CAPÍTULO IV: MARCO PROPOSITIVO
4.2. ARCHIVO CORRIENTE
4.2.14 Hoja de hallazgos
Observation and field notes Interview
Social media - Facebook, Twitter, blog Students’ class work
Discussion with co-researchers Literature
Research journal and reflective memo
Self-reflection is an integral part of my research process, where the reflection of what went on in the research was as important as the results that I obtained. This is because my voice is central in this research; being the main research instrument (
Lincoln
&Guba
,1985
), I placed myself directly in the research, and did not just become an impartial observer. However, Mruck and Breur (2003) mention the pitfalls a researcher may face when talking about themselves in their research for fear of appearing indecent and self-aggrandising, which is a general topic empiricists like to bring up time and time again. Mruck and Breuer pose this particular question to address this issue: “Are there any ways out of the dilemma between the hope of arriving at non-contaminated, valid, and reliable knowledge, on the one hand, and the threat of collecting trivial data, producing (unintentionally) autobiographies, or repeating23
the same cultural prejudices prominent at a time or place, on the other hand?” (p.1), to which they give a positive response. My own response to this question had two dimensions to it. First I wanted it to be reliable and acceptable to the academic community because I was going to invest my whole research in a reflexive research paradigm. However, the other stance that I found myself taking was as someone who was used to quantitative research; I wanted to find out first hand whether this new research paradigm that I was adopting would hold academic weight, no matter what the literature said. It was also to become one of the cruxes of my learning journey.
And so, in keeping to the norm of qualitative research practice of this kind (Ely et al., 1991; Delamont, 1992, as cited in Greenwood, 1999), I kept a research journal that chronicled my learning journey in doing my PhD, as well as recorded plans of lessons and also my observations in the field. These observations were essential for me to understand the phenomena being studied and would give me “detailed and specific information about educational activities and practices that would be difficult to ascertain in other circumstances” (Scott & Morrison, 2006, p. 168). In the journal section where I wrote down my learning journey, entries were made when something specific or notable happened that I felt was worthy to record. This could encompass new knowledge or insights that I had learnt, or even if how I was feeling had a particular impact on me and my research. Consequently, this also meant that it was not a journal that I kept every day, to be filled with mundane daily events. On the other hand, the section of the journal that detailed my research during the embedded case studies were written in most every day, though there would be days when I would be too busy or too tired to write in it. However, I would attempt to write what I had missed within the following day or two, usually while reviewing my field notes and the while going through the interviews of the day.
In Frame 2, the collaborating class teacher also kept her own field notes and research journal, detailing the lesson plans and also critical reflections on the lessons and activities that transpired during that day. This helped me to obtain a different lens on how the lessons were taught and received by the students, as well as their effectiveness in meeting the teaching objectives.
The mediums that I used to keep this research journal were mostly electronic, and were integrated with each other so that I had constant access to the journal no matter where I was. I used a combination of the Pages word processor on my iPad 2 that was tied to my online iCloud account, which synchronised with each other every time they were within reach of an Internet connection. This also meant that in situations where I did not have access to my iPad, I was able to write from virtually any computer and synchronise with the data on my iPad whenever I had Internet access.
Another important tool of data gathering and data analysis is through the use of reflective memo, where I step out of my initial frame of recorder of data to analyser of data. To do this, I made it a point to read and reread the journal entries, field notes and transcriptions of interviews, and even Facebook notes and status updates that I had written, and made memos on these entries to gain additional insight. Mills,
24
Bonner, and Francis (2006) talk about how we are the researcher write the ‘worded world’ (L. Richardson, 2000) of theory on top of simultaneously co-constructing and analysing data. The ‘theoretical world’ that we are trying to create through our research is constantly being rewritten in our memos to reflect our ever evolving construction of meaning. As such, writing reflective memos helped me to crystallise the “multiplicity of influences in the reconstruction on theory” (Mills et al., 2006, p. 11).