The Truth Do We Really Know What It Is

And I am still questioning who I am as a researcher. And sometimes I wonder if I can really be a successful qualitative researcher. It fits my personality, of that I am sure, but my very set of "I'"s can easily get in the way of validity. So prior to reading all the work on validity, I found that I was (and in many ways still am) intimidated by a lot of the research I read. I have found myself wondering how did they do that, and where did they get the skills to write like that, and how come their articles seems so scholarly and mine so elementary. And then I would have to get up and walk around the house and do laundry and wash dishes as I tried to internalize and process all of this. That being said, I have learned a lot about the hidden dangers in qualitative research. At least in quantitative, the enemy is clear--all those Greek symbols and p's and F's and Z's and D's and Alphas. but in qualitative, it is a little more hidden. A misplaced smile on the face of the researcher, a change in tone when asking a questions, the wording of the question, the relationships between the researcher and the participant, the "God, how much do I want my results to match what I am doing" or even, "Uh-oh, my data does not support my questions, maybe I should change my questions." All of these things and more need to be considered, and perhaps, the memoing and other ideas like that become the proverbial To-do list that I make all the time. I think in addition to my shopping lists and my To-do lists I am going to have to make a validity-list to keep by my side to make sure that they are all being considered.

I read a study Sharmini, (2011) Planning in feedback: Insights from concurrent verbal protocols. And it seemed like a decent study. It had all the buzz words I am looking for writing process, peer feedback recursive nature of writing, revision, and I got very excited, but even though I did notice information in the article that was similar to other research articles I have read, I did notice things that I may not have noticed earlier--before the concentration on validity. For example, the study was a case of three students at the graduate level, but no discussion explaining the reason for the choice of these participants was described. According to Maxwell, (2005) the site selection and participant selection decision should be discussed in order to attain full disclosure. The students were asked questions that related to their writing process and the importance they gave to feedback but I, as the reader, did not know what was asked. The author of the study states, " there was clear indication that engagement with written feedback is not only recursive, but involves planning" (p. 5) but there was no discussion about the definition of engagement or recursiveness or what constitutes planning. This made it difficult for me to determine if a study like this could be applied elsewhere and if it could be applied, the applicable situations was not clear.

In the implications section, the author does provide some follow-up questions such as "What is your main argument here and always link to your stand" (p.5) but without knowing the foundation for this question, I am not sure how to connect this follow up to the research question. The author does present a purpose for the study, " this study was done to gain further understanding on the thought process of writers when they attended to written feedback" (p. 1) but there are no research questions. Now I understand the importance of having research questions. Without the questions, I can not connect the findings and the discussion to the study's purpose. Note however that knowing this doesn't necessarily make doing that any easier for me. I have to engage in a recursive process myself with my own work, constantly going back and reviewing and asking if I am consistently tying my data to my questions. I realize just how easy it is to go off the beaten track and follow the roads that just seem to appear out of nowhere. Being recursive will clearly lead to greater focus. Being recursive has to be added to my validity "to do" list. And speaking of other issues. The author of this study says it is a qualitative work, but I see no mention of her own validity threats. There is some member checking with the participants that help to confirm what the researcher is proposing, but there is no mention of any outside external audits or peer review. In essence, while the information in the article does reflect much of what I have already read in more documented research studies and research based books, I do see the flaws in this study as it relates to the reader's ability to make any conclusions about how this work can be transferred. I understand the difference between a quantitative reliability study with statistical support and I now understand more deeply the methods that qualitative researchers must employ to ground their work as being valid and conclusive.

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