Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in denisedom_uga's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, March 21st, 2006
10:30 pm	Poster presentations So how the heck do you fit thick, rich description on a 4’ x 6’ poster? I’m struggling with how to present my data for my poster session at AERA. I don’t want it to be too wordy – I know that I never stop and read posters that have too much information on it, but it just seems so shallow to throw a couple bullet points up there with no depth. I have been asking friends, colleagues, professors, etc. for examples of a great qualitative research poster, but so far no luck. It’s frustrating. I’ve found lots of helpful guidelines, but I want to see an example, not just read about how to do it. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
10:19 pm	Ah-Ha! Metacognitive processes and struggles I had a big ol’ ah-ha a few days ago. I’ve been working on it and struggling with it more and more lately, and a few things have probably helped to feed that, but I finally realized what was happening and I feel relieved now. Let me explain. I’ve been reading a lot about informal learning, how people learn, what happens on field trips, what happens in informal learning environments, blah blah blah. So of course there are certain things I expect to come up in my data, or even just in conversations, based on trends in the literature. Well, earlier this week I was preparing to teach Gretchen’s EDIT 5500: Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments. She asked me to speak to them about how people learn in ILEs, opportunities, how to make the most of those experiences, etc. I found myself putting a lot of suppositions in my planning – I figured her students would answer my questions about their early fieldtrip experiences in a certain way based on the research I’ve read. I thought I should test these questions out on a few people before standing in front of her class so I nabbed a few friends/colleagues. Guess what? Not at all what I was expecting to hear. I had this struggle. What do I do? How can I make this fit into what I know they should be saying [can you believe the naivety here]? This wasn’t a new feeling. I’ve collected three sets of data in the form of interviews over the past six months, and I find myself uncomfortable when my participants say something contrary to what I’m expecting to hear. My gut reaction has been, wait, that’s not right. In my whale study, all of these people were excited right after the trip about what they saw and told me how they planned to follow up and learn more. Six months later I haven’t talked to a single person who has so much as Googled the word “whale.” So my a-ha: it’s okay that they are not saying what I wanted them to say. They don’t have to agree with the research. I’m certainly not here to confirm any hypotheses, but for some reason I almost think that’s what I’ve been trying to do – to have their answers fit it into my existing mental framework of what should be happening based on the research. After this a-ha, I found myself thinking about what the students in Gretchen’s class were saying and thinking, now that’s really interesting. I hadn’t expected that. What can we make of that? My conclusion: don’t fight the data: let go of what I “know.” (Comment on this)
Friday, March 10th, 2006
2:12 pm	codes I have two things on my plate right now that seem really big. I mean, like all doc students I am not wanting for things to do, but the most pressing big issues right now are my prospectus (which must be approved by the end of the semester) and analyzing the data from my pilot study, which I am presenting at AERA. The problem is, I’m having a hard time figuring out which one should take priority on a day-to-day basis, and so what do I do? Nothing. I’m starting to realize that sometimes I’ll waste entire days not doing either because I feel like I can’t prioritize one over the other. I know that sounds ridiculous, but there it is. Anyway, after being pushed by a friend who is in data analysis hell right now, I figured I’d dive in, too. I spent the day reading over my interview transcripts and coming up with codes. I’m not really doing line-by-line yet, though I did jot some codes down in the margins. I’m just trying to get it all in a list that I can then do some playing with. At this point, I have about a ga-jillion codes, which I suspect is a few too many, so the next step I’ll take is probably to take them out of the temporary categories where they currently reside, examine them again, figure what can be combined, and then see if another categorization makes more sense. I’ve read so much about how to do this, taken the classes, etc, but I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe once I really get started things will become more clear. I had a big ah-ha today about my own metacognitive processes/struggles. More on that next time after I do some thinking on it. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006
10:27 pm	What if I miss something important? I just heard back from a few more participants who are willing to do follow-up interviews. I have to remember that not everyone checks his or her email a hundred times a day. Can you believe there are people who only check once or twice a month? I’ve started getting my data organized for analysis using Wendy Ruona’s method (Ruona, 2005). She has developed a way to use Microsoft Word to analyze and manage data. The plus side of doing it this way is you avoid the very steep learning curve of the qualitative analysis software (her directions are very explicit), and save a bundle money. Besides, none of the good ones are compatible with Mac. I spent a while last night getting my interviews into the table format she suggests and so now I’m ready to start. My question is: how do I know I’m doing it right? I had this conversation with a friend who is analyzing her dissertation research right now, and she has the same fear: what if we miss something so huge it just invalidates our entire study? Okay, I may be dramatizing, but it does concern me that the few times I’ve had a peer (or professor) look at my interviews, they see things that I just didn’t see. Shouldn’t I be the one who is closest to my data? How can I miss these things? Is it that I am too close to it? Anyway, I fear that I am not getting deep enough into it, or (even worse), what if there is just nothing there? This week I plan to dig in and start coding, breaking the interviews into meaningful segments and coding it thematically. I guess I’ll do one, and then bring it to my research group and see what they think. I need to get going with this – I’m presenting it at AERA in one month! Ruona, W. E. A. (2005). Analyzing qualitative data. In R. A. Swanson & E. F. Holton (Eds.), Research in organizations: Foundations and methods of inquiry (pp. 223-263). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 12th, 2006
10:25 am	purpose statement/research questions I’m supposed to be hard at work on my prospectus. This is something I really need to finish by the end of this semester, but I find I’m having a hard time making myself work on it. I know when I was writing my comps I had very few other distractions (in terms of classes, assistantship, etc.) so it was much easier for me to be on a regular writing schedule. Sometimes I would go the entire week without stepping foot on campus. Now I have so many meetings and other commitments (class, the follow-up interviews, various writing projects, etc.) that I find that I’m not prioritizing my prospectus like I need to be. However, I plan to collect data this summer, so I definitely need to get on it! To this end, I’ve been working on my purpose statement and research questions with my advisor (Janette) and a few other friends who have been helpful to me in this pursuit. I realize without a solid purpose statement and research questions, there is (obviously) no way for me to write my first three chapters. Here is what I have so far. Feedback would be welcome: The purpose of this study is to explore the role of personal, social, and environmental factors on the learning experience of adult participants in informal learning environments. Research questions include: • How do personal factors such as an individual's background, interest/motivation, and prior knowledge influence the learning experience? • How do the social interactions of the participants influence the learning experience? • How does the physical environment influence the learning experience (e.g., designed experience, uncontrollable and dynamic factors, comfort)? My tentative plan at this point is collect data on the boat this summer, and then probably pick another informal learning environment for futher data collection in the fall, probably at a museum or science center. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
9:56 am	more interviews I've now conducted four of my follow-up interviews. The very first interview I conducted probably took about 10 minutes. The most recent one was closer to 40 minutes. I can't figure out which of the following is happening: (1) I'm getting more comfortable with the follow-ups, and each time I transcribe and do preliminary coding with them, I'm finding more questions I want to ask. (2) I'm asking more questions just to get more data, but the questions I'm asking may not be related to my research questions. Rather, I'm just asking more probing questions to keep them on the phone longer because 10 minutes just can't be enough time! (3) Some of the participants themselves happen to have more to say. I suspect it is a combination of the three. The first person I interviewed was an elderly woman who was very aware of environmental issues. It is something she talked about on the boat, and something she talked about in the follow-up interview. She said that she hadn't reflected very much on the experience, but maybe that is because she has already reflected on that type of experience and the whale watching didn't really add to her overall understanding and interpretation of the issues. The second person was unremarkable for the most part. Again, she was using similar language in her follow-up as she did on the boat, which is always interesting to me. [Aside: I've noticed when watching home movies many months after the original recording, sometimes one of us will make a comment/joke when watching, and if you listen, that same person is making the exact same comment/joke in the movie. We really are an unoriginal species, aren't we?] Now the 3rd and 4th people I interviewed talked for 30-40 minutes each. The interesting thing about these two is that they were both teachers, and each of them had really reflected a lot about the experience. I think a lot of that has to do with them being teachers, and after having this powerful experience, they wanted to know how they could bring that type of power into the classroom. It was interesting to see how they tried to do this, with varying degrees of success. But they weren’t only thinking about it in terms of teaching, each of them relayed stories about how it had touched their lives outside of school, too; how what they had learned had made them question something, or wonder about some natural phenomenon, etc. For example, one teacher said: I think my ears perk up more when I'm watching the news, or reading the newspaper or picking up any kind of science magazine or something I think I do tend to pay a lot more attention to anything that has to do with the ocean and the marine life now where I might have glossed over it before, now I find myself really curious. Anyway, I have a few more interviews ahead of me. I’ll let you know how they go. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 27th, 2006
10:56 am	more thinking This past week I've started doing follow-up interviews with participants I originally interviewed about six months ago in July of 2005. This summer I participated in a Situated Cognition class (often referred to as The Whale Class) where a group of students spent 10 days in Massachusetts. We spent our mornings in class, discussing such things as situated cognition, communities of practice, reflection, etc., and our afternoons on a commercial whale watching boat out of Gloucester, MA. During these trips, I conducted brief pre-interviews with some of the passengers about why they came on the trip, prior knowledge, their goals and expectations, and any prior whale-watching experience. On the trip back to the harbor, I interviewed the same passengers again to find out what they thought of the experience (in terms of expectations and surprises), what they thought they learned, and if the experience evoked any feelings. I’m in the process of contacting these same passengers again six months later to explore any long-term behavioral effects as a result of the whale-watch experience. I am asking some questions that are similar to those I asked on the boat, but also questions to find out whether they’ve thought about the trip, if they’ve talked about it with others, if they’ve done anything as a result of the trip (ex. gone to the Internet for more information, watched a TV documentary, adopted a whale, etc.), what they remember, what they feel like they learned, if thinking about the trip provoked any emotions, etc. So far I’ve conducted three follow-up interviews. At first I was feeling disappointed because even the ones who were so engaged during the trip were telling me they hadn’t really thought about it very much, but the more I think about it, the more I’m realizing some interesting things that are coming out of it. Here are a few examples: • The participants are using the same language and examples six months later as they did on the boat. For example, one woman specifically mentioned Sea World both on the boat and in the follow-up (to say this was a natural experience and not like Sea World). • Two of the participants were on the boat the day we saw a sunfish – really a fabulously interesting fish. On the boat they both expressed interest in the fish, learning more about it, and wanting to see a picture of it. In the follow-up interview, they both recalled the sunfish as being something they remembered from the trip and how intrigued they were by it, but neither had followed-up and looked for a picture. (If you are interested, check this out: http://www.earthwindow.com/mola.html). • One day when we were out we saw sei whales participating in very unusual cooperative feeding behaviors. There were whales lunging at the surface all around our boat, and everybody on board was extremely excited—really spectacular. The participant I spoke with this week who was on this particular trip was the only one of the three I’ve spoken with so far to tell me that she thinks about the trip all the time. She is a middle-school science teacher, and talked about how the enthusiasm of the naturalist on-board was something they need to bring into the classroom (the naturalist acts as a guide and communicates with the group over a microphone to point out whales and inform the passengers about what they are seeing—and the naturalist was extremely excited that day as were the rest of us). This teacher brought up the naturalist’s excitement during our on board interview, and again six months later. I think it’s a good example of incidental learning, especially when we take a nice, broad definition of learning. Anyway, those are a few things I’ve noticed, and I’m not sure what to do with this yet, but it is fascinating to me. I guess you never really get what you think you will get from your data, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. (1 Comment |Comment on this)