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.

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.

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.