One of the abstracts I submitted for the QI2010 Conference (in May, 2010) was just accepted! Here is the title and abstract:

Learning Goals and Personal Learning in Practitioner Autoethnographic Inquiry: A Case Study

Autoethnography is an increasingly used method of inquiry in the social sciences that focuses upon an experience, or case, in the life of the researcher, who then studies this with the hope of presenting it with vivid and rich descriptive details. It is often intended that the reader be able to share in the experience, so the research is intentionally related to common cultural perspectives. There is limited research around why autoethnographers engage in this method, especially in the context of trying to better understand their goals and intentions for their own work, as well as what is hoped for within the audience. This exploratory case study research will explore the researcher’s learning goals for his or her readers, as well as how the researcher’s own learning develops through the process of conducting the autoethnographic research.

I attended this conference last year, liveblogged it, and had a wonderful time (I learned, I laughed, and I saw a much larger world than I noticed before). Looking forward to attending once again this year.

Tags: QI2010, qualitative, qualitative research

If you just ran out of time to submit an abstract for the QI2010 (6th International Conference of Qualitative Inquiry), you are in luck — the deadline was just extended to January 15! You can find more information about it here.

Let me know if you plan to submit and / or attend. I already booked my hotel and will be renting a car from the Indianapolis Airport — happy for some company for the drive if the scheduling works!

Tags: QI2010, qualitative research, Research

In case you are planning to submit an abstract for the 6th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2010), time is running out — you have until tomorrow, 12/1! The call for papers / posters / panels and submission guidelines is here, and the actual submissions area is here.

After attending the conference for the first time last year, I am really looking forward to attending the same again. Thus, will hope my 2 abstracts get accepted!

One of the things I so liked about this conference was the interdisciplinary nature of the participants–educational researchers, social scientists, communications theorists, sociologists, technology researchers, nursing researchers, and many others who engage in qualitative research. Looking forward to connecting with old friends and new colleagues alike. 

Anybody else submitting and hoping to attend?

Tags: QI2010, qualitative research

I recently had to re- introduce myself to a colleague regarding where my current research interests are, and I thought it may be interesting to share with a wider audience, as I do get asked to explain what I am interested in (since I cannot oversimplify this, however hard I try).

One of the things I learned about myself in the module at Lancaster I just finished is just how much I love qualitative methods. Not just qualitative studies in my own content areas, but the rich methodological particulars in themselves. Yes, I couldn’t believe it when I first said that a few weeks ago – I knew I was interested in application to practice, but now find myself loving the complexities and issues around selecting, using, and assessing various qualitative methods. I can see myself really exploring this more in itself . . .

Since my background is adult education, I tend to think of myself as an adult educator. I like critical theory and constructivist frameworks, and am fond of Wenger’s Community of Practice model, as well as Jack Mezirow’s Transformative Learning framework. I am a proponent of postmodernity, and as such am interested in identity development, especially in online blogs and other forms of social media where narrative inquiry and autoethnography can be used.

Now, to see how all this can develop toward a thesis direction . . .

Tags: adult education, Autoethnography, Community of Practice (CoP), constructivism, CoP, critical theory, Etienne Wenger, Jack Mezirow, narrative inquiry, postmodernity, qualitative research

I recently stumbled across Ron Chenail’s The Qualitative Report website at Nova Southeastern University while I was doing some research for a proposal I am working on for the 6th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2010). Ron has a wonderful weekly newsletter, as well as one of the more current lists of references for Teaching Qualitative Research: Updated November 9, 2009 (with this document being exactly what I needed to assist with my research). If I were not currently engaged in my doctoral studies at Lancaster University, I would have been interested in Nova’s new Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research–this looks rather comprehensive and very timely indeed.

Nice to know there are so many useful references out there that are being shared. One of the things I have learned about my increased focus on qualitative research in the last few years, is the more that I share, the more I receive back. From this framework, there seems to be a lot of collaborative possibilities for the future!

Tags: qualitative research

A few months ago I blogged about Johnny Saldana’s new text, The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers, and I just read a great review of it by Robin Cooper at The Weekly Qualitative Report. It may be worth a look if you face an upcoming coding project and may need an overview of Saldana’s excellent primer.

Tags: qualitative coding, qualitative research

I am nearly finished revising my narrative inquiry paper for my Module 2 class, which is due tonight. The more I am processing and reprocessing the Analysis and Presentation section of the paper, the more I am beginning to appreciate narrative inquiry.

Learning to use it here for the first time (or rather, this is the first time I have used it, after having learned about it over the years), I realize how much more I want to explore some of its possibilities.

Has anybody out there used narrative inquiry and want to share what the found useful about it, especially regarding how they navigated the various methodological issues?

Tags: narrative inquiry, PhD, qualitative research, Research

Having finished my transcriptions last night, I can now focus on interpreting what I have to move my paper forward. At the same time, I just read Judith C. Lapadat’s article, Problematizing transcriptions: Purpose, paradigm and quality, which once again leaves me with more questions than answers.

She raises some of the myriad of issues in her research early on (p. 204) in her paper:

Verbatim transcription serves the purpose of taking speech, which is fleeting, aural, performative, and heavily contexualized within its situational and social context of use, and freezing it into a static, permanent, and manipulable form.

The implications of this include:

• Positivism (do the spoken words really capture the entire observable event?)
• Transcription conventions (there really is not a single, universal convention for doing this)
• Interpretivism (talk is situated, so the relationship between language and meaning can be challenging)

She concludes that rigor in the process must be accounted for, and while this can be done in research courses and with oversight (e.g., let’s be consistent with marks for pauses, laughter, and the like), I have not seen very much of this happen. I wonder to what extent it happens and I have just missed it or have never been able to avail myself to these opportunities?

Thinking about this from a self-directed and adult learning perspective, would it have been valuable enough for me to sit through formalized instruction, practice, and skill development, or is doing what I have been doing, namely getting stuck then researching then reading then considering then implementing (now repeat!) a better learning experience? I am already highly sensitive to the challenges in capuring meaning in language, so am almost naturally exploring these issues and moving my own learning forward. I wonder how my colleagues are struggling with these issues, or if some of them are uncritically (perhaps by accident or wherewithal) avoiding these tensions completely?

Tags: qualitative research, transcription

I have had to temporarily stop the transcription for my doctoral research project due to some work and university eLearning modules I am finishing that have taken 100% of my non-full-time-job time. Will return to my research this weekend, full steam ahead!

While I have been so busy, I did smile broadly this morning when I came across an article in this morning’s New York Times, The Big Draw of a GPS Run. While the articles itself was fascinating (never considered turning on GPS and creating art with it!), I think there was a profound insight contained in a quote by Ellen Worthing, a GPS-using hiker, at the end of the article:

She likes that with a GPS device she can reimagine a landscape so imbued with history, patriotism and war. “Do we need to see what the U.S. Park Service wants us to see?” she asked. “Or can we see what we want to see?”

Creating her art as a contrast to the “established” purpose of the Fort McHenry National Monument, she exemplified freedom in a way I have not really considered before. Who are you to tell me what I see? Who are you to tell me how I should think? Who are you to tell me what this should mean? My meaning is my meaning, and how I see the world may at times be at odds with how others think it should be seen, or what it should mean. It took some time getting here, and I am thoroughly convinced that there is no such thing as a static and objective meaning, one that is the same for all people at all times.

Can there be a better example of the joys of qualitative research?

Tags: qualitative research, Research