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Studying technology use as social practice: the untapped potential of ethnography

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medicine, April 2011
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (90th percentile)

Mentioned by

policy
1 policy source
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53 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

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124 Dimensions

Readers on

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286 Mendeley
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Title
Studying technology use as social practice: the untapped potential of ethnography
Published in
BMC Medicine, April 2011
DOI 10.1186/1741-7015-9-45
Pubmed ID
Authors

Trisha Greenhalgh, Deborah Swinglehurst

Abstract

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) in healthcare are often introduced with expectations of higher-quality, more efficient, and safer care. Many fail to meet these expectations. We argue here that the well-documented failures of ICTs in healthcare are partly attributable to the philosophical foundations of much health informatics research. Positivistic assumptions underpinning the design, implementation and evaluation of ICTs (in particular the notion that technology X has an impact which can be measured and reproduced in new settings), and the deterministic experimental and quasi-experimental study designs which follow from these assumptions, have inherent limitations when ICTs are part of complex social practices involving multiple human actors. We suggest that while experimental and quasi-experimental studies have an important place in health informatics research overall, ethnography is the preferred methodological approach for studying ICTs introduced into complex social systems. But for ethnographic approaches to be accepted and used to their full potential, many in the health informatics community will need to revisit their philosophical assumptions about what counts as research rigor.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 53 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 286 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 14 5%
United States 7 2%
Canada 2 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
Senegal 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Norway 1 <1%
Germany 1 <1%
Other 3 1%
Unknown 254 89%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 68 24%
Researcher 49 17%
Student > Master 44 15%
Student > Bachelor 23 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 15 5%
Other 57 20%
Unknown 30 10%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 78 27%
Medicine and Dentistry 61 21%
Computer Science 23 8%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 6%
Business, Management and Accounting 13 5%
Other 54 19%
Unknown 39 14%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 35. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 January 2022.
All research outputs
#1,119,183
of 25,035,235 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medicine
#794
of 3,919 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,184
of 115,630 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medicine
#5
of 40 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,035,235 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,919 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 45.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 115,630 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 40 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.