qualitative research – Page 6

Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS) & Web 2.0

This is an 8:00 am session, and is somewhat light with people right now. The title in this presentation is very long, and is about using QDAS with some of the more boundary-pushing qualitative research strategies. This sounds exactly like the sort of presentation I need, as I want to explore which of the software options out there that I want to explore this summer.

I have struggled how to do this with some of the areas of qualitative research I am interested in pursuing. The speaker is speaking about how she was struggling with the experience of the qualitative research class and the art she was doing.

Judith Ann Davidson at U Mass – Lowell is doing a fascinating reflection of where she belongs with the different worlds growing up, especially around issues of gender and cultural norms and expectations. She used collage and poetry as a way of expressing her qualitative findings. She likens this to the multiple forms of visualization that is available in these tools. She suggests using QDAS with performance ethnography, arts-based research, and autoethnography. She then passed around her visual journal project with painting, poetry, and collage.

Kerry Frances Donohoe is now speaking about portraiture and QDAS. She discovered Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot (sound interesting, will have to look her up). She used document analysis, observation, visual data, and semi-structured interviews. She used NVivo as an organizational tool to combine the data. She showed a wonderful image she created for her dissertation using the NVivo Modeler to visually represent her work. NVivo helped with this process to organize what was difficult to traditionally show.

Now Silvana di Gregorio is now speaking about Digital life histories: Digital analysis. She started by speaking how she studied e-research and learning forms that she started to learn more about the great amount of sharing of personal story online (blogging, Web 2.0, etc.)—all without the help of academia! “Lay” life history, such as personal videos, uploading pictures, scrapbooks, and the like—there is a voyeuristic edge in reading the lives of others and wanting to keep parts of our own private. She then spoke about Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994 and then blogged for 11 years. He created a YouTube video during his breakdown. He started to blog to socialize, but then lost all his friends because he revealed too much and ended up being alone. He stopped blogging and then started to gain friends again. Interesting story; have never heard of it before. Will have to look it up. She then spoke about vlogs, and how people often started speaking about how-to things and then this is about their own lives, such as 10-minute life history (such as Dave of Davesfarm in London, Ontario). Flickr and YouTube are both very similar in how their sites are organized. Tagging and folksonomies are enabling community. She even spoke about Google Labs, which is experimenting to searching for the spoken word within videos. Finally, the Semantic Web (Web 3.0) is mentioned, but unfortunately at this point she is racing since she is running out of time.

There was another presentation which I just did not get. I think I may be on overload.

Great question time now, where there was a question about coding images and how reflective memoing works with it, and then link them to the questions. One of the people discussed the powerful memoing tools in NVivo. One person said that the memoing tools are even more powerful to use than the coding tools. Tools such as NVivo are very complicated to learn to use. There are some web tools that are being created and used. There was even a nice discussion about the shelf-life of some of these practices. They then recommended using DiRT (Digital Research Tools) dirt and delicious.

In summary, this is like coding in a new way, and reaching out to the tag rather than staying within a cocoon. Really interesting work moving into the future.

Qualitative Research and the Internet

The presentation on technology made some interesting comments about how the rooms we are using in the conference are a bit barren of technology. Wonderful wifi access throughout the campus, but a strange lack of projectors for computers. Oh good, the overhead projector is almost warmed up.

Nice to have some interaction here at the beginning of the session. Interesting that one of the people in the session is from the CUNY Graduate school.

The first person is speaking about patient populations accessing their own healthcare information is available online.

Interesting how Canada is now doing a lot of work with online health counseling. This seems to have to happen since Canadians are so geographically disperse.

The issue about ethical considerations and consent are still surfacing with online research. There is not a standard or clear consensus yet about this. This supports what we learned and studied in my Lancaster program, where we spent some time with Kanuka and Anderson’s Ethical Issues in Qualitative E-Learning Research.

The person who is presenting this now asked the attendees what their thoughts are about what sorts of questions may or should be asked for the online patient population for online counseling.

Really interesting about this pushing the boundaries of healthcare. I know there are more and more needs and calls for research around this area, in part because of need and (at least in the US) for cost savings. Really interesting thinking about online patient care needs.

Now another presentation, this one called “Shopping for Humans: Love, Sex, and friendship on the Internet and Elsewhere.”

There was an interesting session on World Cafe-sort communication. We met in pairs, and initially I was in a triad. We are now in a larger group, and were just given paper and crayons. Interesting how we are now discussing issues in and around community. One person is speaking about diversity and related challenges in the Ivory Tower. Another person is focused around community in a larger context, the American Leadership Forum. Goodness, what should I say or share? I ended up talking about my own preference for online communities, and allowing them to develop organically rather than intentionally. There was also some discussion about political communities, especially with a discussant in our group from Columbia. People then discussed Second Life and Adobe Connect as other options for online community.

There is now a really interesting presentation on the use of a blog with a classroom teacher, on using a blog with a series of math classes. There is a data analysis done with this, as a grounded analysis. I am wondering how they addressed the ethical issues and consent (for the research part) and how this works with privacy (for minors and their names online with what they do or do not know). I will have to ask about these. Interesting work with student blog summaries of mathematical concepts in textual form. There is even an interesting discussion about breaking down barriers of accessing information and communication between classes. The math teacher approves each comment to the blog with the student responses listed. The researcher co-presenter works with mathematical communication.

I personally received a strict order: not to take more than 4 weeks, and the dose of Ambien Without a Prescription in 4 weeks should be decreased and then the reception should be stopped at all.

All the students and parents signed consents on this, and the blog is open to the public, but the links are not readily accessible. This presents a challenge (IMHO) about privacy, equality of service, research, and a need to use current technology to meet learning needs.

First Thoughts from the 5th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2009)

Here I am at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all checked into the hotel and unpacked, and ready to attend this evening’s Pre-Congress Reception, from 7:00-9:00 in the Levis Faculty Center. I just heard about this reception yesterday, and think it is a nice (though not widely publicized) way to begin this, my first International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

Then, off to try to get my first full night’s sleep all week so I can be prepared for the two Pre-Conference Workshops I registered to attend tomorrow:

New Experimental Writing Forms with Yvonna Lincoln
Writing Autoethnography and Narrative in Qualitative Research with Art Bochner and Carolyn Ellis

More about the final preparation I am doing for my own two paper sessions (that I will present on Friday) tomorrow!

Focusing on Friends (vs. unfriending)

The New York Times (yes, I enjoy reading a paper newspaper in the morning over coffee) has an interesting article today, Friends, Until I Delete You. It was about protocols, or the lack thereof, regarding dropping / unfriending / blocking / unfollowing / defriending people on Facebook (and by default even on Twitter, my primary networking hub, as well as rss feeds and blogrolls). Getting a free Whopper from Burger King aside, this issue will only grow in discussion as the general trend toward Managing Multimembership increases.

I used to accept all invitations, though find it increasingly difficult to keep up and communicate with the people who I am really interested in following and engaging in ongoing discussions. Currently, I do not accept all invitations in Facebook or even return following in Twitter. Let’s face it, if I have not spoken to somebody since high school or college or for ten years, is there much evidence I really want to suddenly start now? There are often reasons why we lose touch (as well as some good reasons for begining again, I suppose).

I often do accept if the person appears interesting, but tastes and needs and wants do change and develop over time.

Don’t get me wrong, this issue is not necessarily a personal one; it is more a recognition that I have limited time and resources. I am simply not able or interested in following or reading people who, ultimately, do not meet the WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?) factor. Very subjective, but then again what isn’t? (Ahh, I love qualitative research!)

I wish I have more time and energy, but there is a limit. Thus, instead of my own focusing on particulars about unfriending, I prefer to focus on following those who really make a difference in my life, work, and research.

Autoethnography Listserv Discussion Heats Up

I have not been blogging much recently, as I have been slammed with the simultaneous wrapping-up of two classes I am teaching: Principles and Practices of Online Course Creation and Instructional Design and Research Process and Methodology. I do have a lot of material to share and reflectively work out on my blog, but for now I have been refining my lessons, correcting papers, and helping students with projects / research / practice.

One thing I have been reading with great interest in the last day or so has been the increasingly heated discussion on the Autoethnography Listserv. While autoethnography is a favorite qualitative research method of mine, I have never seen such an interesting discussion that revolves around some incidents that appeared to happen during the NCA conference in San Diego, held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt that has recently been embroiled in the Proposition 8 controversy in California.

The experience seems especially interesting, given the conference’s theme of “unCONVENTIONal.” This is well worth some attention in the wider community of scholar-practitioners.