Yesterday, I conducted a very rough pilot interview for mainly one purpose: to get a sense of how long it would take to have a respondent answer all the questions in one sitting. It was very rough because the respondent did not match my target population well. He would have been disqualified for two reasons. First, I know him (too) well. Second, he had lived in the target country before and had family/friend living there. Because of these two reasons, I already knew about 1/3 of his answers well and about another 1/4 could not be answered, thus the interview probably went faster than with someone who fit the target population description better.
Anyway, I learned that the fastest a one-sitting interview would probably take is 45 minutes. I would estimate that it would take at least 90 minutes with a fully qualified participant. My pilot study from last summer, showed me that about half of the participants elaborated or expanded upon their answers, thus adding 50-100% more to the allotted time. So a very rough estimate would be 45-90 minutes for uncooperative or reserved interviewees and 90-180 minutes for cooperative and/or talkative interviewees.
Fortunately for me, I do not plan to ask all the interview questions to the respondents in one sitting. The only way this would happen is if the respondent prefers to get it all done in one sitting and that I have at least 3 hours of my own free time. I do not expect this to happen often if at all.
I prefer to do a hybrid of synchronous (web-conferencing) and asynchronous (email) interviews. My pilot respondent yesterday told me he would have preferred to answer all by email, which would help me in terms of not transcribing any audio recordings. But I do like to engage in a little spontaneous conversation about the topic, especially when talking about concepts that can lead to ambiguous answers. From this interview, I learned that I should give my participants the option to do more web-conferencing or more emailing.
However, I'm not confident enough yet, so I plan to conduct a few more interviews using both formats so I can find my level of confidence.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Online Interviews
Today I have been reading more in depth about conducting interviews online, and I was quite happy to discover that some of the protocols I used based on my common sense as a researcher are supported by what I am reading. The purpose of today's post is to share what I am learning about online interviews.
As with most interactions online, there are two types of interviews: asynchronous and synchronous. The most common example of asynchronous interviews online are email exchanges. The easiest example of synchronous interviews online to image are Skype or Google Hangout meetings, although web conferences are used more in research.
When I decided to incorporate online methodologies into my study, I imagined the synchronous interviews as the main source of data collection. This imagination came from taking several qualitative research courses and applying traditional face-to-face protocols to online research. Although I planned to use emails to help establish rapport and set up the synchronous interviews, I did not think about relying more on emails to collect my interview data...until today.
Looking at my interview questions, there are a few that would be difficult to answer spontaneously in a synchronous interview. My respondents would answer better if they were given more time to think through their response, and the response itself would be quite lengthy, or so I hope. I had intended on reserving those few questions for email, but I plan to revisit my research questions to analyze which ones do not call for synchronous interviews.
I still want to do synchronous interviews because my topic covers a lot of fuzzy concepts that I want to be able to clarify for my respondents, and I also want them to clarify their thoughts and opinions as well. I feel that emails would be a bit pestering if I asked them to clarify, and then to elaborate, and then to elaborate more. My pilot data has shown me that a few respondents prefer to give short answers, especially in the beginning of the interview.
One of the bigger surprises in the reading was to discover that I was on the right track with building rapport. To help my respondents in the pilot study become more comfortable with me, I shared my professional website with them to let them know who I am and that I was legitimate in that I was who I said I was, a PhD candidate collecting data for his dissertation. In addition to that, the literature said I should also make myself more personable or easier to relate to. In one way, I am in that my teaching experience is similar to my participants' experience and we've lived in the same cultural context in terms of national borders. The literature further states that the researcher should share family information, which is something that I used to have on my professional site, but I took it off because I'm applying for jobs now and that doesn't seem appropriate.
Based on my pilot study, I feel that conducting online interviews comes natural to me. And I hope that I can contribute to the social sciences by sharing my experiences and findings from this and future research. I feel that acquiring these research skills adds to my value as a researcher in addition to the knowledge gained from answering my research questions.
As with most interactions online, there are two types of interviews: asynchronous and synchronous. The most common example of asynchronous interviews online are email exchanges. The easiest example of synchronous interviews online to image are Skype or Google Hangout meetings, although web conferences are used more in research.
When I decided to incorporate online methodologies into my study, I imagined the synchronous interviews as the main source of data collection. This imagination came from taking several qualitative research courses and applying traditional face-to-face protocols to online research. Although I planned to use emails to help establish rapport and set up the synchronous interviews, I did not think about relying more on emails to collect my interview data...until today.
Looking at my interview questions, there are a few that would be difficult to answer spontaneously in a synchronous interview. My respondents would answer better if they were given more time to think through their response, and the response itself would be quite lengthy, or so I hope. I had intended on reserving those few questions for email, but I plan to revisit my research questions to analyze which ones do not call for synchronous interviews.
I still want to do synchronous interviews because my topic covers a lot of fuzzy concepts that I want to be able to clarify for my respondents, and I also want them to clarify their thoughts and opinions as well. I feel that emails would be a bit pestering if I asked them to clarify, and then to elaborate, and then to elaborate more. My pilot data has shown me that a few respondents prefer to give short answers, especially in the beginning of the interview.
One of the bigger surprises in the reading was to discover that I was on the right track with building rapport. To help my respondents in the pilot study become more comfortable with me, I shared my professional website with them to let them know who I am and that I was legitimate in that I was who I said I was, a PhD candidate collecting data for his dissertation. In addition to that, the literature said I should also make myself more personable or easier to relate to. In one way, I am in that my teaching experience is similar to my participants' experience and we've lived in the same cultural context in terms of national borders. The literature further states that the researcher should share family information, which is something that I used to have on my professional site, but I took it off because I'm applying for jobs now and that doesn't seem appropriate.
Based on my pilot study, I feel that conducting online interviews comes natural to me. And I hope that I can contribute to the social sciences by sharing my experiences and findings from this and future research. I feel that acquiring these research skills adds to my value as a researcher in addition to the knowledge gained from answering my research questions.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Interviews & Blogs
Earlier this week, I received constructive feedback on Chapter 3 of my research proposal from one of my co-chairs. Since then, I have made most changes. Yesterday, I started on rewriting the interview questions and writing a list of features to look in blogs, and I just completed both this morning.
For the past two years, I've had the same interview questions. Last year, I piloted the questions when I was a visiting professor at the International University of Japan. I wrote about it here. Because I thought the interview questions tested well, I felt no need to change them. However, I have modified most of my secondary research questions, and that was enough to make the old interviewing procedures irrelevant. I was able to use about two-thirds of those questions, but they were reordered to better fit the new research questions.
I am quite happy with the new interview questions and protocol. The most noticeable change is that I now have about 5 pages of interview questions for one or two meetings. Before I had planned to meet with my participants at least 3 times over a 6-month period with a different set of 2-3 pages of interview questions each. I intend to pilot this new set of questions on a friend who fit my description of a participant, but the only the purpose of this pilot is to see how long the interview could last.
I also wrote up a list of features to look for in a blog written by potential participants of my study. I feel like I'm charting new territory here as there has been very little written about blog data collection and analysis. There is a great overlap between the blog analysis and the interview questions, and I hope that will strengthen the validity of my study.
While writing this blog analysis guide, I realized that with the potential blog data of my dissertation, I may have a few studies or even more papers based on the data alone. I could see this helping me with my research agenda. Speaking of research agenda, data from my ongoing pilot study has revealed another area of interest strongly linked to my current study. This has prompted me to keep a more centralized document concerning my research agenda. At the moment, I have a Word doc, a Google doc, and scraps of paper with ideas for future study. If I have this many ideas now, I can't image how many I will have when I near completion of my current study.
For the past two years, I've had the same interview questions. Last year, I piloted the questions when I was a visiting professor at the International University of Japan. I wrote about it here. Because I thought the interview questions tested well, I felt no need to change them. However, I have modified most of my secondary research questions, and that was enough to make the old interviewing procedures irrelevant. I was able to use about two-thirds of those questions, but they were reordered to better fit the new research questions.
I am quite happy with the new interview questions and protocol. The most noticeable change is that I now have about 5 pages of interview questions for one or two meetings. Before I had planned to meet with my participants at least 3 times over a 6-month period with a different set of 2-3 pages of interview questions each. I intend to pilot this new set of questions on a friend who fit my description of a participant, but the only the purpose of this pilot is to see how long the interview could last.
I also wrote up a list of features to look for in a blog written by potential participants of my study. I feel like I'm charting new territory here as there has been very little written about blog data collection and analysis. There is a great overlap between the blog analysis and the interview questions, and I hope that will strengthen the validity of my study.
While writing this blog analysis guide, I realized that with the potential blog data of my dissertation, I may have a few studies or even more papers based on the data alone. I could see this helping me with my research agenda. Speaking of research agenda, data from my ongoing pilot study has revealed another area of interest strongly linked to my current study. This has prompted me to keep a more centralized document concerning my research agenda. At the moment, I have a Word doc, a Google doc, and scraps of paper with ideas for future study. If I have this many ideas now, I can't image how many I will have when I near completion of my current study.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Returning to the Literature
Last week, I completed my latest revisions to Chapter 1, just one week after doing the same for Chapter 3. So what about Chapter 2? That's what I'm working on now. Chapter 2 is basically the literature review for one's dissertation and is usually the longest chapter. It's also the chapter that continues to be revised through the entire dissertation process, especially for those like me who have chosen to use a grounded theory approach.
I have spent the last few days reorganizing Chapter 2 to better fit my arguments in Chapter 1 and my methodology in Chapter 3. This alone took several hours of outlining, cutting and pasting, and then revising the outlines. With notes added, but no content added, this nearly doubled my page length. After removing redundancies and making all my notes single-spaced, the pages returned to the original length of around 45 pages.
Only yesterday did I start adding new content and making concepts and my writing clearer. I probably added as much as I deleted. During this process I used a different font for the first draft and another font for the second draft. Once the entire first draft was revised, resorted, and partially removed, I gave the whole document the same font, a smaller font, which reduced the number of pages to around 40 pages.
This is the minimum number of pages as I anticipate adding more content than I delete. There are two giant gaps in the literature that must be filled. The original chapter 2 made no mention of South Korea, which is now a vital target site for my data collection. Also, the first draft made no mention of online research, which now dominates my research methodology. Before I can write about these areas, I need to read about them in as much depth as the rest of the contents of the chapter. Fortunately, my literature searching and selecting skills have improved where I believe I have an ample amount to read for the next several weeks.
When these two areas are added, I may have 10-20 new pages. But more content will be added to sections already included in chapter 2 as I have collected other resources over the past 6 months. Some of these came from other classes, such as language planning and sociocultural anthropology, and others came from just keeping updated with several authors, journals, and issues. Interestingly, Twitter has been a valuable tool to keep updated. On my Twitter account, I follow journals, authors, and special interest groups in my research interest areas. I would guess that I learn about a valuable resource to include in my study about once or twice a month. This is a new sensation for me as it feels like the literature seeks me rather than the other way around.
Although reading doesn't feel as active or fulfilling as writing, I enjoy coming back to certain concepts or issues because, at this point, the literature is now reinforcing the feeling that I am on the right track.
I have spent the last few days reorganizing Chapter 2 to better fit my arguments in Chapter 1 and my methodology in Chapter 3. This alone took several hours of outlining, cutting and pasting, and then revising the outlines. With notes added, but no content added, this nearly doubled my page length. After removing redundancies and making all my notes single-spaced, the pages returned to the original length of around 45 pages.
Only yesterday did I start adding new content and making concepts and my writing clearer. I probably added as much as I deleted. During this process I used a different font for the first draft and another font for the second draft. Once the entire first draft was revised, resorted, and partially removed, I gave the whole document the same font, a smaller font, which reduced the number of pages to around 40 pages.
This is the minimum number of pages as I anticipate adding more content than I delete. There are two giant gaps in the literature that must be filled. The original chapter 2 made no mention of South Korea, which is now a vital target site for my data collection. Also, the first draft made no mention of online research, which now dominates my research methodology. Before I can write about these areas, I need to read about them in as much depth as the rest of the contents of the chapter. Fortunately, my literature searching and selecting skills have improved where I believe I have an ample amount to read for the next several weeks.
When these two areas are added, I may have 10-20 new pages. But more content will be added to sections already included in chapter 2 as I have collected other resources over the past 6 months. Some of these came from other classes, such as language planning and sociocultural anthropology, and others came from just keeping updated with several authors, journals, and issues. Interestingly, Twitter has been a valuable tool to keep updated. On my Twitter account, I follow journals, authors, and special interest groups in my research interest areas. I would guess that I learn about a valuable resource to include in my study about once or twice a month. This is a new sensation for me as it feels like the literature seeks me rather than the other way around.
Although reading doesn't feel as active or fulfilling as writing, I enjoy coming back to certain concepts or issues because, at this point, the literature is now reinforcing the feeling that I am on the right track.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Revising Chapters 1 & 3
Last week, because I completed my pilot study, I was able to finish my second revision to chapter 3 of my research proposal. Chapter 3 is about my research methodology and I had to completely rewrite about 50% of it as I am now incorporating some online research techniques and I have modified my target sample. This chapter is now being read by the co-chairs on my committee.
This week, I am working on my fourth revision to chapter 1 of my research proposal. This is the most difficult chapter to write because I have to make it both logically and emotionally convincing to people outside of ESL education that my study is worthwhile. I'm on the fourth revision because there are so many different ways to convince people, and I have to find the best way to combine as many of these approaches as possible without making it confusing. Another reason chapter 1 had to change was that chapter 3 changed significantly enough that it made an earlier revision irrelevant. This may sound like a pain, but I actually like this process because I notice how many of the theories, models, and concepts I'm working are better sticking to my memory.
Rewriting both of these chapters have helped me produce better research questions. In fact, a book that I had to read for my sociocultural anthropology course had a strong influence on the revised research questions as well.
As of now, I've revised over half of chapter 1. And today, I rewrote the most difficult part. It took me about 6 hours to compose. I worked in 2 3-hour segments with a lunch and family obligations in between. The easier revisions are ahead of me, and I anticipate to be done by Wednesday at best and by Friday at worst.
Next week will be my waiting period while my co-chairs read and comment on my submitted revisions. In the meantime, I will be on jury duty for Johnson County, Iowa. Also, my in-laws are visiting now and for the next week or two, so the fun never ends.
This week, I am working on my fourth revision to chapter 1 of my research proposal. This is the most difficult chapter to write because I have to make it both logically and emotionally convincing to people outside of ESL education that my study is worthwhile. I'm on the fourth revision because there are so many different ways to convince people, and I have to find the best way to combine as many of these approaches as possible without making it confusing. Another reason chapter 1 had to change was that chapter 3 changed significantly enough that it made an earlier revision irrelevant. This may sound like a pain, but I actually like this process because I notice how many of the theories, models, and concepts I'm working are better sticking to my memory.
Rewriting both of these chapters have helped me produce better research questions. In fact, a book that I had to read for my sociocultural anthropology course had a strong influence on the revised research questions as well.
As of now, I've revised over half of chapter 1. And today, I rewrote the most difficult part. It took me about 6 hours to compose. I worked in 2 3-hour segments with a lunch and family obligations in between. The easier revisions are ahead of me, and I anticipate to be done by Wednesday at best and by Friday at worst.
Next week will be my waiting period while my co-chairs read and comment on my submitted revisions. In the meantime, I will be on jury duty for Johnson County, Iowa. Also, my in-laws are visiting now and for the next week or two, so the fun never ends.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Pilot Study Developments
Over 2 weeks into it, and I have found some promising results from my pilot study. The online data have shown me that I could probably collect about 2/3 of my data online and the remaining 1/3 through interviews. At this point, I would say I'm halfway through collecting my pilot data. I'm also about a third of the way through revising Chapter 3, although I haven't touched Chapter 1 yet.
About chapter 1, I'm trying to find the best way to collect total population estimates. My primary route has failed, and I'm currently getting ideas from my secondary route. At this point, I have two options that I can use at the same time, and that is to collect data from an online survey and from national affiliates of one international organization of my field, TESOL. I probably should consider the other one, IATEFL.
My next step is to finish collecting the pilot data by the end of September. The bulk of my rewriting Chapter 3 deals with providing my understanding of online research and how it applies to my study. Once I pass that hurdle, it should only take me a day or two to finish that chapter. I'll slowly plod through Chapter 1, especially when I'm not getting the (expected) big numbers yet. All in all, I seem to be following through with my projected timeline very well.
About chapter 1, I'm trying to find the best way to collect total population estimates. My primary route has failed, and I'm currently getting ideas from my secondary route. At this point, I have two options that I can use at the same time, and that is to collect data from an online survey and from national affiliates of one international organization of my field, TESOL. I probably should consider the other one, IATEFL.
My next step is to finish collecting the pilot data by the end of September. The bulk of my rewriting Chapter 3 deals with providing my understanding of online research and how it applies to my study. Once I pass that hurdle, it should only take me a day or two to finish that chapter. I'll slowly plod through Chapter 1, especially when I'm not getting the (expected) big numbers yet. All in all, I seem to be following through with my projected timeline very well.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Pilot Study
This past week, I had a very constructive meeting with my co-chairs in that we discussed changes to be made in my first chapter of my dissertation and plans to tackle chapter 3, which center around conducting a pilot study.
Now I conducted a preliminary pilot study last summer while I was teaching English in Japan. Most of that data was informative in how to approach interviews for my dissertation. However, I have decided to collect data from online data and use the interviews to support and triangulate the online data. I took an ethnography class last year with one assignment about analyzing online data, so that has prepared me a little bit. For my pilot study, I will be able to apply those skills to my research questions and theoretical models.
I have given myself a deadline six weeks from the meeting, October 17, to have the following items completed: 1) pilot study, 2) a rewrite of chapter 3, and 3) another edit of chapter 1. In addition to this, I will be reorganizing and developing chapter 2. If I am able to stick to this schedule, I will ask my co-chairs for another meeting around the time of the deadline to discuss officially proposing my research to my committee.
Since this Wednesday, I have spent half of Thursday seeking out various online sources to collect my data. One of these sources will be chosen for my pilot study. I gave myself Friday the day off, except for job applications. And today has been solely dedicated to my assistantship and anthropology seminar. I plan to dedicate all of Monday to getting the pilot study off the ground. IRB is not needed in that I will not publish the data from the one online source. The data will only be used to help find the best theoretical framework to answer my research questions and fit my model.
Once the pilot study is underway, I will dedicate at least Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to working on and completing the three items described two paragraphs ago. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be dedicated to my assistantship and anthropology seminar, and the weekends to my job applications.
Since the second week of this semester, I feel as if I've been working 60+ hours a week. And I only feel overworked or wiped out about 2 days per week, so I call that a good sign.
Now I conducted a preliminary pilot study last summer while I was teaching English in Japan. Most of that data was informative in how to approach interviews for my dissertation. However, I have decided to collect data from online data and use the interviews to support and triangulate the online data. I took an ethnography class last year with one assignment about analyzing online data, so that has prepared me a little bit. For my pilot study, I will be able to apply those skills to my research questions and theoretical models.
I have given myself a deadline six weeks from the meeting, October 17, to have the following items completed: 1) pilot study, 2) a rewrite of chapter 3, and 3) another edit of chapter 1. In addition to this, I will be reorganizing and developing chapter 2. If I am able to stick to this schedule, I will ask my co-chairs for another meeting around the time of the deadline to discuss officially proposing my research to my committee.
Since this Wednesday, I have spent half of Thursday seeking out various online sources to collect my data. One of these sources will be chosen for my pilot study. I gave myself Friday the day off, except for job applications. And today has been solely dedicated to my assistantship and anthropology seminar. I plan to dedicate all of Monday to getting the pilot study off the ground. IRB is not needed in that I will not publish the data from the one online source. The data will only be used to help find the best theoretical framework to answer my research questions and fit my model.
Once the pilot study is underway, I will dedicate at least Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to working on and completing the three items described two paragraphs ago. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be dedicated to my assistantship and anthropology seminar, and the weekends to my job applications.
Since the second week of this semester, I feel as if I've been working 60+ hours a week. And I only feel overworked or wiped out about 2 days per week, so I call that a good sign.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Getting Back in High Gear
During the past 3 weeks, I have experienced a hiatus from my dissertation based on poor planning and bad luck. The poor planning consisted of not bringing two important texts with me while visiting my in-laws. I incorrectly thought that I would be too busy to be distracted by my dissertation. Although this was true for the first 5 days, it wasn't so for the remaining 9, so I stewed in regret for a while.
This regret was replaced by the misfortune of my laptop computer dying on me. Fortunately for me, all my dissertation work was backed up on a flash drive and in the cloud. If I were religious, I would say it was a god's way of telling me not to work on my dissertation during these past 3 weeks. This god was not too far off from my advisor's message to take a little break. I did not know she possessed magic powers.
My family summer vacations ended this past weekend, and suddenly I was thrust into scheduling meetings. These meetings signify my workload for this semester. My most urgent meetings are in regard to my new graduate assistantship. I can't say too much more about this since I haven't attended the first meeting yet. However, it is a half-time assistantship, which is 20 hours a week, and I plan on spending 10 of those 20 hours in the new office, wherever that is.
I am also scheduling meetings to discuss my research proposal with my co-chairs. I've received from great feedback already, but I'm waiting for some more before I start planning my revisions and outlines for later chapters. I have 6 credit hours dedicated to my dissertation, which is the equivalent to 2 courses. At this point, I have no idea how this will work, but I'd like to envision 3 credit hours on writing and revising the research proposal, and the other 3 credit hours on the research proposal committee meeting(s) and the IRB application.
Other meetings are in regard to my future employment, which can start as early as May 2013. My funding at the College of Education expires as late as August 2013, and full-time positions for the next academic year have already been posted. At this point, all these jobs are either full-time tenure-track professor positions or they are program director/administrator positions at university ESL programs. I will be meeting with several people to discuss my job application strategies since I have never applied to jobs of that caliber before. It can be a bit intimidating.
Lastly, I am taking only one class this semester. This class is taught by one of my dissertation committee members and satisfies the last requirement for my cognate area. This class appears to help strengthen my position of the need for some sociocultural anthropology in second language teacher education. More on this later, perhaps.
So to sum up what this semester seems to look like:
This regret was replaced by the misfortune of my laptop computer dying on me. Fortunately for me, all my dissertation work was backed up on a flash drive and in the cloud. If I were religious, I would say it was a god's way of telling me not to work on my dissertation during these past 3 weeks. This god was not too far off from my advisor's message to take a little break. I did not know she possessed magic powers.
My family summer vacations ended this past weekend, and suddenly I was thrust into scheduling meetings. These meetings signify my workload for this semester. My most urgent meetings are in regard to my new graduate assistantship. I can't say too much more about this since I haven't attended the first meeting yet. However, it is a half-time assistantship, which is 20 hours a week, and I plan on spending 10 of those 20 hours in the new office, wherever that is.
I am also scheduling meetings to discuss my research proposal with my co-chairs. I've received from great feedback already, but I'm waiting for some more before I start planning my revisions and outlines for later chapters. I have 6 credit hours dedicated to my dissertation, which is the equivalent to 2 courses. At this point, I have no idea how this will work, but I'd like to envision 3 credit hours on writing and revising the research proposal, and the other 3 credit hours on the research proposal committee meeting(s) and the IRB application.
Other meetings are in regard to my future employment, which can start as early as May 2013. My funding at the College of Education expires as late as August 2013, and full-time positions for the next academic year have already been posted. At this point, all these jobs are either full-time tenure-track professor positions or they are program director/administrator positions at university ESL programs. I will be meeting with several people to discuss my job application strategies since I have never applied to jobs of that caliber before. It can be a bit intimidating.
Lastly, I am taking only one class this semester. This class is taught by one of my dissertation committee members and satisfies the last requirement for my cognate area. This class appears to help strengthen my position of the need for some sociocultural anthropology in second language teacher education. More on this later, perhaps.
So to sum up what this semester seems to look like:
- An average of 20 hours/week dedicated to my graduate assistantship
- 6 credit hours dedicated to my dissertation
- 3 credit hours of my sociocultural anthropology seminar
- Job search and applications (which many people consider a full-time job)
Friday, July 20, 2012
How I Spent My Summer
Although summer is not over yet, it seems that meetings with members of my (future) dissertation committee are until the fall semester begins. This leaves me about a month to polish up Chapter 1 and to structure Chapter 2 of my proposal. I can also spend the time reading more in my research area, which was being discouraged earlier this summer since the readings can detract me. So what have I done?
1) I now have 2 co-chairs on my dissertation committee, one being my advisor, who is an expert in teacher education. The other is a professor, who is an expert in my field of ESL education. My research area draws from literature in ESL teacher education, and I hope my research can help improve it.
2) I have written 3 drafts of Chapter 1 and have submitted the third draft to my co-chairs. It is unfinished in that I am uncertain of the delimitations as the research methodology may change.
3) I have come across 2 influential researchers in my readings, and have contacted one of them. Both have published numerous articles within the last decade that promote my position.
4) I have collected a substantial amount of literature and read through a handful or so of the ones that seemed important enough to include in my Chapter 1. After reading them, I would estimate that half of what I read was indeed useful.
5) Next week, I will finish up my graduate assistantship with the Education Technology Center, where I worked for the past 3 years.
6) I have formally invited a third member to my dissertation committee.
To me, this list doesn't seem like a lot. Of the last ten weeks, I would say I have spent a total of 5-7 days writing and about twice as many days reading. Half of that reading was influential in my establishing my position. Perhaps I'm being unfair in that I just completed the busiest semester in my life, so anything following that would feel relatively free. In fact, I'm not getting credit for doing this work. I'm doing this work to get this dissertation done.
Perhaps I had high expectations for the summer. By this time, I had hoped to be done rewriting both Chapters 1 and 2, so I only met my expectations halfway there. I also wanted to make some progress on my IRB application, and this did not happen at all.
I am pushing myself because my ultimate goal for the next academic year is to be completed with data collection. After next May, I will have no more financial support from the College of Education, so I will have to find a job somewhere. Right now, I have the luxury of putting my dissertation at the top of my list of priorities. Soon that will give way to trying to secure a job and trying to sell our house, both of which will intensify as the academic year comes to a close.
With a month left before the academic year begins, I plan to spend about 2 weeks at my in-laws' in Maryland. That gives me a week before the trip and a week after the trip to dedicate most attention to my research proposal. But like I mentioned earlier, there is little reading and writing to do.
I hope to invite a fourth member to my dissertation committee before the semester begins.
Perhaps what adds to the frustration of the summer was the sequence of job rejections, although none of those jobs were vitally important to my way of life. Two of these job rejections were for summer employment, one paying 10 times as much as I am making at this assistantship. The third was for a job starting in the fall, but I had lost interest in it before they rejected me. Although I could take or leave any of those jobs, rejection still hurts my confidence.
Aside from my research and jobs, I was able to enjoy plenty of time with my family with some excursions around the area. I also had plenty of time to read books that are not related to ESL education at all, and I had time to update my professional website/portfolio. But, from time to time, I have experienced boredom, which I had not had to deal with for the past 6 years, and that has unsettled me.
1) I now have 2 co-chairs on my dissertation committee, one being my advisor, who is an expert in teacher education. The other is a professor, who is an expert in my field of ESL education. My research area draws from literature in ESL teacher education, and I hope my research can help improve it.
2) I have written 3 drafts of Chapter 1 and have submitted the third draft to my co-chairs. It is unfinished in that I am uncertain of the delimitations as the research methodology may change.
3) I have come across 2 influential researchers in my readings, and have contacted one of them. Both have published numerous articles within the last decade that promote my position.
4) I have collected a substantial amount of literature and read through a handful or so of the ones that seemed important enough to include in my Chapter 1. After reading them, I would estimate that half of what I read was indeed useful.
5) Next week, I will finish up my graduate assistantship with the Education Technology Center, where I worked for the past 3 years.
6) I have formally invited a third member to my dissertation committee.
To me, this list doesn't seem like a lot. Of the last ten weeks, I would say I have spent a total of 5-7 days writing and about twice as many days reading. Half of that reading was influential in my establishing my position. Perhaps I'm being unfair in that I just completed the busiest semester in my life, so anything following that would feel relatively free. In fact, I'm not getting credit for doing this work. I'm doing this work to get this dissertation done.
Perhaps I had high expectations for the summer. By this time, I had hoped to be done rewriting both Chapters 1 and 2, so I only met my expectations halfway there. I also wanted to make some progress on my IRB application, and this did not happen at all.
I am pushing myself because my ultimate goal for the next academic year is to be completed with data collection. After next May, I will have no more financial support from the College of Education, so I will have to find a job somewhere. Right now, I have the luxury of putting my dissertation at the top of my list of priorities. Soon that will give way to trying to secure a job and trying to sell our house, both of which will intensify as the academic year comes to a close.
With a month left before the academic year begins, I plan to spend about 2 weeks at my in-laws' in Maryland. That gives me a week before the trip and a week after the trip to dedicate most attention to my research proposal. But like I mentioned earlier, there is little reading and writing to do.
I hope to invite a fourth member to my dissertation committee before the semester begins.
Perhaps what adds to the frustration of the summer was the sequence of job rejections, although none of those jobs were vitally important to my way of life. Two of these job rejections were for summer employment, one paying 10 times as much as I am making at this assistantship. The third was for a job starting in the fall, but I had lost interest in it before they rejected me. Although I could take or leave any of those jobs, rejection still hurts my confidence.
Aside from my research and jobs, I was able to enjoy plenty of time with my family with some excursions around the area. I also had plenty of time to read books that are not related to ESL education at all, and I had time to update my professional website/portfolio. But, from time to time, I have experienced boredom, which I had not had to deal with for the past 6 years, and that has unsettled me.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Chapter 1
I initially wrote the first chapter of my research proposal/dissertation in February this year. Of the three chapters that I wrote, it was the most difficult because I had no idea who my audience was. In reality, the audience was my professor in the research proposal writing class and my classmates. However, none of them are members of my dissertation committee, who I tried to imagine as my audience. The problem with that was I could not really consult them yet because I had not completed my comprehensive exams yet. So it felt like I was writing Chapter 1 for a simulated audience, one that doesn't really exist.
Chapter 1 should be the most engaging of the chapters to write because it is my opportunity to make my case. Because I didn't know who I'm making my case to, I struggled. Although I tried to imagine my future dissertation committee as my audience, I also had to write it for someone outside the field. In fact, I do have someone outside the field sitting on my committee, but she is very familiar with the context of my initially proposed data collection. I felt like I was making my case to people who were already half on board with me. I didn't feel the need to make a stronger case, and perhaps that is what made my first chapter 1 weak.
Now that I have passed my comprehensive exams, my advisor and co-chair recommended that my audience be to someone in education, but not in foreign language or ESL education, and to someone who has the authority of issuing grant money. This advice has helped tremendously, but I basically had to scrap most of the original draft. I had to scrap it because I have decided, through the advice of several committee members, that I should broaden my scope beyond sojourning EFL teachers in Japan to EFL teachers in East Asia sojourning from the United States (and maybe Canada?). My advisor also recommended that framing chapter 1 as a call for intercultural communication training in ESL education would help.
The first steps were the easiest as I already had most of the literature. I made a spreadsheet and categorized my literature in terms of domain: education, language education, teacher education, intercultural communication, and sojourner studies. After I completed this spreadsheet, I revisited all the literature that stressed both teacher education and intercultural communication to find the best arguments. Then I looked at literature about intercultural communication to better sell the idea as the business/corporate world finds intercultural communication to be quite important.
Actually...writing this blog is helping because I haven't made my point clear enough about the connection between the international business/corporate need for intercultural communication and the reason why many people learn English as an international language. Put simply: globalization. I've heard this pitch so many times that I forget that not everybody knows this connection. I wonder if I should make that my biggest catch rather than the poor standards for teachers in terms of intercultural communication. It seems as if it precludes the standards.
Anyway, although I seemed to have avoided analysis paralysis when writing chapter 1 for class. I now seem to be going into it a bit. I seem to have about 2 good hours of progress a day before I get second thoughts that send me into this analysis paralysis. The simplest example is when I realize that many of my studies for demographics are over a decade old. So when I search for more up to date demographic information, I find little to none, but that search helps me find other literature that may help. But I already have enough convincing literature. This sidestepping literature search usually takes up an hour, and then I lose track and second guess my arguments, primarily, and my writing ability, secondarily.
This blog is helping me refocus in terms of bullet points. I seem to have a few bullet point-type ideas, but I feel the urge to elaborate on them even though that's the point of chapter 2. I believe my biggest struggle is when to elaborate and when to keep it succinct. This struggle comes out of explaining my ideas to someone who is not in my field. How much explanation or background information should this person need, so it is clear enough?
So I will revisit my literature and make more bullet points to sell the need for my study under the premise that it will improve intercultural communication training in second language teacher education. It's back to outlining, but without scrapping again.
Chapter 1 should be the most engaging of the chapters to write because it is my opportunity to make my case. Because I didn't know who I'm making my case to, I struggled. Although I tried to imagine my future dissertation committee as my audience, I also had to write it for someone outside the field. In fact, I do have someone outside the field sitting on my committee, but she is very familiar with the context of my initially proposed data collection. I felt like I was making my case to people who were already half on board with me. I didn't feel the need to make a stronger case, and perhaps that is what made my first chapter 1 weak.
Now that I have passed my comprehensive exams, my advisor and co-chair recommended that my audience be to someone in education, but not in foreign language or ESL education, and to someone who has the authority of issuing grant money. This advice has helped tremendously, but I basically had to scrap most of the original draft. I had to scrap it because I have decided, through the advice of several committee members, that I should broaden my scope beyond sojourning EFL teachers in Japan to EFL teachers in East Asia sojourning from the United States (and maybe Canada?). My advisor also recommended that framing chapter 1 as a call for intercultural communication training in ESL education would help.
The first steps were the easiest as I already had most of the literature. I made a spreadsheet and categorized my literature in terms of domain: education, language education, teacher education, intercultural communication, and sojourner studies. After I completed this spreadsheet, I revisited all the literature that stressed both teacher education and intercultural communication to find the best arguments. Then I looked at literature about intercultural communication to better sell the idea as the business/corporate world finds intercultural communication to be quite important.
Actually...writing this blog is helping because I haven't made my point clear enough about the connection between the international business/corporate need for intercultural communication and the reason why many people learn English as an international language. Put simply: globalization. I've heard this pitch so many times that I forget that not everybody knows this connection. I wonder if I should make that my biggest catch rather than the poor standards for teachers in terms of intercultural communication. It seems as if it precludes the standards.
Anyway, although I seemed to have avoided analysis paralysis when writing chapter 1 for class. I now seem to be going into it a bit. I seem to have about 2 good hours of progress a day before I get second thoughts that send me into this analysis paralysis. The simplest example is when I realize that many of my studies for demographics are over a decade old. So when I search for more up to date demographic information, I find little to none, but that search helps me find other literature that may help. But I already have enough convincing literature. This sidestepping literature search usually takes up an hour, and then I lose track and second guess my arguments, primarily, and my writing ability, secondarily.
This blog is helping me refocus in terms of bullet points. I seem to have a few bullet point-type ideas, but I feel the urge to elaborate on them even though that's the point of chapter 2. I believe my biggest struggle is when to elaborate and when to keep it succinct. This struggle comes out of explaining my ideas to someone who is not in my field. How much explanation or background information should this person need, so it is clear enough?
So I will revisit my literature and make more bullet points to sell the need for my study under the premise that it will improve intercultural communication training in second language teacher education. It's back to outlining, but without scrapping again.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Intercultural Communication Training
This past week has been quite a productive one, especially compared to the last 6 weeks of relatively little productivity. Firstly, I now have two co-chairs for my dissertation committee: my advisor who is essential in the area of teacher education and another professor in my department who is essential in the area of ESL education specifically. After meeting with the former, I have been advised to revise Chapter 1 of my research proposal to make a stronger argument for intercultural communication training of language educators.
Within the past few days, I have engaged this advice in three different ways. The first was reviewing the literature I had already collected and seeing how I could reorganize my writing to make a stronger argument. For me, this is the easiest to plan and most difficult to write. The second was doing some online research of programs that recruit people to teach English (or other languages) abroad and seeking out any evidence of intercultural or cross-cultural training. With the list I have compiled so far, I would say that I am familiar with about half of the programs. The third was starting another search for scholarly articles and books that specifically address the benefits and disadvantages of intercultural communication training in education and elsewhere (usually in multinational corporations).
The last two approaches to this challenge have given me many new ideas, some of which are distracting in that they suggest a complete change in Chapter 3 of my research proposal. The most interesting yet distracting idea was to investigate the intercultural or cross-cultural training programs within these international teacher recruiters. For example, the JET Program in Japan, EPIK in South Korea, and the Peace Corps in the United States require some cultural training before their English teachers start teaching. I would like to know how they developed these programs, how they are evaluated, and how a random sample of teachers in these programs found them useful, useless, or something in between. I only think of this as distracting because the more I think about a theoretical framework about this type of research, the further I move away from my original proposal. This is a symptom of analysis paralysis, I believe. And I do not want to get snared in that net.
So far, I have collected about 10 articles with only a few published over a decade ago and 1 textbook. The best discovery so far is that I found another expert in the area, Karen E. Johnson from Penn State. I have heard of her before, and I look forward to reading her articles and the textbook she co-edited. Our interests overlap in the recognizing the importance of developing language teachers' sociocultural knowledge. I should be able to elaborate more on this as I read her work. On a side note, I remember one of my supervisors in Korea who had all of us sojourning teacher trainers read one of her articles.
I feel that I am on a roll in that the more recent studies have indicated that this area, intercultural competence or sociocultural knowledge of ESL teachers, is a hot research area. I am temporarily stepping aside from another hot area, the English language policies of Japan. And I am beginning to see a connection to this current research interest to another interest I have in multiliteracies, which suggests that today's classrooms have more diversity in terms of student backgrounds in terms of cultural and technological literacies. But I digress.
Within the past few days, I have engaged this advice in three different ways. The first was reviewing the literature I had already collected and seeing how I could reorganize my writing to make a stronger argument. For me, this is the easiest to plan and most difficult to write. The second was doing some online research of programs that recruit people to teach English (or other languages) abroad and seeking out any evidence of intercultural or cross-cultural training. With the list I have compiled so far, I would say that I am familiar with about half of the programs. The third was starting another search for scholarly articles and books that specifically address the benefits and disadvantages of intercultural communication training in education and elsewhere (usually in multinational corporations).
The last two approaches to this challenge have given me many new ideas, some of which are distracting in that they suggest a complete change in Chapter 3 of my research proposal. The most interesting yet distracting idea was to investigate the intercultural or cross-cultural training programs within these international teacher recruiters. For example, the JET Program in Japan, EPIK in South Korea, and the Peace Corps in the United States require some cultural training before their English teachers start teaching. I would like to know how they developed these programs, how they are evaluated, and how a random sample of teachers in these programs found them useful, useless, or something in between. I only think of this as distracting because the more I think about a theoretical framework about this type of research, the further I move away from my original proposal. This is a symptom of analysis paralysis, I believe. And I do not want to get snared in that net.
So far, I have collected about 10 articles with only a few published over a decade ago and 1 textbook. The best discovery so far is that I found another expert in the area, Karen E. Johnson from Penn State. I have heard of her before, and I look forward to reading her articles and the textbook she co-edited. Our interests overlap in the recognizing the importance of developing language teachers' sociocultural knowledge. I should be able to elaborate more on this as I read her work. On a side note, I remember one of my supervisors in Korea who had all of us sojourning teacher trainers read one of her articles.
I feel that I am on a roll in that the more recent studies have indicated that this area, intercultural competence or sociocultural knowledge of ESL teachers, is a hot research area. I am temporarily stepping aside from another hot area, the English language policies of Japan. And I am beginning to see a connection to this current research interest to another interest I have in multiliteracies, which suggests that today's classrooms have more diversity in terms of student backgrounds in terms of cultural and technological literacies. But I digress.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Data Collection Options
I'm still in the research proposal phase and am facing some options for collecting data. I will list them here and hopefully they will help me (and maybe my committee) to help decide which path is the best to choose.
Option #1 - The Idealistic Path
I most likely will not choose this path, but for the sake of completeness and continuity, I'd like to share my original idea for data collection. I would travel abroad to either Japan or South Korea for 6-12 months to collect data on a group of individuals or on an already established community of EFL teachers that has formed. This would be either a multiple case study or an ethnography. Data collection would consist of interviews, participant-observation, and document analysis.
Option #2 - The First Stages of Adjustment
For my research proposal assignment, I proposed interviewing EFL instructors who had just arrived to Japan for the first time. Through my contacts in Japan, I would interview between 3 and 15 new sojourners with my theoretical framework based on cross-cultural adjustment, mainly from the field of psychology. I would interview each participant at least twice and ideally three times in stages within a 6 month period for a multiple case study. This study would be limited to Japan only.
Option #3 - Before and After Arriving to a New Country
Keeping the same theoretical framework as option #2, I would interview the same number of participants in the United States with weeks or a few months before they travel to teach EFL abroad. Because of my literature review, I would like to isolate the countries to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. I would interview each participant once before he or she leaves and once or twice after he or she arrives. The endpoint would be no longer than 3 months after their arrival, thus making this study a few months shorter than option #2 and it may be easier to find participants through the University of Iowa and perhaps my other alma mater.
Option #4 - Before, During, and After Sojourning
This option was raised by my advisor, but we hadn't much time to discuss in detail, so I may be misrepresenting her ideas. This is mainly my interpretation of how I see it. In this case, I would not follow my participants through a process as in the first 3 options. Instead they would represent a certain stage of sojourning. Like option 3, I can interview a few people before they teach abroad. Like options 1 & 2, I can interview a few who are currently teaching abroad. And a new option is to interview someone who has returned from teaching abroad. I would need a new theoretical framework for this, and my advisor and I have some ideas.
Option #5 - Interviews and Blogs
Many sojourning EFL teachers have written or are writing blogs about their experiences and beliefs about teaching abroad. I am strongly interested in investigating these blogs, but I would like to triangulate the data with some interviews from participants similar to the ones in option #4. I have already started collecting literature on collecting data from blogs for qualitative research.
Option #6 - Community of Sojourning EFL Teachers Online?
This idea is the furthest removed from my original idea, but I am equally interested in it. It involves the same target population, but they no longer need to be new to the country. This study would instead investigate the extent to which a community of sojourning EFL teachers exists online. I would start with locating web sites for these hypothetical communities and then join them (like in a netnography) or email/interview them about the structure, benefits, and caveats of the community online.
Summary
Option #1 - The Idealistic Path
I most likely will not choose this path, but for the sake of completeness and continuity, I'd like to share my original idea for data collection. I would travel abroad to either Japan or South Korea for 6-12 months to collect data on a group of individuals or on an already established community of EFL teachers that has formed. This would be either a multiple case study or an ethnography. Data collection would consist of interviews, participant-observation, and document analysis.
Option #2 - The First Stages of Adjustment
For my research proposal assignment, I proposed interviewing EFL instructors who had just arrived to Japan for the first time. Through my contacts in Japan, I would interview between 3 and 15 new sojourners with my theoretical framework based on cross-cultural adjustment, mainly from the field of psychology. I would interview each participant at least twice and ideally three times in stages within a 6 month period for a multiple case study. This study would be limited to Japan only.
Option #3 - Before and After Arriving to a New Country
Keeping the same theoretical framework as option #2, I would interview the same number of participants in the United States with weeks or a few months before they travel to teach EFL abroad. Because of my literature review, I would like to isolate the countries to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. I would interview each participant once before he or she leaves and once or twice after he or she arrives. The endpoint would be no longer than 3 months after their arrival, thus making this study a few months shorter than option #2 and it may be easier to find participants through the University of Iowa and perhaps my other alma mater.
Option #4 - Before, During, and After Sojourning
This option was raised by my advisor, but we hadn't much time to discuss in detail, so I may be misrepresenting her ideas. This is mainly my interpretation of how I see it. In this case, I would not follow my participants through a process as in the first 3 options. Instead they would represent a certain stage of sojourning. Like option 3, I can interview a few people before they teach abroad. Like options 1 & 2, I can interview a few who are currently teaching abroad. And a new option is to interview someone who has returned from teaching abroad. I would need a new theoretical framework for this, and my advisor and I have some ideas.
Option #5 - Interviews and Blogs
Many sojourning EFL teachers have written or are writing blogs about their experiences and beliefs about teaching abroad. I am strongly interested in investigating these blogs, but I would like to triangulate the data with some interviews from participants similar to the ones in option #4. I have already started collecting literature on collecting data from blogs for qualitative research.
Option #6 - Community of Sojourning EFL Teachers Online?
This idea is the furthest removed from my original idea, but I am equally interested in it. It involves the same target population, but they no longer need to be new to the country. This study would instead investigate the extent to which a community of sojourning EFL teachers exists online. I would start with locating web sites for these hypothetical communities and then join them (like in a netnography) or email/interview them about the structure, benefits, and caveats of the community online.
Summary
- Target Participants - sojourning EFL instructors; the original plan was on those new to a certain country, but I do not need to focus on them exclusively; I'm not sure how important it is that they all come from the same country for some of these options
- Theoretical Framework - initially it was in cross-cultural adjustment theory and Holliday's host culture complex (1994); I would like to the use the latter more than the former as it focuses on EFL education more; ideally I'd like to use a theory that deals with the sociocultural nature of teaching EFL abroad
- Target Site - in the strictest sense, I have the most literature and experience with Japan; in the loosest sense, it could be in any country where English is not the dominant or official language; in a stricter sense, I would like to focus on East Asia based on my literature and experience
- Method - qualitative with emphasis on interviews or blog document analysis or combination of both, with some participant-observation possible
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Netnographic Ideas
I'm about halfway through reading Kozinets' book Netnography, which I borrowed from one of my dissertation committee members. And I have a few ideas stirring around in my head, I'd like to jot them down now before more ideas come and I start forgetting the first ideas. Before I begin, I'm not certain that I will do a netnography, which requires the researcher to participate with a community online or an online community. The difference between these two is that the former is a community that also exists offline.
If I were to quickly choose a community online, which I may discover to be an online community, is one of the many forms found on Dave's ESL Cafe. I haven't used that site much since I have become more established in my profession as it seems the target audience is for new ESL instructors, who are the target for my study. There are 3 different forums I am interested in, two are specific to countries (China & South Korea) and the third is for international jobs specifically.
I wanted to check if someone had already investigated Dave's ESL Cafe for research. I found one peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education in 2010, written by Kristene K. McClure. Her study is not what I intend to investigate, but her findings may help me understand the forum as it was during her data collection period. I'm very interested in her findings, and I will definitely read the article once I finish reading Kozinets' book.
McClure also investigated another website a4esl.org, which I haven't used much and it doesn't seem to offer much in terms of an interactive community. It's a lot more Web 1.0 then Web 2.0, but perhaps I haven't explored the site enough.
There's somewhat of a community online of EFL teachers in Japan found in the blogosphere. I have written a document analysis paper covering three blogs written by EFL teachers in Japan, but this wouldn't count as a netnography because I did not participate in their blogs. Some of these blogs aren't really written for participation, but I could seek out ones that have consistent commentary by a regular group of people. Some of these blogs also provide a helpful blogroll of other blogs about Japan or teaching ESL or both. In passing, I noticed that some of these bloggers interact with one another.
I feel strongly to collect data from some of these blogs, especially if they are active and frequently written. At this point, I am not sure if I would like to dive into participation, thus qualifying my study as a netnography. I have to keep asking myself how much I would gain from it and how much it would answer my research questions, which may be modified anyway.
Just as I was about to end this posting, I remembered another online community that I have joined but have participated solely as a lurker. It is EFL Classroom 2.0, and the last time I check it seemed to be dominated by local and sojourning EFL teachers in South Korea. I will have to explore it more fully after finishing Kozinets' book. From what I remember, it was a bit chaotic to explore. I hope it's a little bit more user-friendly now.
If I were to quickly choose a community online, which I may discover to be an online community, is one of the many forms found on Dave's ESL Cafe. I haven't used that site much since I have become more established in my profession as it seems the target audience is for new ESL instructors, who are the target for my study. There are 3 different forums I am interested in, two are specific to countries (China & South Korea) and the third is for international jobs specifically.
I wanted to check if someone had already investigated Dave's ESL Cafe for research. I found one peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education in 2010, written by Kristene K. McClure. Her study is not what I intend to investigate, but her findings may help me understand the forum as it was during her data collection period. I'm very interested in her findings, and I will definitely read the article once I finish reading Kozinets' book.
McClure also investigated another website a4esl.org, which I haven't used much and it doesn't seem to offer much in terms of an interactive community. It's a lot more Web 1.0 then Web 2.0, but perhaps I haven't explored the site enough.
There's somewhat of a community online of EFL teachers in Japan found in the blogosphere. I have written a document analysis paper covering three blogs written by EFL teachers in Japan, but this wouldn't count as a netnography because I did not participate in their blogs. Some of these blogs aren't really written for participation, but I could seek out ones that have consistent commentary by a regular group of people. Some of these blogs also provide a helpful blogroll of other blogs about Japan or teaching ESL or both. In passing, I noticed that some of these bloggers interact with one another.
I feel strongly to collect data from some of these blogs, especially if they are active and frequently written. At this point, I am not sure if I would like to dive into participation, thus qualifying my study as a netnography. I have to keep asking myself how much I would gain from it and how much it would answer my research questions, which may be modified anyway.
Just as I was about to end this posting, I remembered another online community that I have joined but have participated solely as a lurker. It is EFL Classroom 2.0, and the last time I check it seemed to be dominated by local and sojourning EFL teachers in South Korea. I will have to explore it more fully after finishing Kozinets' book. From what I remember, it was a bit chaotic to explore. I hope it's a little bit more user-friendly now.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Netnography
I have had 3 opportunities to present my research proposal before entering the official research proposal phase that occurs after one successfully completes comprehensive exams. The first was in the spring semester of 2011 for a final paper in my Cultural Curriculum course. The second was a presentation to my colleagues at the Summer Intensive English Program at the International University of Japan. And the third was appropriately in a course called Proposal Writing that I just completed a few weeks ago.
First, I will briefly describe how my research interest developed over the past year through those 3 opportunities. Then, I will introduce how my first post-comps meeting has presented new ways of approaching these research focus that I was narrowing.
In the Spring of 2011, I was still undecided about collecting data in Japan or South Korea, but I was leaning towards South Korea. This first proposal was written as if were granted a Fulbright grant to conduct my research in Seoul. My primary interest was the intercultural communication competence of American English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in their schools and communities. During the summer, I leaned towards Japan as a potential site as I made stronger contacts there over the summer. I also encountered two ideas that I grasped on to strongly, Holliday's host culture complex (1994) and Ting-Toomey's revised W-shaped cultural adaptation model (1999). These two ideas helped me change and narrow my focus to the adjustment process of new EFL expatriate instructors. From the fall of 2011 through this past semester (Spring 2012), I have been reading a lot more about the sociocultural context of education in Japan, specifically English education as well as the psychology of culture shock or acculturation. For my research proposal in the Proposal Writing course, I wrote about my interest in the adjustment process of new EFL instructors sojourning in Japan. I had planned to conduct a multiple case study over a 4-6 month period with at least 2 interviews per participant, which I have re-labeled sojourner instead of expatriate based on the literature on cross-cultural training and acculturation psychology.
My oral comprehensive exams and my first meeting thereafter have jolted me out this fixed research proposal. Firstly, it was suggested that I incorporate readings about the naive teacher adjusting to the new teaching environment in the United States, such as a suburban white teacher in an urban school that is mostly black or Hispanic school. I can also incorporate my second research interest about multiliteracies in that schools nowadays have students with various literacies, including little to none, when entering the classroom. The new teacher must be able to cope with students with different backgrounds and understandings of schooling.
The most liberating change was to incorporate some aspect of netnography (Kozinets, 2010) into my research methodology. At this point, I'm planning to conduct interviews online as well as collect data from blogs written by my target participants, past or present and maybe immediate future. I just started reading Kozinets' book yesterday, so I can't really elaborate on this concept yet. All I can say is that it excites me.
In the next few weeks, I will be exploring the various ways of conducting a netnography, in part or whole, and seeking approval for this type of research from IRB. So late May 2012, I will have netnography and its variants on the brain.
First, I will briefly describe how my research interest developed over the past year through those 3 opportunities. Then, I will introduce how my first post-comps meeting has presented new ways of approaching these research focus that I was narrowing.
In the Spring of 2011, I was still undecided about collecting data in Japan or South Korea, but I was leaning towards South Korea. This first proposal was written as if were granted a Fulbright grant to conduct my research in Seoul. My primary interest was the intercultural communication competence of American English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in their schools and communities. During the summer, I leaned towards Japan as a potential site as I made stronger contacts there over the summer. I also encountered two ideas that I grasped on to strongly, Holliday's host culture complex (1994) and Ting-Toomey's revised W-shaped cultural adaptation model (1999). These two ideas helped me change and narrow my focus to the adjustment process of new EFL expatriate instructors. From the fall of 2011 through this past semester (Spring 2012), I have been reading a lot more about the sociocultural context of education in Japan, specifically English education as well as the psychology of culture shock or acculturation. For my research proposal in the Proposal Writing course, I wrote about my interest in the adjustment process of new EFL instructors sojourning in Japan. I had planned to conduct a multiple case study over a 4-6 month period with at least 2 interviews per participant, which I have re-labeled sojourner instead of expatriate based on the literature on cross-cultural training and acculturation psychology.
My oral comprehensive exams and my first meeting thereafter have jolted me out this fixed research proposal. Firstly, it was suggested that I incorporate readings about the naive teacher adjusting to the new teaching environment in the United States, such as a suburban white teacher in an urban school that is mostly black or Hispanic school. I can also incorporate my second research interest about multiliteracies in that schools nowadays have students with various literacies, including little to none, when entering the classroom. The new teacher must be able to cope with students with different backgrounds and understandings of schooling.
The most liberating change was to incorporate some aspect of netnography (Kozinets, 2010) into my research methodology. At this point, I'm planning to conduct interviews online as well as collect data from blogs written by my target participants, past or present and maybe immediate future. I just started reading Kozinets' book yesterday, so I can't really elaborate on this concept yet. All I can say is that it excites me.
In the next few weeks, I will be exploring the various ways of conducting a netnography, in part or whole, and seeking approval for this type of research from IRB. So late May 2012, I will have netnography and its variants on the brain.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Comprehensive Exams
Yesterday, I successfully passed my comprehensive exams, which means a few things. First, I'm cleared by my advisor, my department, and the graduate college to start the research proposal phase of my PhD candidacy. Second, I'm not a PhD student anymore. I'm a PhD candidate, and now I have five years to get my dissertation done. So the deadline is official: I must finish by May 4, 2017 or I will never get my PhD from the College of Education at the University of Iowa.
The initial reaction of passing the exam was only a slight relief because it occurred at the end of the semester, and I still had to complete three final papers. I'm writing this now as I have finished two of the three, so the feeling of relief is a little stronger. I believe I should be completely relieved of my PhD student responsibilities by the end of tomorrow, and then I can enjoy complete relief.
I don't want to think about how much time I should give myself off before I engage in writing my research proposal, of which I already have a first draft completed. Another big summer project is to complete my application to the Internal Review Board. I'll give myself at least a week off before I dive into that. So after tomorrow, my next destination is to form my dissertation committee so they can approve of my proposal once my advisor and I believe it is ready. I'm hoping for sometime in September or October.
The initial reaction of passing the exam was only a slight relief because it occurred at the end of the semester, and I still had to complete three final papers. I'm writing this now as I have finished two of the three, so the feeling of relief is a little stronger. I believe I should be completely relieved of my PhD student responsibilities by the end of tomorrow, and then I can enjoy complete relief.
I don't want to think about how much time I should give myself off before I engage in writing my research proposal, of which I already have a first draft completed. Another big summer project is to complete my application to the Internal Review Board. I'll give myself at least a week off before I dive into that. So after tomorrow, my next destination is to form my dissertation committee so they can approve of my proposal once my advisor and I believe it is ready. I'm hoping for sometime in September or October.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Let the Writing Begin
Last week I started writing Chapter 1 for my dissertation, which will act as a part of my research proposal. I'm taking a class about proposal writing, and in the second half of the class we must write the first 2 chapters of our dissertation. The official research proposal requires the first 3 chapters, and my committee will tentatively accept take a look at it in the fall semester of this year.
The picture above represents most, but not all, of my physical books that I need just to write Chapter 1. There's a few more e-books that couldn't be photographed for obvious reasons. Also not included are the many articles I have stored electronically to help me write Chapter 1. Perhaps this pile of books represents at least 1/3 of my cited sources for that chapter.
At the same time, I'm writing two papers that overlap quite a bit with Chapter 1. One is about how the English language policy of Japan affects my target participants of my dissertation and the other is a research proposal for a mixed methods study, which is heavily influenced from my "unmixed" methods dissertation. Writing three papers that overlap that much is easy in that I don't need to collect much more literature, however having a distinct mindset for each paper is the challenging aspect, especially that my arguments differ.
At this point, in my early stages of my dissertation, I enjoy the writing process, especially because I have been collecting and reading a lot of literature over the past couple years. I wonder how long it will take before I become sick of writing. I hope it's later than sooner.
My dissertation time frame so far is as follows:
- In late April, complete my comprehensive exams and form my dissertation committee.
- By early May, complete drafts for chapters 1-2 for my proposal writing class, when I finish my last full semester of courses
- Over the summer, write chapter 3 and complete my application for the Internal Review Board (IRB)
- By September, submit my research proposal to my committee and prepare to collect data.
Data collection will commence once I have IRB and dissertation committee approval. This should take 4-6 months. Data analysis will take another 6 months. In the interim, I should be editing chapters 1-3 and slowly writing chapter 4 as my research is longitudinal, meaning I collect and analyze data in stages. Optimistically, I could have the dissertation completed before the summer of 2013. But I was told that it may take until the winter of 2013/14 to be done to the satisfaction of my committee.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Stress and Coping
I find it interesting that I find that my research interest can be categorized in the field of psychology as a study in stress and coping when that's how I feel this semester--I'm stressed and coping to get through.
The purpose of today's posting is more to serve myself: to visualize my stressors in order to organize a coping strategy now and to show my future self how the last semester of courses felt. Hopefully, I will be less stressed a year or so from now.
List of Concerns in order of my brain's dedication from most to least
The purpose of today's posting is more to serve myself: to visualize my stressors in order to organize a coping strategy now and to show my future self how the last semester of courses felt. Hopefully, I will be less stressed a year or so from now.
List of Concerns in order of my brain's dedication from most to least
- The physical, mental, and psychological wellbeing of my family
- Comprehensive exams
- Research proposal (and course assignments related to it)
- Current and immediate future income (paying the bills)
- Future employment in 2012-13
- My daughter's schooling
- Presentations and publications
- Course assignments not related to my research proposal
- Future employment once I obtain PhD
- Teaching assistantships
- Visiting family and friends
- Maintaining the house (cleaning chores)
- Planning getaway trips for spring break and early summer
- The world economy and its effects on my profession
- My social life in Iowa City
- The direction of my country
By the start of the fall semester, I hope to have removed numbers 2, 5, 8, and 10 from the list, and reorganizing the rest except for #1. There is a strong relationship between numbers 5 and 10, so I hope to have at least one of them removed to enjoy a slightly less stressful end of 2012.
One way to analyze this list is to see how much of it is in my control. Another way to analyze it is to see how much of it is in the present moment. What can I do about these things now? I am strongly tempted to answer "not enough." I feel guilty if I'm not doing anything to improve these conditions unless it's after 8pm when I am too exhausted to solve problems well.
Someone should investigate the adverse effects of going through a PhD program. Perhaps when I'm finished, I can quantify the sacrifices (material and immaterial) and compare them to the rewards of the degree. Am I setting myself up for surprise or disappointment or is there another emotional response?
The good news now is that I am not giving up and that thought is very far removed at this point.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Obstacles and Opportunities
The past month has been an exciting roller coaster ride of emotions. This week I almost felt like I was going to fall off or out, but isn't that part of the thrill? I half-heartedly jest. Let me first describe the aggravating part of the ride, and then finish with the invigorating part.
In the middle of January, right before my last full semester of classes was about to begin, I started receiving hints that my best plan for data collection was not going to happen. This set off my mind to turn on the back burners of alternative plans for data collection. (I already had plans B through E written out with my wife's help.) Because the time of data collection for plan A was soon approaching, we were both getting excited to see my research finally getting done physically, out in the field, rather than mentally and on paper. But then, I got that warning sign. Two weeks went by when I would switch between optimism and pessimism. I wasn't too worried because all my eggs were not in this basket.
Earlier this week, I got confirmation that plan A was not going to happen from two different sources. The first was from an important contact overseas where I had planned (and still may plan) to collect data. The second was from my department. I somewhat agree with those in my department that I may be rushing things too hastily. The rush is partly due to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with full support of my wife. The other rush is financial, meaning if I could get done faster my family and I can improve our current standard of living. Being the spouse of a PhD student is more punishing than being the actual PhD student during these times because, where I feel somewhat powerless, my wife feels even more powerless in the progress of our lifestyle. Any bad news I receive about the delay or hiccups in my plan to obtain the PhD degree impacts my wife twice as badly.
In the past few days, I have been dealing with the fact that plan A will not happen. And so I was ready to look over plans B through E. When I started organizing my thoughts on paper, I realized that I had nearly twice as many back-up plans, B through I. None of them, however, were as glorious as plan A to me and my wife. When I started analyzing each back-up plan, it seemed that the major concerns for each plan had to do with money, time, rigor, and modifications of the research questions. The most efficient plan in terms of time, rigor, and modifications was actually the most expensive plan and nearly impossible for this year. The most rigorous plan would take the most time, but it didn't necessarily require more money or modifications.
At this moment, I have taken into consideration that time is the least in my favor now, and this acts like a dagger stabbing my wife in the heart. If we can survive this wounding, I have at least 2 very good alternative plans, new B and new C, and I can foresee at least 3 more other options that are less favorable. And this time, I will have to sit on these plans until the semester is over.
OK, that's the nearly end of the aggravating part of the ride. On the same tracks of this roller coaster metaphor were some very exhilirating climbs. Firstly, I have completed the second drafts of all of my comprehensive exam papers. With the due date postponed 5 weeks, I have the chance to improve as many of those drafts as I want. Because I had completed the bulk of that task, a window of opportunity to read literature I had earlier collected opened up. From these few articles and books, I found stronger footing in my research proposal and even more literature to collect. This all happened days before the semester started.
The biggest treasure trove opened up after the first day in a course I felt was least relevant to my research this semester. It turns out that the readings and my ideas for the seminar paper for that course may actually amplify the impact of the first two chapters of my dissertation. In my first step into searching for literature for the seminar paper, I stumbled upon nearly the same amount of literature that I had previously collected, therefore almost doubling my literature of primary resources. I wrote about this a little in the last posting.
What inspired me to write this posting was Twitter, which I only use for professional purposes. I noticed that I haven't been paying too much attention to my small group of followers, and today I looked at the very few who were following me that I wasn't following. Two of them were actually publishers in my area of research interest. It was then I really felt the impact of this aggregate technology. If publishers can find researchers before the researchers find them, that can really speed up the process. I'm not talking about sketchy publishers who will print anything. One of them actually has a good reputation in my field, and I'm surprised that I have overlooked several of their books.
So although this past month has shown to be punishing in terms of plans for data collection, it has actually been the most rewarding month for building a strong case for my research, which in turn will enhance my data collection methods when the time comes. Although I feel much better now, the wounds haven't completely healed yet, and I must remember that my wife's wounds are deeper.
In the middle of January, right before my last full semester of classes was about to begin, I started receiving hints that my best plan for data collection was not going to happen. This set off my mind to turn on the back burners of alternative plans for data collection. (I already had plans B through E written out with my wife's help.) Because the time of data collection for plan A was soon approaching, we were both getting excited to see my research finally getting done physically, out in the field, rather than mentally and on paper. But then, I got that warning sign. Two weeks went by when I would switch between optimism and pessimism. I wasn't too worried because all my eggs were not in this basket.
Earlier this week, I got confirmation that plan A was not going to happen from two different sources. The first was from an important contact overseas where I had planned (and still may plan) to collect data. The second was from my department. I somewhat agree with those in my department that I may be rushing things too hastily. The rush is partly due to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with full support of my wife. The other rush is financial, meaning if I could get done faster my family and I can improve our current standard of living. Being the spouse of a PhD student is more punishing than being the actual PhD student during these times because, where I feel somewhat powerless, my wife feels even more powerless in the progress of our lifestyle. Any bad news I receive about the delay or hiccups in my plan to obtain the PhD degree impacts my wife twice as badly.
In the past few days, I have been dealing with the fact that plan A will not happen. And so I was ready to look over plans B through E. When I started organizing my thoughts on paper, I realized that I had nearly twice as many back-up plans, B through I. None of them, however, were as glorious as plan A to me and my wife. When I started analyzing each back-up plan, it seemed that the major concerns for each plan had to do with money, time, rigor, and modifications of the research questions. The most efficient plan in terms of time, rigor, and modifications was actually the most expensive plan and nearly impossible for this year. The most rigorous plan would take the most time, but it didn't necessarily require more money or modifications.
At this moment, I have taken into consideration that time is the least in my favor now, and this acts like a dagger stabbing my wife in the heart. If we can survive this wounding, I have at least 2 very good alternative plans, new B and new C, and I can foresee at least 3 more other options that are less favorable. And this time, I will have to sit on these plans until the semester is over.
OK, that's the nearly end of the aggravating part of the ride. On the same tracks of this roller coaster metaphor were some very exhilirating climbs. Firstly, I have completed the second drafts of all of my comprehensive exam papers. With the due date postponed 5 weeks, I have the chance to improve as many of those drafts as I want. Because I had completed the bulk of that task, a window of opportunity to read literature I had earlier collected opened up. From these few articles and books, I found stronger footing in my research proposal and even more literature to collect. This all happened days before the semester started.
The biggest treasure trove opened up after the first day in a course I felt was least relevant to my research this semester. It turns out that the readings and my ideas for the seminar paper for that course may actually amplify the impact of the first two chapters of my dissertation. In my first step into searching for literature for the seminar paper, I stumbled upon nearly the same amount of literature that I had previously collected, therefore almost doubling my literature of primary resources. I wrote about this a little in the last posting.
What inspired me to write this posting was Twitter, which I only use for professional purposes. I noticed that I haven't been paying too much attention to my small group of followers, and today I looked at the very few who were following me that I wasn't following. Two of them were actually publishers in my area of research interest. It was then I really felt the impact of this aggregate technology. If publishers can find researchers before the researchers find them, that can really speed up the process. I'm not talking about sketchy publishers who will print anything. One of them actually has a good reputation in my field, and I'm surprised that I have overlooked several of their books.
So although this past month has shown to be punishing in terms of plans for data collection, it has actually been the most rewarding month for building a strong case for my research, which in turn will enhance my data collection methods when the time comes. Although I feel much better now, the wounds haven't completely healed yet, and I must remember that my wife's wounds are deeper.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Crunch Semester
Last week, the spring 2012 semester began, and I have a full load. Firstly, I am enrolled in my final 3 required courses in my department. Secondly, I am comping during the first half of the semester. Thirdly, I hope to have my research proposal completed with IRB approval by the end of the semester. Yes, my plate is very full.
By this time, I had hoped that the most of my literature was collected for my dissertation's literature review. However, one of my courses this semester has directed me to more literature, some of which is very useful to build an even stronger case for my research. This has come as a surprise to me because I expected this course to be the least relevant to my dissertation and the other two, and, just in the first week, it has shown to be the most helpful in terms of collecting literature.
With my new armament of literature, I have found a few researchers that I would like to contact sometime this semester for their guidance. I have already contacted one but was a little disappointed that he has recently moved his attention away from my research interest. One of the researchers seems to be headed in the same direction as me, but he has the advantage of being a well-established researcher in the field. At this moment, I do not know how to tactfully approach him as his publications and his website indicate that he's an incredibly busy man. I will seek one of my professor's advice on that.
On another topic, I am waiting to hear from my previous employer in Japan if I am invited back to teach for a second summer. If I am, it would provide an ideal opportunity for me to collect data. I am waiting for this green light, so I may continue the IRB process and make contacts to set up interviews upon my arrival. If I do not get the green light, I have several alternative plans but they are not as convenient in terms of time, finances, and support as the present one.
By the end of the semester, I hope to have the following tasks accomplished:
By this time, I had hoped that the most of my literature was collected for my dissertation's literature review. However, one of my courses this semester has directed me to more literature, some of which is very useful to build an even stronger case for my research. This has come as a surprise to me because I expected this course to be the least relevant to my dissertation and the other two, and, just in the first week, it has shown to be the most helpful in terms of collecting literature.
With my new armament of literature, I have found a few researchers that I would like to contact sometime this semester for their guidance. I have already contacted one but was a little disappointed that he has recently moved his attention away from my research interest. One of the researchers seems to be headed in the same direction as me, but he has the advantage of being a well-established researcher in the field. At this moment, I do not know how to tactfully approach him as his publications and his website indicate that he's an incredibly busy man. I will seek one of my professor's advice on that.
On another topic, I am waiting to hear from my previous employer in Japan if I am invited back to teach for a second summer. If I am, it would provide an ideal opportunity for me to collect data. I am waiting for this green light, so I may continue the IRB process and make contacts to set up interviews upon my arrival. If I do not get the green light, I have several alternative plans but they are not as convenient in terms of time, finances, and support as the present one.
By the end of the semester, I hope to have the following tasks accomplished:
- Comprehensive exams completed to the satisfaction of my committee
- The last 3 required courses of my department completed
- Chapters 1-3 of my dissertation completed
- IRB application sent and approved
- At least 3 contacts made to help with finding participants
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