A = a new system
B = person

B does not know A.
How would you test whether B would accept A?

My view is to use a questionnaire asking B whether he/she would strongly agree, agree etc. regarding sub parts of A. At the end, now familiar with A I would ask B whether the whole would be acceptable and why /why not.
Any views?

Or as alternative using qualitative research? But how do you interview people regarding things they are not familiar with ? Asking first to read about A seems unrealistic.

Would value your views

interesting question, rick.
i guess it depends on what you want to ask these people about the thing they are not familiar with. what do you want to know? do you want to know if it would be a good idea to introduce this? a good idea by what standard, on what counts? do you want to know if people would accept it? do you want to know if people think it (or parts of it) is good/bad?
in science communication research a method is used where groups of "lay" people are confronted with sometimes quite extensive material or scenarios and then are asked to talk about it. that might be something you are looking for?
a problem could be that you are constructing the thing you are researching. if you are interested in peoples' opinion on something and they don't have an opinion on this because they don't know it. so first you educate them about it and then you ask them for their opinion... see what I mean?
...just some random thoughts.

Thanks Shani,

yes what I want to know is whether they think it would be a good idea and whether they would accept it.

The problem that they have not used this so far, thus they cannot tell, unless they would be educated about it. Educating people is notoriously difficult when it is about an abstract idea. Therefore I thought it useful to present it as small chunks and ask them what they thought about these and at the end about the whole thing.

My intuition thinks that qualitative research would be the answer

Shani,

I will look at communication research, thanks.

I fear that you may well be right, maybe I am constructing something which is not there and with my questionnaire construct it. Useful view!

Maybe I'm being stupid, but would it help if you let us know what the 'abstract concept' you want to research is? I'm a qual researcher and this would obviously impact on what method you used/what type of feedback we could give.

OK, Goods, I will try and be more specific with the risk of confusing you more.

In medical care there are guidelines being developed in different countries. Some countries are ahead of the game, have lots of guidelines, others are just starting. Guideline development is time consuming and costly. I want to know whether a guideline from, let's say New Zealand would be acceptable for a doctor in Holland. As the dutch doctor does not know it he/she will have to be introduced to it (guidelines are quite extensive and boring, as such unlikely that he /she will voluntarily read it). Thus there needs an alternative way of introducing what is in it.
My idea was the questionnaire, what are your views?

Hi Rick,

Your research sounds fascinating (and very worthwhile!).

Right, this is tricky. My gut instinct is ... would a questionnaire lead to 'stifled' responses (i.e. not allow medical practitioners to express their opinions freely)?

Also, are you going to be travelling to conduct this fieldwork, or are you going to be based in the UK and correspond with participants via email (if so, I can understand why you are going to be limited in what method you can use)?

Aha - I've just seen another thread and noticed you are based in Germany.

So is your fieldwork limited to working in Holland and Germany?

it seems to me that perhaps a combination of qual/quant methods would do the trick. for example you could start with focus groups discussion. limited number of participants, but these actually read the whole boring stuff (might not be too bad since they are "experts"). you then use the results of the focus groups to devise a questionnaire (I think your original idea is not too bad!) which goes to a representative sample.

about science communication research: i suggest you check out the debate on the "GM Nation" project in England.

Hi Shani,

thanks, sounds like a good idea.

I must admit that initially I also thought about qualitative research, yet, I know this is bad, felt a bit apprensive about using it, and tried with a questionnaire only. But you may be right.

Goods, thanks as well, the New Zealand guidelines are an example as this country has developed a great many, I would not travel there (although the idea, on second thought is appealing).

I will meet with my supervisor on Wednesday to discuss the issue, and it really helps to have a forum to reflect on issues beforehand.

Shani, Goods, what are you doing research wise?

Oh Goods,

I did a lot of reading around this issue and there are only a limited amount of reasons why guidelines are not used or followed (e.g. doctors not involved in development, no ownership, too time consuming, format not user friendly, no incentive). I have included these in my draft questionnaire. I would be surpised if any other reasons would come out of qualitative research.
Obviously I have indicated in the questionnaire a "Other:" where the doctors could indicate another reason for using / not using the guidelines

i am studying cultures of reproductive medicine. so, a bit related to what you are doing in that it is social science but about medicine

Interesting,

do you mean different "schools" of reproductive medicine or reproductive medicine in different cultures/countries?

hm, more like "how culture affects reprod.med. and how rep.med. in turn affects culture" or "how culture and reprod.med. are co-constructed", in a specific case.

Shani,

interesting subject

I see how the culture will have an effect on reproductive medicine. For example in relation to views regarding IVF treatment and termination of pregnancy.
Vice versa you are probably referring to the contraceptive pill and how this changed completely the life in the western world.

Seems quite a grand subject. How do you intent to tackle this? Interview obstetricians /gynaecologists in different cultures? Or even interview parents? Pill users? Women against using pill? Your research population could be endless.