Qualitative methods: Street ethnography and the “go-along”
Posted: Mon 10.31.2011 Filed under: Research, Tools | Tags: community, methods, qualitative, research Leave a comment »
Photo by Jay Westcott
One of my friends moved recently. She really likes her new digs in an historic house and loves the proximity to town center. My friend is a walker, so it was no surprise that she now makes regular jaunts to “her” coffee shop, a miniscule (by corporate standards), independently owned, convivial space with the requisite collection of slightly quirky customers. She’s come to know the servers and is starting to say hello to regulars, some of whom are her neighbors. In her personal life, my friend is gentle, quick to laugh, and a sympathetic observer of her fellow humans. In her professional life, she is a qualitative researcher, perceptive and well-versed in the art of eliciting other people’s perspectives and lived experiences in naturalistic settings.
Interviewing and observing participants where they work or live are staple tools of qualitative researchers. Often, interviews and observations take place in interior spaces; in offices, classrooms, or homes. Frequently, one or all parties are sitting down, engaged in a somewhat formal and dialectical exchange. In other words, the environment and actors are relatively static. By contrast, the tools of “street ethnography,” such as neighborhood walks and go-longs, are less frequently used. They take place in exterior spaces; sidewalks, neighborhood paths, or public spaces. Frequently, both or all parties are ambulatory, engaged in a much more informal and somewhat more egalitarian exchange.
Migrating from Delicious to Diigo
Posted: Fri 10.28.2011 Filed under: Tools | Tags: edtech, tools, web 2.0 1 Comment »
The up and downs with the tool Delicious has caused me to sit back and reevaluate our relationship. As I mentioned in a post just a few months ago, Delicious had been my bookmarking tool, my way to share links with colleagues and students, and a great way to keep current by following those in my field who were using the tool. But also over the past year, there were rumors that Delicious would be no more. Then, Avos bought the tool from Yahoo! and it seemed that all was well for me to continue using the utility without major upset. I was so confident that I assigned students a task using Delicious as an assignment to help them learn a new tool for organization while compiling resources for an upcoming presentation. Right before they were set to submit the assignment, Delicious redesigned their user interface. The tag description option was no longer a feature, so their intro paragraph had to be written separately. Interface changes confused students who were already shakily trying to learn a new tool and woke up to “everything looking different all of a sudden!”
While this served as a good lesson for being flexible and improvising when life changes, it was disappointing that a favorite assignment was no longer a viable option in Delicious. So, needless to say I am not thrilled with the new look and the missing features. And I am not the only one. I was stubbornly holding on hopes that Delicious would stay relevant, but I think it’s time I give up the dream. With this development, I have started to look into the tool Diigo; which, ” coincidentally” has an easy import function to migrate your Delicious bookmarks. I know many colleagues who have been using Diigo and have had a strong preference for it, and I am starting to see why. I’m already enjoying the highlighting feature, the Firefox plugin, and the integration with Twitter. As I explore and get more comfortable with it, I will have a full report for you here on Research Salad.
More soon!
“Picture Pages, Picture Pages…”: Making Sense of Your Qualitative Data
Posted: Thu 10.20.2011 Filed under: Process, Research | Tags: analysis, methodology, organization, qualitative, visualizing data Leave a comment »As I work through a pile of data – interviews, documents, and yes, even some quantitative – it is slowly occurring to me that this is a lot to work through. During the collection phase, you fret and think about what happens if a participant drops out, or if they are not forthcoming with information, or if they do not complete your post-test. Upon completion, you sigh a big sigh of relief, and then start chugging away at what you have amassed. As I sat with my advisor today trying to sift through mountains of qualitative data, I started to feel overwhelmed at even the shortened profiles of participants that I created. There is a lot of information in each, and on top of that, I am looking to make connections to quantitative data in a way that shows a meaningful picture. And that’s where the white board came in…
Living in a digital world, part 1 — personal paradigm shift
Posted: Mon 10.17.2011 Filed under: Lived Experience | Tags: lived experience, technology, tools, writing Leave a comment »
Image cc license from Flickr user Éktor: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atardecerboricua/3857853340/
I remember writing school reports entirely by hand when I was growing up in the United States. In an effort to give all students equal opportunities, we were prohibited from typing our reports until junior high school because not all students had computers or typewriters and computer labs with word processing software in elementary schools weren’t yet commonplace. At the start of the school year, my mom would buy several reams of lined paper because a single, good paper, required many drafts and many pieces of paper.
I’d start with penciled statements on 3×5 cards and then move on to pages of penciled notes. Then there would be penciled outlines and drafts. Then there would be at least one draft in black or blue pen (I loved those erasable pens when they came out; even as imperfect as they were, they saved so much time). Then my mom, who proofread my papers, would find mistakes in my “final” draft, mark them in red pen, and then I’d write out another final draft. I remember having an aching and tender writing bump at the end of the process, but a nice and neatly handwritten report.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
Posted: Sat 10.15.2011 Filed under: Lived Experience | Tags: methodology, qualitative, research Leave a comment »Perhaps individual interviews and focus groups spring to mind when one considers qualitative methodology. Certainly these are prime tools for gathering data on the lived experience of others. However, the neighborhood walk is another qualitative research tool that merits attention, especially in education: how well do schools serve serve the communities in which they are located? Walking the neighborhood is a method more commonly used in health research with children; however, it can be a simple, yet powerful tool for urban educators, many of whom do not live in the neighborhoods in which they teach or serve.
Much has been written about the changing face of America. Demographics are shifting and today’s school-aged child is much more likely to be a student of color, to speak another language in the home, and/or to live at or close to the poverty line. At the same time that the nation’s classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse, the face of America’s teaching population remains the same: most are white, middle class women. Read the rest of this entry »
Qualitative Research Series: Debating the Question Question
Posted: Wed 10.12.2011 Filed under: Debate, Lived Experience | Tags: debate, interviewing, qualitative, research 2 Comments »
Courtesy of Flickr user: alexanderdrachmann
As part of our ongoing series on qualitative research, we wanted to delve into a topic that has been a point of contention during our qualitative research explorations. Last spring, SES and AMF worked together on an independent study on advanced qualitative research methods. The idea to work together grew out of our mutual concern that none of the Social Sciences departments were offering such a course, at least not anytime soon. Anxious to learn more as we both launched into qualifying projects and dissertations, we decided to propose an independent study, based very much on our research interests and need to learn how to “do” interviewing and focus groups. Like many things in life, self-paced learning is at once exhilarating and rife with self-doubt. Over the course of several months, we read copiously; taught each other; shared quotes, articles, books, and coffee; interviewed five professors; tried (in vain) to bring our focus group together; compiled online resources and populated an e-portfolio (through Mahara); and completed a proposed syllabus as our final project. Along the way, we learned more than we thought we would: about interviewing, people, student life, and each other.
Sometimes, however, it’s the lingering questions that teach us more than the answers we construct. In conducting interviews with our professors on the topic of interviewing, we encountered a great many similarities and a few differences of opinion. One difference that stood out was whether or not to provide participants with the interview questions ahead of time. Some of our professors requested the questions beforehand and some declined to receive them in advance of the interview. That got us thinking, “Where do we stand on this issue?” and, furthermore, “is there a right answer to this question?”
Searching strategically
Posted: Mon 10.10.2011 Filed under: Research, Tips | Tags: advice, online searching, research, tips, tools Leave a comment »
Image cc copyright Flickr user Bindaas Madhavi: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4872078284_c0f0165f7b_b.jpg
Hock (2004) asserts that “there is no right or wrong way to search the Internet. If you find what you need and find it quickly, your search strategy is good.” This statement is true but makes one major assumption: that you have a search strategy already. Easily as important as the tools you use to perform your online and print searches is the method used for organizing and performing these searches. Search strategies can reduce the time spent searching by helping identify the most appropriate resources to search and the most efficient methods to use.
What is Your Question?
According to a survey by About.com, individuals perform searches for one of three reasons: to find an answer to a precise question, without unnecessary additional information and as quickly as possible; to become educated and learn as much as possible about a single topic, so as to gain multiple perspectives and insight to all sides of the matter; and to browse for ideas and become inspired.
Members of the first group of searchers are kin to those who arrive at a traditional library reference desk with directional questions (“Where is the bathroom?” or “Where is the nearest post office?”, for instance) or ready-reference questions (such as “What is the population of Iceland?” or “How tall is the world’s tallest building?”). These searchers know exactly what they want and need and sometimes even know already where to go for their information — Google and Wikipedia, for example, are popular starting places for such queries.
However, finding answers to satisfy the second and third categories of users requires a different approach — a search strategy. Search strategies will forever in my mind be tied to Marchionini and his publication Information Seeking in Electronic Environments (1997), particularly chapter 5, required reading for students in courses on online searching and reference services; the names of the different approaches were so easy to visualize as to be almost unforgettable — “building blocks”, “successive fractions”, “pearl-growing”, and “interactive scanning”. Read the rest of this entry »
Qualitative process: Lareau’s lessons
Posted: Sat 10.08.2011 Filed under: Dissertation, Research, Uncategorized | Tags: qualitative, research, tips Leave a comment »
A meeting with the chair of my committee and my qualitative advisor last week yielded the kind of reading recommendations that make you appreciate why experts are called experts. Annette Lareau’s qualitative work on social class and family engagement with school would relate directly to my dissertation topic and methodology. And, to make matters even better, Lehigh’s library had both. The e-brary offered the kind of instant gratification to which most of us have become accustomed: the first book was available and with a quick click took up residence on my electronic bookshelf. Wandering the stacks for the second book had pleasures of its own, instant and otherwise: finding it amidst an array of fascinating titles on the neighboring shelves, dropping all the grad student paraphernalia on the nearest comfy couch, kicking off my clogs to curl up like a cat in a patch of sunlight, and diving into its contents right away.
Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education (2000) is an account of Lareau’s time spent in two schools, one in a working class neighborhood and the other in an upper middle-class neighborhood. Building on French sociologist, Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, her data and analysis demonstrate that middle class families activate a wider variety of resources and choose to intervene at key points in their children’s education than do working class parents, resulting in a substantially different (read advantaged) educational experience for their children.
Maintaining your balance… by asking silly questions
Posted: Thu 10.06.2011 Filed under: Balance | Tags: advice, games, inspiration Leave a comment »
Image cc license from Flickr user s_w_ellis (http://www.flickr.com/photos/s_w_ellis/3121449268/)
Have you ever had that realization that, when asked “How are you doing?”, the only responses you can think of are how much progress you made on a project this week or how far along you are in writing the latest draft of your dissertation or major paper? If yes, has this been followed by the revelation that your ability to talk about all other subjects has become rusty from disuse?
The other day, a friend was explaining to me how, while out on a date night with her husband, she came to the uncomfortable realization that she had very little to talk about that didn’t involve her children, what they were learning, what they’d done that day, or something funny the oldest child had said over lunch. I can appreciate the feeling — there have been moments when I realized that all I could think to talk about are the queries I received that day, how low morale has sunk at the office, and my plans to revamp the library system when I win the lottery. Botheration, I’d think, I’ve become boring and I no longer have anything interesting to say.
