Sarah Seymour-Smith

Nottingham Trent University | NTU · Division of Psychology

The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive guide for novice researchers (mostly applicable to PhD students and those new to qualitative research), teachers, and reviewers of qualitative psychology research methods. This paper delineates the main quality criteria across qualitative methods: providing a holistic framework that covers funda...

AI-TOP is an ongoing project funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ program and is a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and other universities throughout Europe. The intended outcome of the project is a platform that can be deployed in the learning environments of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in order to detect the early...

Hoarding behaviours can cause numerous problems including health risks, family conflict, and removal of children and pets from the home. Hoarding research typically adopts a cognitive‐behavioural framework and uses quantitative methods; we aimed to further understand the development of hoarding behaviour from a qualitative perspective. Constructivi...

Introduction There are several challenges associated with breast cancer detection in Uganda and other low-and-middle-income countries. One of the identified challenges is attributed to the health workers' gender, which facilitates gender disparities in access to breast cancer detection services. Although this challenge is well acknowledged in exist...

There is a notable scarcity of empirical studies focusing on online sexual grooming using real world, naturally occurring data. Limited research with real victims (as opposed to decoys) has indicated that more overt forceful threats are employed by offenders in such interaction; however, they tell us little about how these threats are built up and...

In this paper we use a case study, the co-production of a prostate cancer app with, and for, Black British African-Caribbean communities, to discuss benefits and tensions of inclusive practice and allyship. We view our collaborators as joint partners, and joint allies, for the Black British African-Caribbean community. Here, we document the researc...

Objective: Obesity rates are increasing faster in men than in women, with particular concerns raised regarding older men. However, men are less likely than women to engage in weight-loss activities such as dieting, typically constructed as a feminine practice. Previous research has argued that men’s food consumption is notably different and unhealt...

The Teaching Qualitative Psychology Group (TQP) is a group of experienced academics supporting the sharing of best practice in the teaching and supervision of qualitative research methods in psychology. In this paper the group share their knowledge and practice suggestions with a specific focus on supporting academics who do not come from a qualita...

Purpose Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men in the UK. Black men are in a higher prostate cancer risk group possibly due to inherent genetic factors. The purpose of this paper is to introduce PROstate Cancer Evaluation and Education (PROCEE), an innovative serious game aimed at providing prostate cancer information and risk...

Objective: African-Caribbean men in the UK have the highest incidence rate of prostate cancer in comparison to other ethnicities. Psycho-social aspects related to screening and presentation impact on men's behaviour, with previous studies indicating a range of barriers. This study explores one such barrier, the digital rectal examination (DRE), du...

Transcripts of chat logs of naturally occurring, sexually exploitative interactions between offenders and victims that took place via Internet communication platforms were analyzed. The aim of the study was to examine the modus operandi of offenders in such interactions, with particular focus on the specific strategies they use to engage victims, i...

Co-design is a process for creating interventions with representative participants of the target group. The co-design process ensures that the technologies are aligned with people's needs and removes the designer subjectivity. This paper discusses the co-design methodology and evaluation of the Pro-CEE serious game, an innovative intervention which...

Most research on male body image to date has focused on young men using quantitative methods. The study reported here is based on qualitative interviews with a sample of older obese men (n = 30) on a weight management program, and we asked them about body-related feelings. The interviews were all transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Ou...

The aim of this paper is to outline the contribution of two strands of discursive research, glossed as 'macro' and 'micro,' to the field of health psychology. A further goal is to highlight some contemporary debates in methodology associated with the use of interview data versus more naturalistic data in qualitative health research. Discursive appr...

Gender and sexuality invoke a wide spectrum of topics which attract the interest of both the media and academia, but the impact of our gender and sexuality is also an everyday presence for many of us. One example of this is outlined in Liz Peel’s (2001) work on what she refers to as “mundane heterosexism”. Peel’s argument is that overt forms of sex...

The purpose of this study was to examine whether an innovative, inclusive and integrated 12-week exercise, behaviour change and nutrition advice-based weight management programme could significantly improve the cardiovascular risk factors of overweight and obese men and women over the age of 35. One hundred and ninety-four men and 98 women (mean ag...

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men in the UK. Over 40 000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year and one in four Black men will develop prostate cancer at some point in their lives. High mortality rates among African and African Caribbean men exist due to the various barriers which prevent them from seeking advice...

Today's men are less limited than previous generations and do things their fathers would have eschewed, including spending lots of time and money on 'grooming' products and services (moisturiser, body hair removal, even make-up). Our research with 'metrosexual men' and men on weight loss programmes shows that (heterosexual) men are indeed intereste...

Public reactions to internet child offending remain ambivalent in that, while there is vocal condemnation of contact child sex offending, there is less indignation about internet child abuse. This is potentially due to a lack of recognition of this type of offence as sexual offending per se. This ambiguity is reflected by internet sex offenders the...

In this chapter we consider how heterosexual men are investing in their appearance in light of the contemporary consumerist promotion of body perfection on the one hand and the ‘obesity epidemic’ on the other. We draw on studies of male ‘metrosexual’ cosmetic use and men engaged in weight management projects to examine how men account for their inv...

Despite a steady growth in research into men's health, little is known about how men experience life with a chronic illness like Type 1 diabetes. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted an interview study with 15 men who have Type 1 diabetes. Following grounded theory analysis of the interview transcripts, we generated a number of inter-related...

Although the Internet has opened up new avenues for identity expression, many web-based sources have yet to be examined. Online testimonials as a form word-of-mouth advertising are a relatively new development. The present study examines the construction of masculinities in men's cosmetics adverting testimonials presented on the website of a leadin...

Objective: Researchers have observed gender differences in the frequency of emotion language used in cancer forums, with men more likely to seek medical information and women more likely to seek social and emotional support (Blank, Schmidt, Vangsness, Monteiro, & Santagata, 2010; Seale, Ziebland, & Charteris-Black, 2006). The aim of this article w...

The heterosexual romantic partnership offers a pivotal means through which many transgendered people are avowed and accepted within their transitioned sex. Yet despite the heteronormative status of such relationships it is unclear what complications may exist regarding the avowal of transgender legitimacy given that transitioning sex is counter-int...

The last two decades have seen a marked increase in men's self-presentation practices and the creation of a new identity category: "metrosexual" (Simpson, 1994, 2002). Here we examine men's makeup use, considered one of the more extreme indicators of "metrosexuality" (Harrison, 2008). We deploy a discursive analytic approach informed in particular...

The relatively recent growth of identity categories for men participating in non-conventional masculine activities can be linked to contemporary consumption and lifestyle opportunities (Gill et al., 2005). While there have been various studies pertaining to media representations of ‘metrosexuality’, ‘new’ masculinities, and the marketing of health...

A significant adjustment in eating practices is required before and after bariatric surgery, yet we know relatively little about how patients manage these changes. In this paper, we explored how members of an online bariatric support group constructed their appetite and weight loss. Two hundred and eighty four online posts were collected, covering...

This article maps the components of telephone tutorial conferences (TTCs) used for distance learning in higher education. Using conversation analysis we identified four common sequences of TTCs as `calling in'; `agenda-setting'; `tutorial proper'; and `closing down'. Patterns of student participation look similar to those in face-to-face tutorials...

Research has demonstrated that gender is a barrier to men's participation in self-help groups. In this article I analyse how four men and seven women negotiate their identities as members of cancer self-help groups. Their accounts were transcribed and analysed using a synthetic approach to discursive psychology. Women's accounts were organized arou...

Research has demonstrated that heterosexual men receive enhanced health benefits from their relationships with women. Explanations for this gendered pattern often focus on women's role as the main caregivers and arrangers of health care. However, what remains unclear is how these benefits are mediated. In this article, we describe the micropolitics...

Women are often considered the ‘health supervisor’ both in heterosexual relationships and in relation to their children (see, for example, Cameron & Bernades, 1998). Whilst children are in obvious need of support in this area, arguably men are not. Women’s role in men’s health is one of the issues that my thesis raised (although my main interest wa...

This study used a discursive approach to analysing doctors' and nurses' accounts of men's health in the context of general practice. The analysis worked intensively with interview material from a small sample of general practitioners and their nursing colleagues. We examine the contradictory discursive framework through which this sample made sense...