TIPPR 4

This week's reading made me think about my own experience with conducting qualitative research and the pitfalls and unforeseen problems I encountered throughout the process. In the fall of 2000, I spent the semester living in East London, South Africa conducting research on AIDS education and working in a local technical college. Before going to South Africa, I had done a lot of preliminary research, mostly reading but I'd also talked with some students who had already been to the area and worked on my research topic. To relate it to this week's reading I would say that my research plan was much more loosely designed than the method that Berg proposes. Looking back on it, I can see that I was primarily relying on participant observation for my research and while I think I managed to produce a good ethnographic journal of my experiences, I can see where adding some of the other methods Berg proposed may have benefitted me and made my research more conclusive.

One of the interesting problems I encountered when planning my research project was that while I knew I was going to East London and I had some ideas of the community and the resources that would be available to me there, I could not really narrow my research question until I was in country and really able to see who I would be able to talk with and observe. I do think that if I'd had a better idea of where I would end up interning while I was there I would have been able to coordinate with my professor to create a narrower or at least more defined research topic than simply "AIDS education in South Africa". Of course, hindsight is always 20/20 and part of the field study experience is to teach students to adapt and respond to the challenges of working in the field but as I remember the hours I spent pouring through old newspaper articles in East London's local newspaper office and the hundreds of photocopies I made of anything related to the topic of AIDS education (because it might be useful later) I can definitely see an advantage to going with a more structured research strategy. I also remember that several of the other students in my program struggled because the projects that had seemed so feasible back home in Provo ended up being far too difficult once they were actually in the field and trying to implement them.

While moving this summer I happened to find my field journal from my South Africa trip. I couldn't help but wish I'd had access to some of the technology I have now when I was there. I had two means of recording my research there, my notebooks and a camera. I would carry a small notebook with me at all times and would jot down little notes when I would observe something interesting or that I wanted to write about later and then when I had time I would sit down and flesh out my notes in a larger field journal. I would also try to take pictures of important things, but I was using a camera with actual rolls of film and I worried about carrying around so many rolls of film. I would love to have had a laptop to keep my journal, my fieldnotes are almost 10 years old now and the ink has already started to fade and the notebook itself is falling apart. Additionally, I have the pictures that I developed when I returned but I'm not sure where the film's negatives are and a picture can't capture the energy of a attending a traditional Xhosa wedding in the same way a video recording of the event would have done. Berg may be skeptical of digital media storage but I definitely think back up copies in multiple places is the way to go.





Word Count=649, but I don't think it's fair we're doing this on the one week I've actually gone over :p

TIPPR 4, Jeff Hill

I assume that everyone older than me makes more money than I do and they smoked in High School. I also assume that everyone younger than me hated Seinfeld, but loved Friends and they also know more about technology than I do. Buckingham warned me a few times not to assume the expertise of the student’s technological ability.

In reference to media production, Buckingham said, “the majority of software programs students might use are designed for professionals, and are very time-consuming to learn.” In any situation that I have been working with high school or younger students, we have used very simple amateur editing programs, so this wasn’t really an issue, but I mention it here because I have noticed an interesting omission from the book. During my undergraduate in Film, I took two classes on the technical aspect of an editing program: Beginning and Advanced Final Cut. I didn’t learn anything in those classes because they were either teaching me things I already knew or things I didn’t know I needed to know. Because, in my experience, you understand the theory of something before you care how to do it. And shortcuts and key functions are not something I store away for later use.

There is a lot of discussion on the social benefits and the process of using technology and I agree that the final product may not be the true reward of the project, but I wish a bit more would have been made of the theory of production and storytelling with technology. Not that Buckingham needed to go over the institutionalized modes of representation, but I would have like a little pitch for understanding the form.

I believe that this is what leads to what Buckingham warns about later. The idea that the technology makes things look good and it is easy to cover up bad video (he is referring to Pop music videos specifically), so nobody cares about the mistakes. Buckingham is pleading for more knowledge on the part of the educator as well as more collaboration with peers so that everyone can learn together.

My fear is that we will lose the story. The BYU film department excels with story and helping its student to not be distracted by the spectacle, but to really look deep to find the theme and meaning.

I doubt I will ever spend time in my classroom doing much of a tutorial. People younger than me know more about technology than I do anyway. Also, they need to know why before they know how. This isn’t a rule, but it goes along with Buckingham’s idea on interactivity. The student needs to realize how many decisions they have the power to make. The consumer will interpret their product and they should at least have a basic educated idea of why they made those decisions. I think it will be hard for me to go through the film process with a student and still have them respond with “I don’t know.”

word count: 500

Note: the words "word" and "court" nor this note were included in the word count.

TIPRR 4

To tell the truth, I am completely daunted, even more so after the reading, by the sheer weight of time and effort necessary to do good research. I like research. I am fascinated by the discovery of information that comes from good research – it opens up the eyes and sometimes changes my paradigms. Berg approaches the matter of research in a kind of organic manner that I appreciate but, in order to be truly effective information, it takes a great deal of effort. Triangulation helps bring validity and thoroughness to the research, but it takes an awful lot of effort and time. Of course, who doesn’t want their word to be valid? The idea of two steps forward, one step back found in the Spiraling Research Approach takes time but it sat well with me that one should do that kind of work to be truly good at researching.

Despite the time and effort necessary, the one thing I appreciated most was Berg’s very last segment. After talking us through how to design the whole of the research project, and preparing us for what we are going to do, he has a small but nonetheless significant thing to say: “Regardless of how the information is spread, it must be disseminated if it is to be considered both worthwhile and complete.” I learned in an organizational behavior class that every organization can trace its effectiveness as an organization to its knowledge capability. Knowledge capability is comprised of two things: discovery and diffusion. Discovery is, in this case, the research. Diffusion is the dissemination of information. In our classrooms, dissemination is tantamount to learning, thus we are not successful unless we can turn the process of discovery into an active diffusion of things learned. In other words, it doesn’t matter what we know if we cannot teach others. I know that the intent of the reading is to help us with doing exceptional research, but I was reminded of something very important to our study of media literacy education – we need to be able to teach others what we are learning if we are going to be effective.

One last comment: though the subject matter is not, perhaps, riveting, the reading itself was conversational in its tone and very instructional (albeit more instruction than theory). I’ll give it to Berg; he did a good job covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time – both, as he talks about in his introduction, in theory and in practice. He also applies his own treatise to his work: he is clear in his defining of word usage and also creates clear expectations and works to self-reflexively fulfill those expectations. I bring these things up because I was impressed by his style of covering his own research and conclusions. I know that does not say much about the topics, but this raises my own perceptions of his expertise concerning the subject matter. I was surprised at how specific and practical his examples were of how to do things.

word count: heck if I know! :)

TIPRR 4 --We'll get back to the research methods after the theory break.

First, three non-academic comments:
1. Timbre, I think it's totally hilarious that you put your word count at the bottom, because I had already planned to do that in my post. Now I feel remarkably unoriginal.
2. Did anyone else feel like this was mostly a practical reading with a few brief theory breaks? One minute I'm reading about note card collection, and the next I'm being reading about cognitive reality vs. sensory reality. This seemed odd to me.
3. There were a few glaring and odd typos that annoyed me.

I'm going to be honest and admit that this reading is hard for me to really engage with because I don't feel there's a lot up for debate here. I think that this book is useful in terms of drafting a research project, but reading about the two card system and various types of random sampling procedures doesn't necessarily do it for me. Let me tell you the practical things that I did think about while reading, because that seems most appropriate:

1. I really hate to admit that when researching, I occasionally act like the doctoral student that Berg calls out as relying too much on the internet. I have never used a physical periodicals index to look up anything. I've never even browsed through physical periodicals before Darl's assignment. Granted, a lot of those physical indexes have online counterparts from the actual journals, but there are times when I've given up looking for an article just because my searches in the BYU journal finder didn't seem to yield anything. I think that relying too much on ANY method of research isn't helpful. I need to be more geometrically minded and allow myself to triangulate.

2. As I was reading about project organization and data organization, it occurred to me that for the past few years I've been carrying out a research project without really thinking about practical methods for cataloging the data I collect except to look for great quotes to use in presentations. Furthermore, I haven't even taken much time to consider what sorts of measurable outcomes we're researching in Hands on a Camera, or even what fundamental research questions we're asking. I know that Amy went through all of these steps, I've just allowed myself to focus more on the implementation of the project rather than the actual research (so maybe I should finish transcribing those interviews from last year...).

3. I'm talking about community stories and media creation with my students on Monday, and this quote seemed particularly applicable: "The world is a research laboratory, [and you] merely need to open your eyes and ears to the sensory reality that surrounds all of us to find numerous ideas for research" (24). Similarly, we are surrounded by stories to hear and stories to tell, we just have to be willing to listen. Yes, I know this is a bit of a stretch, but my mind really wanted to find something less systematic...

And on that note, let's take a theory break.

word count: 506, and at least 91 of them don't count.

TIPRR 4

So, in honor of Jeff, I am trying something new this week. I'm going to 1-keep it short and 2-type directly into this text box, say what I think, and not obsess about it all too much. Be proud, this is a big step for me.

So, first off, did anyone else feel as though these first few chapters were written for their parents? I'm not trying to criticize, and I even appreciated the simplicity of some of the ideas and concepts presented, but when Berg went into depth explaining Wikipedia, I actually looked at the copyright date to see how old this text is. Are there really people out there (who are over 17 years old and college educated) who don't know to be wary of Wikipedia?


The other thing that seemed to be a bit archaic to me was the idea of using “The Two-Card Method” for data compilation. I remember the days of note cards, hundreds of them piled on my kitchen table as I wrote my very first research paper on “Man’s Inhumanity to Man” in 9th grade. (I think my dad helped me with the title.) But that was before everyone had a laptop on hand at all times. Are cards, even electronic ones, really still the way to go? I’m not sure.

On a more positive note, I teach research methods in my classes; it still seems to fall very heavily in the English department’s lap to make sure that students know how to do research. As I read this week’s reading, I was very happy to see that much of the methodology and advice given here is pretty much what I teach my students, in much a more simple manner of course. It’s nice to know I haven’t been teaching “false doctrine.” In addition, I think that for any kid/student/person who was initially taught how to research correctly, much of Berg’s instruction here will be much more intuitive.


In addition, I had an interesting experience this week. My little brother submitted his master’s thesis yesterday, and, as I am the English person in the family, he asked me to edit it for him before he sent it to be printed. Well, he’s in England, so I go the copy in the middle of the night Sunday/Monday and had to rush through the reading of it so that he could make his deadline. Oh how I wish I would have read Berg before Landon’s thesis. His “Literature Review” and “Methodology” sections would have made much more sense, and while I assumed that his use of “snowballing” did not, in fact, refer to the fluffy stuff that he’s often aimed at my head, I actually get it now. Too bad he submitted the thing today…though I’m not lamenting the fact that I don’t have to reread it.

Word Count: 474 :-)