
Gunilla Isaksson
Professor
Research subject: Occupational therapy
Division: Health, Medicine and Rehabilitation
Department of Health, Education and Technology
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Luleå, S101E
About me
Presentation of myself
I am a Professor in Occupational therapy at the Department of Health, Education and Technology.
Presentation of my research
My research profile is within the research topic occupational therapy. The subject of occupational therapy includes knowledge about people of all ages and aims to promote people's involvement in everyday activities and participation in community life for lifelong health. The research I conduct today is based on promoting the health and well-being of older people by enabling participation and involvement in everyday activities and creating conditions for participation in an increasingly digitized society. My research is placed within a research group that studies social participation as complex and meaning-making processes in older people.
My previous research has focused on promoting health and well-being for persons with disabilities through engagement in meaningful activities, and with a specific interest for persons with spinal cord injury. Activities refer to culturally defined and individually valued activities performed everyday or during different periods of life.
My research has a predominantly qualitative approach, to capture people's experiences, i.e. how a person experiences, perceives, assesses and values various sequences in their life. Methodologically, I have developed my competence in relation to "Grounded theory", Narrative method and Content analysis, but recently also come to use "Participatory Action Research". The interest in qualitative methods reflects my interest in participatory research and describing temporal and sequential relationships between life events. I have long-term experience with various data collection methods such as individual interviews and focus group discussions, participant observation and field notes, memos and illustrative images. Methodologically, I place great value in collecting data by following and meeting the same persons several times and in situations where it is possible to collect data with varied methods in order to obtain content-rich and credible data. This is to be able to explore and illuminate the complexity found in people's everyday activities as well as their reflections over time in relation to how it can promote their health and well-being.
Read more about the research groups work om older persons External link.
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