Designer's Corner "Decision-Making in Context": A Proposal for a Comprehensive Methodology

Authors

  • Franco A. Carnevale

Abstract

Decision-making has been the focus of a significant number of studies in nursing as well as in the social sciences. These have included studies of coping, clinical judgement, and the management of ethical dilemmas, among many other topics. Studies of decision-making have relied largely on self-report methods such as interviews and paper-and-pencil tools. I shall outline some of the fundamental limitations of these approaches and propose a shift toward a contextual study of decision-making. Use of self-report can be a valid way of accessing a person's (conscious) thoughts, preoccupations, preferences, and opinions. Following "the fall of behaviourism," such methods are a necessary component of most studies of human experiences. Informants' articulations are inescapable sources of insight in the quest to understand lived phenomena. However, self-report methods are insufficient for studies that are intended to examine phenomena comprehensively.

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Published

1997-04-13

Issue

Section

Articles