Group Blogging.  I think this is the perfect time to begin your blog.  You can develop a class blog and comment to class members about your thoughts on the readings. The first week could address such questions as: how will I ever learn to do this? What exactly is qualitative research? What is important to learn? You might look at Kate’s Qualitative Research Blog that she did as part of her class at The University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://katec.wordpress.com/ The blogroll lists the class members. This blog is hosted by wordpress. However, other alternatives should be available to you. I particularly like this group blog because you can interact with your class members and share what you learn.

Purpose: Develop ideas about how to use materials from the past to tell a story. You will be exploring the research question—My life as a mother, teacher, spouse, secretary, soldier, or some other role.

Activity: Collect artifacts from your own past. To the extent possible, try to get a variety of material. Obtain photographs including family members. Obtain letters or other written documents to or from a family member. Obtain documents reflecting something about your past life (e.g. award, diploma, report card). Obtain something from the Internet that connects you to your past. Transfer the documents to a computer file. Prepare a brief power point presentation telling the story of your life as an X via the artifacts you have collected. Share with class members via the computer.

Evaluation: To what extent do you feel you successfully interwove your artifacts into a meaningful story?

One of the goals of qualitative research is to study individuals in their natural settings. At this point in your reading, you are just getting to appreciate this idea. But you need practice in doing this. If you look at Table 3.1 (p. 44) you will see a column identifying places where people congregate.

Purpose: To become comfortable with studying people in their natural situations.

Activity: Select one of the places identified in Table 3.1. If possible, choose a place where you can gain access without having to seek permission to gather data.  Decide to observe groups of people in a setting.  Initially you just want to familiarize yourself with how to do an observation. Once you have identified the place, spend about 30 minutes looking and listening. Decide what you think is important and what you should look at.  Usually people pay attention to the physical surroundings as well as those individuals interacting.

Evaluation: Decide to what extent you need to clarify in your own mind what to look for, or at, and how to decide what it is that is important. I suspect you will want to discuss these issues with other class members either on your blog or in person.

Purpose: Learn about the IRB at your institution and/or at a school system

Activity: Obtain written guidelines published by your institutions or from a local school system. Review them to determine to what extent they might support or impede your goal of conducting qualitative research.  If you look at guidelines for a school system, learn what steps you need to follow to conduct research within the system.

Evaluation: Consult with your instructor and other class members how you should present your own research for institutional approval.

Purpose: To explore one of the approaches in greater depth.

Activity: For this exercise, I want you to select at least one research article from one of the two free online qualitative journals—either FQS Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs  or The Qualitative Report Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/ —that discusses the approach you decided to study. Determine what new ideas you have gained or what ideas were clarified for you in this article. Alternatively, if the article makes your thinking muddier, be prepared to think about why. If possible, discuss in class.

Evaluation: To what extent do you feel you have grasped the essence of a particular approach? What else can you do to learn more about the approach?

I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to practice.  You need to practice conducting interviews with adults and children. You need to practice training your ears and eyes to look at things more completely and to listen for detail and nuance.  I am especially fond of working in groups of three for interviewing. One can interview, a second can be interviewed, and the third can watch.  This is a follow-up to the activity I recommend in the book. 

Purpose: To train yourself to listen and look more closely. To maintain an open mind about what you hear and what it might mean. Your goal is to try to learn something about the class member that you did not know.

Activity: Find two other class members.  Find a location outside of class. Each of you will take each of the three roles—interviewing, being interviewed, and observing.  Before you begin the interview, write down at least 5 questions that you think you might ask. Try to have at least three of the questions be of such a nature that they cannot be answered as yes or no or with a fact.  Here are some examples. What can you tell me about yourself? How can you compare yourself to other members of your family?  In what ways do you differ from your friends? How are you like your friends?

Evaluation: Each of you should explore your ability to listen to what the other person says, to follow up on what they say, and to provide ample time for thought.

Individual Blogging. Since this chapter is about the self, I have chosen individual activities. Nicky shares her journey on the road to a PhD. You can access her blog at http://www.nickyphd.blogspot.com/. While it is not specifically about qualitative research, it is about the journey she is on.

Purpose: Conveying the message through a literature review. Locating the related literature is relatively easy; integrating it and sending a message is much more difficult.

Activity: Select a topic of mutual interesting to your group. Have each member   locate 2-3 pieces of research on the topic. Have each person write a one-paragraph summary of the located research. Combine all the located research. This is the easy part. Now take the research studies everyone found and weave them together to convey to the audience the key ideas you want to express.  Write the review in no more than two pages. By keeping the length of what you write short, you are forced to confront the central components of the research rather than get bogged down in detail. Compare the writing from each group member.

Evaluation: To what extent are individuals able to extract and convey the central elements of the research? How do you avoid getting bogged down in detail? How do you avoid becoming a laundry list of research rather than an integrated whole?

Purpose:  To explore alternative forms of interviewing—either via e-mail or Skype

Activity: Take the opportunity to practice interviewing via the Internet.  Here you will need to enlist the help of a friend or relative. Ask them if they are willing to participate with you in an e-mail interview.  You will need to decide on a topic to discuss.  I would make it something quite general. You might explore their career and why they chose to get into it, what they think about it, etc.  You will need to pay particular attention to following up your questions based on the responses they provide.  Technical aspects of connectivity, etc. might need to be considered.

Evaluation: You can self evaluate the extent to which you feel comfortable talking to someone who is not in the same room as you are.

Purpose: To train your eye to see the details that are either evident or obtuse.

Activity:  Plan a visit to a local art museum. This activity I will describe uses The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where I have been a docent for many years. Of course, you can use any art museum in your location. 

Schedule at least a two-hour block of time. Identify two paintings that hang in the museum. If possible, select those paintings that have a place to sit in front of them. If possible, select a realistic, traditional painting and an abstract, contemporary painting. With other class members, sit in front of the first painting. Do not say anything for at least 10 minutes.  Write down in your notebook everything you see in the painting. Take at least 5 minutes for this. Then talk among yourselves. Then move to the other painting. Do the same steps. Then compare the differences between the traditional and contemporary paintings. 

I selected two paintings.  Last of the Buffalo by Albert Bierstadt painted in 1888 Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.corcoran.org/collection/highlights_main_results.asp?ID=37 depicts an imagined scene. While Bierstadt traveled out west three different times, this painting was made in his New York studio. It is “read” by many as being an actual event; in fact, almost all of the buffalo were gone by the time it was painted. Many viewers will see different things in the painting and interpret the meaning in different ways. This is just what will happen when you do this exercise with other class members.  Our second painting is Ellsworth Kelly’s Yellow with Red Triangle painted in 1973. Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.corcoran.org/collection/highlights_main_results.asp?ID=5 . Unless you are familiar with the background, it is impossible to know that Kelly meant for this to be seen as a house as viewed from his dormer window.

These observational activities are much more fun and challenging if you do them with other class members; of course, you could do them alone. I actually spent three hours in front of Gene Davis’ Jasmine Jumper, painted in 1966 Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.artnet.com/usernet/awc/awc_workdetail.asp?aid=424172436&gid=424172436&cid=75268&wid=424195413&page=7. It is difficult to believe that there is so much to see in these works of art.

Evaluation:  From your group discussion, ideas will emerge that relate to how what you see is affected by who you are and what you know and what prior experience. It can also be influenced by what others have said (related research, for instance).

Purpose: To explore data analysis via computer software

Activity: In this activity, I suggest you visit the website for NVivo.  Take some time to do the tutorial. Here you will learn the basic idea of what the software has to offer. Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx

Evaluation: Make a preliminary judgment about the extent to which you will be comfortable using this kind of software.  Also determine availability and costs.

It is critical that you put forth your own research in ways that will reach your audience. So many have written about how boring it is to read research studies, especially those that present numerous tables of data. But I think it is just as boring to read quote after quote from your participants without any commentary or interpretation by the researcher. How do you get around this dilemma?  Knowles and Cole, in their SAGE 2008 edited book Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research offer some interesting ideas.  They address what they call Qualities of Goodness. They are interested both in how arts inform the research process and the research representation. Here you are concerned with the research presentation. They suggest you look at intentionality, researcher presence, methodological commitment, aesthetic and holistic qualities and communicability. Specifically I want you to think about communication.

Purpose: To explore communicating in alternative forms.

Activity: Select a journal article of interest. Make sure that the article represents qualitative research. Your task is to rewrite the article to make it more interesting. You may choose either to rewrite the article either as a play or poem or to rewrite the article using a language and style that engages the audience.

Evaluation: Discuss the rewrites as a group. To what extent are you successful in communicating in a new way?

Bowen shares lessons he learned in doing a qualitative research dissertation. He comments on seven lessons.  His dissertation used a grounded theory methodology. Since this is the most traditional of all approaches, I was not surprised to read that he is concerned with such issues as trustworthiness and triangulation. As you embark on becoming a qualitative researcher, it is important to remember that not all approaches to qualitative research take this stance. You need to think through your own position on the various approaches and decide what works best for you. Retrieved February 12, 2009 at http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR10-2/bowen.pdf

Purpose: Here is an activity that might help you as you think about your own criteria for evaluating research.

Activity: Select another discipline. Let’s say you are interested in judging restaurants. Your first task should be to decide what criteria to use. Some restaurant critics look at ambiance, quality of food, and price. Others consider noise level and attention to organic food. Others might look at location and friendliness to children. Once you decide on the criteria, the next step is to eat in the restaurant—usually a few times.  Perhaps you want to take a few friends with you.  Now you are in a better position to judge.  Pick the criteria and rate the restaurant on some kind of a scale—say 1 to 4 forks with 1 being the best.  I could continue, but I hope you get the idea. Restaurants need to be rated in terms of what they are trying to do—fine dining, family friendly, or type of food.  There is not a set of agreed upon criteria to decide the best restaurant—best in terms of what. 

s: So it is with qualitative research.  There is no agreed upon set of criteria.  While you can look to the experts, they do not all agree.

Purpose: Exploring social networks

Activity: Facebook has become incredibly popular during 2008. No doubt many of you are on it. Now that you have studied so much about qualitative research, I want you to try to develop your own strategy for using the material on Facebook. The major issues to consider are what aspects of this subculture do you want to study and in what ways privacy is invaded.

Evaluation: Here you will need to develop your own criteria to decide whether this source is a suitable venue for studying online subcultures.