Feedback to participants

Feedback to participants is a problem because:

1. not yet understanding what the findings are
2. not knowing what participants want or need or what interests them
3. not knowing the format they'd find most useful
4. time

That's all rather negative. Given time, you get to understand your findings, but feedback to participants may then not be timely so not useful for them. However, any feedback, even delayed is better than no feedback.

Silver (2005) has a short section on feedback in case studies. He advises (following Wolcott 1990, p60)

• ask for the kind of information required for you to make a recommendation
• identify seeming paradoxes in the pursuit of goals
• identify alternatives to current practices and offer to assess these

Successful projects

Why do this research?

Much has been written on IT project failure. My research is of successful case studies so may identify how people did something right, thus allowing us to learn from successful experiences. That's a cheering change.

Findings: how people work well

Good relationships add value. Business relationships where you work informally but in a business like fashion are helping projects to achieve their aims. How?

• People work together
• People agree their language.
  
• People perform.
• The right environment affords the right relationships.
  

Validating qualitative data

A senior PG colleague is completing his analysis. He's coded his work in Nvivo, but needs to validate his model. He printed and cut out loads of words from his texts and asked others to categorise them physically and manually. Now his wall is covered categories and codes.

He is pleased to find that others' categorisations match his work - that validates what he's done.

Kvale on analysis of interviews

Six steps to analysis:

1. Subjects describe how they work with and relate to each other.
2. Subjects discover new relationships, new meanings – yes I noticed this in my first case studies
3. Interviewer condenses and interprets meaning back – do I do that? Sometimes. If I had more time, I’d ask more. Sometimes I interrupt too much – lose what the subject was going to say. Sometimes I note something they’ve said then come back to it when they’ve finished talking. That follow-up may elucidate but may lead into another area.
4. The transcribed interview is interpreted by the interviewer. It’s structured through transcription. I use a computer program (Nvivo) for contextual analysis. Kvale says there are five main approaches to the analysis of meaning: condensation, categorization, narrative structuring, interpretation and ad hoc methods. Which should I use?
5. Kvale suggests as a 5th step a re-interview but I doubt I have time for this, nor do my participants. The other thing that worries me about re-interviews stems from my experience on the MRes when the Friday before the Monday I was due to submit, I received a letter from a participant asking me not to use anything that participants had said. I’d sent out the full unedited transcript with a query on a financial fact, like “was it £50k or £150K?” Participant took fright, I think. I had to check the whole 15,000 words over the weekend, editing out anything and everything that could possibly be attributed to that participant. So now I’m a bit leery about giving transcripts back to subjects to comment.
6. Kvale suggests possibly extending the continuum of descriptions and interpretation to include action, by subjects beginning to act on new insights they have gained during the interview. I doubt that’s immediately possible but perhaps the reports I feedback to my helpful participants organisations will provide insights for them to act upon, though I did have the impression that some participants found the interviews caused them to reflect on their work.
   

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Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA ; London, Sage. Chapter 11 of {Kvale, 1996 #1198}

Eighty percent of success is showing up

Eighty percent of success is showing up

That's what a Recently Successful Doctoral Student said to me when talking about research, citing Woody Allen. So I looked it up and found this blog, Persistence Unlimited that quotes Woody Allen. Showing up is what gets you going. I've shown up at:

• doctoral training workshops, even when they seemed a waste of time. They gave pointers to research issues I was likely to face.
  
• the Professional and Academic Communication in English (PACE) sessions, which trained me reading and writing for social science and business.
  
• OUBS seminars
• an NVivo workshop
• a BAM conference
• a systematic review of the literature workshop
• participative videoing workshops
• OU clubs - how do they help? I've met people who've heard me mention some of the issues OU post grads face and put me in touch with people who can help sort those issues.
• Teaching and learning conferences like the CETL conference this December
  
• Associate lecturer development days
• Landscapes of practice workshop with Etienne Wenger
• an Elluminate tutorial
• meetings of the Institute of Chartered Managers
• events run by the Institute of Business Consultants
• AIM workshop
• seminar with Derek Pugh on writing
• career development workshop
• a BAM template analysis course
• OUBS round table sessions once a year
• presentions to fellow OUBS post grads
• EPSRC introductory seven-week taught course on Mathematics for the Science of Complex Systems.
  

Recently Successful Doctoral Student used to come into the office often during her masters course and discussed assignments with colleagues. Being sat near them in first and second year of the doctorate, they'd supported each other, coming in, talking, but in the third year they sat in separate rooms and floors to be with their supervisor's section, with no fellow post grad to talk to. She missed that stimulus: "Talk to people", she advised.

The practice of moving third year students to different places has now changed. Third year students sit together. We can see each other when we come in and arrange to talk when we stop working. That's how we learn, said Lave and Wenger: we talk to learn. I can't talk to learn about my research at home; I have to show up and talk with post grads in the same situation.

Does that mean I'm 80% on my way to success? Watch this blog. My funding stops in September and I'd like to submit by then.

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Lave, J. & Wenger, E. 1991. Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press #1131.

Remembering supervision

Just had a meeting with supervisors. I record our meetings.

Two colleagues joined me for coffee as the supervisory meeting finished.

"Did you record it?"
"Yes"
"Do you always record them?"
"Yes"

It's so useful to record the meetings, so I can concentrate on the conversation, not attempt to take notes of what might not turn out to be the important points, and so I can go back over the discussion later making notes and remembering things to do. The recording stimulates thoughts that I can later follow up, but in the face-to-face situation there's not the time to follow up everything. This habit was particularly useful after our September meeting. I took the recording away with me on holiday and sat on the train listening to it, making notes that stimulated new ideas for a theoretical framework.

I don't know any other PG that records the meetings, but I recommend doing so.