I am current at the TQR: The Qualitative Report 2020 conference. I looked over my old presentations and determined this is my 8th consecutive year to attend this conference, that I always find inspiring and re-energizing. As I reflected on presentations from this year and past conferences, I started to find a pattern (isn't that what qualitative researchers do?), in how people present. More accurately, I identified two common ways of presenting research papers and reports The first is what I am going to call classic - and this is what I typically do. This type of presentation usually follows a research manuscript sequence: introduction; methods; results or findings; discussion. Interestingly, the people who present in this relatively predictable way also seem to be those who are more likely to include an outline slide. The other type - that includes more variation - is what I am going to call conversational. The conversational presentation style can be hard to follow and these presenters might not use an outline or provide any type of road map. The best applications of this style, in my view, include researchers who provide an overview of their work, focus on the findings, and, in essence blend the interpretation with the findings - which is a convention in some types of qualitative inquiry such as Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. The reason I use the term conversational is that this segment feels more like a dialogue. It goes like this:
Presenter describes findings, looking at slides or computer Presenter(s) engage(s) with audience to talk about what he/she/they think the findings mean, or his/her/their personal response. The presenter(s) may ask for audience responses, feedback, or similar experiences at this point, and at every ensuing conversational point in the presentation. I found myself responding much more positively to the conversational style, although it is something I rarely use, even when making a more conceptual presentation. Of course if you count on audience interaction, there is always a risk of none, so it is probably a good idea to have additional back-up content. This style of presenting is a good example of making more appropriate use of the context. Although people still read entire papers at conferences in some disciplines, given electronic access to many journals and the ability to share and host your own works via web applications, it seems like a less than ideal use of time to read a manuscript in a live audience setting. The classic presentation is a summary version of this, and has as its aim informing the audience, with getting feedback from audiences as a lower level priority. Unless presenters solicit questions throughout, chances are that audience members who had a question about the methods have forgotten those questions (or have become bored) before the presentation reaches its end. Based on my observations and these thoughts, I am making it a personal goal to transition my conference presentations toward the conversational style, subject of course to the conference itself, and collaborator priorities for group projects. But I think that optimizing the interaction available in a live setting - and real time live settings are becoming rarer in my vew - is a more effective and interesting way to use conference session time.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
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
|