On the Problems of Mixing RCTs with Qualitative Research: The Case of the MRC Framework for the Evaluation of Complex Healthcare Interventions

In the perceived hierarchy of research designs, the results from randomized controlled trials are considered to provide the highest level of evidence. Indeed these trials have been upheld as the gold standard in research. The benefits and limitations of the randomized controlled trial as a method of evaluating the effectiveness of healthcare interventions are presented. The article then examines the different levels of complexity within healthcare interventions and the problems this poses in determining effectiveness. In an effort to provide a solution to this problem, the Medical Research Council produced a framework to assist investigators to develop and evaluate complex healthcare interventions. The framework is described with reference to an example of implementing and evaluating protocols for weaning patients in the intensive care unit. The framework is critiqued on the basis that it involves an ambiguous or contradictory ontology, which fails to articulate the relationship between the positivism of randomized controlled trials with the relativism of qualitative approaches. It is concluded that the use of realist strategies in combination with randomized controlled trials provides the most coherent solution to this quandary

Scientific revolutions, progess and accounting research

Thomas Kuhn’s concept of a normal science paradigm has been utilised and criticised across a range of social science fields. However, Kuhn’s aim was to argue that science progresses not in an incremental manner but through a series of paradigms that need a revolution in thought to shift from one to the next. This paper addresses Kuhn’s work focusing on the totality of his model, but recognising the ambiguities concerning paradigm shifts that have led to charges of relativism. To address this weakness an argument is advanced for a political economy analysis of the publication process and the development of critical accounting research centred on human emancipation. The paper concludes with some suggested research agendas particularly relevant to the Irish context.

Terry Eagleton, Postmodernism and Ireland

Terry Eagleton devoted considerable thought to the nature of postmodernism during the heyday of the postmodernist debate in the Eighties and Nineties, and always expressed strong reservations about it.1 It is worth noting that these reservations do not imply any hostility to formal experimentation, or to the registering of alienation in its postmodern form. Rather, he seeks to show how there might be a politically and morally engaged art which was very much of our time. His position is consistent with those he adopts in dealing with other subjects, and may be illuminated by reference to those works where he does so. Of all these other subjects, the most illuminating for understanding his work is that of Irish literature, for it was during this period that Eagleton became a major figure in Irish studies, and his thinking on postmodernist relativism was developed alongside his critique of revisionism in Irish historiography.

Determinants of academic cheating behavior: The future for accountancy in Ireland

This paper considers the potential for improving the reputation of the Irish accountancy profession by exploring undergraduate accounting students’ intolerance of academic cheating as a predictor of future attitudes to unethical workplace practices. The study reports that females are significantly more intolerant of cheating than males. Further, with regard to ethical ideology, idealism was found to have a significant positive association with intolerance of cheating while relativism reported no association. It is anticipated that the growing admission of women to professional accountancy membership together with educational intervention to increase idealism may improve ethical attitudes and help restore the profession's reputation.