I had a very difficult time deciding what to write about in response to this week’s reading. I think that Berg does an excellent job of laying out the groundwork that must go into being successful in the field. I found myself nodding along as I was once again strongly reminded of both the successes and the failures I have witnessed in my own experiences with conducting ethnographic research. I was also pleased to see that I had apparently misinterpreted Berg’s attitude towards digital/electronic record keeping and that he is in fact quite in favor of using these tools to improve the quality of record keeping while conducting field research.
There was one thing in particular that stood out to me as very important for successful field research: the importance of spending a sufficient amount of time in the field. I do think that it is necessary to become a part of the community in order to really be able to see people as they are and not as they would choose to present themselves to outsiders. I was thinking about this idea with regards to my own probable action research project. I will likely be doing something within my own classroom so it will be interesting to see if conducting research in a community in which I am already a member and already somewhat invisible to my students—much to my chagrin at times when they are discussing their personal lives over lunch—is more difficult or easier than my previous experiences when I have entered the field very much as an outsider. In many ways, I feel I have both an etic and emic perspective in my classroom, depending on the circumstances. I also suspect that in some ways this may be more challenging because while in my previous experiences with field work I have gone in with the intention to be an observer, in this instance I will merely be changing my role in the classroom at times. I think it will be very important for me to be reflexive in examining my observations and impressions. I also think it may be much more difficult to take a value-neutral or objective stance in light of my personal relationships with my students.
2 comments:
I, too, have already begun thinking about the impact that my thesis/action based research project will have on my students here in the next year or so. I, like you, am planning on using a convenience sample for my research, and I think that viewing my students as subjects of research may have an impact on how I view them. However, I have no idea if it will change how they will interact with me or with my class. I, too, feel as if I am invisible at times, and because teachers are such a normal and integral part of the structure that they have come to know and love/loathe, who knows if it will make a difference for them. One problem that I can foresee is that, as the researcher and teacher, I might be the variable that changes. Will I remain the same and therefore maintain the status quo within my classroom, or will I change enough that the research is skewed because I am not myself? I’m sure that’s something we’ll address as we begin designing the project, but it’s interesting to think about.
Perhaps, looking at your classroom ethnographically, it is like the described study of observing only during specific times and locations as it was described in the text. I do believe that it is pretty much impossible to be entirely value-neutral - we always have a perspective on things, no matter what, and I believe that is why Ben's paper was so important for us to study and why Berg points out the importance of being reflexive.
Post a Comment