Primer Home /
Context / Summary on context
Summary on context
Topic: Context
by Aditya, 2018 Cohort
Note: This entry was created in 2018, when the task was to “summarise a key reading”, and so may not represent a good example to model current primer entries on.
Context is defined as the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, in terms of which its understood. Lets assume that a hypothetical person commits a violent crime. One might think that fixing the issue would involve giving the convicted an appropriate sentence. But if we look deeper, there may be a number of factors at play here. Could it be that the person was dealing with mental issues? Could it be that such behaviour was commonplace where they were brought up? With any of these factors, we could delve even deeper. Was the neighbourhood a bad one because of socio-economic factors? Or was it bad because a set of patterns and behaviours had embedded itself in the people over generations? This little mental exercise shows us that the further we look into a problem, the bigger and more complex the context grows.
Although context is relevant to almost all disciplines, one way to approach it would be through implementation science. Implementation science deals with moving evidence-based practices and research-based knowledge to clinical usage, in health interventions and health-related behaviour change. Context in this field helps us understand how some interventions fail to stick, and why its so difficult to break undesirable behaviour patterns. Its often observed that not only is context hard to define, its also hard to see. Context can sometimes be very embedded in the problem itself, making it hard to distinguish. Consider a big organisation, say a hospital where the occurrence of post-surgical infections is higher than the average. One might look for the cause in the surgical procedure, the surgeons history or the drugs used. But the problem might lie in the way the staff washes their hands, or the cleaning agent they use.
In the above example, the context includes not only the environment, but also the methods and activities surrounding the event. This shows us how it can be really hard to pin down causal factors in a complex setting. It also shows us how context is best seen as a process rather than a place. Context is often dynamic, and it actively interacts with the event/object were interested in. Looking at it as a place/set of objects can limit ones ability to scope it out, making an already difficult job even harder. Similarly, its counter-productive to think of context as a barrier under all conditions. A given context can act as a barrier for one event and a facilitator for another.
All in all, context is what makes complex problems complex. And any approach to solving a complex problem would be remiss without a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the context its set in.
References:
- Wikipedia article on Context (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_(language_use)
- Implementation, context and complexity- May, Johnson and
(https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-016-0506-3)
Explore this topic further#
Explore this topic further#
Return to
Context in the Primer
Disclaimer#
This content has been contributed by a student as part of a learning activity.
If there are inaccuracies, or opportunities for significant improvement on this topic, feedback is welcome on how to improve the resource.
You can improve articles on this topic as a student in "Unravelling Complexity", or by including the amendments in an email to: Chris.Browne@anu.edu.au
Note: This entry was created in 2018, when the task was to “summarise a key reading”, and so may not represent a good example to model current primer entries on.
Context is defined as the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, in terms of which its understood. Lets assume that a hypothetical person commits a violent crime. One might think that fixing the issue would involve giving the convicted an appropriate sentence. But if we look deeper, there may be a number of factors at play here. Could it be that the person was dealing with mental issues? Could it be that such behaviour was commonplace where they were brought up? With any of these factors, we could delve even deeper. Was the neighbourhood a bad one because of socio-economic factors? Or was it bad because a set of patterns and behaviours had embedded itself in the people over generations? This little mental exercise shows us that the further we look into a problem, the bigger and more complex the context grows.
Although context is relevant to almost all disciplines, one way to approach it would be through implementation science. Implementation science deals with moving evidence-based practices and research-based knowledge to clinical usage, in health interventions and health-related behaviour change. Context in this field helps us understand how some interventions fail to stick, and why its so difficult to break undesirable behaviour patterns. Its often observed that not only is context hard to define, its also hard to see. Context can sometimes be very embedded in the problem itself, making it hard to distinguish. Consider a big organisation, say a hospital where the occurrence of post-surgical infections is higher than the average. One might look for the cause in the surgical procedure, the surgeons history or the drugs used. But the problem might lie in the way the staff washes their hands, or the cleaning agent they use.
In the above example, the context includes not only the environment, but also the methods and activities surrounding the event. This shows us how it can be really hard to pin down causal factors in a complex setting. It also shows us how context is best seen as a process rather than a place. Context is often dynamic, and it actively interacts with the event/object were interested in. Looking at it as a place/set of objects can limit ones ability to scope it out, making an already difficult job even harder. Similarly, its counter-productive to think of context as a barrier under all conditions. A given context can act as a barrier for one event and a facilitator for another.
All in all, context is what makes complex problems complex. And any approach to solving a complex problem would be remiss without a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the context its set in.
References:
- Wikipedia article on Context (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_(language_use)
- Implementation, context and complexity- May, Johnson and
(https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-016-0506-3)