient’s status and appropriate care” (No 5, oa).

Another activity took the form of a room prepared with equipment, offering opportunities for students to independently train important professional skills. The aim of this activity was to facilitate autonomy and critical thinking within postgraduate nursing specialist training.

“The students can practice together to supervise the monitoring and treatment of a simulated patient based on an authentic scenario. This means that they themselves lead the activity and must make important decisions and reflect on the outcome after a presentation of a project (No 2, oa).

Most activities planned by the ACLs focused on one profession at a time but there was one example targeting interprofessional learning. Interprofessional seminars were implemented for students to learn about other professions from their peers, and these seminars were followed up with reflections on what professional teamwork meant for the development of professional autonomy.

Domain B: Embracing the meaning of facilitating autonomy

The participants’ choices of design and the ways they described and talked about their projects also reflected a dimension of their learning related to their theoretical understanding of development of students’ autonomy. The analysis of the participants’ descriptions of how different factors facilitate and relate to the development of autonomy resulted in the outcome of two qualitatively different perceptions, here designated as two themes: Connection between activities and autonomy is self-evident and Certain factors can explain and facilitate development of autonomy. The first theme consists of one category: Lack of reasoning about the meaning of autonomy . In the second theme, two categories emerged: The concept of autonomy as a core value and Various factors are linked to the development of autonomy. The content of the domain is illustrated in Table 2 .

Connection between activities and autonomy is self-evident

One category denoted this theme, namely the lack of reasoning. The activities were described as facilitating autonomy, but there was no explanation for the underlying ideas of why the activities facilitated autonomy. One example is that a project was meant to introduce peer learning and activities for the students were thus described. These activities could involve students training skills on their own and they were asked to make their own decisions and discuss with their peers. However, there was no elaboration on how and why these activities were supposed to result in students becoming more autonomous. The relationship between activities and the ability to make choices and more independent decisions seemed to be taken for granted. Another example is the notion that activities directed at interprofessional education led to autonomy, which also was never explained.

“They develop autonomy as they see their own responsibilities as they are reflected in what other professions perform and are responsible for. It promotes their own professional development.” (No 9, wa).

Certain factors can explain and facilitate development of autonomy

The main qualitative difference between this theme compared to the first is that the participants explained and reasoned about how and why certain activities stimulated and led to independence. However, which factors that were brought up varied, as did the complexity of related explanations and reasoning.

The concept of autonomy as a core value

The level of understanding in this category was characterized by explanations and reasoning linked to the use of autonomy as an overarching concept. Here, an activity such as being asked to independently use a skill or to handle an encounter with a patient was chosen because this training would lead to student autonomy. When the project was introduced to supervisors or managers, the planned activities were mainly motivated by claiming that if students were given opportunities to act independently, it would foster autonomy in them. Factors brought up in the course as influencing development of autonomy were not used by the ACLs to elaborate on how to facilitate autonomy. They didn’t elaborate on any other factors brought up in the course as influencing the development of autonomy.

“When we thought about how to work with student autonomy, we decided to use peer learning. The students’ assignments are described, they work together, and the students take responsibility to carry them out. The students can stand on their own two feet… they are trusted” (No 6, oa).

Various factors are linked to development of autonomy

This category was characterized by an elaborate understanding of the meaning of autonomy and factors that have an impact on the development of autonomy. The ACLs reasoning about autonomy and other factors influencing autonomy was complex to a varying degree. Some participants explained and related their activities to one or more factors.

“…the students meet new supervisors very often, generally speaking every day… this leads to obstacles for student learning, and it makes it difficult to develop autonomy and authenticity. Both the students and the supervisors become ambivalent when they must create new relationships almost every day” (No 8 and No 14, wa).

Others reasoned about how different factors were interdependent and related to facilitation of autonomy in a broader sense.

From a guide for supervisors: … we think this is about attachment, the students are invited, and they have got a place when they arrive….and this next guiding advice is connected to trust… we trust the student that they know a lot, but it takes time to learn this new specialty. It is about autonomy too – that the students take responsibility and think for themselves… Some supervisors are very controlling, so the students don’t have the possibility to practice how to really be critical care nurses, so they don’t experience authenticity” (No 12 and No 13, oa).

We argued in the background that a hindrance for development of a rich learning environment in clinical education is that available research-based knowledge is not sufficiently applied [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. A way to face this problem is to enhance knowledge about how clinical faculty members understand and integrate theoretical knowledge in clinical practice. In this study we examined projects designed and implemented by clinical faculty members to find out how they, in this case, applied research about student autonomy in clinical education. The projects were the final part of a course introducing theories and research on the importance of students’ development of autonomy in clinical education. The purpose of describing and reasoning about these participants’ learning was to contribute to a deeper understanding of how to support clinical faculty to acquire and apply theoretical knowledge in clinical practice.

Two different domains mirroring the participants’ learning outcome were identified when their projects were analyzed. One domain concerned what they had decided to focus on to facilitate students’ development of autonomy and how they went about implementing their ideas in the clinic. The other identified domain involved the interpretation of the participants’ understanding of the theoretical framework underpinning autonomy as a concept. These findings expose different perspectives on how a course with a specific design directed at faculty members impacted their actions and understanding, i.e., the faculty members’ learning. The outcome of the course was encouraging in relation to the facilitation of student learning in clinical practice. All the participating ACLs projects contained activities and/or documents that involved some form of application of theories on how to facilitate student autonomy Some projects aimed to “prepare the soil”, such as educating supervisors and creating fertile ground for learning for the students. Another group of projects were planned directly for students, signified by “cultivating opportunities ” for them to practice autonomy through certain activities. Several studies have shown that the nature of clinical education is complex [ 12 , 14 , 16 , 17 ]. The students’ education takes place in two different arenas – the university and the clinic. Many faculty members are involved in clinical education, and their role mainly focuses on patient care and not on student education [ 12 , 13 ]. It became obvious that this complexity of clinical education influenced what the ACLs assessed possible to accomplish. This was mirrored in the choices that the ACLs made concerning the content and to whom they directed their projects. A comprehensive review of research on student learning in clinical practice found that issues about how to organize students’ learning were the most researched, indicating that organizational issues are an essential part of change [ 47 ]. The significant features of the health-care units in which the ACLs acted had a large impact on how they planned and implemented their projects. This underlines the importance of being familiar with the nature of context to introduce changes. The projects that were targeted supervisors, managers, and the organization presumably had an impact on a wider group of students compared to projects that were designed directly for a minor group of students or supervisors. This is important in relation to issues about sustainability. If faculty members on different levels in the clinic are engaged, ideas and knowledge about how to facilitate student learning can continue to develop and gain a foothold [ 14 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Projects involving managers and system levels are far more likely to become sustainable [ 13 , 15 , 17 , 48 ]. The activities planned directly for students, and where the ownership of the ideas was closely linked to the ACLs, run the risk of being dependent on a limited group of faculty members, and may cease as soon as the person in charge is not there.

The variety of planned activities and documents created by the ACLs displayed comprehensive understanding, challenges and shortcomings related to the meaning of autonomy. Two qualitatively different levels of understanding of autonomy and how different factors facilitate and relate to the development of autonomy emerged [ 3 , 22 , 24 ]. One level of understanding relied on a presumed self-evident relationship between an activity and student autonomy. The other level of understanding involved explanations for how different factors, such as authenticity, trust, and belonging, relate to the development of autonomy. These differences in learning outcomes are very important to consider in faculty development. We claim that a level of understanding that includes the ability to discern the meaning of theory in the clinical context and in everyday practice, is necessary to support others, such as supervisors and students, and implement sustainable change. The understanding of a situation and the understanding of the phenomenon that gives this situation meaning are connected. According to Marton and Booth [ 24 ] a situation is understood based on the phenomena involved – and the phenomena are perceived in light of the specific situation. When viewed in relation to the participants’ projects this meant that the understanding of the theory could be seen in the choices the participants made regarding their projects, what they perceived as important issues, how they proposed to solve these issues, etc. From a variation theory perspective, this is viewed as a matter of discrimination and differentiation, and learning is seen as the ability to discern these differences [ 24 , 35 ]. The space for learning, therefore, is the potential variation or difference provided by the situation [ 24 , 35 ]. Opportunities to participate in continuing professional courses and forums for discussions between ACLs may support the development of a deeper understanding of theory when it is linked to clinical practice.

In the design of the course emphasis was placed on participants creating and implementing a project. What did that mean for their learning? Some projects were quite limited, as they sometimes only comprised one document, or when an activity only reached a small group of students or a minor group of supervisors. This can be a shortcoming, but it is possible that further development and successful implementation is more dependent on the properties of the document or activity related to theoretical understanding and the ACLs ability to identify meaningful problems. If an initiative is well substantiated, there will be more opportunities to build on it [ 35 , 43 ]. Some projects were broader, where several activities were planned to be repeated and continued over time and they engaged both supervisors and students. These projects carry a high potential for successful implementation and impact on supporting student learning, since continuity and engagement increases opportunities for faculty members to learn [ 17 , 35 , 50 ].

Above, we have discussed how the ACLs’ learning manifested itself in the participants’ projects and how that reflected their understanding of theories about learning processes, connected to development of autonomy. The group of ACLs is particularly interesting as they support both supervisors and students and are responsible for bridging the education gap between the university and clinical practice. Understanding of the actual subject matter – in this case facilitating autonomy – turns out to be very important for the individual ACL to manage to drive development and change. It impacted problems that they discerned and identified, and the choices they made in their planning [ 24 , 35 ]. Successful implementation also seems to depend on the mandate of the change agents, in this case the ACLs and their awareness of the practices at their unit and on different management levels [ 13 , 17 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. In addition to these requirements, we would argue that understanding how people learn in general is also critical to the implementation of new ideas. This statement is based on the application of the constructivist pedagogical framework underpinning this study [ 35 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ]. If development is to occur, all stakeholders must process and understand the meaning of autonomy and be able to relate and link it to their practice [ 13 , 17 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. The way the ACL communicated with and involved affected parties in their projects revealed their awareness of learning processes not only directed at facilitating autonomy. There were examples of projects in which an activity and/or a document was created by the ACL and the main strategy during implementation was to provide information about it to supervisors, managers, and students. This strategy essentially meant that no learning processes were initiated to facilitate understanding. In other projects, supervisors and/or students were involved to different extents in creating and making their own choices about how to perform suggested activities and review documents. These strategies encouraged the stakeholders to think about and react to practice, as well as reflect on what autonomy meant to them personally. Other factors conducive to active learning processes that were identified were planned follow-up opportunities, interactive feedback, and shared recurrent encounters to discuss documents and/or activities.

Strengths and limitations

The strength of this study lies in the theoretical and conceptual rigor applied throughout both the design process and the implementation of the educational intervention. There is also considerable procedural rigor due to the intervention being implemented with particularity and a firm epistemological stance. Limitations are connected to the sample of the study with only interested and ambitious learners who decided to take this course. However, this also contributes to rich data descriptions. There are notable challenges in studying an intervention that we as researchers have designed and the outcomes of this intervention. These challenges have been counteracted through constant reflexive discussions and questioning of assumptions.

This study shows that an educational intervention that emphasizes application of theoretical knowledge in clinical practice can enhance the development of evidence-based approaches to support students’ learning. Targeting a strategic group, such as the ACLs in this study, can be a successful way to strengthen faculty development. All participants in the intervention demonstrated the ability to use theoretical knowledge and create activities to support students’ learning. However, their applications differed in terms of underlying reasoning, reach and potential sustainability. To some extent these differences were due to a deeper understanding versus a more superficial understanding of the central concepts related to autonomy. Another critical factor affecting implementation was the ACLs understanding of learning processes in general. Lessons to learn for professional faculty development are that there is a need to stress individual understanding of actual theoretical concepts as well as learning theories in education addressing clinical faculty. The outcome of the ACLs planned projects turned out to be very dependent on their own mandate, the structure in the clinic, and acknowledgement of their work in the clinical context. This study also highlights that in order to achieve a potential continuity and sustainability of implemented changes in the clinic the implementation processes must be anchored throughout the actual organisation.

Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to ethical reasons connected to the participant’s informed consent. The data generated during this study consists of written reports and transcribed audio recordings of participants who have been guaranteed confidential handling of data. On reasonable request, data can be made available from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the adjunct clinical lecturers who kindly took part in the study.

Open access funding provided by Karolinska Institute. The study was funded by ALF, the Regional Agreement on Medical Training and Clinical Research between Region Stockholm and Karolinska Institutet.

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Charlotte Silén, Katri Manninen & Angelica Fredholm

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All authors were active in designing and executing the intervention and the study. CS and AF performed the analysis and wrote the manuscript. KM critically reviewed and contributed to the description of the results, read, and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Silén, C., Manninen, K. & Fredholm, A. Designing for student autonomy combining theory and clinical practice – a qualitative study with a faculty perspective. BMC Med Educ 24 , 532 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05514-y

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MSci Presentations: Zoltan Sojtory and Manuel Simonetta

Published: 25 April 2024

Two EAP MSci students present their research projects on large language models to support student learning and qualitative research.

SPEAKER: Zoltan Sojtory TITLE: Large Language Model-Aided Pair Programming for Algorithm Tracing DESCRIPTION: The widespread popularity of generative AI models has inspired the development of numerous large- language-model (LLM) based tools for educational purposes. We explore LLM-aided pair programming specifically for algorithm tracing, in an attempt to combine the benefits of these two traditional educational techniques. Our main objective is to address challenges inherent to pair programming while utilising the flexibility of LLM tools.

SPEAKER: Manuel Simonetta TITLE: Exploring the Use of Large Language Models in Thematic Analysis DESCRIPTION: This research investigates the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google Bard, into thematic analysis (TA), a qualitative data analysis method. By utilising advanced prompt engineering techniques and iterative refinements, we explore how different prompting strategies influence the quality and depth of TA insights produced by LLMs. The research method is experimental, using an iterative prompt development approach and sample data. Output quality is assessed in three ways, by triangulation, using quality criteria and comparing LLM outputs to human-conducted thematic analysis. We contribute an experimental framework for LLM-conducted thematic analysis and envision that LLMs can be effectively used as co-analysts alongside humans. The paper contributes to addressing tensions surrounding technology integration in social science research and paves the way for further exploration of ethical and effective use of LLMs in research.

First published: 25 April 2024

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[Guide] How to Present Qualitative Research Findings in PowerPoint?

How to Create a Structure for your Qualitative Research Presentation?

1. Objective of the Research

2. Key Parameters Considered for Measurement

3. Research Methodology Adopted

4. Research Outcomes (Presenting Descriptive Analysis)

5. Summary and Learnings from the Research

6. Inclusions and Exclusions (if any)

7. Conclusion of the Research

8. Questions

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Tip 2 – Tell a Story (Don’t Show Just Data!)

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3. Preserve Identity of the Participant

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4.1 Use a Simple Color Scheme

4.2 Make the Data Tables Simple and Visually Appealing

4.3 Use Graphs and Charts (wherever necessary)

4.4 Use Icons instead of Bullet Points

Tip 5 – Include the Outliers

Tip 6 – Take Inspiration from other Presentations

Tip 7 – Ask Others to Critic your Presentation

Final Thoughts

Qualitative Research Resources: Presenting Qualitative Research

Presenting Qualitative Research, with a focus on posters

Example posters

Additional resources

Chapter 20. Presentations

Writing about Your Research

Make an Argument

Presenting at Conferences and Job Talks

A Word on Universal Design

Poster Design

Incorporating Visual Design in Your Presentations

Ethics of Presentation and Reliability

Final Comments: Preparing for Being Challenged

Data Visualization Checklist for Slideshow (PPT) Presentations

Universal Design Checklist for Slideshow (PPT) Presentations

Supplement: Models of Written Sections for Future Reference

Justification of Case Selection / Sample Description Section Example

Ethics Section Example

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Preparing the presentation of qualitative findings: considering your roles and goals

Dr. Philip Adu is a Methodology Expert at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP). In this post he explains the things to consider when presenting your research findings.

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Presenting main findings

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