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.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Writing Chapter 4
Writing Chapter 4 is usually one of the most grueling and tiresome points of the dissertation process, but for once timing was on my side as I am enjoying the opportunity to write my first draft of Chapter 4 in warm and sunny Florida. I have been looking forward to this opportunity for over a month when I began to feel prepared to write the chapter.
Since Thanksgiving weekend, I have not had the opportunity to write Chapter 4 because I was either busy preparing or enjoying holiday events, visits to or from family and friends, or writing member checks for my participants. During my downtime in December, however, I was plotting and outlining Chapter 4 in my mind. I never got the chance to sit down and write any of it until last week.
My family and I have only been in Florida for 6 days and yet I have already written 55 pages of Chapter 4. Two of these 6 days don't count because one was the day of arrival and the other was Christmas day, so I really wrote 55 pages in 4 days. Today marks the point in which I completed writing the major components of my grounded theory, so I am quite satisfied now.
Looking over those rough 55 pages, there is plenty of room to flesh out my weaker arguments and transitions. I also have a lot of ideas of how to reorganize the content of those pages. I believe in my second edit of these pages, I would probably remove as much as or a little less than I would add.
My goal is to hit 100 pages before we leave Florida, and I'm making good progress on that. With the bulk of my argument already covered, I am worried less about quantity and worried more about the quality. With the 55 pages covering the biggest cross-case patterns, I anticipate the next 10-15 pages will cover the significant single-case findings that directly answer my research questions. So I plan on spending Monday and maybe Tuesday (the remainder of 2013) writing that section.
After writing the significant single-case findings, I plan to tie my grounded theory with at least two established models, one in the field of acculturation psychology and the other in the field of English language education. I'm trying to imagine a graphic organizer to represent how I plan to combine my grounded theory with these two models. For now, this imagined graphic organizer is too complicated and messy, although the main ideas seem clear. I need to create a graphic organizer that is clear, if not clearer than, the main ideas. I believe that writing out these combined theories and models (and representing the data graphically) will take me (close) to the target of 100 pages.
Once I have written the end of Chapter 4, then I will need to rewrite the introduction of Chapter 4 to better mirror the ending. I believe that this will definitely take me to 100 pages if I haven't already reached that.
Why is 100 pages my target? The model dissertation that I am following has a 95-page dissertation, and that dissertation is considered one of the longer dissertations in the recent history of my department. I believe in the philosophy of writing more pages for the first draft than than the anticipated final draft because it is easier to remove than to add. I had this same philosophy for writing Chapter 2, where I had 50 pages for the target for my first draft, then my co-chairs requested another section to be added, so I added 72 more pages for the second draft. And in the final draft I ended cutting out whole chunks of sections to reduce the page limit to 47. I hope that this pattern is not repeated for Chapter 4.
I am trying very hard to limit my writing so far in Chapter 4. It is difficult to constrain myself when making a point because I want to provide evidence, and it's difficult for me to judge whether I'm providing my readers with too much or too little evidence. I have purposely played with doing both at times to see where my co-chairs' preferences are. At this point, I have no idea if my impression of too much or too little evidence is the same as theirs. Reflecting upon the writing process so far, I feel as though I have practiced restraint for the most part. In some instances the restraint feels effective in others it feels like I might be giving off the impression that I don't have enough evidence when I do. That's one practical reason for chairs and dissertation committees, although I don't know how similar my dissertation committee is to a peer review panel of a research journal.
Anyway, the feeling today is satisfaction. I am glad I'm producing a substantial amount of pages and getting my ideas out on "paper." My organization is comprehensible but rough and I believe a second edit will provide a more coherent and cohesive presentation of my grounded theory.
Since Thanksgiving weekend, I have not had the opportunity to write Chapter 4 because I was either busy preparing or enjoying holiday events, visits to or from family and friends, or writing member checks for my participants. During my downtime in December, however, I was plotting and outlining Chapter 4 in my mind. I never got the chance to sit down and write any of it until last week.
My family and I have only been in Florida for 6 days and yet I have already written 55 pages of Chapter 4. Two of these 6 days don't count because one was the day of arrival and the other was Christmas day, so I really wrote 55 pages in 4 days. Today marks the point in which I completed writing the major components of my grounded theory, so I am quite satisfied now.
Looking over those rough 55 pages, there is plenty of room to flesh out my weaker arguments and transitions. I also have a lot of ideas of how to reorganize the content of those pages. I believe in my second edit of these pages, I would probably remove as much as or a little less than I would add.
My goal is to hit 100 pages before we leave Florida, and I'm making good progress on that. With the bulk of my argument already covered, I am worried less about quantity and worried more about the quality. With the 55 pages covering the biggest cross-case patterns, I anticipate the next 10-15 pages will cover the significant single-case findings that directly answer my research questions. So I plan on spending Monday and maybe Tuesday (the remainder of 2013) writing that section.
After writing the significant single-case findings, I plan to tie my grounded theory with at least two established models, one in the field of acculturation psychology and the other in the field of English language education. I'm trying to imagine a graphic organizer to represent how I plan to combine my grounded theory with these two models. For now, this imagined graphic organizer is too complicated and messy, although the main ideas seem clear. I need to create a graphic organizer that is clear, if not clearer than, the main ideas. I believe that writing out these combined theories and models (and representing the data graphically) will take me (close) to the target of 100 pages.
Once I have written the end of Chapter 4, then I will need to rewrite the introduction of Chapter 4 to better mirror the ending. I believe that this will definitely take me to 100 pages if I haven't already reached that.
Why is 100 pages my target? The model dissertation that I am following has a 95-page dissertation, and that dissertation is considered one of the longer dissertations in the recent history of my department. I believe in the philosophy of writing more pages for the first draft than than the anticipated final draft because it is easier to remove than to add. I had this same philosophy for writing Chapter 2, where I had 50 pages for the target for my first draft, then my co-chairs requested another section to be added, so I added 72 more pages for the second draft. And in the final draft I ended cutting out whole chunks of sections to reduce the page limit to 47. I hope that this pattern is not repeated for Chapter 4.
I am trying very hard to limit my writing so far in Chapter 4. It is difficult to constrain myself when making a point because I want to provide evidence, and it's difficult for me to judge whether I'm providing my readers with too much or too little evidence. I have purposely played with doing both at times to see where my co-chairs' preferences are. At this point, I have no idea if my impression of too much or too little evidence is the same as theirs. Reflecting upon the writing process so far, I feel as though I have practiced restraint for the most part. In some instances the restraint feels effective in others it feels like I might be giving off the impression that I don't have enough evidence when I do. That's one practical reason for chairs and dissertation committees, although I don't know how similar my dissertation committee is to a peer review panel of a research journal.
Anyway, the feeling today is satisfaction. I am glad I'm producing a substantial amount of pages and getting my ideas out on "paper." My organization is comprehensible but rough and I believe a second edit will provide a more coherent and cohesive presentation of my grounded theory.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Participant Summaries
This weekend I spent several hours writing individual summaries for each of my participants for two purposes: 1) to send to the respective participants for the purpose of member checking, and 2) to use in Chapter 4. This writing process amazed me by how little and how much I could write. Because these were summaries of the participants and not any theory, I tried my best to describe them without hypothesizing or forming a ground theory. In this sense, I wrote little in the way of my findings based on any previous conceptual models or theories.
However, I produced a total of about fifteen pages that could be inserted into Chapter 4. This is a bit alarming. These fifteen pages mostly serve as single-case analyses. There is no cross-case analysis, which is where most of the grounded theory is emerging. I fear that I leave this fifteen pages as they are, which I most likely will not, the scholarly reader may want me to get to the point.
Writing these fifteen pages or so of participant summaries show how I could have written small case studies on each. There were a few participants that seemed to have provided me enough data for a single case study, and there were a couple that did not. In this sense, the writing process has helped me reflect on how I succeeded and failed in the data collection process. For example, there was one participant who answered interview questions very succinctly. Even during the time of the interview, I was not satisfied with the quality of his answers, but I felt like I would be pestering him by asking him to elaborate on nearly every question. Even though I was able to get him to elaborate on a few key questions, this writing processes demonstrated that I should have been more aggressive. However, this may have jeopardized any rapport I had with him. Perhaps this is evidence of my newness to conducting qualitative interview. One of my principles as a researcher is to respect my participants so they feel like active contributors to the research process. I don't want them to feel like they are just regurgitating data for my benefit.
Another surprising element in this writing process is that I was able to identify at least three themes for each participant and describe them with bits of evidence from their blogs and interviews within a few pages. I was quite happy that I was able to do this for the purposes of publishing in a journal with very strict limitations on word count. However, I was a bit upset because I felt like that I could have written at least triple the amount of pages for most of the participants. If I had done this, the single-case study reports would be around fifty pages. That's fifty pages of description with little or no grounded theory and no cross-case analysis.
That reflection helped me to develop a strategy for tackling the monstrosity that can be Chapter 4. The most important point of Chapter 4 is to describe my grounded theory in the cross-case analysis clearly with enough support and evidence from the single-case analyses. I do not want to misdirect my report towards the unique themes that arose from each case. There are enough cross-case patterns that answer my research questions that I need to focus on report on those to make my own case.
Finally, writing a summary for each of my participants is another example of how often I revisit my participants data. Looking back at the minimum number of past visits after the first blog reading or interview, here is a rough count of the number of times I have read through the data for each participant:
As a side note, this posting may provide an example of how research can encourage obsessive-compulsive behavior. If I weren't doing research, this behavior would be truly upsetting to my family, my participants, and myself.
However, I produced a total of about fifteen pages that could be inserted into Chapter 4. This is a bit alarming. These fifteen pages mostly serve as single-case analyses. There is no cross-case analysis, which is where most of the grounded theory is emerging. I fear that I leave this fifteen pages as they are, which I most likely will not, the scholarly reader may want me to get to the point.
Writing these fifteen pages or so of participant summaries show how I could have written small case studies on each. There were a few participants that seemed to have provided me enough data for a single case study, and there were a couple that did not. In this sense, the writing process has helped me reflect on how I succeeded and failed in the data collection process. For example, there was one participant who answered interview questions very succinctly. Even during the time of the interview, I was not satisfied with the quality of his answers, but I felt like I would be pestering him by asking him to elaborate on nearly every question. Even though I was able to get him to elaborate on a few key questions, this writing processes demonstrated that I should have been more aggressive. However, this may have jeopardized any rapport I had with him. Perhaps this is evidence of my newness to conducting qualitative interview. One of my principles as a researcher is to respect my participants so they feel like active contributors to the research process. I don't want them to feel like they are just regurgitating data for my benefit.
Another surprising element in this writing process is that I was able to identify at least three themes for each participant and describe them with bits of evidence from their blogs and interviews within a few pages. I was quite happy that I was able to do this for the purposes of publishing in a journal with very strict limitations on word count. However, I was a bit upset because I felt like that I could have written at least triple the amount of pages for most of the participants. If I had done this, the single-case study reports would be around fifty pages. That's fifty pages of description with little or no grounded theory and no cross-case analysis.
That reflection helped me to develop a strategy for tackling the monstrosity that can be Chapter 4. The most important point of Chapter 4 is to describe my grounded theory in the cross-case analysis clearly with enough support and evidence from the single-case analyses. I do not want to misdirect my report towards the unique themes that arose from each case. There are enough cross-case patterns that answer my research questions that I need to focus on report on those to make my own case.
Finally, writing a summary for each of my participants is another example of how often I revisit my participants data. Looking back at the minimum number of past visits after the first blog reading or interview, here is a rough count of the number of times I have read through the data for each participant:
- Skimming the blog data to make sure the participant met the criteria
- Reading through the blog data after the participant consented for the interview
- Selecting relevant parts of the blog to bring in to parts of the interview
- Copying, pasting, and organizing the blog data onto MS Word documents
- Copying, pasting, and organizing the interview survey data onto MS Word documents
- Transcribing and organizing the online video conferencing interview data onto MS Word documents
- Reading through the first part of interview answers to identify areas to follow up on in the second stage
- Reading through the second stage of interview answers to identify areas to follow up on in the third stage
- Reading through the third stage of interview answers to identify areas to follow up in the closing
- Reading though all of the blog and interview data for the initial stage of coding
- Reorganizing all of the blog and interview data to prepare for the second stage of coding
- Reading through the reorganized and shortened blog and interview data to prepare for analysis
- Organizing the blog and interview data into major themes
- Reading through the blog and interview data now divided into themes instead of participants for cross-case analysis
- Reorganizing the data back to participants with the themes identified in order of strength
- Reading through the reorganized data to form the participant summaries
- Reading through the participant summaries to check if they made more sense to my participants than my dissertation committee for the purpose of member checking
- Preparing the same summaries for Chapter 4 with purpose of using them for reporting on a grounded theory
As a side note, this posting may provide an example of how research can encourage obsessive-compulsive behavior. If I weren't doing research, this behavior would be truly upsetting to my family, my participants, and myself.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Grounded in Grounded Theory
Today I have begun my cognitive transition from data analysis to reflecting upon my research methods, particularly while reading through Constructing Grounded Theory by Kathy Charmaz. The chapters that require my attention the most are Chapters 3-5. Chapter 3 is about coding in grounded theory practice, something which I believe I have completed. Chapter 4 is about memo-writing, which I believe I have been doing and continue to do. Chapter 5 is about theoretical sampling, saturation, and sorting, which I believe is my next step.
The purpose of this posting is to share my thought processes, in which I am making sure I did the best that I could in terms of coding, that I am writing memos as appropriate to myself and my project, and that I am ready for theoretical sampling, saturation, and sorting and maybe even bits of Chapter 6, reconstructing theory into grounded theory studies.
Coding: What have I done?
In September, I began initial coding through my 3000+ pages of data. The most obvious part of this coding was to identify the chunks of data that directly addressed my research questions, that indirectly addressed my research questions, and that did not address my research questions. I have previous blogged about this step before. An important point in Charmaz' book about this stage was to "move quickly through the data" (p.49). I did not want to get bogged down in this tome of data.
On the next page, Charmaz describes word-by-word and line-by-line coding, both of which I could do for my interview data but would last months if not years if I did so for the blog data. After I selected blog posts that directly and indirectly addressed my research questions, I was then able to do line-by-line and sometimes paragraph-by-paragraph coding. This coding process was different than my coding practice for two qualitative methods courses that I took because the data in those courses were limited to either a certain number of pages or a certain amount of time (for interviews). In those courses, 20 pages of data seemed daunting to most of us.
After my initial coding process, I shared the themes that emerged from the data with my dissertation committee co-chairs. They helped me to discern a common heuristic that unified most of the themes I identified. This heuristic, in term, helped initiate the second stage, which Charmaz called focused coding. I spent the last few weeks engaged in this focused coding, which was faster than I anticipated for a number of reasons:
The second type is theoretical coding, which I thought of because the guiding heuristic is very close to a theoretical model. I decided against invoking the theoretical model for theoretical coding as I wanted the data to emerge without a theory at first as I believe the codes already have a coherent relationships.
Memo-writing: What am I doing?
I have been writing memos ever since my pilot study data collection last year, before my research proposal was approved. The most significant writing times were at various stages of data collection and all throughout the data analysis phase. I discovered that my memo writing at the beginning of data collection revealed that I was too eager to find patterns. I believe I see evidence of my maturity to let the patterns emerge from the data instead of forcing it. I also found that I began to embrace the tenet of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) as I began to gather over a thousand pages of data.
Charmaz writes that there is no formal way or writing memos, and that it depends on the researcher's writing style, personality, and data. While reading through chapter 4, I found many of the techniques to be similar to those from my creative writing courses in how to best organize your thoughts. Although I prefer to be modest, I have discovered that this is one of my strengths. I know how to take notes and communicate effectively to myself.
My favorite bit of advice is to write memos as soon as possible. In one class, we practiced memo writing immediately after collecting data. I found that memo writing after analyzing a selected chunk of data to be more helpful. For data collection, my best memos were when I saw a pattern emerging after the midpoint of the data collection process. Like I wrote earlier, the first part of my data collection memos is most garbage for the study, although it reveals a lot about me.
Theoretical Sampling, Saturation, and Sorting: Am I doing this?
The first question in Chapter 5 that stands out is, "Can you clearly define your themes?" I can easily answer yes. The next concern is that I may not have enough data for these themes, which I do not. When I begin a cross-case analysis, each theme should have at least a full page of evidence; some may even have more than five pages.
Because I believe I have enough data for each category, I do not feel that I need to interview my participants more. However, I believe that a member check with each of my participants may prompt one or more of them to clarify my interpretation of the data.
Reading further in Chapter 6, I realize that, for some of my participants, I have clearly saturated the data because they have conclusions to the experiences I am investigating. Those participants who are still going through these experiences may have a change of perspective by the time of the member check, but I had to decide upon an arbitrary cut point in time or I would have a difficult time ending the project. Besides, I already have 3000+ pages of data, which seems like a good indicator of saturation.
It is clear to me that most theoretical sampling is done and that I have most likely saturated the data for each major category, but I have not physically sorted the categories yet. I have done this to some extent in my head, but that's not reliable enough. I need to write down and visualize theoretical sorting. Once this is done, then I seem to be ready for the next chapter in the textbook, "Reconstructing Theory in Grounded Theory Studies."
The first step is here is to make sure I have a consistent worldview when I use the word "theory" and apply it in my report. Reading through this section of Chapter 7, I am surprised to find myself more on the positivist end than the interpretive end of defining theory. Perhaps this is so because, in the larger scheme of things, I would prefer a mixed-methods approach to the study. Although I'm not measuring anything in this project, I hope to open the door for measuring variables if this study is compelling enough for further investigation.
In the next section of Chapter 7, Charmaz compares constructivist grounded theory to objectivist grounded theory, and I believe I share more the of constructivist's perspective, especially in that one participant's narrative differs slightly between interview data and blog data, mostly in tone. I am a bit surprised to discover that some withhold information from the interview that was revealed (earlier) in the blog.
Since I haven't developed my grounded theory yet, I will stop with a reflection on "Theorizing in Grounded Theory" on page 133. Charmaz shares how researchers view or define the theory of grounded theory:
The purpose of this posting is to share my thought processes, in which I am making sure I did the best that I could in terms of coding, that I am writing memos as appropriate to myself and my project, and that I am ready for theoretical sampling, saturation, and sorting and maybe even bits of Chapter 6, reconstructing theory into grounded theory studies.
Coding: What have I done?
In September, I began initial coding through my 3000+ pages of data. The most obvious part of this coding was to identify the chunks of data that directly addressed my research questions, that indirectly addressed my research questions, and that did not address my research questions. I have previous blogged about this step before. An important point in Charmaz' book about this stage was to "move quickly through the data" (p.49). I did not want to get bogged down in this tome of data.
On the next page, Charmaz describes word-by-word and line-by-line coding, both of which I could do for my interview data but would last months if not years if I did so for the blog data. After I selected blog posts that directly and indirectly addressed my research questions, I was then able to do line-by-line and sometimes paragraph-by-paragraph coding. This coding process was different than my coding practice for two qualitative methods courses that I took because the data in those courses were limited to either a certain number of pages or a certain amount of time (for interviews). In those courses, 20 pages of data seemed daunting to most of us.
After my initial coding process, I shared the themes that emerged from the data with my dissertation committee co-chairs. They helped me to discern a common heuristic that unified most of the themes I identified. This heuristic, in term, helped initiate the second stage, which Charmaz called focused coding. I spent the last few weeks engaged in this focused coding, which was faster than I anticipated for a number of reasons:
- I had already gone through the data twice, so I was much more familiar with the participants and their data. I was getting a better feel for the flow of the blog and interview data.
- The initial codes were still in place, so I could easily look for them and determine how to focus on them.
- I did most of the focused coding over Thanksgiving break, in which I had the most free time since I started my full-time job. I was able to completely immerse myself in the data.
The second type is theoretical coding, which I thought of because the guiding heuristic is very close to a theoretical model. I decided against invoking the theoretical model for theoretical coding as I wanted the data to emerge without a theory at first as I believe the codes already have a coherent relationships.
Memo-writing: What am I doing?
I have been writing memos ever since my pilot study data collection last year, before my research proposal was approved. The most significant writing times were at various stages of data collection and all throughout the data analysis phase. I discovered that my memo writing at the beginning of data collection revealed that I was too eager to find patterns. I believe I see evidence of my maturity to let the patterns emerge from the data instead of forcing it. I also found that I began to embrace the tenet of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) as I began to gather over a thousand pages of data.
Charmaz writes that there is no formal way or writing memos, and that it depends on the researcher's writing style, personality, and data. While reading through chapter 4, I found many of the techniques to be similar to those from my creative writing courses in how to best organize your thoughts. Although I prefer to be modest, I have discovered that this is one of my strengths. I know how to take notes and communicate effectively to myself.
My favorite bit of advice is to write memos as soon as possible. In one class, we practiced memo writing immediately after collecting data. I found that memo writing after analyzing a selected chunk of data to be more helpful. For data collection, my best memos were when I saw a pattern emerging after the midpoint of the data collection process. Like I wrote earlier, the first part of my data collection memos is most garbage for the study, although it reveals a lot about me.
Theoretical Sampling, Saturation, and Sorting: Am I doing this?
The first question in Chapter 5 that stands out is, "Can you clearly define your themes?" I can easily answer yes. The next concern is that I may not have enough data for these themes, which I do not. When I begin a cross-case analysis, each theme should have at least a full page of evidence; some may even have more than five pages.
Because I believe I have enough data for each category, I do not feel that I need to interview my participants more. However, I believe that a member check with each of my participants may prompt one or more of them to clarify my interpretation of the data.
Reading further in Chapter 6, I realize that, for some of my participants, I have clearly saturated the data because they have conclusions to the experiences I am investigating. Those participants who are still going through these experiences may have a change of perspective by the time of the member check, but I had to decide upon an arbitrary cut point in time or I would have a difficult time ending the project. Besides, I already have 3000+ pages of data, which seems like a good indicator of saturation.
It is clear to me that most theoretical sampling is done and that I have most likely saturated the data for each major category, but I have not physically sorted the categories yet. I have done this to some extent in my head, but that's not reliable enough. I need to write down and visualize theoretical sorting. Once this is done, then I seem to be ready for the next chapter in the textbook, "Reconstructing Theory in Grounded Theory Studies."
The first step is here is to make sure I have a consistent worldview when I use the word "theory" and apply it in my report. Reading through this section of Chapter 7, I am surprised to find myself more on the positivist end than the interpretive end of defining theory. Perhaps this is so because, in the larger scheme of things, I would prefer a mixed-methods approach to the study. Although I'm not measuring anything in this project, I hope to open the door for measuring variables if this study is compelling enough for further investigation.
In the next section of Chapter 7, Charmaz compares constructivist grounded theory to objectivist grounded theory, and I believe I share more the of constructivist's perspective, especially in that one participant's narrative differs slightly between interview data and blog data, mostly in tone. I am a bit surprised to discover that some withhold information from the interview that was revealed (earlier) in the blog.
Since I haven't developed my grounded theory yet, I will stop with a reflection on "Theorizing in Grounded Theory" on page 133. Charmaz shares how researchers view or define the theory of grounded theory:
- An empirical generalization - I think I may go down this path. To what extent, I don't know.
- A category - I believe I created a category (a group of English language teachers or sojourners) before grounded theory, but I'll need to investigate this category with the my theory.
- A predisposition - This is similar to "an empirical generalization," and I'm unsure at this point which of the two is stronger.
- An explication of a process - This was my intention for the project, but I believe my data may only reveal a partial explication
- A relationship between variables - There is a good possibility for my grounded theory to do this.
- An explanation - Of course my grounded theory will explain something. It will most likely be a partial explanation. To declare a whole explanation is impossible for an exploratory study like mine.
- An abstract understanding - I hope not. With so much data, I believe I can analyze certain categories more deeply for a grounded theory that is an abstract understanding.
- A description - I hope this is the by-product of my grounded theory. I want to shed more light on the experiences of my target population.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Single-Case Data Analysis Completed
Although my data analysis is not completed, I believe I have gone deep enough analyzing the interview and blog data for each of my participants. Consistent patterns have emerged enough that I am ready to begin forming a grounded theory. This is when I take all the pieces I have found and arranging them into patterns.
Because the most complex pattern in my data is about social relationships, I will use the data to create graphic organizers (undecided on which type at this time) to visualize the social relationships and how they help answer and address my research questions. I believe I have some firm grounding based in the literature I reviewed, most notably one model that address the host culture complex. I believe I can connect this model with the graphic organizers I will be creating for each of my participants. After I can visualize the social relationships in connection to my research questions and one or more models and theories for each of my participants, then I believe I can begin a cross-case analysis.
This morning I completed this last stage of data analysis for my "last" participant. I consider her the last one only because she was the last participant I interviewed. I wrote in my memos that this analysis affected me more than the other in terms of questioning my research methods. Since this just happened, I'm unsure if I should include this part of self-reflection and critical analysis elsewhere than in my memos. I believe this critical analysis was raised in at least one of my works cited in the literature review, however it is not related to my research questions directly. It raises more philosophical concerns for analyzing qualitative data, making me more aware of my own biases than previously, or at least in the recent past. I am thankful that this last exercise in data analysis has raised this awareness before I write about my findings.
I am now at the point where I need to review the key chapters and sections of my grounded theory texts to make sure I'm ready for the next phase, to better identify the next phase, and to better equip me with the mindset and vocabulary to discuss the next analytical process.
Because the most complex pattern in my data is about social relationships, I will use the data to create graphic organizers (undecided on which type at this time) to visualize the social relationships and how they help answer and address my research questions. I believe I have some firm grounding based in the literature I reviewed, most notably one model that address the host culture complex. I believe I can connect this model with the graphic organizers I will be creating for each of my participants. After I can visualize the social relationships in connection to my research questions and one or more models and theories for each of my participants, then I believe I can begin a cross-case analysis.
This morning I completed this last stage of data analysis for my "last" participant. I consider her the last one only because she was the last participant I interviewed. I wrote in my memos that this analysis affected me more than the other in terms of questioning my research methods. Since this just happened, I'm unsure if I should include this part of self-reflection and critical analysis elsewhere than in my memos. I believe this critical analysis was raised in at least one of my works cited in the literature review, however it is not related to my research questions directly. It raises more philosophical concerns for analyzing qualitative data, making me more aware of my own biases than previously, or at least in the recent past. I am thankful that this last exercise in data analysis has raised this awareness before I write about my findings.
I am now at the point where I need to review the key chapters and sections of my grounded theory texts to make sure I'm ready for the next phase, to better identify the next phase, and to better equip me with the mindset and vocabulary to discuss the next analytical process.
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