Assessment of the willingness of Australian radiographers in mammography to accept new responsibilities in role extension: Part two–qualitative analysis

This critical review discusses a qualitative analysis of Australian radiographers in mammography accepting new responsibilities in role extension. The study aimed to capture the ideas and opinions of radiographers about their role extension, especially for those who had received their degree in clinical expertise in mammography. The paper contains a detailed description of the methods used, data analysis, and results and findings. The themes generated from the collected data were carefully described in the study. The paper successfully reported on the method of data collection, recruitment, and participants.

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Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Article- Moran, S., Taylor, J.K. and Warren-Forward, H., 2013. Assessment of the willingness of
Australian radiographers in mammography to accept new responsibilities in role extension: Part
two–qualitative analysis. Radiography, 19(2), pp.130-136
Critical review
A role development among the radiographists has taken place by the adoption of the
radiological tasks and the main catalyst for this growth is continuous growing demand of the
imaging services, compounded by the shortage of the radiologists and challenges for the
reduction of the waiting time (Field and Snaith, 2013). Provision of timely reports and
streamlining the patient pathways. Changes in the role of the radiographers might include
expansion of the scope of practice with a resultant increase in the accountability of the work or
might be expansion of the skills and the various specialized attributes at the same level (Fieldand
Snaith 2013). Based on this the background, the qualitative study by (Moran, Taylor and
Warren-Forward (2013) will provide insight to the perception of the Australian radiographers,in
mammography for accepting new roles and responsibilities in the extension of the roles.
Title
The title of this research papers is good enough give an understanding the content of the
paper. A research paper title should appear catchy and interesting to the learners. Additionally it
should reflect the tome of the writing and most importantly, the title of a research article should
contain appropriate key words in order to make it easier to locate the article at the time of a key
word search. It is necessary to make sure that the research title describes the topic, method,

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sample and the result of the study. The title of this paper does not contain unnecessary medical
jargon, and differs it from the other papers from the same medical area. The research title also
did not contain any medical abbreviations and jargon.
Abstract
The power of an abstract is to summarize the entire paper in about 300 words. The major
factor of the entire paper are included in a proper sequence such as the overall aim of the study,
the research problem that has been investigate , the basic designs of the study, the basic findings
or the results found as a result of the study. Moreover, an abstract should be such, that it gives an
insight to the entire structure of the paper.
The paper contain a short background of the topic. The abstract does not contain clear aims and
objectives, but it is just mentioned that the Radiographers working in Breast screen Australia
were surveyed to understand their thoughts and perceptions on the role extension. However there
were clear segregations of the methodological section, results and the findings sections.
Introduction
The introduction or the background section of the research article is quite rich in
resources and has been cross reference by the many journals. In the introduction part of the paper
it has been clearly stated that a survey has been conducted with the aim to capture the ideas and
the opinions and changing perception of the Australian radiographers about their role extension,
especially for the ones who had received their degree in the clinical expertise in mammography.
The introduction of this study is well equipped with resources informing about the emerging and
the expanding role of the radiographers in the field of mammography. The author had rightfully

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the described as of why a survey has been chosen to be conducted. It has been mentioned in the
report that the one on one interview with the radiographersmight be a feasible option due
geographical location of the radiographers. Cross references has been used in the introduction
part in order to validate the rationale for conducting this research. Each and every research paper
requires some context such that the readers can understand the reason behind the research. This
will enable the readers to tell from the very beginning as what are they going to be reading about
and what interest them. It is necessary to make the introduction of the paper interesting such that
it engages with the reader right from the very beginning (Bowling 2014). The introduction of this
research paper does not contain any hypothesis, although a large number if research papers can
be added to inform about the way the researcher had been thinking and the way the paper will be
concluded. Hence a survey has been thought to be the most important way to collect data from
the respondentswithin a restricted period of time. The introduction also contained information
about the distribution of the questionnaires by the Australian Institute of the radiographers on the
behalf of the researchers.
However, that the article has stated two prime questions based on the research will be
conducted.
“What are your thoughts on the role extension in the field of mammography”
“Have there been any changes to your role within the last 5-10 years?”
Methods
Although online surveys and the questionnaires are used in quantitativereproach, but
since open ended questions have been used, it can be kept under the umbrella of qualitative
research. The purpose of using a qualitative research is to find out the perception of the

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researchers. The questions asked in a qualitative research are generally open ended (Silverman
2016).
The paper contained a detailed description of the methods used. A detailed description of
the making of the questionnaires, description of the sampling and the requirement was done.
Designated radiographers were asked to fill up two questionnaires, one questionnaire on the
levels of staffing and another on program logistics. “R” was used as a code for the response of
the radiographers and “DR” for a chosenradiographanswer. Directs quotes have been included
in the study.
One of the limitation of a survey is that survey sampling bias. An improper measurement
process can lead to bias. The process includes of measurement involves environment where the
survey has been conducted, the way the questions has been asked and the state of the
respondents. One of the most common bias that can occur is the response bias (Choi and Pak
2014). Individuals chosen for the study might not be willing togive answers (Acharya et al.
2016). It is the bias that occurs whenthe respondents vary in significant ways from that of
participants who did not respond. The chance of under-coverage bias is very less in this article as
all the respondents were registered radiographers (Acharya et al. 2016). It is clearly evident from
the research article that it was difficult to access all the respondents, due to the geographical
differences, hence one of the most common bias related to the use of questionnaire is the
occurrence of questionnaire bias, that can occur due to lack of communication or due to the
occurrence of any ambiguous question or complex, double barreled question that might not be
comprehended by the respondents and are likely to be omitted (Bowling 2014). Questionnaires
might contain difficult or uncommon words that might cause the respondents to omit the
question. As stated by Brace(2018) another important consideration is inadequate data

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intentionally. Again, the questionnaire might be long causing the respondents to lose interested
or flawed structure of a questionnaire (Gideon 2012). Another important bias that might have
occurred is the social desirability and obsequiousness, due to which the respondent might fake
good (Brace 2018).
The paper did not contain any information about the inclusion and the exclusion criteria.
Proper inclusion and exclusion criteria are required for increasing the validity and the credibility
of the research (Patino and Ferreira, 2018). The inclusion and the exclusion criteria can impact
on the external validity of a study (Patino and Ferreira 2018). On the basis of the internal and the
exclusion criteria do we make verdicts retarding their impacts on the external validity of the
study (Bryman2016).
In this article two open ended questions has been asked to the comprehend the concerns
of the individual radiographers that could not have been possible with closed ended questions,
justifying the use of open ended questions to understand the perception of the radiographers.
Open ended questions can elicit the respondents to answer with the useful information, but also
provides freedom to the respondents to respond as they choose (Bryman2016). Answering in
open text format helps the respondents to answer based on the complete knowledge,
understanding, beliefs and feelings. Cope (2014) have identified that open ended questions can
be helpful in cutting down two types of response errors, like the respondentswill normally, not
forget the answers that they have to choose from. Open ended question simply does not allow the
respondents to disdain reading the questions and just answer the questionnaire by ticking on the
“yes” and the “no” boxes. Furthermore, as understood from the research article, open ended
questions permits to obtain extra information from the respondents like information about the

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demography, current employment status. An open ended questions has to be used for conducting
a secondary analysis of the data by the other researchers in some future studies (Cope 2014).
As per the author, ethics approval has been obtained from the University of Newcastle
and the Hunter New England health. Ethical approval or ethicalconsideration plays an important
role in qualitative research. Ethics are norms for the conduct that differentiate between the right
and wrong (Miller et al. 2017). The validity and the integrity of the research findings depends
upon the adherence to the ethical principles (Noble and Smith 2015). Some of the core ethical
principles that can be followed are respect for persons, consent should be taken from the
participants before conducting the research debriefing about the pros and the cons of the
intervention (Miller et al. 2017). Informed consent provides autonomy the participants to quit
from the study as and when required. There was no information in this paper that the researcher
have taken consent from the participants. Further, nothing as bee mentioned about the
preservation of the collected data, when privacy and confidentiality is an important aspect of
ethical considerations. No information has been shared regarding the maintenance of anonymity.
Data analysis
Qualitative descriptive analysis (QDA) has been used for the thematic content analysis of
the collected results for constructing a number of themes centering 2 open ended questions.
Thematic analysis is the process of identification of the patterns or themes in a qualitative data.
The consequence of a thematic explanatory content analysis is the explanation of an array of
descriptive data sets. The themes were revised. The themes were obtained from the answers
provided by the participants. They were not dependent on the literature. As stated measurement
by Silverman (2016) a content analysis is important in an organization. It permits the researchers

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to discover and examine the degrees of organizational behavior, the participation of the
stakeholders and the social trend. It has also been found to be useful in the allowing the
researchers to analyze the socio-cognitive and the perceptual constructs. Since, this research
allow a large number of sample, a content analysis of the data can be termed as successful.
In order to remove the chance of the bias and to sustain the validity of the research, all
the collected responses were cross checked by the primary researcher. It was also checked by an
examiner, who was independent having no working knowledge about the mammography. Hence,
nullifying the chance of voluntary bias (Padgett 2016).
In the paper, the author has given a detailed information about the process of data
analysis. According to the paper, in the initial coding cycle , the answer to each of the questions
was reviewed and examined to create a number of themes.
The themes generated in the first cycle was revised to develop certain patterns and
subthemes. The themes were then reviewed for ensuring that the criteria were met. These helped
to find out a number of reduction in the major themes and the subthemes. Due to awide number
of responses, the researcher had initially reviewed 50 survey for assessing the consistency.
5 major themes with the 31 subthemes were made out the first question and the procedure
was repeated for the second question as well. A source codebook was maintained that
documented the major and the minor themes for each of the open ended questions in the survey.
Results & findings
The result section of a research paper should represent the core findings of the research
with the methods applied for gathering and analyzing the information. The findings are

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presented in a logical sequence without any bias or interpretation from the author. The themes
were successfully found from the collected data. Identification of themes is one of the most
important parts of qualitative research and is also quite mysterious (Padgett 2016). Themes
emerge from the collected data. An explicit theme description is used for analyzing the themes
(Cope 2014). In this paper, for each of the questions, 5 themes were generated. More number of
themes indicates more rigorous analysis of the collected data. All the themes have been carefully
described in the description part of the study.
The themes obtained from the content analysis of the collected data to the first question
are- the advantages of the current workforce, where it was found that that the radiographers had
already been taking up advanced roles as a mammographer and they enjoy doing so (Moran,
Taylor and Warren-Forward 2013).
The second theme mentioned in the study is the concerns of the current workforce that
involves issues such as employment dissatisfaction. Another theme that has been identified is the
potential workforce concerns (Moran, Taylor and Warren-Forward 2013). As per the findings it
can be said that role extension of the mammographers should not be made mandatory as role
extension can be helpful for those mammographers, who have interests in responsibility and
knowledge. Another theme that has been chalked out is the “potential workforce advantages. As
per the findings the advantages in the role extension can be an increase in the job satisfaction
among the young mamographers. 12 % of the radiographers have admitted that they would be
glad to use their experiences and work besides the radiologists. Another theme identified is the
patient care(Moran, Taylor and Warren-Forward 2013). In regards to this, most of the
mammographers had admitted that presence of advanced practitioners in the mamaography units,
results in better outcomes.

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The themes identified to second question involved –technological change, change to the
duties, patient care and flexibility. There were some other themes that were identified. All the
themes have been represented in the form of pie-charts and graphs. The paper had successfully
reported on the method of data collection, recruitment and the participants. All results of the
research had been presented in a logical manner. All the hard data yielded by the study, tables
and are the primary components of the result section. All the graphs and the charts included in
the paper is properly referenced and labeled.
Discussion
The discussion section should end with a succinct summary of the prime implication of
the findings regardless of any significances. It should give a brief explanation about why one
should believe in the findings (Ritchie et al. 2013). However, the study has really been helpful in
identifying some of the current concern of the Australian mammography workforce. It has been
found that the repetitive nature of the screening procedure is currently the largest concern in the
field of beast imaging and a primary reason why the mamographers leave the job or suffers from
job dissatisfaction. Some of the other issues that were discovered and were supported by
evidence are the ageing workforce and the shortage of the radiographers. Again many of the
radiologists are of the perception, that if the role extension was executed, that would entice many
young radiographers in to the profession of beast imaging. However, a clear message that can be
obtained from this research paper is that even if role extension is applied, it should not be made
mandatory. Again, the radiographers will be able to choose their field of specialization that might
include interpretation of the image, procedural duties.

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The implication of the research is that the role of the mamographers have become flexible
with the advancement of the world and the technology, hence there is a necessity for the
variation in the accountabilities of the mammographers.
Strengths and limitations of the study
A research study might have several limitations. The limitations of a study are those
characteristics that influenced the findings of a research. They are the constraints in the
generalizability, application to practice and the usefulness of the findings that are the results of
the ways in which the design of the study has been chosen. The report did not mention about the
potential strengths and the limitations of the study. However, the study has not mentioned about
the ways in which the rigor of a study has been analyzed. Reliability and the validity of the
research are two key aspects of quantitative researches (Noble and Smith 2015). Normally
several strategies are taken to increase the rigor of the study (Houghtonet al.2017). However the
discussions has been backed up by the evidences of other literatures. One of the important
weaknessof the study is that, the findings of the research is not backed up too many references,
thus decreasing the conformability of the study.
The article has also provided information about the funding of the research. The paper
has been published by reputated authors affiliated under reputed universities.
Conclusion
As per the findings, it has been found that the Australian breast screen radiographers are
keen in role extension. The papers had described about the various pros and cons of the role
extension of the radiographers. One of the important benefits that has been identified is that it

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would increase the job satisfaction among the Australian radiographers. This would again help in
raising the quality of the services provided to the Australian women. Thus, this research would
have an impact on the target group for this research that is the women undergoing breast
mammography. However, the research had also indicated towards the rise of potential conflicts
that might occur due to the worldwide changes. The conclusion of this research had successfully
summarized the main points of the research and has also provided with some recommendations.

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