Decisions in Transcription: My Nightmare

As Hammersly (2010) mentioned in the article, there are critical decisions in transcription process. For me the most important two of those decisions are:
1) How much of the audio record will I transcribe? If I won't transcribe all of them, which sections will I transcribe and how will I decide those sections?
2) How much detail (i.e. utterances, etc.) will I include in my transcription?

In my dissertation data, I have almost 12-hours audio record for the group discussion of each group. I have at least 2 hours whole class discussion, and records of group interviews and individual interviews. In addition to those, I have a  lot of written data.
I have to start transcribing soon, but this turned to be a nightmare: Where to start making decisions? How to explain the rationale of my decisions?

Moreover, all of those records are in Turkish. So after I transcribe, I should translate and ensure the validity of my translation by finding a second researcher knowing both language. This issue also leads me to be more selective for the parts that I will translate.

I am assuming that I overcame this problem and decided on the parts of the records to transcribe and then translate. Then my next question will be: Should I accept that my data composed of only those transcribed parts? Or can I still analyze other parts which were not transcribed? 
I know there is a debate on this issue in qualitative research. At least, I know that current technology allows us to code audio and video data as well as visual images. However, I do not know how to defend my position if I want to analyze those non-transcribed sections of audio records.

I think Markle, West and Rich's discussion will help me to describe and justify my position on analyzing untranscribed data. However, I currently haven't finished this week's readings. I am hoping to learn about those as I read more about it in this course.

References that will probably help me to explain my rationalization: 
Hammersley, M. (2010). Reproducing or constructing? Some questions about transcription in social research. Qualitative Research 10(5), 553-569.
Markle, West & Rich (2011). Beyond transcription: Technology, change and refinement of method. FORUM: Qualitative Social Research 12(3), Art. 21.

Participant-Observer Continuum

I will describe how the continuum I proposed intersects with the participant-observer continuum visually.
In below, I drew two bars, blue represents participants actions in the site and yellowish-orange one represents the observer's position as outsider and insider. The colors gets brighter in both bars, which reflects the dichotomy of the opposite sides.
I made the orange bar transparent and placed on the blue bar to see how the blue color will appear, that is, what the observer will observe

1. when s/he is outsider and when participant intentionally perform in the way that they want (i.e. adjusted actions)
2. when s/he is insider and when participants show their typical actions in the site
3. when s/he is outsider and when participants show their typical actions in the site
4. when s/he is insider and when participant intentionally perform in the way that they want (i.e. adjusted actions)

As seen, the blue color appeared at most in the 2nd case above. The next color close to blue, but brighter is the case 4. Then, the case 3 produced a color which is a combination of blue and orange, but still closer to blue when compared to the color in case 1.
According to this picture, an observer can understand the typical actions of participants in their lifeworld when s/he is an insider.
What I pointed in my previous post regarding the two studies that we read can be seen in the left sides of two red rectangles (i.e. Case 1 and Case 3).

The Continuum of Being Outsider as a Researcher

Both Matthews and Cramer (2008) and Gratton and Odonnell (2011) used digital tools and so creative ways of data collection in their studies. Both studies overcame the problem of distance by using digital tools. Specifically, Gratton and Odonnell (2011) overcame the problem of physical distance and suggested the use of networked space over geographic space in data collection. Matthews and Cramer (2008) overcame the norm-referenced boundaries to reach gay community.

On the other hand, in both studies researchers had outsider position. Even though Matthews and Cramer built a partnership with an insider at some point of their studies, they were still outsider. When we compare the researcher’s position as being outsider in these two studies, I saw that they were not the same. This brought me the following question: Can being outsider as a researcher be interpreted along a continuum? If so, how can we describe this continuum?

To answer this question, I tried to imagine how Gratton and Odonnell’s study might have been different if they went to Canada in person. They would still been an outsider, however, they would have chance to observe the participants everyday lives, not only the part of their lives that they intentionally showed in videoconferencing. I also remember from my own video conference experiences that since the tool allows you to see on the screen, you can check yourself, your position, your behaviors, etc. instantly. However, in face-to-face interaction I do not have chance to get this feedback unless the person that I am talking with gives me a reaction. Thus, being outsider-researcher in videoconferencing and being outsider-researcher in face-to-face interaction by being physically in the place is different. 

I am not sure whether we can explain this difference by re-conceptualizing the outsider position of the researcher along a continuum. If we can, it would reflect the dichotomy of typical vs. adjusted. In other words, one side of this continuum reflects that outsider-researcher will observe participants’ typical actions - “plausible range of possible typical actions” because the outsider-researcher cannot reach certainty about typical actions/behaviors/conversation/etc. The opposite side of the continuum indicates that outsider-researcher will observe participants’ adjusted actions/behaviors/conversation/etc. 

This continuum is the image that I conceive while reading the papers. So, it may not be true in a general sense.

Gratton, M. & O'Donnell, S. (2011). Communication technologies for focus groups with remote communities: A case study of research with First Nations in Canada. Qualitative Research, 11(2) 159-175.
Matthews, J. & Cramer, E. P. (2008). Using technology to enhance qualitative research with hidden populations. The Qualitative Report, 13(2), 301-315.

Using Digital Tools in Literature Review

Thanks to two speakers and the information that they shared with us. 
I haven't had any experience of using digital tools in literature review before. However, reading and listening about them and their advantages made me sign up to Mendeley and organize the literature folder of my dissertation. 

This gave me a motivation for my literature review. In fact, I did my lit. review briefly but the articles, book chapters or books I have were unorganized. Therefore, I was spending lots of time to find a particular study to cite. 

For this reason, I downloaded Mendeley and organized the papers in particular folders. The synchronization function was so helpful because I immediately accessed to my organize literature folder from my notebook. 

The things that I learned from both speakers were so helpful and informative for me. I specifically learned how I can use the basic functions, which takes a while to learn alone. 

Right now, I am looking for a way to organize my annotations in Mendeley which will help me a lot in writing my literature. I will share if I find a working way for this.  

How to learn and teach writing literature review?

Boote and Beile (2005) highlighted many important points such as characteristics of good literature review, the purpose of literature review, organizing literature and writing a synthesis of researches in the literature. Those are important things which doctoral students should develop as researcher skills. 

Boote and Beile’s rubric shows how they perceived the literature review. After I started my doctoral study, I realized that different researchers have different perception of literature review. For instance, my instructors always criticized my writings due to including my viewpoints that has been drawn the synthesis of the research in the literature. I still remember one of the professor’s statement (during my master’s degree): “Always remember that you are currently nothing/no one in this literature. You are not a professor, you are not the specialist of this research area. So, you cannot include your viewpoints”. After 4-5 years, they eventually fixed my writing J Now, I put reference after each idea. And now, my professors at IU think that I put a lot of unnecessary citations and suggest me to organize my literature review coherently and support the ideas which will contribute to my study, highlight the points that I will touch with my study and show the gaps in the literature. Now, I am trying to adapt this perception of literature review. The difference between those two perception is, in fact, the dichotomy of summarize vs. synthesize.

Another important point that Boote and Beile (2005) highlighted is how to teach writing literature review. Again, I want to reflect on my previous experience and shared how I learned to write literature review. I learned through observations. I always observed my instructors and colleagues in Turkey to understand how they are writing their literature reviews. I saw that they were taking a paper in front of them and writing a summary, and them they were using those summaries to write their literature review. Thus, literature reviews were mostly based on summaries.

It was very difficult to change the skill that has already been developed. Yet, I do not think that I completely developed this skill. Of course, writing in second language makes it more difficult.

Currently, I am trying to build my own perception of literature review. While reading any paper or dissertation, I keep two purpose in my mind: (1) learning about the study itself, and (2) learning how to organize and write literature review. Having this lens in reading really helped me to understand the purpose of literature review. I usually build my descriptions attaching with an image or metaphor. For literature review, my current metaphor is a curved pathway downs from the top of the mountain and reaches where I am standing (in fact I am standing in front of the mountain and looking at it). Every curve gets the pathway closer to me, that is, I should organize the literature review and so the ideas mentioned in the previous research should be connected with each other and they also should connect/inform/support/disagree with/etc. the research interest and/or researcher position. This is a continuous path, not the composition of short isolated pathways. This is my current metaphor and is changing constantly.
I think, “How to teach writing a good literature review to novice researchers” is an important issue.

Moreover, Paulus, Lester, and Dempster (2013) mentioned about other important aspects of literature review: deciding on the digital tools, evaluating the source quality and using citation management systems in annotations. Since I am currently working on my dissertation proposal, literature review is one of the difficult job that I should complete. Therefore, I am looking for citation management software and decide on the one that will meet my expectations. In this respect, this chapter and the course readings of this week really helped me.

Researcher Positionality and Reflexivity Discussion

Our classroom discussion on researcher positionality and reflexivity was very useful for me.
I totally agree with the value of reflexive statements in a qualitative research. 

Since the subjective nature of the qualitative research has been accepted in the field, many people may be agree on that researcher's position, insights, biases, or experiences play significant role in design of the study, data collection and data analysis of the study. We, all, agree that researcher is a part of data in qualitative research. All of those points highlight the importance of researcher's reflexivity in qualitative research.

With this post, I want to express my thought that reflexive and position statements are not only important for qualitative research but also quantitative research. I believe that researcher's beliefs, values, experiences, biases, and etc. have a significant influence on the selection of the participants, data collection tools have been selected and the interpretation of the inferential statistics. Even though researcher's position won't change whether the study reveals a significant result based on statistical analysis, it will influence how s/he will discuss and relate those findings within the area of interest. 

For instance in my master's thesis, I studied pre-service teachers' mathematical knowledge quantitatively. I used convenient sampling method and administered the test to pre-service teachers in the university that I was doing my degree. It was not a really strong sampling method. Moreover, when I reflect on my experience, I can see that my choice of sampling method influenced and limited my study a lot. I do not mean that quantitative researchers should not use such sampling methods and should avoid all of the possible limitations (which is not possible either). What I mean is quantitative researchers should also be reflective about their decisions during the study and explain the possible consequences of each critical decisions.

I think the reflexivity of the researcher is important for all types of research, as well as our relationships in our daily lives.

4th question in small group discussions

4th Question in Small Group Discussion in January 28th: Can you create an example of a technology tool (other than data analysis software) and how it might afford particular uses for qualitative research?

In response to this question, I would like to share one of the tools which was not designed for qualitative research but I enjoyed using in coding my interview data and in presenting the results visually. Since we did not have time to talk about this question as a whole class, I thought it will be better to share it here, in this blog.
The name of the tool is Inspiration. It is mostly know as a concept map software because you can easily develop fancy and sophisticated concept maps. The tool has an important feature such that it has both outline and map view which are connected to each other. In other words, it allowed me to make an outline with lots of subtitles and to view the concept map or hierarchical map aligned with my outline.
I used outline view to list my categories, codes, sub-codes. Then I used the map/diagram view to see which codes are related with which categories. One of the useful functions is that I could connect two codes in the map view by making a connecting line between them and this new connection was automatically transferred to my list of codes in outline view.
Another feature I liked about this tool while using for qualitative research is that it allowed me to hide subcodes in map view, so that I had both a general picture of my results and a detailed visual representation of my results.
It has also kid's version, called Kidspiration. I found it useful for teaching math. I think it is also helpful tool for researchers whose participants are younger kids. I think it can be a useful data collection tool because kids may not always express their ideas clearly in words. Therefore, data collection can be supported by giving them a chance to express themselves in a different way (i.e. by representational media in Kidspiration or in similar tools).
Inspiration was available in IU Anyware until last moth. I have checked it recently, but could not find it. I hope IT people will update it soon.