Where I stand today....

Dear members of Qualitatively Speaking, Okay, so in my self reflection, one of my goals was to better use the blog as a tool to reflect on my growth as a researcher. In an attempt to do so, I decided I would post the answer to the final two questions on the mid-term self assessment on the blog. I think that the answers to these questiosn will change greatly as the semester nears the end and we have all had the experience of completing our mini-inquiry project. I would love to get your feeback and thoughts on my repsonses and to see where you are all at, too. :) Christy How can I use qualitative approaches to uncover answers to important questions? Qualitative research allows me to uncover answers to important questions in a way in which my personal experience, background, philosophies, etc. can be used as a lens to interpret data. I believe that qualitative allows for this type of interpretation and discourse in a way in which quantitative does not; however, I am not able to clearly articulate this point at this time. Who am I as a reseracher? I am still struggling to answer this question. Perhaps because I do not yet see myself as a researcher rather a researcher in progress. However, maybe that is what all researchers are? Researchers in progress because I would imagine that being engaged in the process of inquiry forces one to continuosly involve and grow. Right now, I am keenly aware that I, as a researcher, postion myself as an advocate of students with learning disabilities. I feel it is important, when possible, to include the voice or lens of the participant whenever possible so as not to have my lens or view dominate. For instance, in my case study, I plan to interview the teacher after taking field notes to clarify. I supsect that this will be a very useful and meaningful activity in addtion to serving as a source of data triangulation. Note: I just noticed an interesting phenomenon. I typed the answers to these questions in word and uploaded to drop box. I then decided to publish this on the blog. However, I am not able to figure out how to cut and copy text from word into the text field and so I ended up looking back at the original word document and then answering the questions again. This time, the answers to my questions were more thorough, reflective, and quite frankly better written! I can't wait to see how these answers change at the end of the sememster! :) Disclaimer: Since I am challenged in terms of knowing how to upload from Word, there maybe typos in this post. I apologize!

Apologies

Members of the Qualitatively Speaking Think Tank,

I apologize. For some reason, when I copy my post, it appears to be formatted with indented paragraphs. However, after several attempts to fix this issue by reposting, I am not able to have that format appear on the published post, even when I have indented in the draft. I hope that this does not interfere witht the "ease" of your reading or of my thoughts being conveyed clearly.

Best,

Christy

A fool for six minutes?

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says "One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever". Since the duration of my interview was six minutes, should I focus on how many mistakes or how foolish I might have felt interviewing my friend or the valuable information and insight that was gained from those six minutes of questioning? :)
After conducting my practice interview for the class assignment, several things struck me. To start, I have been completely understimating both the complexity of the process and the great source of information that an interview can be as a way to develop areas to research! Second, it was extremely difficult for me to interview a teacher at my school, due in large part to my crazy schedule of responsibilities at the school, and demads that were occuring at the time of this assignment (i.e. report cards, writing folders being submitted to coordinators, etc). Therefore, I interviewed a friend of mine who works in a local public school disrtict and the elementary school she works at is a designated "school of excellence". We conducted the interview over the phone via skype and I recorded it. I am not exactly sure that this is the best technique; however, I did gather some very interesting and helpful information from her.
What I noticed about myself as the interviewer is the role that my tone plays in gathering information. Since this was an interview with a friend, I had a friendlier tone that I might have had with a teacher at my school . This in fact, was a good thing in the case of this assignment. The teacher that I interviewed was very candid about sharing her frustration with the lack of professional development she is receiving due to budget cuts at her school. Listening to the tape, where her first repsonse starts with "To be honest with you....", makes me think that she might not have answered the questions the same way if she were being interviewed by someone else at her school. This will be a VERY important factor for me to consider as I conduct the interview as a part of my case study. The teacher I will be interviewing will be a member of my school faculty. I will want to make sure that I keep this friendly tone.
Another important area that strikes me as I reflect on this experience is the important role of the interivew protocol. As we developed our questions, we as a think tank learned the important distinction between research questions and interview questions, and the need to, as we drill into our students' heads when teaching them to write, consider your audience. We chose to ask four -five more open ended questions and to then analyze the transcript and code the data. With the questions that we devised, and in a six minute interview, several themes emerged, and tons of possibilities for future areas to research in professinal development became clear. These will be discussed in class as we meet to analzye our transcripts collectively.
Finally, my ability to ask good "probes" to clarify language in the question or to clarify the intended meaning of the teacher was definitely necessary. This became apparent to me, alebeit subconsciously, as the interview progressed. I think that too many times, answers are left for interperation and if the researchers is not cognizant of this fact and attempting to obtain clarity in terms of the subjects intended meaning, it would be easy for this meaning to be somehow altered or misinterpreted. It is, however, a fine line between a good probe and one that leads the interview. To me, the development of this skill seems part art, part science, and part experience.
In the end, it was more than worthwile for me to be "a fool for six minutes". Not only did this interview generate important areas to be investigaged further, but the experience of conducting an interview will help me tremendously as I develop the interview protocol for the particpant in my case study. Stay tuned......



Christy

Taping Yourself Interviewing is a Real Eye-Opener

As I sit here reading the transcript of my unstructured teacher interview, I am appalled at what a terrible interviewer I am! On Tuesday, I sat down with the short list of open-ended questions I had worked with my think tank group to come up with, and had a half-hour conversation with a reading teacher in my district. I thought this assignment was a no-brainer, because, after all, during my banking career, I “interviewed” lots and lots of important people in the finance department of major corporations.

Looking at the transcript, I realize that I only asked three of the four questions, and I asked one of them after it was already answered. I left out the most important one: “Why do you feel that way?” My transcript is riddled with questions that are too closed. For example, instead of asking, “Is it expected that the [classroom] teachers will take over part of that,” referring to Tier 2 RtI activities, I should have asked a more open-ended question, like “What part will the classroom teachers play,” instead of mine, which could have elicited a yes-or-no response.

Was I always this bad at it, or have I just lost my touch? Maybe part of my problem is that, with my banking clients, I would ask one or two questions, then let them guide me to where the conversation should go. I realized that this strategy won’t work if I have an agenda, a list of questions I need answered. I wish I had the opportunity to tape myself years ago, and figure out if I had really gotten what I wanted out of my experiences with my clients; had I led them too much to get the information I wouldn’t have thought to ask for? And did I stray too far from my own agenda, forget to come back around and leave without accomplishing my purpose? Did I ask questions that were already answered – I imagine that leaves an interviewee frustrated, feeling like you weren’t listening. I’ll be interested to hear about my classmates’ experiences with this assignment.

"All I Really Need to Know I Learned in...Interviewing Practice"...Well at least a lot of what I will need to know...

I completed my interviewing assignment today with one of the teachers at my school, which was what my blog group had decided to do for this task.  I felt like it made sense to do this as each of us spends our days working full-time at schools.  For me, it was not difficult to find a teacher willing to be interviewed.  In my job as coach, I have developed some good relationships with some of the teachers at my school and an actual interview done with them is not all that different from the work I do with them on a regular basis.  My issue however was with timing and scheduling.  While I can relatively set my own schedule on a daily basis as needed, classroom teachers cannot and the teacher I wanted to interview was only available for a short time this morning during our "extended day" period but I feel like the short time that was open worked for what I needed.

I feel like the semi-structured interview went well and you will all hear about the specifics of it in class.  What I would like to write about here is how it felt to do the interview.  It felt a bit awkward in that I really made an effort, more than usual for sure, to not talk, interject, etc.  I wanted to just be an active listener, be on the look-out as it were for key words/phrases to record to use for later follow-up and probes.  It was not easy in that I wanted to share in the conversation and with what this teacher was saying.  But I did not because I did not want to "muddy" the water if you will and unnecessarily influence my interviewee.  Another issue was location.  I conducted the interview in my office and of course, staff members came by and tried not to interrupt but did in a way, not to mention the slew of morning announcements that definitely interrupted.  From this I learned that I will need to do my research interviews in a spot where there will not be any interruptions and where I and my interviewee can hear one another easily and clearly.

In the end, forgetting about location, I think that I did okay with my relative silence and occasional nods.  I felt good about maintaining eye contact, showing interest, and making my interviewee feel comfortable in the process.  I think that these actions will go a long way in making sure that my mini-inquiry project interviews are successful and worthwhile.  This was definitely a good practice exercise to help to prepare me for the work to come.  Now, I just need that IRB approval...  : )

It is hard to keep your mouth shut

Interviewing pointed out my I's especially my I can talk to anyone I, but then I realized I had to add an I can talk about anything I as I realized just how difficult it is to give over the floor to the interviewee. It is very easy to see how one's biases and one's interest in getting the information one wants that will support the research can get in the way if not checked, or in my case, handcuffed. I realized how difficult it really is to come up with big, broad questions that will allow the interviewee to speak what is on their minds without interrupting, not out of rudeness, but because it is very tempting to step in and ask questions that will lead the person along the path you want. It certainly is not the road not taken. Frost made the choice and stayed there even if he knew he was not ever going to return to the other path. It is very easy to want to act as a road guide and lead the interviewee down the well trod path. I did notice though that the benefit of a well designed broad question can elicit good information. In fact, I noticed that many of the questions I would have asked if my questions were smaller and more direct were answered through allowing the interviewee to speak. What was more difficult was to think of good questions to keep the conversation going when talking stopped. How do you get a person to continue talking without guiding and giving them too much information. I solved this problem by going back to my notes, repeating what the person said, and then asked them to tell me more. For example, our question was How do you feel about PD. When the conversation stopped, rather than asking a pointed question to get more information on a topic I wanted to hear, I simply said, "So you mentioned there was a gap between district driven pd and teacher driven pd" Now, as a teacher, I agreed with that statement, and it would have been easy to say "I agree and why do you think so? But this would have been subjective and leading because the interviewee now would have known my opinion and perhaps continue with an answer to please me. Instead, I simply said, Tell me more about that.

Interviewing was more difficult that imagined. I wanted the conversation to last for about 30 minutes, it lasted 20 and I found it difficult to think of questions that would push the interview longer. I am sure the interviewee could have said more, but as a beginning qualitative researcher, I did not feel I had the skills to facilitate more information in an easy flow. That will have to develop. Perhaps, I will now be able to better tailor my approach in order to fine tune the interviews I will have to conduct with my study. I wonder if anyone else experienced this. Let me know.

Finding Interviewees is Harder Than You Think....

Since class last Monday evening, I have been trying to secure a participant for our think tank's assignment to "Create an Interview Protocol." I thought this would be easy, since we chose, as our topic, interviewing a fellow teacher about their impressions of professional development in our school district. I spend my working days surrounded by other teachers, so I started my search by casually asking other teachers at my school if they would be willing to talk to me for 20 minutes about professional development.

As background, report cards and IEP progress reports are due to our principal at the end of next week, and annual reviews for special ed students begin the week after, so all teachers are pretty stressed right now about preparing all of these documents in time and preparing for parent-teacher conferences, so the first reaction I got across the board was, pretty much, "I don't have time to eat or sleep right now, and you think I have time to chat about professional development? Ask me again in a couple of weeks..."

After more begging and pleading on my part, those who were willing to reconsider immediately clammed up when they found out I would be taping the interview. Maybe they think the tapes may be used against them if they fall into the wrong hands? I don't know, but they were very uncomfortable with the taping. Maybe it would be easier if I knew the teachers better; this is my first year teaching at this school. I've been thinking it might be easier if I could go back to one of my old schools and find a teacher who knows me for a longer period of time and might be more trusting. I think I'll try this next week, though I'll still be up against report card and IEP deadlines. Oh well, I'll give it a try...