Research on the processes by which universities select candidates for nursing courses has tended to focus on the development and application of standardised methods. This methodological emphasis has extended to research on ‘values-based’ selection in nursing, which is intended to sustain discrimination between applicants on the basis of their ‘personal values’. Our study aims to expand the range of methodological resources available for research on values-based selection, by examining how this is done in practice – by contrast to how it should be done. We analyse interactions between selectors, applicants and various materials deployed during the interview processes to show how values are made manifest, empirically. We conclude by discussing the implications of treating values as interactional achievements, rather than essentialised - i.e. purely ‘personal’ – attributes. We draw on methodological principles associated with Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), which aim to describe how facts are produced through interactions between various actors. Data are presented from an ethnographic study of selection events at three UK universities. Our methods consisted of observation of selection events and interviews with academic staff, administrators and service users and carers, all of whom were involved in selecting candidates. When selection is treated methodologically as a social practice and analysed empirically as an ongoing series of interactions, ‘personal values’ can be seen as the effects of a negotiation during which connections are formed between different actors – i.e. elements involved in the selection process. Difference and same-ness in values become visible as the effects of ‘translation’, in the sense defined in the ANT literature, rather than as fixed attributes which precede selection. This study makes an original contribution to research on values-based selection by analysing how this is done in practice.

中文翻译：

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护理价值选择的实践

对大学选择护理课程候选人的过程的研究倾向于集中在标准化方法的开发和应用上。这种方法论上的重点已扩展到护理中“基于价值”选择的研究，其目的是维持申请人基于其“个人价值”的歧视。我们的研究旨在通过检查实践中的完成方式（与应如何完成的方式），来扩大可用于基于价值的选择研究的方法资源的范围。我们分析选择者，申请人和面试过程中部署的各种材料之间的相互作用，以凭经验显示出如何体现价值。最后，我们讨论将价值视为互动成就而不是本质化的含义，即 纯粹是“个人” –属性。我们利用与行为者网络理论（ANT）相关的方法论原理，其目的是描述如何通过各个行为者之间的相互作用来产生事实。数据来自对三所英国大学选拔事件的人种学研究。我们的方法包括观察选拔事件以及与学术人员，管理人员以及服务使用者和护理人员的访谈，所有这些人员都参与了选拔候选人。当选择方法上视为社会实践和作为正在进行的一系列交互经验分析，“个人价值观”可以被看作是在此期间，不同的行为者之间形成连接的协商的效果 - 涉及在选择过程中的，即元素。在ANT文献中定义的意义上，值的差异和相同是“翻译”的作用，而不是选择之前的固定属性。该研究通过分析实践中如何完成基于价值的选择的研究而做出了独创的贡献。