Upon having my research proposal accepted back in March 2013, it was suggested that I concurrently revise Chapters 1 and 3 while I collected and analyzed my data. Although I took the suggestion for revising Chapter 3 as that made the most sense to me, I held off on revising Chapter 1 until now. I believe that revising Chapter 1 after writing the first draft of Chapter 4 is more beneficial because that process will better help me connect Chapters 1 and 4 when it is time to write Chapter 5.
Today is the day that I finally revisited Chapter 1, and I did this by first listening to my research proposal, which I recorded on my Macbook Pro using Garageband. I have to admit that the sound quality of the recording was superb being that my computer was on the other side of the meeting room from most of the committee members. Sadly, this has been my best use of Garageband.
I remember that my co-chairs recommended me to listen through the proposal about a month after the meeting, but I was not mentally prepared for that. I took notes on the most vital elements concerning participant selection and data collection to begin the process, so I did not have an urgent need to listen to that meeting, which now seems less painful than I remembered it to be. All I remembered was that I would need to listen to the recording once it came time to revise Chapter 1.
A mix of emotions hit me while listening through this proposal. After the initial feeling of discomfort, I felt delighted because most of the sticky points in the first half of the meeting have already been resolved. Most of the difficult issues were about participant selection, a process that has come and gone long ago. I think what made this part of the proposal difficult was that I had more confidence than my committee members since I was unable to show enough evidence of participants.
Another eye-opening moment was learning about how stubborn I was. Even though I took much of their advice, I did not convey this to them. I should have said something like, "Thank you. I understand your point, and I will make the changes as you suggest." For some items, I had a high degree of uncertainty, but I did not want to take all of their suggestions, especially because some of them conflicted with earlier suggestions given by my co-chairs.
In retrospect, I am glad I was stubborn with a few points, but I should have acknowledged that my committee's advice was helpful for the many other points. I also believe I was a different person at the time because my anxiety of the research proposal may have been eclipsed by the anxiety of being on the market and on the cusp of getting hired. I survived.
While I was listening to the research proposal meeting, I took notes on all suggestions for change concerning Chapter 1. I was surprised that the suggestions were fewer than I remember. However, there was one important suggestion that is contentious because there was a disagreement between my co-chairs and the rest of the committee. And most of this disagreement occurred when my co-chairs were not present at that time of the meeting. I know my co-chairs would like me to disregard most of this suggestion, but I need to confirm if I should disregard most or all of the suggestion. If it is all, it would make a far easier revision of Chapter 1.
There were a few surprising elements in the research proposal that seem to end up in my favor. The first is that some members of my committee did not like a research question that I was unsure of when I wrote it. Now that my data analysis is (mostly) complete, I have found that I can take out this question. The other surprising element was that one of my committee members already had a clear idea for publishing my results that did not become very clear to me until I had completed my data collection. I will be writing more on this later, but this element has given me more confidence to pursue a certain publication path once this dissertation is completed.
My next step is now to revise Chapter 1, but I can't completely revise it without confirming a few items with my co-chairs. Depending on the input from my co-chairs, this revision to Chapter 1 could take as little as a day or as much as four days. Nonetheless, this revision is not as lengthy as I thought it might be.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
A Much Needed Lull
After an intense two-week period of writing Chapter 4 of my dissertation followed by a flight back to Iowa and a two-day period of teacher development, I had time to work less intensely this weekend. My only goals were to review my participant summaries, to prepare my one-question feedback form on Qualtrics, and to contact my participants for the purposes of member checking. This took a total of three hours.
Although I enjoyed my time watching movies with the family, I also let Chapter 4 ferment in my brain. I was reflecting on the various ways to analyze my data. My literature review in Chapter 2 presented many alternatives for analyzing the data. I do not regret the two models I chose from the Chapter, but there was one theory that I wish I could have included because it was more up-to-date and more rigorously applied than one of the models. So the purpose of this blog post is to rationalize the choice of one model over another.
Recognition
The model I chose is more widely known to people outside the field of intercultural communication, and most members of my dissertation committee fit this audience description. This does not necessarily make it a better model, but it makes it more accessible.
Better Fit to Grounded Theory
The model I chose better fit my grounded theory because it was more flexible and its criticisms in the literature were mostly supported by the findings in my study. That said, the other model was created out of the criticism of the older model, yet it did not replace the older model. In this regard, I feel like using the newer model with my data set would be a next step or another paper.
Less Change to Research Questions
If I had chosen the newer model, I would need to reframe my research purpose and questions. In this regard, the newer model could have replaced my grounded theory, but I could not have predicted as the patterns did not emerge until I completed my data analysis. This is one reason that I would like to write another paper using the newer model with my data set. Perhaps I will discover that this paper is stronger than my dissertation.
Also, I had chosen the newer model, my argument for conducting this study would move even further away from second language teacher education and closer to intercultural communication, the former of which was more emphasized in my graduate studies. I am in the College of Education, so I need to and I want to keep my study more relevant to second language teacher education. I also want to demonstrate the importance of intercultural communication and sociocultural anthropology in second language teacher education.
Other Models and Theories
Chapter 2 reviewed other models and theories that I could have used, but they were not as strong as the ones I chose and the third alternative I mentioned above. They do not arrive to "bigger picture" conclusions of second language teacher education. For example, my findings provide some evidence for proposed classifications in cross-cultural training research, but this argument takes away from the main idea of my study. Perhaps it could be included in Chapter 5.
Looking back, Chapter 4 is about 100 pages that builds my grounded theory on two models. I believe that including any other models or theories would add more content but would distract from answering my research questions. What Chapter 2 has shown me is it has provided me various ways of analyzing my data set for different audiences and publications. However, I do not want to continue publishing research with a data set that grows older and perhaps less relevant through time. Once I complete my dissertation, I may only want to spend another year or two before I move on to collecting more data or moving on to another line of research. I will be giving this process more thought when I get closer to wrapping up my dissertation.
Although I enjoyed my time watching movies with the family, I also let Chapter 4 ferment in my brain. I was reflecting on the various ways to analyze my data. My literature review in Chapter 2 presented many alternatives for analyzing the data. I do not regret the two models I chose from the Chapter, but there was one theory that I wish I could have included because it was more up-to-date and more rigorously applied than one of the models. So the purpose of this blog post is to rationalize the choice of one model over another.
Recognition
The model I chose is more widely known to people outside the field of intercultural communication, and most members of my dissertation committee fit this audience description. This does not necessarily make it a better model, but it makes it more accessible.
Better Fit to Grounded Theory
The model I chose better fit my grounded theory because it was more flexible and its criticisms in the literature were mostly supported by the findings in my study. That said, the other model was created out of the criticism of the older model, yet it did not replace the older model. In this regard, I feel like using the newer model with my data set would be a next step or another paper.
Less Change to Research Questions
If I had chosen the newer model, I would need to reframe my research purpose and questions. In this regard, the newer model could have replaced my grounded theory, but I could not have predicted as the patterns did not emerge until I completed my data analysis. This is one reason that I would like to write another paper using the newer model with my data set. Perhaps I will discover that this paper is stronger than my dissertation.
Also, I had chosen the newer model, my argument for conducting this study would move even further away from second language teacher education and closer to intercultural communication, the former of which was more emphasized in my graduate studies. I am in the College of Education, so I need to and I want to keep my study more relevant to second language teacher education. I also want to demonstrate the importance of intercultural communication and sociocultural anthropology in second language teacher education.
Other Models and Theories
Chapter 2 reviewed other models and theories that I could have used, but they were not as strong as the ones I chose and the third alternative I mentioned above. They do not arrive to "bigger picture" conclusions of second language teacher education. For example, my findings provide some evidence for proposed classifications in cross-cultural training research, but this argument takes away from the main idea of my study. Perhaps it could be included in Chapter 5.
Looking back, Chapter 4 is about 100 pages that builds my grounded theory on two models. I believe that including any other models or theories would add more content but would distract from answering my research questions. What Chapter 2 has shown me is it has provided me various ways of analyzing my data set for different audiences and publications. However, I do not want to continue publishing research with a data set that grows older and perhaps less relevant through time. Once I complete my dissertation, I may only want to spend another year or two before I move on to collecting more data or moving on to another line of research. I will be giving this process more thought when I get closer to wrapping up my dissertation.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Finishing Chapter 4, Draft 1
Yesterday, I came to the most painful part of writing Chapter 4: tying up the loose ends and deciding if some data should go unreported. As I wrote about the more minor points, I continued to ask myself, "Is this important enough to include in the Chapter?" There are times when I say maybe and others when I say no. I keep the "maybe" points in to get my co-chairs point of view. However, I predict that they will tell me to throw them out, but I'm not certain enough.
Once I got beyond that part, I was able to finish the last section and write the conclusion to the Chapter. I missed my arbitrary page-limit goal by only 3 pages, but I know that I can easily add 3 pages as I noted to myself to flesh out the introduction. Because I'm exhausted, I left the introduction bare bones and it does not reflect what I discovered through the writing process. With my conclusion better written than the introduction, I know that I need to revise the introduction when the time comes to Chapter 4, draft 2.
I have decided to leave Chapter 4 alone for the next week or two. I've been more intimate with Chapter 4 than anything else while I was "vacationing" in Florida, so it's time that I take a break. Incidentally, I finished the first draft with exactly 24 hours remaining in Florida, but I'm a bit too exhausted to celebrate...for now.
Besides exhaustion, how do I feel? I feel that I wrote small islands of good research writing surrounded by an ocean of poor writing with incomplete arguments, positions, or evidence. One reason for these incomplete arguments is that I don't have my full arsenal of literature with me because I'm "on vacation." Another reason is that I gave enough for the beginning of an argument or position, so I could flesh it out later. Like I wrote in the earlier post, there may be some arguments or positions that I may need to remove completely, so I did not want to spend too much time composing well-formed arguments and positions for every point.
I'm also keenly aware of the sentences and paragraphs that are wholly poor reasoning. I changed the font color in the areas to red so I could later decide if that reasoning needs to be either reworked or removed. In those areas, I feel like I was rushing to conclusions and/or making points that may be better made in Chapter 5.
There is one very weak area in my data analysis and Chapter 4 because there is one participant in my study who may be going through a major stage of his adjustment process during the time I was composing Chapter 4. I hope to hear from him after I send him my summary of his experiences and observations as part of the member check.
The member check is the next step in my dissertation process. The responses from my participants will help better inform me when revising Chapter 4, especially the one participant I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Another major step is learning how my colleague coded my data using my themes. She may reveal parts that I either overlooked or misinterpreted. If this is so, my corrections in the revision will definitely improve the quality of the chapter.
I do not expect to hear from my participants about their member checks or from my colleague about her coding procedures for at least a month. In the meantime, I will be making smaller revisions to Chapter 4.
Once I return to Iowa tomorrow, I plan to send my co-chairs my Chapter 4 outline, my conclusion, and a graphic representation of part of my grounded theory. Their input will also greatly affect how I approach the first revision of Chapter 4. I foresee the months of January and February on Chapter 4 revision and Chapter 5 pre-wrtiting.
Once I got beyond that part, I was able to finish the last section and write the conclusion to the Chapter. I missed my arbitrary page-limit goal by only 3 pages, but I know that I can easily add 3 pages as I noted to myself to flesh out the introduction. Because I'm exhausted, I left the introduction bare bones and it does not reflect what I discovered through the writing process. With my conclusion better written than the introduction, I know that I need to revise the introduction when the time comes to Chapter 4, draft 2.
I have decided to leave Chapter 4 alone for the next week or two. I've been more intimate with Chapter 4 than anything else while I was "vacationing" in Florida, so it's time that I take a break. Incidentally, I finished the first draft with exactly 24 hours remaining in Florida, but I'm a bit too exhausted to celebrate...for now.
Besides exhaustion, how do I feel? I feel that I wrote small islands of good research writing surrounded by an ocean of poor writing with incomplete arguments, positions, or evidence. One reason for these incomplete arguments is that I don't have my full arsenal of literature with me because I'm "on vacation." Another reason is that I gave enough for the beginning of an argument or position, so I could flesh it out later. Like I wrote in the earlier post, there may be some arguments or positions that I may need to remove completely, so I did not want to spend too much time composing well-formed arguments and positions for every point.
I'm also keenly aware of the sentences and paragraphs that are wholly poor reasoning. I changed the font color in the areas to red so I could later decide if that reasoning needs to be either reworked or removed. In those areas, I feel like I was rushing to conclusions and/or making points that may be better made in Chapter 5.
There is one very weak area in my data analysis and Chapter 4 because there is one participant in my study who may be going through a major stage of his adjustment process during the time I was composing Chapter 4. I hope to hear from him after I send him my summary of his experiences and observations as part of the member check.
The member check is the next step in my dissertation process. The responses from my participants will help better inform me when revising Chapter 4, especially the one participant I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Another major step is learning how my colleague coded my data using my themes. She may reveal parts that I either overlooked or misinterpreted. If this is so, my corrections in the revision will definitely improve the quality of the chapter.
I do not expect to hear from my participants about their member checks or from my colleague about her coding procedures for at least a month. In the meantime, I will be making smaller revisions to Chapter 4.
Once I return to Iowa tomorrow, I plan to send my co-chairs my Chapter 4 outline, my conclusion, and a graphic representation of part of my grounded theory. Their input will also greatly affect how I approach the first revision of Chapter 4. I foresee the months of January and February on Chapter 4 revision and Chapter 5 pre-wrtiting.
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