Category: Lancaster PhD

Interview Progress for Public Transformations Research

With so many generous participants offering to assist me with my research project, Public Transformations: Adult Learners Who Use Social Media to Express and Understand Their Identities as Developing Researchers, I want to provide a brief update as to where I am with all this.

I have thus far completed 6 interviews (I initially planned for 3), have one more confirmed, and am trying to coordinate 2 additional ones. I will collect far more experiences (data, in research terms) than I need for this course project, and hope this helps me understand the topic more completely, perhaps to assist with my dissertation (thesis, in UK parlance) direction for next year, a research paper I am already formulating, and some really valuable findings to better understand how this all fits together. With so many wonderful people out there willing to open their lives and meaning making to me, I want my work to benefit our community of learners and educators as well.

Next, continue with the transcription steps . . .

The Benefit of Generous Research Participants

I have the fortunate problem to have more potential research participants than I can use. This is in many ways a great problem to have, as some colleagues face just the opposite. I credit this to a somewhat untapped area of study, one that invites personal reflection and growth, where I supposed that people may have a passion and an interest that may lead to some interesting directions.

All this remains to be seen as I hope to begin the interviews next week (as this research paper is due in only five more weeks). My challenge now is to try to figure out what criteria to use to determine how to narrow down such a generous bunch.

I think I want an international representative sample (and being a New Yorker studying in the UK, this does make some sense), with people from different countries and academic affiliations). I hope to have some men and women. I do want the participants to be engaged (current or previously) in formal academic study, using social media (a blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to express (or process) their learning along the way.

I really hope that some of the learning that is shared via social media is of the sort of paradigmatic shifts, significant critical examination, or of a transformational nature — though all of this will be explored in the interview.

It may be a little ironic that I am writing this while sitting in a theatre awaiting Avatar, a tale about identity and personal learning, to begin. I hope to reach out to some people, who already contacted me, directly beginning tomorrow.

I feel good about the direction this is headed, and think there may be some interesting findings ahead.

Invitation to Participate in a Research Study

As I just received ethical approval for my research study (for one of the modules in my doctoral program at Lancaster University), I want to list the specifics here and begin to look for potential participants. Please let me know if you are wish to volunteer to be a potential interviewee or want to speak about this / get more information. I have a formal research consent form with some additional information. 

I hope to have 3 participants, and will hope to have the interview by the second week of January.

Name of Project:

Public Transformations: Adult Learners Who Use Social Media to Express and Understand Their Identities as Developing Researchers

Dear Potential Participant:

I want to invite you to take part in a research study which is part of my doctoral studies in the Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology (CSALT), Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University. You should understand why the research is being done, and what it will involve for you. Please read the following carefully and decide if you wish to take part. Ask me if there is anything that is not clear or if you want more information.

What is the Purpose of the Study?

The purpose of this study is to explore how people develop as researchers while using social media tools to engage in reflexivity, self-expression, feedback, and collaboration. I am especially interested in knowing how learners make sense of their experiences when they believe they learn something significant that helps them see things in a different way.

Why have I been Invited?

You are invited to participate in this research because you are (or were) an adult learner who communicated with others about your graduate or doctoral research experiences via social media (e.g., via a blog, microblog such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

What will Taking Part Involve for Me?

I will conduct one interview, on the phone or via an online conference service, for approximately 60 minutes. The interview will be recorded and the transcript sent to you for your review and edits. The audio recording and transcript of our discussion will be safely stored on my password-protected computer, as will your contact information. The data from this study will be used in the completion of course work in my doctoral programme, and it may also be included in my doctoral thesis, published, or presented at conferences. To safeguard your confidentiality and anonymity, you will be given a pseudonym, and all identifying information, such as the institution or department to which you belong, will be removed. You may withdraw from the study for any reason and at any time. If you withdraw from the study, any data that you have contributed will be destroyed.

Ethical Approval Granted for Research

I just received university Ethical Approval for the research project I have been struggling with here over the past few weeks. I expect to list the specifics here tomorrow, when I will begin seeking participants for this work. the work is tentatively titled Public Transformations: Adult Learners Who Use Social Media to Express and Understand Their Identities as Developing Researchers.

If you think you may be a potential participant (or perhaps know one!), please let me know. More details tomorrow.

Research Method Ideas for the Project

As I have generally received positive feedback for the “ambitious” direction I am headed (regarding the research project that I have been designing here over the past few weeks), I now want to think a bit about the method I am considering for this work, especially before I tighten up the problem and research question.

I was initially planning to use  phenomenography, though think that may not work due to the size limitations of the expected 3 participants, the limitations to the semi-structured interview questions I need to use (as phenomenography would require me to rigidly use the same questions with everybody–leading to the eventual categories), and given that I am not sure I will be able to categorize much as this is an exploratory study.

I am now thinking about using some form of ethnography, something that blends the ethnography of Wittel with that of Hines and Efimova, perhaps in a more Focused manner, similar to that detailed by Knoblauch. I expect to conduct interviews and possibly review blogs or other social media as examples of the participants’ work, as needed. I will get more specific here as a next step, after I (hopefully) get some feedback first.