This week I encountered an interesting situation regarding IRB and my data collection procedures. My last participant, who I blogged about in the previous posts, published his online video response to my interview questions on YouTube. Although I knew he would create online videos, I didn't expect him to post it online so quickly. This route of collecting interview data was not approved by IRB, so I understand the ethical implications here. I informed IRB that I would collect data via Qualtrics or Adobe Connect.
Back in January, I spent a few weeks through email discussions finding the best way to collect interview data from my participants who live abroad. My first suggestions were email interviews and Skype interviews, which have been done many times in the literature I reviewed. These were not acceptable methods for IRB because there is a confidentiality risk because the University of Iowa does not host my participant's email accounts (so they could approve my emails to them, but not their emails to me) and the university does not host Skype. Because I had experience with Adobe Connect, the web conferencing alternative was easy to choose. However, I had difficulty accepting Qualtrics as an alternative to email interviews because it's a survey software program, so the interview would flow more like a survey with 99% open-ended questions. Nowhere in the literature did I find Qualtrics being used for interviews. Even after collecting the data, it was more like a survey, but IRB approved that route. And the university's IT advisor on data collection also agreed that Qualtrics was the best way to go.
So when my participant suggested submitting a video, I knew that IRB would not support it given the arguments for not permitting their email accounts or Skype. It would have to be something that the university could provide. In retrospect, perhaps IRB had a waiver for the participant to sign saying that he acknowledges that his data would not be confidential. He didn't care as he willingly and knowingly made it public. He didn't have the time for spending time on Qualtrics. Perhaps though stronger persuasion, he may have done an Adobe Connect interview. But I got the impression he wanted to be in control of the data, so perhaps where IRB drew the line.
IRB's conclusion was to order me to destroy the data, which is an order that informed me that IRB does not clearly understand social media research. First of all, I do not own the data, so how can I destroy it? They did not request me to ask/tell/order my participant to take the video off YouTube. I'm sure that's another ethical complication there as he has the right to refuse the order. Nonetheless, thousands of people have already viewed the video so the damage, if any, is done.
The damage is completely internal or procedural, but the main purpose of IRB is protect human subjects from physical and psychological harm. It seems to me that I've been asked to "destroy" the data out of a technicality that had no threat of physical or psychological harm to my participant, especially given the fact that he has published over a thousand of YouTube videos with similar or even more personal/revealing narratives.
Finally, I'd like to analyze the term "destroy" a bit further. Once something is published online, it is never destroyed. It always exists in a server somewhere, so I cannot completely physically destroy the data. One of my dissertation co-chairs used the term "remove," but she didn't specify from what. I cannot remove it from the Internet, but I can remove it from my dissertation. The data still exists for anyone to collect, analyze, and write about. I am happy to have played a role in providing this data to those who find it useful. Looking at the comments under the YouTube video, I found that some English language teachers have already found it helpful, so one of my goals for publishing my dissertation has been accomplished. So I'm learning that this type of publication may affect more change than publishing through a peer-reviewed article, which very few practitioners read anyway. I'm all for accessibility.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Diving Into Analysis
My sixth and apparently final participant has finally found time for the interview part of my data collection. Last week, I finally completed viewing about 40 of his online videos regarding teaching English in Japan and/or adjusting to living and working in Japan. The remaining 1000 videos were more about current events in Japan or general information about Japanese culture.
As the interviews take place over the course of the week, I hope, I will start the more in-depth phase of analysis of all of my participants' data. At the same time, I will begin writing my first draft of Chapter 4. Actually, I already wrote the first paragraph giving a general introduction to the participants. Besides the final interview, I perceive much time of this week spent on organizing my approach to analysis as I write Chapter 4.
Coincidentally, as I am diving into analysis of my data, I am also beginning my new weekly routine of swimming. Since I have started my full-time job, there are two things that I want to continue that abruptly stopped back in April: 1) using the university's facilities that I'm paying for, 2) getting some good exercise. Although this seems like aside to the rest of this blog, I believe that physical exercise may enhance my mental exercise for data analysis.
As I mentioned earlier, my preliminary analysis took part during data collection of the blog data. I created two very broad themes: 1) teaching English and 2) cultural adjustment. The golden ticket is when these themes overlap, which seems to happen often for some participants and not much for others. This is where I will look to develop a grounded theory. Although this seems easy, I'm dealing with the murky nature of my participants' beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions which are made more complex with own beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions. My dissertation chairs and committee will demonstrate how this gets even more complicated when my interpretation is interpreted by them. This is not science.
Another matter I need to consider is condensing my analysis into a limited number of pages for Chapter 4. My first 3 chapters are already longer than most other dissertations I have seen. I've been considering a page limit when describing the context and adjustment process for each participant. I have arbitrarily chosen 4 pages, thus 24 pages for all 6 participants. This does not include the general introduction or the cross-case analysis or the establishment of any grounded theory. I am the type of person who can write a lot and does not mind writing a lot, so I need to exert some type of self-control. I'd like to thank all of my writing teachers who brought me to this point. However, I didn't mention the quality of my writing. Perhaps you can take a guess by the mostly informal prose you see here.
As the interviews take place over the course of the week, I hope, I will start the more in-depth phase of analysis of all of my participants' data. At the same time, I will begin writing my first draft of Chapter 4. Actually, I already wrote the first paragraph giving a general introduction to the participants. Besides the final interview, I perceive much time of this week spent on organizing my approach to analysis as I write Chapter 4.
Coincidentally, as I am diving into analysis of my data, I am also beginning my new weekly routine of swimming. Since I have started my full-time job, there are two things that I want to continue that abruptly stopped back in April: 1) using the university's facilities that I'm paying for, 2) getting some good exercise. Although this seems like aside to the rest of this blog, I believe that physical exercise may enhance my mental exercise for data analysis.
As I mentioned earlier, my preliminary analysis took part during data collection of the blog data. I created two very broad themes: 1) teaching English and 2) cultural adjustment. The golden ticket is when these themes overlap, which seems to happen often for some participants and not much for others. This is where I will look to develop a grounded theory. Although this seems easy, I'm dealing with the murky nature of my participants' beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions which are made more complex with own beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions. My dissertation chairs and committee will demonstrate how this gets even more complicated when my interpretation is interpreted by them. This is not science.
Another matter I need to consider is condensing my analysis into a limited number of pages for Chapter 4. My first 3 chapters are already longer than most other dissertations I have seen. I've been considering a page limit when describing the context and adjustment process for each participant. I have arbitrarily chosen 4 pages, thus 24 pages for all 6 participants. This does not include the general introduction or the cross-case analysis or the establishment of any grounded theory. I am the type of person who can write a lot and does not mind writing a lot, so I need to exert some type of self-control. I'd like to thank all of my writing teachers who brought me to this point. However, I didn't mention the quality of my writing. Perhaps you can take a guess by the mostly informal prose you see here.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
The Last But Not Least Participant
After my web conferencing interview, I have completed interviewing three of the six participants who gave me their informed consent. Two of the remaining three participants have completed two of their three interview sessions, and I believe one will be done by the end of the weekend. I have not yet begun interviewing the sixth and perhaps last participant for my study because he has been on vacation for the past few weeks, but he should be back soon if not already.
The last participant provides an interesting approach to data collection as he is more of a vlogger than a blogger. (A vlogger is a video blogger.) Actually three of my participants have or had vlogs on their own YouTube channels, but this participant is the most dedicated towards his videos. Of the other two participants, one started vlogging but switched to blogging, and that is where most of my document data for him is found. For the most part, the other participant's videos support her blog, and she doesn't produce as many videos as she used to.
So how dedicated is this last participant to his online videos? I say very much so as I spent the last few weeks cataloging his videos, which basically means listing all of his videos in chronological order and initially coding them when their titles are directly relevant to my research questions. Unlike for most other bloggers, I did not date each video because to find the date, I have to play the video, and when I play a video, I lose my place on YouTube where I was cataloging videos. This isn't usually a problem, but, as of yesterday, I have cataloged 1036 videos!
He has more than 1036 videos because halfway through my cataloging I stopped listing repeated videos, which don't happen often, and a series of videos on sumo wrestling, which do not directly answer my research questions. If sumo wrestling videos dominated his channel, then I would have considered that they may, but they don't.
With 1036 cataloged videos, I have come to a dilemma. How can I possibly thoroughly code all these videos? Coding all these videos requires thoroughly transcribing all of them. The average length of these videos seems to be around 10 minutes. There are many that go beyond 15 and 20 minutes, but there are also some that are less than 5. If the average is truly 10 minutes, then that's 10,360 minutes of video. That 172 hours and 40 minutes! Now, when I took courses on qualitative research I had to practice transcribing recorded interviews. When I wasn't tired, I could transcribe about 20 minutes of raw data in 1 hour. So to transcribe 10,360 minutes would at least take me over 31,000 hours which is 518 hours. If I dedicated 8 hours a day to transcribing these videos, it would take me over 2 months straight, and that's if I didn't slow down! After that, then I could start coding. I wonder how many pages of text that would be.
Now, if I were rich or well-funded, I would hire an army of people to transcribe and code his videos. No!
So...I decided to not be as rigorous with analyzing his videos as I am with my other participants, who average about 10 videos each. This is not a case study, it's a multiple case study, and I want to spend roughly the same amount of time analyzing the data for each participant. Otherwise, this last participant would definitely dominate my time and perhaps my study.
Fortunately, fortunately, my initial coding turned up only 42 videos of the 1036 that directly answer my research questions. One of my other participants didn't even blog 42 times. Anyway, once I transcribe one of these videos, I will check how many pages long it is because nearly all of my bloggers didn't blog more than a page per post. I think I can handle a rough estimate of 420 minutes (7 hours) of videos to transcribe and code.
And I didn't even get to write about how I will collect and analyze the last participant's interview data. That's another interesting post for later.
The last participant provides an interesting approach to data collection as he is more of a vlogger than a blogger. (A vlogger is a video blogger.) Actually three of my participants have or had vlogs on their own YouTube channels, but this participant is the most dedicated towards his videos. Of the other two participants, one started vlogging but switched to blogging, and that is where most of my document data for him is found. For the most part, the other participant's videos support her blog, and she doesn't produce as many videos as she used to.
So how dedicated is this last participant to his online videos? I say very much so as I spent the last few weeks cataloging his videos, which basically means listing all of his videos in chronological order and initially coding them when their titles are directly relevant to my research questions. Unlike for most other bloggers, I did not date each video because to find the date, I have to play the video, and when I play a video, I lose my place on YouTube where I was cataloging videos. This isn't usually a problem, but, as of yesterday, I have cataloged 1036 videos!
He has more than 1036 videos because halfway through my cataloging I stopped listing repeated videos, which don't happen often, and a series of videos on sumo wrestling, which do not directly answer my research questions. If sumo wrestling videos dominated his channel, then I would have considered that they may, but they don't.
With 1036 cataloged videos, I have come to a dilemma. How can I possibly thoroughly code all these videos? Coding all these videos requires thoroughly transcribing all of them. The average length of these videos seems to be around 10 minutes. There are many that go beyond 15 and 20 minutes, but there are also some that are less than 5. If the average is truly 10 minutes, then that's 10,360 minutes of video. That 172 hours and 40 minutes! Now, when I took courses on qualitative research I had to practice transcribing recorded interviews. When I wasn't tired, I could transcribe about 20 minutes of raw data in 1 hour. So to transcribe 10,360 minutes would at least take me over 31,000 hours which is 518 hours. If I dedicated 8 hours a day to transcribing these videos, it would take me over 2 months straight, and that's if I didn't slow down! After that, then I could start coding. I wonder how many pages of text that would be.
Now, if I were rich or well-funded, I would hire an army of people to transcribe and code his videos. No!
So...I decided to not be as rigorous with analyzing his videos as I am with my other participants, who average about 10 videos each. This is not a case study, it's a multiple case study, and I want to spend roughly the same amount of time analyzing the data for each participant. Otherwise, this last participant would definitely dominate my time and perhaps my study.
Fortunately, fortunately, my initial coding turned up only 42 videos of the 1036 that directly answer my research questions. One of my other participants didn't even blog 42 times. Anyway, once I transcribe one of these videos, I will check how many pages long it is because nearly all of my bloggers didn't blog more than a page per post. I think I can handle a rough estimate of 420 minutes (7 hours) of videos to transcribe and code.
And I didn't even get to write about how I will collect and analyze the last participant's interview data. That's another interesting post for later.
Friday, August 9, 2013
First Web Conferencing Interview
On Sunday, I conducted my first real web conferencing interview for research purposes. I mention real because I've conducted two online interviews as pilots, however they were through Skype, which my IRB does not approve because Skype calls can be easily intercepted, and therefore I cannot guarantee privacy or confidentiality. However, with the latest news concerning the US government PRISM surveillance program and corporate compliance, I don't think I can guarantee privacy or confidentiality with any online communication. The IRB believed that Adobe Connect offered more security than Skype, so I was able to conduct my first web conferencing interview using Adobe Connect. One reason I chose Adobe Connect was that I had 3 years of experience using the program to assist the Education Policy & Leadership Studies department in the College of Education with their hybrid online courses.
If you're interested in how I did this, I created a meeting on Adobe Connect for this purpose. When you create a meeting, a link is provided to be shared with guest participants. I shared the link with my research participant who logged in as a guest, and then I helped her set up her webcam and mic. Before that, however, I let her know the specifications for joining an Adobe Connect meeting. The only preferred specification that she couldn't meet was avoiding a wireless connection. Fortunately for us, the wireless connection was strong enough that it was only dropped once during the 2.5-hour interview.
Adobe Connect offers a recording option, but I opted out because I did not want the conference stored in the institution's Adobe Connect account and I did need to capture video. Instead I captured the audio portion of the interview using Audacity. Because I was using my Macbook Pro, I could have easily used Garageband as well but I piloted with Audacity, and it demonstrated reliability so there was no reason for me to change. If I wanted to publish the audio interview, then Garageband would have been easier, but I cannot and will not publish the raw interview.
What did I learn from this type of interview process?
If you're interested in how I did this, I created a meeting on Adobe Connect for this purpose. When you create a meeting, a link is provided to be shared with guest participants. I shared the link with my research participant who logged in as a guest, and then I helped her set up her webcam and mic. Before that, however, I let her know the specifications for joining an Adobe Connect meeting. The only preferred specification that she couldn't meet was avoiding a wireless connection. Fortunately for us, the wireless connection was strong enough that it was only dropped once during the 2.5-hour interview.
Adobe Connect offers a recording option, but I opted out because I did not want the conference stored in the institution's Adobe Connect account and I did need to capture video. Instead I captured the audio portion of the interview using Audacity. Because I was using my Macbook Pro, I could have easily used Garageband as well but I piloted with Audacity, and it demonstrated reliability so there was no reason for me to change. If I wanted to publish the audio interview, then Garageband would have been easier, but I cannot and will not publish the raw interview.
What did I learn from this type of interview process?
- Adobe Connect has a greater broadcasting delay problem than Skype. I have used Skype to communicate with pilot participants and friends in Japan and Germany, and I experienced little to no delay in the communication. However, Adobe Connect had a noticeable delay for my communication to South Korea. I do not believe South Korea is at fault for this delay because no country is more wired than South Korea.
- The technical issues doubled my anxiety for the first 30 minutes. Not only was I nervous because I wanted my first interview to go well, but my concern for having little to no technical issues made it more difficult for me to focus on my participant. It was during the first 30 minutes that the connection dropped, so I was a little freaked out at that point.
- The delay took a while to get used to. Not only did I have to learn a new way to pace the interview, but I also had to cope with hearing myself delayed on her end. Every time I asked a question, my echo would repeat that question about 5-10 seconds later. That echo sometimes helped me figure out when she would start speaking, so I didn't feel uncomfortable with the silent pauses on her end.
- Even if you want to plow through a lengthy interview, take a break when you get one. I purposefully divided my interview into 3 sections. Although I skipped the first break, I took the second one, and I needed it. After that break, I was much calmer and more confident about the interview process. That break also gave Adobe Connect a break in that I noticed the echo issue was toned down in the second half or third third.
- An interview script is your friend. When I piloted my interview face-to-face, it was easier to let it flow into a conversation. But because of the irregularities of a web conferencing interview, this flow could not be transferred. Perhaps if I had more practice interviewing with delayed online communication, perhaps I could discover a new conversational flow. However, I would prefer to avoid this type of delay if I could. The interview script always kept me focused when a technical issue distracted me. The interview script worked well on my computer because I could set up the script next to the video of my participant, so I could maintain eye contact much better than a face-to-face interview. So that's one positive aspect of conducting an interview online.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Recruitment and Interview Update
Within the last week, I have successfully recruited 5 participants, and I've already completed interviewing the third participant. I still need to interview the first 2 one more time. I haven't started interviewing the last 2 yet, one of which will be on vacation for the next 3 weeks. I believe one reason that I'm having a hard time recruiting people is that many of my participants are on vacation or have left the country for good. July is the month of transition for my target participant population. Once they are settled back home or back for the fall semester, then I should be able to recruit and interview more. However, I may not need to do this as I seem to have a sufficient number of participants now. That being said, some of them may not complete their interviews.
I plan to contact 5 more participants for recruitment within the next week. I also plan to send reminders to about 5 others that I attempted to recruit a month ago. The last time I sent out reminders, I successfully recruited one. If my current 5 participants all complete the interviews within the month, then I am done collecting data. However, if they do not, then I will plan another phase of recruitment.
One of the biggest changes since my last post was that I decided not to recruit through Twitter as my pilot test failed. Apparently, a recruitment message can get lost in the Twitter feed very quickly and/or go unnoticed in the contact section for months. Twitter is also too risky to recruit privately. Instead I've decided to use YouTube which notifies its users well. Although the pilot test worked, none of my contacts through YouTube have replied yet.
With regular email recruitment, I've found that most of my respondents reply within 24 hours of my message being sent. Only one has replied a few days later. The correspondence with one who declined my invitation spanned nearly 3 weeks! I was trying to gauge the frequency of blog posting to be roughly equivalent to the frequency they check and/or reply to their email, but I found this to be difficult and usually inaccurate.
As for interviews, nobody has chosen to be interviewed through Adobe Connect, the web conferencing program used at the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College. I'm a bit relieved because that would involve an extra step of transcribing all the interviews. However, I'm finding that some of my participants answer interview questions on a survey platform quite tersely. One participant insisted that he send his interview answers via online video. This will be interesting to see one I receive them.
I plan to contact 5 more participants for recruitment within the next week. I also plan to send reminders to about 5 others that I attempted to recruit a month ago. The last time I sent out reminders, I successfully recruited one. If my current 5 participants all complete the interviews within the month, then I am done collecting data. However, if they do not, then I will plan another phase of recruitment.
One of the biggest changes since my last post was that I decided not to recruit through Twitter as my pilot test failed. Apparently, a recruitment message can get lost in the Twitter feed very quickly and/or go unnoticed in the contact section for months. Twitter is also too risky to recruit privately. Instead I've decided to use YouTube which notifies its users well. Although the pilot test worked, none of my contacts through YouTube have replied yet.
With regular email recruitment, I've found that most of my respondents reply within 24 hours of my message being sent. Only one has replied a few days later. The correspondence with one who declined my invitation spanned nearly 3 weeks! I was trying to gauge the frequency of blog posting to be roughly equivalent to the frequency they check and/or reply to their email, but I found this to be difficult and usually inaccurate.
As for interviews, nobody has chosen to be interviewed through Adobe Connect, the web conferencing program used at the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College. I'm a bit relieved because that would involve an extra step of transcribing all the interviews. However, I'm finding that some of my participants answer interview questions on a survey platform quite tersely. One participant insisted that he send his interview answers via online video. This will be interesting to see one I receive them.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Recruitment Issues
It's been about a month since my last posting, and I have successfully recruited one participant. As of today, I have contacted 13 people for interviews with 1 acceptance and 1 rejection. I just contacted 3 people today, but aside from them I haven't heard from the remaining 8. What makes my recruitment difficult is that all of my participants are overseas, and I get their contact information from their blogs, microblogs, or vlogs. I assume that some of these bloggers have posted outdated or barely used email addresses. Another assumption for the low response rate is that many people in my target population are getting ready to leave their host country. They are busy enough saying goodbyes and preparing for life at home that they are not ready to commit to a series interviews that may take months to complete.
One of the stickiest issues is the method of contacting my participants. My IRB has approved of contacting them through email, but I have two other methods of contacting them online which IRB may or may not consider "email." One is through Twitter which allows me to send private messages to my those who follow me and public messages to those who don't. Both types of messages are limited to Twitter's well known 140-character limit. This is probably the most difficult to work around as I cannot capture my entire IRB-approved email message within 140 characters. Currently we are working on solutions. If I we come to one, then I will be able to contact 8 more people, one of which I probably have a good chance of recruiting.
There are 12 other people that are best contacted through their YouTube channels. YouTube allows messaging through their service with no character limits. I wrote to IRB today to see if they qualify this as "email." In addition, I would like to send a recruitment video containing the same message as the email. I believe this will be more effective based on the literature I have read and my own feelings since my contacts will be able to see who I am, and it may be easier to build rapport if I don't appear creepy. Furthermore, I believe a link to my recruitment video would be more effective to send on Twitter as well. I'd really like to work on this as soon as I know where IRB stands, then I would nearly double the amount of people to contact.
I am fortunate to have the technological capability with high-tech facilities to record, edit, and link this potential recruitment video. I might as well take the chance since I have this opportunity.
One of the stickiest issues is the method of contacting my participants. My IRB has approved of contacting them through email, but I have two other methods of contacting them online which IRB may or may not consider "email." One is through Twitter which allows me to send private messages to my those who follow me and public messages to those who don't. Both types of messages are limited to Twitter's well known 140-character limit. This is probably the most difficult to work around as I cannot capture my entire IRB-approved email message within 140 characters. Currently we are working on solutions. If I we come to one, then I will be able to contact 8 more people, one of which I probably have a good chance of recruiting.
There are 12 other people that are best contacted through their YouTube channels. YouTube allows messaging through their service with no character limits. I wrote to IRB today to see if they qualify this as "email." In addition, I would like to send a recruitment video containing the same message as the email. I believe this will be more effective based on the literature I have read and my own feelings since my contacts will be able to see who I am, and it may be easier to build rapport if I don't appear creepy. Furthermore, I believe a link to my recruitment video would be more effective to send on Twitter as well. I'd really like to work on this as soon as I know where IRB stands, then I would nearly double the amount of people to contact.
I am fortunate to have the technological capability with high-tech facilities to record, edit, and link this potential recruitment video. I might as well take the chance since I have this opportunity.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Now Collecting Data
Since my last posting, I started a full-time job, which is conveniently within a comfortable and reasonable driving distance of my home and my university. The job is thankfully not too similar to my research interest, so I can view my research as a welcoming break from my job and vice-versa. At this early point in my research and job, I can say that I enjoy them equally.
My new job has/had a large learning curve, so I decided to take a one-month hiatus from my research and focus solely on the new job. However, one week after my first month I went to Canada for a 5-day business trip and so I couldn't dive back into my dissertation until returning and recovering from the Canadian trip.
Although I officially wasn't collecting data, I was reading a book written by a potential participant in my study. I decided to read it during the 5-week hiatus to keep my brain interested in my research topic. I did not want to lose complete interest in my dissertation because that would have terrible consequences. For the most part, the pressure to continue my strong work ethic from my co-chairs and my committee is off. Actually, the book really got me excited about participant selection and data collection, so I was ready to start when I got the chance.
When I selected my first participant, I realized that I forgot to contact IRB to make a change to my invitation email. One sentence had to be removed because it no longer applied to my study and it would confuse my participants. Fortunately for me, it took an hour to make the change and two days for IRB to approve the modification. By then, I was six weeks into my job without collecting any data.
This past week is when I started collecting document data from my first participant. I still need to collect interview data, but I already have about 800 pages of document data from the first of up to fifteen participants. That appears daunting, but I would say about 1/3 of those pages do not directly answer my primary research question. I cannot describe anymore than that without violating confidentiality. It's also somewhat less daunting because I have a framework set up to start initial coding. The deeper digging will begin once a pattern emerges from the initial coding process.
Although I have just started collecting data, reading the documents from my first participant and the book by the potential participant (who I may not select at all for reasons I cannot disclose) has been personally rewarding. Doing this research is rewarding professionally and emotionally because my participants have had similar life experiences as me. If I do not complete this research project, I will have gained enough to be personally satisfied. However, I do not intend to give up because I would also like to be professionally satisfied with a PhD, evidence that I can conduct research at a research-intensive university.
My new job has/had a large learning curve, so I decided to take a one-month hiatus from my research and focus solely on the new job. However, one week after my first month I went to Canada for a 5-day business trip and so I couldn't dive back into my dissertation until returning and recovering from the Canadian trip.
Although I officially wasn't collecting data, I was reading a book written by a potential participant in my study. I decided to read it during the 5-week hiatus to keep my brain interested in my research topic. I did not want to lose complete interest in my dissertation because that would have terrible consequences. For the most part, the pressure to continue my strong work ethic from my co-chairs and my committee is off. Actually, the book really got me excited about participant selection and data collection, so I was ready to start when I got the chance.
When I selected my first participant, I realized that I forgot to contact IRB to make a change to my invitation email. One sentence had to be removed because it no longer applied to my study and it would confuse my participants. Fortunately for me, it took an hour to make the change and two days for IRB to approve the modification. By then, I was six weeks into my job without collecting any data.
This past week is when I started collecting document data from my first participant. I still need to collect interview data, but I already have about 800 pages of document data from the first of up to fifteen participants. That appears daunting, but I would say about 1/3 of those pages do not directly answer my primary research question. I cannot describe anymore than that without violating confidentiality. It's also somewhat less daunting because I have a framework set up to start initial coding. The deeper digging will begin once a pattern emerges from the initial coding process.
Although I have just started collecting data, reading the documents from my first participant and the book by the potential participant (who I may not select at all for reasons I cannot disclose) has been personally rewarding. Doing this research is rewarding professionally and emotionally because my participants have had similar life experiences as me. If I do not complete this research project, I will have gained enough to be personally satisfied. However, I do not intend to give up because I would also like to be professionally satisfied with a PhD, evidence that I can conduct research at a research-intensive university.
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