0 Comments
I made a small amount of progress toward my dissertation project today.
-Contacted one of the sources (university contractor) for potential participants to request a meeting -Contacted two individuals in university HR to discuss recruiting among employees. I was watching a great video on TedMed of Ben Goldacre discussing the number of (unsuccessful) clinical drug trials that are not published. I had been exposed to some readings about publication bias, i.e., the tendency to publish mostly to only successful results during graduate classes. Goldacre mentioned the necessity of registering all trials when they are initiated. I looked at Clinicaltrials.gov and while there do not appear to be US policies that require legislation of non drug treatments, there are other regulations, including WHO guildlines and the ICMJE statement that require registration of behavioral treatments. Under these guidelines, I should register my dissertation research and report the results. I am going to need to get some more information to find out exactly how to do this, though. I do plan (hope) to publish my results and it seems a little silly for me to 'register' my 24 person (hopefully) intervention with a government agency. On the other hand, think about all of the information that would be accessible if everyone did do this. I know that lots of theses and dissertations are not published - and not always due to unsuccessful results. Sometimes it is due to the fact that the writer does not want to spend the time on it. All it all, it seems like the 'right' thing to do. I have spent lots of time today editing video clips. I filmed between one and two hours of wheelchair basketball and I wanted to make a short video to show my class. It may also be used as a demonstration video on a website.
I did something similar three years ago when a basic recreation class I taught visited a ropes course. I was able to use the video to 'jump start' an experiential learning session. My expectations of myself are a lot higher this time around; instead of editing out the lousy bits, which was the extent of my processing three year ago, I tried hard to just keep the good bits. I also had ideas about effects (speed up, slow down, b & w) and background music. This was a very tedious process and I did not spend nearly as long as I would have liked. I realized at one point that it would help a lot to be intimately familiar with 'the data.' But I also did not see a great deal of value for what I want to get out of this in watching the video until I developed the familiarity. But I can see a parallel, hence the title of this post, with qualitative analysis. More after the break. The embedded picture above is meant to show a series of parallel lines. I created the graphic using Keynote from iWork '09 and saved the resulting file as a PDF. I have been thinking often lately about mixed qualitative and quantitative methods. My dissertation was proposed to consist of one wholly qualitative piece and one mixed qual and quan piece. I admit that the process of integration is still a little fuzzy to me, but past experience suggests that, if I continue to read, write (memos and journal), and write (the paper), I will learn to some extent through doing.
The idea of triangulation comes up a lot - and because of the navigation origin of this term, I think of getting to the same destination through two different paths. I had another perspective, though, this evening as I watched some of the video of the first ever University of Mississippi wheelchair basketball tournament (I mentioned this event in a post last week). One of the participants wore an action cam while playing, and I thought about what it would be like to edit in that film with the film I made from the sidelines. It would show the same event but from two very different perspectives. There would no doubt be some overlap but there are going to be differences as well, due to position and priorities. This gives me something to think about in integrating two types of results. The basic story may (or may not) be the same, but the perspectives may be different. If that is the case, should it be a priority to 'get to the same destination?' I have seen a few examples of integrated results and it seem that qual (quotes) are offered to not validate but support ('legitimize' is a word I saw recently in an article; unfortunately do not have the reference in front of me now) the quantitative results. But how parallel or similar do the integrated results need to be? On the other hand, how not parallel (perpendicular?) or dissimilar can they be before one is accused of not actually integrating? Lots to think about. This is a picture of the foot pedal I use; I currently have two of these because I wanted to be able to work at school/work and at home - and it is a heavy object to carry in your backpack when you bicycle (which I do not do nearly as much as I would like). It connects via a USB cord. I have listened to my tape selection several more times and added some additional paralinguistic elements to the transcript. The file (docx) is available for download after the break. I have continued to rely on Jenks's "Transcribing talk and interaction" (2011; John Benjamins publishing) as a resource. After considering the three conventions he cites - conversation analysis (CA, the 'Jeffersonian' style), Santa Barbara School (SBS) and Gesprächanalytisches Transkriptionssystem 2 (GAT) - I have decided to lean toward CA because it frequently uses symbols rather than additional letters in some of the instances. I think that symbols will make this easier to read than letters/abbreviations. I have to say that I personally sometimes find detailed transcriptions very difficult to read and cluttered in appearance. This picture is one of my 'ex' bikes - i accumulated (built) several in a short period of time and had to finally get rid of some (still 2-3 more need to leave the household). This is a 2008-09 Pro Lite aluminum TT frame, built up with Ultegra gruppo, Oval Concepts bars, and Fast Forward wheels. I was riding a road frame built up as a TT bike (full aero) but started to feel somehow bad, that I did not have a 'proper' TT frame because "everyone else" seemed to have one. I rode this moderately uncomfortable bike for just over a season and replaced it with a new build, again using a road frame and stopped worrying (mostly) about what everyone else was riding. This may be a stretch but leads me to something I thought about the other day. Most of the various CAQDAS do not actually 'play' well together and I think only NVivo has server capability to easily allow for group projects (can't see how Atlas.ti could given how it handles data). So to work with others, or on other equipment, you need to have the software and pass around the 'right' copy of a file (or own the fairly expensive NVivo server). And of course there is no way to open an NVivo file in Hyperresearch or vice versa. This made me think of the increasingly proprietary nature of bicycle parts. I am beginning to experience the difficulties that follow a successful dissertation proposal. The intervention itself may not require full IRB approval - I am proposing mild to moderate physical activity in currently inactive middle aged individuals who are deemed fit to begin an exercise program. The problems are arising in response to something I thought was relatively innocuous - my desire to provide participants with new athletic shoes, stop watches (planning a walking/jogging program) and training diaries. More on my dissertation dilemma after the break. Regarding the picture above, thinking of 'monsters' (and my dissertation as the 'monster' project of grad school) made me think of the Freakies - cereal marketed to kids in the 70s. It was, as I remember, another version of Captain Crunch (as were Quisp and Quake, some of my other favorites). I had these toys, but Goodie Goodie's (the pink one) head had a tendency to fall off - her neck was a weak link. Cannot recall the names of the others but there are many vintage Freaky items for sale on Ebay - going for a premium price and all seem to have bids. Another one of those 'wish I had kept them' things. I made a presentation today about qualitative data collection in evaluation for a graduate class. I did not arrive as early as I should have done and had some technological issues (note to self: hyperlinks may work better than embedding the video in the slides...). Ironically the next to last version of my presentation slides contained both embedded videos and hyperlinks but I removed the hyperlinks at the last minute. Other than that, and not so great time management, it was a fair job at a presentation and I hope provided at least some information of interest or value.
I collected minimal 'evaluation' information from the members of the class. It is my impression that the students were very receptive to qualitative and in particular mixed qual and quan research. I think everyone was open to the idea of qualitative data collection. Where I see interest start to fall off is in the idea of analysis rather than simply reporting summary results. I think this is because analysis is time consuming and a lot of explanations in texts and articles tend to be ambiguous. There is also no clear standard to tell when you are 'right.' Considering this, it is no wonder qualitative analysis is off putting. I have taken the next step and it is a small one - I have reformatted the typed transcript to facilitate inclusion of more detail. I took formatting ideas from Jenks ("Transcribing talk and interaction," 2011; John Benjamins publishing).
The steps I followed were: Copied the F5 file and pasted into MS Word. I retained the F5 file which has active time stamps. The time stamps remain in the Word version but are no longer active. I am using Word because I will need symbols. I have played around a little more with Transana but do not plan to use it for this project. Widened the margins to 2" on each side. I do not have more than one speaker in this excerpt so did not make room for speaker identification. I do have some extra spaces where the time stamps are - and I hit return to insert these - so they may be at 'natural' break points. One of the things that Jenks suggests is using section labels to help with the organization. I can see the sense of this, especially when an interview guide is used and there are clear topic areas. There may be clear topic areas and transitions even when an interview guide is not used. Inserted line numbers. I separated the time stamps onto their own lines and deleted the numbers from those and the blank lines, so only the lines of text are numbered. Widened spacing to 1.5. I may end up with double or more, depending on how much detail I fill in and how hard it is to make sense of it when I read it. This excerpt does not contain any really challenging elements - no other speakers, no movement, just audio of a single person. I think this is going to be challenging enough to start with. You can see my revised file after the break. I mentioned the children's novel "Harriet the Spy" just last week. That reminded me of a similar real life circumstance. Truman Capote in "Answered Prayers" wrote about some of the celebrity friends he had acquired through his success as a writer. I have never read the novel so do not know how much the characters were disguised. Now that I am thinking about it, I would like to read it. Unfortunately the rich and famous (and famous-for-being-rich) of those days are not necessarily going to be people that I (even at my advanced age) will recognize. I remember reading that his friends (which may not be the best term for the actual relationship[s]) were upset by this act of betrayal. Capote had been let into an 'inner circle' of sorts, and he opened a door for the rest of the world. Supposedly he was ostracized as a result. I am not certain that he ever worked his way back into popularity as well as Harriet the Spy did... On another matter, I am working through in my head on a parallel between CAQDAS and bicycle companies. More later.... |
AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
Categories
|