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.
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