Research findings

On Tuesday, we again touched on very important points in relation to representations of findings in qualitative research. I am personally a visual learner, therefore I like to include visual elements to my study such as maps, diagrams, drawings or cartoons. The type of representations of findings might be changed depending on  research area, research institution and research approach. For instance,  last year, for an international research, I includes some photos as a part of the findings. However, using photos for a  research exploring a curriculum theory is quite hard. Considering IU settings, areas like  literacy and art education are more flexible in terms of using various representations of  findings. In sum, personal preferences of researchers, the norms of research institution, the type of resercah, the area in which research conducted, context of research, and the sensitivity of data  are among the factors that might affect selection of alternative representations.

readings

The readings of this week elaborate the role of digital tools in supporting collaborative research. In our previous class sessions, we have discussed that technological tools help researchers to engage in reflective conversation, to edit projects collaboratively, and to share resources. Also the guest speakers talked about the contribution of teamwork in qualitative research when they use CAQDAS packages like Atlas.ti or Nvivo.  In particular, digital tools are very functional and helpful in coding process such as team members are able to compare the codes they assigned the texts. Coding a study with teamwork seems to me increasing the validity of research. More than one people check the study, it is a kind of triangulation.

Paulus' s presentation

On Tuesday, we found a chance to listen Trena Paulus, one of the authors of the book we use. I felt how we are lucky in terms of having online conversation with her. Her statements during conversation refreshed our learnings including what we have read in the Digital Tools for Qualitative Research and what we have discussed in the class. To give examples, she talked about the ways CAQDAS packages offer to help researchers such as transparency, collaboration,  being close to data and so on. Additionally, she clarified  very important points that might be concerns for us like  the tension around IRB process.

I am a late adopter of technology as Dr. Paulus. Before I had the hesitation in using CAQDAS packages,  but now I am very convinced that digital tools facilitate the task of researchers. However, my concern is now to find the appropriate digital tool as Mac user. It seems both Nvivo and Atlas.ti work well with PC. I do not  know why Mac stays behind than PC at this point.

Website

I found " learning qualitative data analysis" website very useful and functional in terms of both introducing  methods and providing resources for each research method. In particular, the website could be very beneficial for novice researchers to making a comparison among methodologies and to find the appropriate one. As a new researcher, I am still thinking about research method for my dissertation. Grounded theory or mixed methodology might be suitable for my topic, but I need more time to explore them.

Just Questions

On Tuesday, Dr. Contreas  joined to our session and introduced   Atlas.ti. Because of Atlas.ti is a very big package, he talked about basic functions of Atlas.ti researchers might use. Atlas.ti might serves as “ textual laboratory” in which researchers can do various tasks such as annotations, create concept maps, analyze both qualitative and quantitative data.It seems like Atlas.ti is very supportive in analyzing all types of qualitative data including text, recordings, video, memos, pictures and etc. The nice thing is researchers can open four different types of data and work on them simultaneously. That means Atlas.ti allows more interaction between researchers and their data. However, it is a huge package and requires time to learn and use all functions of Atlas.ti. Therefore, I  particularly want to explore creating code mapping in Atlas.ti.

In the second part of the class, we had discussions in the small groups. One of the issue that stood out to me is the language of research studies.  We talked about how language is important to access public and target populations. We also discussed who our audiences might be and how we should call them. Should we use academic language in our research studies or traditional language? Should we need to access any individual in the society? Should our research address to people in academia?

Dedoose

On Tuesday, we were allowed to see some aspects of Dedoose. In comparison to Nvivo, Dedoose seems to me easier to follow the research process. Also one of the advantages of Dedoose is that it is free and suitable for interactional research and works well with Mac. 

After Tuesday class, I start to think about using Dedoose my dissertation. In the dissertation, I am planning to conduct survey and interviews. Based on the statements of Lieber, survey monkey or some other survey tools might be used within Dedoose, and it is very good ( Nvivo is also fine to analyze survey result, however, it works well with PC than Mac) . Therefore Dedoose would be a good choice for my research approach. Now, I am waiting to figure out Atlas.ti, then I will decide on a CAQDAS package.

Textual Laboratory

I am still in quest for finding the appropriate technological tool for my own research. Last week, I found a chance to explore some aspects of Nvivo, and this week I will be introduced to Atlas.ti. On one hand, learning technological tools for qualitative research requires time, effort and energy, however on the other hand through technological research tools researchers spend less time, energy and put less effort to finish their study.  CAQDAS tools facilitate the task of researchers helping them to organize their research process. Building upon (2008) ideas, Paulus et.al.  note that “ One of the most obvious benefits of using software is that can serve as the ‘ textual laboratory’ “ ( p. 121). I love this statement and am quite agree with them.

CAQDAS packages provide a site in which researchers are able to put all related research materials together including annotated articles, written notes, recordings, videos, conceptual map and so on. When we open the package, we find the research materials  in one place and can easily make connection among them. The other important issue CAQDAS offer is that researchers can easily follow their research process, so that they will keep them on track to finish the research project.  Therefore, I believe that it is worth spending time to learn CAQDAS packages.

The Coding process& theoretical framework

On Tuesday, we listened the presentation of Dr. Lochmiller about using Nvivo in the qualitative research. He introduced some features of the Nvivo, and provided examples how he used Nvivo during the coding process. In addition to Dr. Lochmiller, in the small group discussion, Rhonda shared her experiences and showed us how she codes the interview transcripts using Nvivo. Then, we discussed to what extent the theoretical framework influence the data analysis process, in particular coding.

In quantitative research, researchers are testing their hypothesis, in similar way in qualitative research researchers are testing the theory, and make statements about whether their current study support the selected theory. In this sense, theoretical framework has a great influence on the way we use for coding. For instance, in my own study, I initially coded the interview data based on the theoretical framework. In the second step, I created new codes regarding the new themes occurred in the study which were not part of the theory. In sum, the theories such as the identity construction theory provide an initial map including main coding categories for researchers to analyze their data.  Nvivo might help researchers to realize the place of main themes and subthemes in the transcript. In this way, researchers can easily apply codes to data including transcript from an interview or a video. Also both from Dr. Lochmiller and Rhonda’s experiences, I made a sense that Nvivo works really well if the research study is conducted by co-researchers.

Fidelity of Qualitative Data

Among the readings for this week, the arguments of Silver and Patasnick (2011) in relation to the fidelity of qualitative data draw my interest. The authors touch a very important at the same time very sensitive issue in qualitative research. Their discussions take me back to our first class meetings in which we discussed the importance of the reflection in the qualitative research. At that time, we came to agreement that reflection makes the qualitative research more transparent both for researchers and readers; consequently increases the trustworthiness of the study. In particular, reflection serves as means that making the qualitative study more perceptible and more visible for readers.

From Silver and Patasnick discussions, in particular from this statement “The relative lack of detailed documentation about analytic and technical procedures or critiques of software utility represents both an important gap in the literature and a failure to be transparent and reflexive” ( p.5) I have understood that researchers should keep their reflective stances when they use certain software programs. In relation to reflectivity, researchers who use CAQADAS first should gain awareness about their rationales why they use certain software programs and how they analyze the data using those programs. Also researchers should be knowledgeable about the features software programs and the dimensions of their data . In this way they can make sense whether digital tools they selected  are suitable to use for their own research. For instance, as Silver and Patasnick reveal, video is a multidimensional and complex data, so producing an analyzable data from that video requires more process and will be challenging. At this point, researchers should find the appropriate software programs and research approaches that allow them to analyze the data without losing the quality of original data.