PHLT 9000 Week 4 Chapter Rebuild Example

Five Written Objections, Five Answers Inside the Chapter: Rebuilding Chapter 3 of a Composite Qualitative Study of Intake Decisions on Hoarded Homes

Student Name

Walden University

PHLT 9000: Dissertation

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Five Written Objections, Five Answers Inside the Chapter: Rebuilding Chapter 3 of a Composite Qualitative Study of Intake Decisions on Hoarded Homes

The Task

My second committee member returned chapter 3 with five written objections. The easy response would be a reply memo explaining each point. That memo would satisfy the committee member but leave the chapter unchanged for every later reader: the external examiner, the repository reader, the student who borrows my design. This paper describes how I rebuilt the chapter so that each objection is answered in the text itself, and it quotes the revised passages so the committee can see the answers where a reader will find them.

Objection 1: Why These Departments and These People?

The Comment

"Three departments and 24 participants. Why these, and why is that enough?"

The Answer in the Chapter

The original chapter said only that departments were selected "purposively." The rebuilt section names the selection logic: the three departments were chosen to differ in population served, rural or urban setting and whether hoarding complaints are handled by environmental health staff alone or jointly with public health nurses. Within each department, every staff member who had handled at least one hoarding complaint in the previous two years was invited. The chapter now explains sample size through information power rather than saturation: the aim is narrow, the participants hold specific experience of the decision studied, the interviews were in-depth and the analysis was case-oriented, conditions under which a modest sample can be adequate (Malterud et al., 2016). The revised passage reads, in part: "The sample was judged sufficient because each participant had made the decision under study, not because new codes stopped appearing."

Objection 2: The Recruitment Change at the Third Department

The Comment

"Recruitment through a supervisor is a different method from the one approved. What did it change?"

The Answer in the Chapter

The chapter now reports the deviation in its own subsection. At the third department, the open email invitation drew no responses in three weeks, and with IRB approval of an amendment, the environmental health supervisor forwarded the invitation and mentioned it at a staff meeting. The chapter states two possible effects: staff may have felt pressure to take part, and those who agreed may have been more aligned with their supervisor's views. It reports the steps taken in response, that the supervisor was not told who participated and that consent was repeated at the start of each interview, and it notes that participants from the third department were no less critical of department practice than others.

Objection 3: A Leading Interview Question

The Comment

"The guide asks staff how they 'assess risk.' That presupposes the answer."

The Answer in the Chapter

This objection was correct. The guide's second question asked, "How do you assess the risk a hoarding complaint presents?" which invites staff to describe their choices in risk language even if they decide on other grounds. The chapter now acknowledges the problem, explains that the opening question was open, asking participants to describe the last complaint they received from start to finish, and reports that 17 of 24 participants described their decision before the risk question was asked. In the results, codes about risk are reported with a note on whether they arose before or after that question. The full guide appears in an appendix with the problematic wording marked. The chapter also explains why the question was kept for later interviews instead of being dropped midway: changing the guide after eight interviews would have made the data set inconsistent, and the open first question already captured each participant's own account.

Objection 4: Who Coded, and How?

The Comment

"The analysis section says 'themes emerged.' Themes do not emerge; someone builds them."

The Answer in the Chapter

The rebuilt analysis section describes the six phases of thematic analysis as I applied them, from familiarization to writing up (Braun & Clarke, 2006), and replaces "emerged" with active verbs throughout. It states that I coded all transcripts in qualitative analysis software, keeping memos dated by session, that a second coder, a doctoral colleague, independently coded four transcripts and that disagreements were discussed to refine the codebook rather than to calculate agreement statistics. It describes my position: Before doctoral study, I worked for six years as an environmental health specialist in a different state, which helped with rapport and terminology and may have inclined me to see decisions through an inspector's eyes. A reflexive journal kept during analysis is described as part of the audit trail.

Objection 5: Trustworthiness

The Comment

"The proposal promised member checking. Did it happen?"

The Answer in the Chapter

It happened in a narrower form than promised. The chapter now explains that a two-page summary of themes was sent to all 24 participants, and nine responded. Their comments are summarized, including one participant's objection that the "partner capacity" theme understated the role of landlords, which led to a revision of that theme's description. The chapter now organizes trustworthiness under credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability, naming the specific steps taken for each instead of listing them generically, following the criteria set out by Nowell et al. (2017).

How the Rebuilt Chapter Reads Now

The chapter is now in the past tense throughout, including the description of the IRB approval and the consent process, describes the study as conducted instead of as proposed, and lists every deviation from the proposal with its likely effect. It follows the reporting items in the standards for qualitative research that the committee asked me to use (Tong et al., 2007), and a short table in the appendix maps each item to the page where it is reported.

Table 1

Changes to Chapter 3 by Objection (Composite)

Note. Composite word counts.

References

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

Malterud, K., Siersma, V. D., & Guassora, A. D. (2016). Sample size in qualitative interview studies: Guided by information power. Qualitative Health Research, 26(13), 1753-1760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617444

Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847

Tong, A., Sainsbury, P., & Craig, J. (2007). Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): A 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19(6), 349-357. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzm042