showing your workings in qualitative research

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Showing your workings in qualitative research Dr Ibrar Bhatt [email protected] | @ibrar_bhatt | ibrarspace.net #resonances17 Conference University of Leeds May 2017

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Page 1: Showing your workings in Qualitative Research

Showing your workings in qualitative research

Dr Ibrar Bhatt

[email protected] | @ibrar_bhatt | ibrarspace.net

#resonances17 Conference University of Leeds

May 2017

Page 2: Showing your workings in Qualitative Research
Page 3: Showing your workings in Qualitative Research

What is Qualitative Research?

A research strategy that emphasizes words rather than quantification in collection and analysis of data (Bryman 2008)

An array of attitudes towards and strategies (Sandelowski 2004)

Unriddling (Alasuutari 1995)

A flexible and data-driven research design (Hammersly 2016)

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Qualitative orientations

A flexible, ‘inductive’ or data-driven

Relatively unstructured forms of data

Subjectivity

Fluidity of ‘setting

Familiarise – generalise

The need to be:

i) open to the data (go where it leads you); ii) thorough, transparent, and flexible in its collection; iii)and continuously developing descriptions and explanations (i.e. writing).

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The QUAL methodological toolkit

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Two projects

The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation: Academics’ Writing in the Contemporary University

Examined the writing and knowledge-producing work of academics in different universities

See http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/acadswriting/

Assignments as controversies: Digital Literacy & Writing in Classroom Practice

Examined how students write their course assignments

See https://www.routledge.com/Assignments-as-Controversies-Digital-Literacy-and-Writing-in-Classroom/Bhatt/p/book/9781138185456

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The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation

Phase 1

Observations of sites

Differently-focussed qualitative interviews

i. Walk-along interviews

ii. Technobiographic interviews

iii. Day-in-the-life interviews

Phase 2

Videography of writing

Phase 3

Interviews with managerial, admin, and other staff participants

Page 8: Showing your workings in Qualitative Research

Assignments as Controversies

Phase 1

Observations of sites

Phase 2

Videography of assignment writing

Phase 3

Post-assignment interviews

Page 9: Showing your workings in Qualitative Research

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/2687423479 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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Conflicted stance

‘I love Twitter… I hate Twitter…’

‘I like…’

‘I like…. but…’

(Barton 2017)

Conflicted stances in this research reveal that:

understandings of technology use are nuanced and indeterminable

identity positions are multiple

how people use technologies depends on what they want out of it

Recording conflicted stance and theorising it became an issue of rigour

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Coding

Thematic categories established by the research team’s ongoing analysis

Agreement ensured by the team through continuous discussion and deliberation

Interviews initially, then video logs integrated into data set

Atlasti software used – The role of CAQDAS tools in reflexivity is under-examined

Tools afford and restrict data presentation and outputs

They are built upon the assumptions and ideologies of software designers

Reflexivity is not just a human-centric activity

Continual team deliberation and tool use became an issue of rigour

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Coding

i. What influenced your choice of software?

ii. Which tools and options within the software are adopted, and how are they used?

iii. How is the use of software accounted for in your public research outputs?

iv. How is the use of software accounted for in private research outputs?

v. How are breakdowns, limits and workarounds understood, drawn on, incorporated or theorisedinto your final accounts?

(adapted from Wright & Bhatt 2016)

Examination of tool use is an issue of rigour

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Writing up collaboratively

Project writing retreats

Continual team deliberation in writing up became an issue of rigour

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Videography

Deciding what to observe

Recordings used a screen-in-screen format (Bhatt 2017b; Bhatt et al 2015)

Video logs created

Capturing the writing activities the way I wanted to became an issue of rigour

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Videography

Screen-in-screen format (image from Bhatt 2017a)

See Bhatt (2017b) for a detailed discussion of data collection methods

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Videography

Video log allowed for a step-by-step account of salient moments

See Bhatt 2017b for a detailed discussion

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Documenting & rationalising the multiple layers of work

Data management decision/work Transformation conducted

1. Setting up of video recording Angled webcams captured students’ movements and talk around the computers. Webcams show one angle of this view continuously

alongside simultaneous audio recording

2. Choosing and utilising screen

recording software

Blueberry Flashback Recorder (for screen recordings) was set to record on the students’ computers at the time of the assignments,

then exported to appropriate video file format shortly afterwards. A wide net to yield a comprehensive view of ‘what happened’ which

was later viewed, scrutinised, and broken down

3. Screen-in-screen format adopted To make exported files accessible and transportable, video quality was reduced (for economy of conversion time and storage space)

and the screen-in-screen image was docked in a particular place on the screen

4. File conversion and management For ease of access on multiple devices, video files were password protected and stored on Web servers (the Vimeo video sharing

platform)

5. Video logging Selecting clips to analyse via a descriptive video log of each recording., to make complex multimodal data more accessible and allowed

for ease of categorisation, coding, and breakdown. Focussed on segments of a descriptive video log varying lengths

6. Gisting Overall impression (‘forest-wise’) was initially attained, then a ‘tree-wise’ (Erikson, 2006) understanding

7. Digital transcript preparation Select segments were prepared for further analysis in CAQDAS (ELAN) for transcription and manipulability (slowing down,

segmentation, etc.)

See Bhatt & de Roock (2013) for detail

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Videography

7. Digital transcription preparation (manual version)

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Videography

8. Digital transcription (Image from Bhatt, 2017: p. 59)

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Videography

9. Analytic vignettes (including other data sources)

10. Screenshots for publishing & presentations

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The audit trail

Credibility, dependability, and transferability

Audit trail - trace through a researcher's logic and determine whether the study's findings may be relied upon as a platform for further inquiry

Physical audit trail

Intellectual audit trail

Capturing the path you were lead on through the research

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Impact

Qualitative research can be ‘impactful’ because it aims to understand the experience of particular groups - to familiarise rather than generalise

Rigour and transparency allow research to be more accessible (knowledge transfer)

Enhanced opportunities for partnership (knowledge exchange)

Universities and publics co-generate knowledge: setting, research questions, research design, data collection, analysis and practice (knowledge co-production)

Rigourous qualitative research is highly ‘impactful’

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References

Alasuutari, P. (1995) Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies, London: Sage

Bhatt, I. (2017a) Assignments as controversies: digital literacy and writing in classroom practice, Routledge Research in Literacy, NY/London: Routledge

Bhatt, I. (2017b) Classroom digital literacies as interactional accomplishments, In ‘Researching New Literacies: Design, Theory, and Data in Sociocultural Investigation’, Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds.), New York: Peter Lang

Bhatt, I, de Roock, R & Adams, J. (2015) Diving deep into digital literacy: emerging methods for research, Language and Education, Vol. 29 (6) pp. 477-492

Bhatt, I. and de Roock, R. (2013) Capturing the Sociomateriality of Digital Literacy Events, Research in Learning Technology, Special Issue: Scholarship and Literacies in a Digital Age, Vol. 21 (4)

Bryman, A. (2008) ‘Of methods and methodology’, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 3 (2), pp. 159-168.

Hammersly, M. (2016) What Is Qualitative Research? London: Bloomsbury Academic

Wright, S. & Bhatt, I. (2016) Teaching-led research? Exploring the digital agencies of software in qualitative research, Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Networked Learning 2016, pp. 489-498.