Nvivo; software for qualitative data analysis

Hey folks,

Today I went to the second UBC Library Research Commons workshop on using NVivo; this is a program used for qualitative data analysis. Essentially, if you are going to be using qualitative data, this is the software that will help you organize and manage it all. When I gave my presentation in class, I had only a vague idea of how I might practically analyze the PDF files I will be working on; I had imagined a series of Excel files and loads of notes!  I now know more about the actual nuts and bolts of managing qualitative data and, as many of you guys mentioned that you’d be using interviews and/or surveys in your research, I think it would be useful to become familiar with this amazingly powerful tool.

There doesn’t seem to be another workshop scheduled for a while, but you can see here for more details and to book a 1-on-1 consultation on how to use the software.

K

Welcome back -- to our final class of the term for EDUC 500

Hello everyone! Looking forward to seeing you this evening in what will be our last class of the term

•I've missed seeing you all in person, but I have been listening in/ reading all your posts on our virtual class over the past two weeks, and I have been impressed by the high quality of the discussion overall, and the very interesting reflections, extensions and 'stops' you found in the video and the reading.

I've noted that almost everyone has contributed at least four substantial posts to our virtual class. The exceptions are:

Lilian: only 1 post

Crystal: 2 posts

Jingyu: no posts

Your participation in the virtual class will count as a significant part of your blog mark, and we really want to hear your ideas and thoughts. So if you haven't yet completed your 4 contributions, please try to do so today. Jingyu, the intention was to contribute over the two week period, but if you can add to several different parts of the discussion, that will be ok too.

I am sorry that the Postpositivism reading was one that people found a bit too challenging. (I had chosen

it because I thought it was clear and well-written...!) I do understand that this kind of theoretical/ philosophical reading may be quite new to many, and I really appreciate that you took the time to look up terms, wrestle with the ideas, and in the end, had quite a good discussion about the article and its relationship to the TED talk video on "big" and "thick" kinds of data. Good work!

•Six people have posted their certificates of completion for the online research ethics course that you are required to complete, and five haven't. If you have not completed the course and posted your certificate, please do so today or talk to me about when you will do so. Again, it is a significant part of the class, and you are expected to complete it.

•Looking forward to this evening's presentations! To clarify, we have approximately 13-14 minutes per

person for your presentation, questions from the group, and simultaneous changeover to the next presentation. That means you should spend:

* 5-8 minutes presenting 

* 5 minutes for questions and discussion with the group (while the next person sets up for their presentation in the background)

Your presentation may include slides (Powerpoint or other format), or may be done without slides. If possible in the short time given, please include some element of participation for the rest of the class, brief though it may be. It will make your presentation more engaging and help people do more than just listen in a passive way.

• Your final papers are due today, and should be emailed to me. If you need extra time, that's no problem: just let me know, and you can automatically have up to a week's extension (to April 10). After that, I will need to have time to mark everything  in time for the end of the term, so extensions beyond April 10 would be a bit more difficult.

Thanks everyone, and see you by 4:30 today!

Warm wishes

Susan

Our virtual class: Thinking about science, ethnography, post positivism and education research

Our Virtual Class is officially scheduled for the week of Tuesday March 27 - Tuesday April 3, with  March 20- 27 designated as our class Reading Week.

However, I would encourage you to find times anywhere in the period from March 14 - April 1 to participate asynchronously in our Virtual Class discussion on this blog. That will give you more time to do the reading and viewing for this class, and to take time to reflect on the ideas and the ongoing discussion, without rushing things.

You are expected to:

• Respond in the 'comments' section at the end of this post.
• Add at least four substantive responses over the course of the March 14 - April 1 period. (Please space your responses apart by at least a day or two, and read everything up to that point so that you understand where the discussion has been so far). 
• By 'substantive', I mean 'full of ideas and meaning' -- they don't need to be very long, and each response should ideally be 1-2 medium length paragraphs long.
• Keep your responses closely connected to the video and article. While we may mention things from outside these two 'texts', each response should tie back to something in them -- a quote, an idea, etc.

I've chosen two things that everyone should read and view for our Virtual Class, with the hope that these will be helpful to you as you consider your own Masters research ideas for your graduating project, thesis or capstone project:

1) Please view this 16 minute TEDx video from 2016: Tricia Wang on The human insights missing from big data. This interesting and controversial video from the world of business research considers the relationship between data mining and ethnographic approaches (and other quantitative and qualitative approaches) in doing research that leads to making good decisions for the future. Although it comes from the world of business, we may be able to extend the ideas to educational settings as well.

(Optional: If you would also like to view another short video (6 min.) outlining ideas about research methodology in a straightforward way, you might take a look at Dr. Mark Peace's 'On Methodology' as well).

2) Please read this chapter from Phillips & Burbules (2000), Postpositivism and educational research.

I will not propose writing prompts for our virtual class, but will just ask you to pay attention to "stops" that you encountered in the video and the article, and then to respond to your classmates' responses as well.

The virtual class gives us the luxury of a longer, more slow-motion online discussion of some big ideas, with time to consider what we want to add and what others have said. I hope you enjoy it very much!

Ethnography: Jennette, YuXi, Kieran

·       Ethnography

• "Ethnography is the recording and analysis of a culture or society, usually based on participant-observation and resulting in a written account of a people, place or institution"
• A systematic study of people designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the POV of the subject of the study
• Branch of anthropology and qualitative sociology
• Today, they are just as likely to focus on a particular aspect of contemporary social life (e.g. A study of Canuck fans)
• “Gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43)”
• Use of fieldnotes in researchers’ observation
• “you put yourself in a strange position; you must let go of your own presumptions and assumptions about a group of people in order to effectively learn anything about them”
• Objectivity and neutrality essential

Phenomenology

Phenomenology:

Started in the first half of the 20th century in Germany. The following are influential in the creation and proliferation of phenomenology: Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre

Focuses on the nature of how a person experiences a situation. Ex: "lived experiences"


Explore the judgements, perceptions and emotions of people, and their experiences of situations in addition to reactions.


Methods provide descriptions and classifications.




(Jingyu and Sarah)

Phenomenology-Hui and Crystal

Pursuant to Wikipedia, ‘Phenomenology’ is defined as as “the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness’. This concept was originally founded by Edmund Husserl. Husserl argued that phenomenology is a methodology to study the pure ‘phenomena’ and examine how things are appearing to their own consciousness. Phenomenology is driven by the action word of “describe”, to describe the phenomenon as accurately as possible to pursue pursue objectivity while trying to stay away from any pre-justices, any existing framework, but only to the facts. This type of methodology applies very well with study of lived experiences. There are some variations of phenomenology which may include transcendental constitutive phenomenology, naturalistic constitutive phenomenology, and etc. Groenewald (2004)’s paper on “A Phenomenological Research Design illustrated” is a phenomenological research.

Citation:
Groenewald, T. (2004). A  phenomenological  research design illustrated.   International  Journal of  Qualitative  Methods, 3(1). Article  4. Retrieved [INSERT  DATE]  from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/3_1/pdf/groenewald.pdf

Ethnography - Lilian & Naureen

The Definition of ethnography by Merriam Webster is:

the study and systematic recording of human cultures;  
also: a descriptive work produced from such research

............................................................................................................................................

We don’t think the definition serves the term justice, and so we’re providing some examples based on our own experience.

I took a course on video ethnography and it was very relevant because we learned how to consider aspects of visual data that commonly go by unseen; from facial gestures to landscape and cultural elements. The course focused on video data collection and analysis. (Lilian)

A few years ago, I read this book called “Gang Leader for a Day” where a sociologist student in Chicago decided to conduct non-traditional ethnography research in order to understand gang culture. Basically, Chicago having huge inequities between rich and poor, he wanted to understand how the poor were living. He started by just going door to door in the projects asking people if he could observe their livelihood, which unexpectedly turned into building a relationship with a person who was a member of one of the prominent gangs in the area (oh and his mom too!). What he ended up learning through this ethnographic experience was how these communities actually served as their own economy, bartering with people in the neighborhood. And especially fascinating is how the gangs served as law enforcement, protecting the neighborhoods they live in (since the police dared to show up). (Naureen)

Great read – here’s a link with more details! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/books/16grimes.html